Daniel Wood

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Final Reflection: Drinking in the Knowledge

Reflection is at the heart of Action Research…

Water is the life-giving resource to our planet. Without water there can be no life. To be useful, water must make its way to the places in which it is needed, sometimes on its own, and sometimes with the help of others. In this process growth and

life are supported. Like water, knowledge is the life blood of an organization. Without effective knowledge management an organization can’t achieve its potential for growth, and in fact will dry up and wither. Social learning technologies act as an irrigation system for an organization, providing a way for knowledge to be collected and shared effectively within an organization, increasing the volume of the natural flow, and allowing Communities of Practice to grow and thrive.

My Action Research project provided me with the opportunity to work with my team to create the pathways within which community knowledge flows and the methods for filtering, and channeling it to those in need of information. Action Research is about change, the change within oneself and the outside change to the field of action (McNiff and Whitehead, 2006). The process of taking a specified action, gathering the evidence of the outcomes, reflecting deeply on the evidence, and thoughtfully choosing the next action has had a profound impact on me. The iterative action-reflection process helped me to gain a deeper understanding of myself, my field of practice, and how my actions affect my team and organization. Through reflection I have noted a change within myself, and through action I have seen a change in my context.

The Change Out There

When I set out on my Action Research journey I had a goal of influencing the growth of a Community of Practice in my team mediated by social learning technologies. In my first cycle I found that I was attempting to make a large change too quickly, introducing and encouraging the use of a new process with only limited dialogue, discussion and debate about whether it should be applied. While this approach brought some changes in methods and processes, it also inadvertently alienated some members of the team based on their feeling that the choice was forced and not appropriate for all. This was in sharp contrast to my goal of creating an inclusive context within which the members of my team would feel drawn to interact in social knowledge building. After collecting evidence and reflecting on my first cycle, I saw the need to renew and bolster my effort to take action that would be inviting to all at an individual level.

As I moved through the cycles of my Action Research project and moved from a broad approach to advocating a particular tool, to a more personal approach of introducing a concept and a method to act on that concept, I found that there was a shift in my team. While I had seen a significant use of the wiki during my initial cycle, it was associated primarily with specific project-based needs at a given moment in time. With the move to focusing on inclusive dialogues relating to Communities of Practice and the use of social learning technologies, I noted a change in the interest of others in seeking out knowledge and their willingness to consider new approaches to community building within the team and across the organization. While there is a continuous need for additional support and encouragement to keep the spring flowing, the change in relationships and the creation of shared artifacts are strengthening the way in which the community interacts.

What I came to know after working through three cycles of action with my team was that I was not creating a Community of Practice, so much as working to formalize and connect the already existing, but untapped community within my team. Once I realized this fact, it became easier to have dialogues with others about how the community could connect, rather than approaching it as if I was creating something from scratch. In this way the existing connections and informal knowledge sharing processes could be recognized and acknowledged as valuable so they could begin to be formalized and moved into a tool that allows for effective social knowledge construction.

The Change In Here

I began my Action Research Project with the thought that I would be working to exercise influence within my practice and that much of that influence would come through advocating strongly for my ideas. This advocacy approach is easily seen in the types of reflection that I made during my first cycle, and the types of resistance I found to my actions. While I was working to encourage my team to join the “club” of social learning technologies and communities of practice, I was doing so in a way that unintentionally became exclusive. Forced participation, or exclusivity, are both counter to the building of a Community of Practice and, based on research and my own observations, do not foster the type of learning community that will grow and thrive.

Over the course of the three cycles of my Action Research I saw myself expand beyond simply advocating my point to using thoughtful inquiry to build dialogues that invited my colleagues to join in and share their thoughts and perspectives. At the same time, I found the process of regular, deep reflection to be slowly transforming me from reacting quickly to the actions of others, to becoming skilled at in-the-moment reflection. This real-time thought process did not develop right away during my project, rather it was a building process that mirrored my journey to becoming more skilled in reflection itself. My initial reflection process helped me to gain a basic level of perspective on events in my project context, however it failed to get to the deeper, underlying personal experiences and beliefs that might be driving my interpretation of events.

Based on input by my professor, and the thoughtful questions of a colleague at work who is familiar with Action Research, I was able to develop a new model for my reflections that combined an approach outlined by Coghlan and Brannick (2001) in Doing Action Research In Your Organization and the addition of a meta level of reflecting. The result was a four-step reflection process including: Concrete Experience – what actually happened; Reflection – how I feel about what happened; Conceptualization – why I believe it happened; Meta-Conceptualization – what might be my underlying beliefs or experiences that are causing me to draw the conclusions I am making about what happened (Coghlan & Brannick, 2001, pp. 39-40). It was the addition of the meta level that dramatically affected the way that I thought about both my own actions, as well as the actions, and reactions, of others. By using this reflective process twice a week, on a regular basis, I slowly saw myself change from reactionary, to more thoughtful and curious. As I began to grow more curious and ask questions that invited others to share in dialogue I also saw my knowledge grow as well as my connection to my team.

Where the River Leads

Through my Action Research I have been able to help my team to build a reservoir for knowledge and begun the process of bringing the community together to fill, use, and share this resource. This is a slow process as we work to bring the streams of knowledge together in a useful way. I will continue to pursue an Action Research approach to encourage the formal structuring of a Community of Practice within my team and have planned for my next action in support of this goal. With the tools I have gained through this past year of research, action, and reflection I feel prepared and ready to continue the journey.