MAMLL learning environment
MAMLL participants work together in a self-managed learning community committed to engaging with process as well as content. Within this learning community you are expected to be responsible for your own learning and also to share responsibility for other people's learning. The differing experiences and knowledge of all members of the community are seen as an important asset for the whole community and for the learning that takes place within it.
Action learning sets form the backbone of the programme. These are supported by five residential and one virtual research methods clinic and a virtual management learning environment (MLE). This is used to facilitate networked learning throughout the two years of the programme.
"The breadth of life experiences in the class was truly awe-inspiring and made for rich, challenging and diverse discussions."
Jon Laughton
Independent consultant
Action learning sets
"The breadth of life experiences in the class was truly awe-inspiring and made for rich, challenging and diverse discussions."
Jon Laughton
Independent consultant
An action learning set consists of four to six self-selecting participants and a tutor. Depending on the circumstances and home-base of the participants, the sets may be either face-to-face or online.
Face-to-face sets meet approximately every six weeks, on a date and at a place of their choosing. Online sets are expected to commit to an equivalent amount of time online, and are recommended to log in once a week.
The learning sets have three main aims: first, to help you identify the topics upon which to base your MAMLL assignments. Second, to support you and other members in producing critically reflective assignments that inform practice, and to provide constructive feedback. Third, and just as importantly, to provide a confidential forum for discussing personal and professional issues.
Sets usually change during the programme so as to maximise opportunities for working with as many different participants and tutors as possible.
Residential workshops
There are three residential workshops in the first year of the programme and two in the second, each exploring a major theme in management learning and leadership. More information is provided under Residential Workshops.
Networked learning
What is networked learning?
As used on the MAMLL programme, networked learning is learning in which communications technology and software are used to promote connections and learning between one learner and another learner, between learners and tutors, and between a learning community and its resources. The emphasis is on learning through dialogue, collaborative and co-operative learning, group work, interaction with online materials and resources, and knowledge production.
Related research
Management Learning & Leadership staff have been actively involved in research and publishing in this area for over two decades. In addition we co-organise the bi-annual international Networked Learning Conference.
CSALT
Departmental staff are also form part of Lancaster University's Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technologies (CSALT), an interdisciplinary centre that supports research in this area.
A specially designed virtual learning environment (VLE) is used to help all the MAMLL community members to keep in touch with one another and engage with work and study issues when they are back at work and dispersed throughout the world. You are expected to participate in this learning environment throughout the two years. We provide the cross-platform software and training needed to participate. The system gives you access to bibliographies, notes and other web-based resources. Most importantly it provides a forum for online discussion, on an asynchronous basis. The advantage of this is that all participants can engage in online debate in their own time – to fit with other commitments and regardless of time zones.
The programme itself is also a forum for face-to-face and online networking – amongst participants, academics, researchers, practitioners and alumni. By providing connections between people, ideas, online materials, websites and other resources, the programme thereby becomes a dynamic network for learning, continuously being shaped and re-shaped by its members.
Private study
Much of the work needed to produce assignments will be undertaken through private study and research activity, back in your home environment. The University library, which has specialist staff for management, provides remote access to the library catalogue and to a wide range of online databases. The library also operates a special postal loan service for books and journal articles for MAMLL participants, and wherever possible helps you to gain access to specialist libraries within your immediate vicinity.
