Everyone in business studies is talking about digital transformation or digitalisation. Yes, both developments are directly or indirectly affecting all areas of an organisation, not to mention the fact that it also change our life and society as a whole. But how important is this aspect to social work and human service organisations? – This new episode explores this question and discusses, first and foremost, what digital leadership includes, secondly, how it is relevant for social work institut...
Jul 30, 2022•12 min
Competences such as understanding and addressing social justice issues, leadership and management, strategic planning, and problem-solving are essential for effective social work managers. What skills and knowledge should future professionals have? Actually, as I was doing some research on the topic, I realised that there are not so many theory-based competence frameworks available, especially with regard to social worker managers. In this episode, we want to explore this question. And I will ta...
Jun 28, 2022•11 min
Our everyday experiences with learning are often decentralised. For example, we might learn how to do something by doing it ourselves or asking for help from a friend. We may also use digital learning spaces on the internet or via apps on our mobile phones to explore and learn about different topics. Digital learning spaces are spaces where learners can access and use a variety of digital tools and resources to help them learn. These spaces can include websites, online courses, video tutorials, ...
May 31, 2022•10 min
In order to make a good argument, you need to provide solid evidence and rationale for your position. Arguments are an important part of personal knowledge management too. In this Managing Around episode, I will discuss the Stephen E. Toulmin model for the use of arguments. I first came across this epistemological model while searching for a foundation and logical correlation between claims and evidence, I make in my writing and teaching. Only recently, I started to use a graph-based word proces...
Apr 30, 2022•11 min
University-practice partnerships have a long tradition in the development of higher education institutions. In addition to the core tasks of teaching and research, universities have an extended mandate. Activities summarised under the term “third mission” include, for example, policy consultation, practice-oriented training of future specialists, promoting innovations, and the development of entrepreneurial skills. The aim of this episode is to provide practical advice on how to make university-...
Mar 30, 2022•14 min
Games are an integral part of human culture from the early days of our life. They encourage us to interact with each other and with our surroundings to discover new perspectives. Moreover, they enhance the personality and help us to reflect on our own strengths and weaknesses. But how can we use game-based learning in education? How can educators be equipped with the necessary competencies to explore such new ways in their teaching? — In this episode, I will discuss a few insights we have gained...
Feb 28, 2022•14 min
At the beginning of the current pandemic, colleagues from two German universities analysed critical situations in digital teaching-learning processes from the perspective of lecturers, students, and pupils in higher education and vocational education institutions. We conducted the study in June 2020. We found that the development towards virtual teaching scenarios, which has become a necessity under the current conditions, will also have an enormous impact on teaching and learning processes in t...
Jan 29, 2022•9 min
Despite the various potentials and risks of VR that have already been reported elsewhere, its expansion into formal education is still slow. The peculiarity of formal education such as in vocational education or higher education is that institutions often face challenges that can either promote or prevent educational innovations. Therefore, its barriers and supporting structures must be analysed thoroughly. Thus, in this podcast, I will develop an answer to the question of how can Virtual Realit...
Dec 28, 2021•8 min
Human beings are not perfect, nor does every individual possess knowledge of all domains. The same is the case for teachers. Nearly every teacher has experienced it at some time or other: You receive a tricky or unexpected question from a student which you cannot instantly answer. This then leads to the yawning emptiness and the fear of not being taken seriously by the students as the ideal teacher - namely as an ocean of knowledge. But, not everything is 'as bad' as it looks like. Feeling stupi...
Oct 30, 2021•8 min
In today’s episode, I will introduce you to the field of entrepreneurship learning and education research that is primarily concerned with analyzing and reflecting on the process, conditions, contexts, and results of learning and teaching during entrepreneurial activities. The question we focus on in this episode of Managing Around is this: How does entrepreneurial learning occur in this rapidly growing field of professional practice? The purpose will be to better understand the research on the ...
Sep 30, 2021•17 min
In the book ‘The Essentials of Theory U’, Otto Scharmer asks the simple but unique question, “How do we learn from the future as it emerges?” Telling a story from his childhood, Scharmer recalled the moment in which he discovered his parents’ house had burnt down. It was then when he realized that it was not only his physical possessions that were lost but also his experiences and attachments to the home. His old self had died, so his survival relied on the life that lay ahead. In this episode, ...
Aug 26, 2021•14 min
The role of social work and human service organisations should not be underestimated. They fill a gap in society that cannot be fulfilled by governments and people in their individual capacities. These organisations face many challenges and issues as they provide essential services and professional support to people in need. For this very episode, the focus is put again on the type of leadership provided in social work organisations because it then impacts the level of success experienced by the...
Jul 29, 2021•11 min
Podcasting is a fabulous means of sharing files in audio format through the internet. For example, an audio file retrieved from the internet in MP3 is known as a podcast. In an instant, a podcast has been retrieved from the internet, and the user can listen to it via a mobile phone, an iPod, a personal digital assistant, or any other media player, portable or not. In this episode, we will talk about this technology and its application to education. In doing that, I will make you familiar with th...
Jun 22, 2021•9 min
Digital products have become an integral part of everyday life. We use our smartphones not solely to call other people but to plan, organised and cope with our digital life. Nowadays, in some professions, it is possible to work from home and have more flexibility because of digital technology. Smart home products transformed how we live. Also, organisations are still in a process of converting, using and applying the information in a digital format. In today's episode, we will focus on the digit...
May 24, 2021•15 min
Many people would agree that we live in uncertain times. This has become once more apparent during the COVID-19 crisis. In all areas of our life, people experience shifts and changes of an unprecedented scale such as the fear to become incapable of working, to lose your current job position or status in family and society. Also, companies have become more often victims of cyber-attacks that suddenly shut down infrastructure and demand money in return for the release of stolen data. In today's ep...
Apr 30, 2021•14 min
Education is timeless. Podcasts are new, exciting, and increasingly popular ways of learning. Do educational podcasts exist? Yes, they do! In higher education, podcasts help to create new spaces and communities that help to facilitate asynchronous learning and to increase student retention. But, why aren’t they more widely used? In this episode, we’ll be looking at how this specific medium of communication can be used more effectively by students and teachers alike. Meanwhile, we introduce a new...
Apr 14, 2021•12 min
In most welfare states, social enterprises are to a large extent dependent on the service providers which finance social service in a kind of monopoly market. It is inherent to such organisations to be permanently and simultaneously confronted with different ‘rationalities’ of their stakeholders. As hybrid organisations, they have to mediate between the logics of governmental, market-based, and societal structures. But what do hybridity and multirationality mean? In this episode, we will investi...
Mar 30, 2021•11 min
Since the 1990s, change management has received considerable attention as the new paradigm for the management of organisational transformations as well as behavioural and motivational changes within both for-profit and non-profit organisations. A lot has been discussed about it in sciences and professional practice. As a result, change management has only recently been included in many bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes in social work and pedagogics, either as additional courses or as an ...
Mar 10, 2021•14 min
The internet has been disrupting the education sector since its advent and continues to do so. From The Open University to Massive Online Open Courses (known affectionately as MOOCs) and now Open Educational Resources, the world wide web has been empowering teachers and students alike for many years. In the midst of a global pandemic, the teaching profession has had to adapt, shifting near-seamlessly to “Remote Teaching” and/or “Hybrid Teaching”. Educators had to and still have to learn the less...
Feb 15, 2021•10 min
In these turbulent times, there is a need for a different kind of leadership. - In the last episode, I introduced you to the Adaptive Leadership Model. This specific leadership style asks leaders to frequently take a step back from the stage and to reflect on the complexity of the adaptive challenges ahead. Leaders need to assess and distinguish between the technical and adaptive nature of a problem. To become an adaptive leader, you need to familiarise yourself with a sophisticated set of manag...
Feb 01, 2021•14 min
In my latest introductory management course, I talked with my students about the Adaptive Leadership Model. While drawing conclusions from a case study "Redskins No More" by Peter Northouse, we ended up in a discussion of a different kind of leadership. In these turbulent times, so was the thesis, there is no need for strong leaders that could solve virtually every problem. In the face of the many challenges ahead, leadership should not be understood as a function or position but as an activity ...
Jan 18, 2021•12 min
This is part two of our series on the discussion of the book "Solidarity - The Future of a Great Idea", written by the well-known German Sociologist Heinz Bude who currently teaches as a Professor of Macrosociology at the University of Kassel. In the last episode, we've thoroughly talked about the free-rider problem and solidarity as the great social bond in a society which provides a sense of community. And in today's episode, we will conclude our discussion with a journey through the functions...
Jan 08, 2021•17 min
In the preparation to my Social Policy lecture in our study program Social Pedagogy and Management which dealt with the fundamentals and principles of the welfare state, I read with great interest the book titled "Solidarity - The Future of a Great Idea" and written by the German Sociologist Heinz Bude, who currently teaches as a Professor of Macrosociology at the University of Kassel. And in doing that, I remembered a song from my favourite band Tocotronics, which I am going to start within thi...
Dec 23, 2020•15 min
In one of the last episode, we already talked about the Scholarship of teaching and learning which is also known under the acronym SoTL. This not a new species that has been discovered but a long tradition in higher education. SoTL is the widely-used acronym for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, a research approach that is to say a systematic inquiry into student learning which helps to advance the practice of teaching in higher education. This is the topic, we will continue today. And by do...
Dec 09, 2020•15 min
I am teaching management basics in full-time and in-service courses within a programme for social pedagogy. I am often asked by my students: "Why is it so important to study management and leadership as a social worker?" Actually, it is a very challenging question and an answer is not that easy to give. Nevertheless, I am happy to share some thoughts with you. This is a two part introduction to the importance of leadership in social service institutions. In the last episode, we talked about lead...
Nov 27, 2020•10 min
I am teaching management basics in full-time and in-service courses within a programme for social pedagogy. I am often asked by my students: "Why is it so important to learn about organisational management and leadership?" Actually, it is a very challenging question and an answer is not that easy to give. Nevertheless, I am happy to share some thoughts with you. In todays episode, we will first explore what leadership is and what approaches have been discussed in classical management literature....
Nov 11, 2020•10 min
This podcast reviews "A History of Management Thought" by Morgen Witzel, a graduate textbook on organization and management theory. We will undertake a brief explanation of what the term management meant from the beginning of humanity to the present day. Still, the problems in its history are the apparent faults and ‘holes.’ This book moved me by its effort to “plug in the hole” by posing a debate on the power structures of early capitalism, to criticism of contemporary management theory. The po...
Oct 26, 2020•10 min
Machiel Keestra’s (2017) academic essay Metacognition and Reflection by Interdisciplinary Experts: Insights From Cognitive Science and Philosophy should be considered a must-read, but the very nature of the essay makes its content relatively inaccessible to the layperson. In this episode, we will summarise this essay with additional thinking, so that you may learn more about the fascinating topic of Metacognition. For more information visit my blog: profmanagement.de Thank you for listening. If ...
Oct 12, 2020•17 min
There are plenty of community building techniques that are already in use in traditional classrooms. These have been part of teacher education for some time now. But, do not make the mistake using the same techniques without adaptation to your online classes — especially at this time. It is the purpose of this podcast to create a useful resource for teachers, lecturers, seminar tutors and other educators who need a helping hand coming to terms with this new way of teaching. So we’ll be looking a...
Sep 28, 2020•10 min
As classrooms around the world usher in modernity and indeed, the future of education, teachers everywhere are grappling with the new hybrid teaching model — blending online and offline elements to support inclusion of the students who can’t be physically present — and seeking support. With the start of the new school year, many of us have to develop their teaching design. The purpose of this podcast is to create a useful resource for teachers, lecturers, seminar tutors and other educators who n...
Sep 14, 2020•8 min
