This account of practice gives an overview and insight into the learning from a co-designed leadership development programme for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) across two NHS Integrated Care Systems. The AHP community that completed the courses consisted of acute and community trust, mental health, local authority, and SCAS (paramedics)…

This paper provides a review of the use of action learning in healthcare organisations, or by healthcare professionals, in the past decade, as evidenced in peer-reviewed journals. Action learning has a long history in healthcare and is perhaps particularly suited to an environment where wicked problems abound, where professional development is…

Action Learning (AL) in higher education has been mainly used at the postgraduate level so far. In this article, we contribute to deepening the academic conversation about the adaptation of AL at the undergraduate level. Building upon our own personal experiences as teachers and insider researchers we analyse 53 learning diaries of undergraduate…

To contribute to current debate concerning approaches to teaching and learning for researching complex work-based problems, we focus on the Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) programme. We examine the development of an integrated action learning approach as part of a part-time DBA offered by a university in the UK. In adopting the lens of…

This paper explores the literature around online and blended learning. The impetus came from a cohort of 60 students being led through their dissertation by an e-learning evangelist. Initially the pedagogy closely followed Salmon's Five Stage Model, Wenger's Community of Practice, and traditional Social Constructivism pedagogies. In hindsight, it…

This paper examines an adapted action learning approach to develop four social learning leaders. The Alberta Women in Sport Leadership Impact Program is a social learning intervention with the goals of supporting women in developing their leadership capabilities and increasing gender equity across sport. To support the facilitation of this…

This account of practice offers practical examples of the use of reflective journaling and WhatsApping as part of a novice action learner's practice on her undergraduate degree programme. The action learning set was part of a degree apprentices programme which required the first author to complete a work-based learning module involving the…

Action learning has evolved with multiple variants and a multiplicity of interpretations which have moved it away from Revans Classical Principles. This account of practice describes the use of an adapted action learning set within the legal profession with a specific focus on a 'provided' problem and collective reflective practice in the form of…

This article sheds light on employee wellbeing. We reveal how an 'adapted' action learning intervention (a change laboratory) introduced prior to the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, enabled learning and action to emerge within an educational programme. We utilise the theoretical lens of activity theory to illustrate the challenges and tensions of…

This article explores how P (programmed learning) in Revans' formula L=P + Q accumulates from one action learning research initiative to another. Drawing on three inter-organizational action learning research initiatives, it shows how the L (learning) from conducting action learning in an initiative in one network built new P on network action…

Insights into the learning environment are required especially when applying action learning commonly used in management development programmes (MDPs). The study reports on an emerging action learning conceptual framework that fosters an environment for individual transformative learning in an MDP. The purpose of this research was to make clear…

This account of practice is about the 'Scale Up' programme, an attempt by an external consultant and their client to implement a model of Action Learning in an academic environment. It tells the story of establishing an Action Learning programme for local business leaders in collaboration with an academic business school. The programme involved…

What do people need to learn to engage actively in social action for neighbourhood improvement or development? How important is emergent learning relative to planned learning in this context? Where does first-person knowledge fit into the body of knowledge required for success in bringing about change for the better in neighbourhoods through…

This account of practice details the experiences of two doctoral students, on a DBA programme in the UK, as participants in an action learning set. It outlines the background to setting up the action learning set and describes early assumptions made by the students in relation to action learning structures. It highlights the initial difficulties…

As Action Learning has evolved, it has been adapted to promote learning in various contexts. In this account of practice, we share our perspectives as facilitators of the application of action learning principles within Reflective Practice Forums for Mentoring and Coaching Programme Managers. The ethos of action learning was adopted with the…