Reginald Revans

Reginald William Revans (born May 14, 1907 in Wem ; † January 8, 2003 in Shropshire ) was a British athlete and physicist , who is known in the educational field. He developed Action Learning , a method of learning through experience ( experience-based learning ) in groups. He was also a member of the British team at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam .

Life

Revans first studied nuclear physics at Cambridge University .

During this time he regularly took part in seminars in which different researchers met to talk about their work and the problems that occurred. The problems mostly went far beyond textbooks; mostly there were no experts with ready-made answers. The researchers practically shared their ignorance and so often came up with solutions to their problems. This experience played a major role in the development of Action Learning .

As a track and field athlete, he started as a long jumper for the Cambridge university team. In 1928 he finished fourth in the Amateur Athletic Association of England (AAA), but was nominated as the best Briton for the Amsterdam Olympics. In the long jump competition there, however, he only reached 6.58 m and was eliminated from the qualification. He was successful at the British Empire Games , the forerunner of today's Commonwealth Games . At the British Empire Games 1930 Revans was second in each long jump and triple jump. He also started in the high jump, but was unable to place there.

After his time at Cambridge, he became the assistant secretary of education for the Essex County Council (1935–1945). He then became an education officer in the coal industry, which had been nationalized shortly before, (1945–1950). There he should look for ways to increase production. To do this, Revans used the method that had already proven effective at Cambridge. He encouraged the mine managers to meet in small groups to share their experiences and write a manual on how to run a coal mine. As a result, productivity increased by over 30%.

After this success he became the first professor of industrial management at Manchester University (1955-1965). During this time he worked closely with the state health service. He then went to Belgium , where he worked with five universities to improve Belgium's position within the European League for Economic Cooperation . Again he used the method of collaboration he had developed. Belgium's industrial productivity rate then surpassed that of the US, Germany and Japan. For this he was rewarded by the Belgian king with the highest honor in the country.

Since the 1980s, Revans has worked with private and public organizations in the UK and around the world, trying to use his method to encourage learning with and from one another.

In 1995 he helped establish the Revans Center for Action Learning and Research at the University of Salford and donated his private archive on the subject. He spent the last years of his life with his daughter in Shropshire, where he died in January 2003.

Web links

• Reginald Revans in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Obituary by Caroline Altounyan on RW Revans (PDF file; 22 kB)

Individual evidence