CHANGING MODELS OF WORK BASED LEARNING: A SCOTTISH PERSPECTIVE Sabina Siebert, Caroline Tuff and Vince Mills Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning

1
CHANGING MODELS OF WORK BASED LEARNING A
SCOTTISH PERSPECTIVE Sabina Siebert, Caroline
Tuff and Vince Mills Scottish Centre for Work
Based Learning
2
Frank Coffield (2002)

• no learning society can be built on atheoretical
  foundations
• plans are afoot to create a culture of lifelong
  learning without either any theory of learning or
  a recognition that a new social theory of
  learning is required.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
3
Individualised approaches to work based learning

• work based learners negotiate individualised
  learning plans
• the programme of learning is driven by the needs
  of the workplace rather than being framed by the
  Academy
• the learners current competences are the
  starting point
• the learning projects are undertaken in the
  workplace and the educational institution
  assesses the learning outcomes against a
  transdisciplinary framework.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
4
Social learning is based on the assumption that

• learning is located in social participation and
  dialogue as well as in the minds of individuals
• the focus shifts from a concentration on
  individual cognitive processes, to the social
  relationships and arrangements
• the social and cultural environment constructs
  the learner
• learning is a social process
• learning takes place not only in the classroom,
  but also in informal contexts

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
5
Social learning is based on the assumption that

• knowledge and skills learned are
  context-dependent
• gaining knowledge is often an issue of becoming a
  full participant in a community of practice
• the formal instruction and the significance of
  the teacher/learner relationship becomes
  marginalised,
• learning that emerges from interpersonal
  relationships takes the central position.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
6
Situated learning constraints

• a concern regarding lack of transferability of
  learning
• a possible feeling of insularity within a
  community of practice
• an absence of consideration of power in learning,
  especially in the context of the workplace.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
7
Lave and Wenger

• emphasise the social dimension of learning,
  beyond the formal curriculum.
• in a community of practice the curriculum is the
  daily tasks undertaken to sustain the community.
  
• the meaning of these tasks can only be understood
  through the practices of that community.
• learning is embedded in the community the
  possibility of knowledge transfer either inwards
  or outwards is marginalised.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
8
Lave and Wenger

• For newcomers the purpose is not to learn from
  talk as a substitute for legitimate peripheral
  participation it is to learn to talk as a key to
  legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and
  Wenger 2002)

9
Terry Mayes

• Learners not only learn in a community, but also
  by watching other learners learn vicarious
  learning.
• 1. moving from peripheral to full participation
  in the community of practice.
• 2. the learner learns from the vicarious
  material of other learners who are peers in the
  same learning context.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
10
Eraut a crucial insight

• Knowledge acquired in one context can be
  re-situated in a new context, and then
  integrated with new knowledge acquired in this
  new situation.
• This implies a level of abstraction of knowledge
  which challenges notions of its absolute
  situatedness, since re-situation suggests that
  learners identify general principles or models in
  use in one context that are usable in another.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
11
Eraut

• From a situational perspective knowledge is
  already present in established activities and
  cultural norms and imported through the
  contributions of new participants. From an
  individual perspective some of their prior
  knowledge is resituated in the new setting and
  integrated with other knowledge acquired through
  participation. According to the magnitude of the
  impact of the visit, their knowledge can be
  described as having been expanded, modified or
  even transformed (Eraut 2000132).

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
12
Knowledge

• The theoretical model proposed by Eraut

• poses a combination of individuals prior
  knowledge and experience and the social dimension
  of a situation in which the process is embedded.
• implies the processes of abstraction which allows
  an individual to take from this earlier learning
  a framework with which to make sense of, and
  perhaps reformulate, learning gained in previous
  contexts.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
13
Guile and Young

• employers require their workers to acquire more
  and more formal types of knowledge
• the transfer of learning involves people
  developing an ability to think beyond the
  immediate situation they find themselves in
• workers collectively create new knowledge, but
  only if the focus of learning is not limited to
  the here-and-now, and if the external concepts
  and technologies are allowed to have an explicit
  role
• learning becomes a process of mediating in new
  contexts, ideas and concepts developed over a
  period of time in other social contexts.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
14
Guile and Young

• Question the traditional assumption that learning
  at work is radically different from learning in
  the classroom.
• Note that apprenticeship offers a way of
  conceptualising learning that does not separate
  it from the production of knowledge.
• Argue against the narrow transmission model of
  learning, and emphasise the importance of
  transferability of knowledge and skills between
  organisational contexts.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
15
Our findings

• Much learning is situated, this does not mean
  that learners do not socially develop forms of
  knowledge which can be expressed in non-situated
  discourse and used in contexts different from
  those in which they were learned.
• Propositional knowledge developed in the academy
  can play the same role as knowledge which
  migrates from one workplace to another as
  knowledgeable workers relocate
• Consequently the role of the academy can be to
  assist with the process of knowledge transfer by
  finding ways of making codified knowledge
  available in the workplace.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning
16
Practical implications
Integrated approach

• Individualised the needs and circumstances of an
  individual should to be taken into account in the
  design of a learning contract.
• Social Lave and Wengers model of learning from
  a community of practice also offers powerful
  insights into the process of learning from work.
• The design of an effective work based learning
  programme also requires the understanding of the
  vicarious nature of some learning in the
  workplace and the value of propositional
  knowledge developed by the academy.

Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning