Anton Havnes

Peer‐mediated learning beyond the curriculum

In higher education, there is an increasing interest in student interaction in the form of peer learning. In the literature, peer learning is mainly presented as a pedagogical tool used to promote curriculum learning. This article is based on observations of peer learning that expand beyond learning of the curriculum. It particularly addresses the phenomenon of students creating niches for peer interaction and learning. There is an additional type of learning in higher education that can be called peer‐mediated learning. In the peer‐mediated niches, students learn to become students, and they are free to agree or disagree with the course content in a way that they cannot express in their assignments and examination papers. The article discusses peer‐mediated learning from the perspective of activity theory and the notion of the zone of proximal development. It finds that the conventional understanding of the zone of proximal development does not explain peer‐mediated learning.

Examination and learning: an activity‐theoretical analysis of the relationship between assessment and educational practice

The backwash effect of assessment on learning is widely acknowledged. This article discusses the impact of assessment on learning in a wider sense, by focusing on how assessment drives not only student learning, but also the teaching practices, the designing of educational programmes and the production of learning material. The focus is on how assessment affects education at a system level and the article conceptualizes the backwash effect of assessment on learning from a systemic perspective. Activity theory, as developed by Engestrom (1987), is used as a framework to conceptualize this systemic affect of assessment. The empirical basis for the analysis is an ethnographic study of the compulsory preparatory course in philosophy, logics and philosophy of science at the University of Oslo.The backwash effect of assessment on learning is widely acknowledged. This article discusses the impact of assessment on learning in a wider sense, by focusing on how assessment drives not only student learning, but also the teaching practices, the designing of educational programmes and the production of learning material. The focus is on how assessment affects education at a system level and the article conceptualizes the backwash effect of assessment on learning from a systemic perspective. Activity theory, as developed by Engeström (1987), is used as a framework to conceptualize this systemic affect of assessment. The empirical basis for the analysis is an ethnographic study of the compulsory preparatory course in philosophy, logics and philosophy of science at the University of Oslo.

Talk, planning and decision‐making in interdisciplinary teacher teams: a case study

A diverse range of social structures, for instance teacher teams, professional communities and teacher learning communities, are established to advance collaboration among teachers. In Norway, Interdisciplinary Teacher Teams (ITTs) have become a common way of organising teachers in schools, recommended in a national curriculum reform in 1997. This study explores the internal structure, social meaning and potential resources for learning and development inherent in the planning and coordination of work in ITT meetings. Most studies of teacher teams as well as teacher learning communities are based on teachers’ experiences, expressed in interviews or surveys. The focus of this study is not on what teachers say about teams, but on what teachers say in teams. While most studies have addressed within‐department, subject‐specific teams, this study focuses on interdisciplinary teams. Team‐talk in two ITTs in two different lower secondary schools in Norway has been videotaped and analysed. Four patterns of interaction have been identified – preserving individualism: renegotiating individual autonomy and personal responsibility; coordination: assuring the social organisation of work; cooperation: creating a shared object or enterprise; and sharing: clarifying pedagogical motives. The study illustrates patterns in team‐talk, conceptualises the processes of decision‐making that take place in these ITTs and identifies resources for learning and development inherent in certain forms of interaction. The study contributes to the research literature by both focusing on the details of the interaction in team meetings and analysing the dynamics of the group interaction in the perspective of the situatedness and the object‐orientation of team‐talk.

Educational development centres: from educational to organisational development?

Purpose – The paper aims to investigate the role of educational development centres, and their potential for playing a broader and more central role in quality and organisational development.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on the results of three external evaluations of educational development centres in Denmark and Norway, combined with a literature review of studies of educational development centres.Findings – Educational development centres are in a period of transformation due to external forces (Bologna, the demand for institutional quality systems, etc.), and this creates new dilemmas and challenges for educational development.Originality/value – The paper points to the need to broaden the focus of educational development, and link it closer to other processes related to quality and organisational development.

Factors Affecting Professional Job Mastery: Quality of Study or Work Experience?

Abstract For students and for society a core aspect of higher education is to prepare for future employment. Employability, however, goes beyond getting a job and this paper focuses on the quality of job performance, or job mastery. Employability is understood as a process and a product of learning both in higher education and in work life. The paper investigates job mastery as an indicator of employability and looks at different factors that may have an impact on the level of job mastery reported by professionals three years after graduation. Based on a survey among a cohort of students in professional education after three years in work, the paper analyses how job mastery is affected by learning outcomes during undergraduate study and further training and aspects of the workplace and the job.

Developing supervision skills through peer learning partnership

Oslo University College, Faculty of Nursing places undergraduate students in peer learning partnerships: 3rd year students as tutors, and 1st year students as tutees during practical skill learning. A study was designed to investigate this peer learning project. One of the research questions in particular on the role of the tutors: How do 3rd year nursing students carry out their role as supervisors for 1st year students in the skills laboratory? The study had an exploratory design. Qualitative data was gathered by three members of a research team, using video recordings of the supervised sessions and focus group interviews with both 1st and 3rd year students. Data collection was repeated in 2006-2007-2008 in different groups of students. Four identified themes illustrate how the 3rd year students supervise during the performance of the procedures in the skills laboratory: Observe and guide, supportive attitude, identify with the patient, focus on theoretical knowledge. The results of this study indicate that apart from enhancing practical skill learning in 1st year students, the assignment in the skill laboratory also provided an arena for developing competence in supervision in third year students.

Why This Inertia in the Development of Better Assessment Methods

Assessment has not been a major concern over recent decades in Norwegian higher education, either as a topic in educational literature, or as an area of practical development. This paper argues that it is essential to introduce alternatives to the traditional assessment approaches. When the issue of assessment is dealt with as a choice between methods, traditional modes of thinking turn out to be a hindrance. The inertia may, at least to some extent, be regarded as a consequence of the fatigue that arises from an unsuccessful search for alternatives within the logic of examinations. In this article, the suggestion is made that the focus should be on the basis for selecting assessment methods, rather than on the methods themselves.

Professional Development and the Profession

Lifelong learning and ongoing professional development is part of being a professional. By completion of higher education a newly qualified teacher, engineer or nurse is certified for entering professional practice. Yet, they are not fully qualified for independent professional practice. Local practices in schools, industry and the health sector often require both contextualisation and recontextualisation of knowledge that was acquired in higher education. Another challenge is learning new skills, coming to terms with local work cultures and organisational structures, as well as customer, client or user relations. To what extent these requirements of learning and re-learning are recognised and valued, and how learning in the workplace is organised, varies across professions. Professional competence is grounded on theoretical knowledge which is general in nature, but in professional practice needs to be acted upon in professional contexts, under certain conditions and often in relation to unique individuals. The chapter explores what implications these aspects of professional expertise might have for the understanding of professional development and learning in the professions. Recognising the diversity of professions and the diversity of workplaces where professionals are employed we will focus on three diverse professions (teachers, nurses and engineers). What is the potential impact of the variation in the object or content of work (or the social context in which professionals work) and the valuing of and organisation of professional development?

Cultural–Historical Activity Theory

Cultural–historical activity theory emphasizes the mediated character of human action and interaction. It has its origin in the work of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896–1934). His theorizing was not only grounded on the philosophical work of Marx and Engels, but was also an exploration of the potentials to establish psychology as a scientific discipline in opposition to the dominating approaches in the first part of the twentieth century: stimulus–response theory and reflexology, on the one hand, and introspection, on the other. The concept of activity was developed by A. N. Leontiev (1904–79), who formalized the theory of activity.