Sarojni Choy

Learning through work: emerging perspectives and new challenges

Purpose – This paper aims to consider and appraise current developments and emerging perspectives on learning in the circumstances of work, to propose how some of the challenges for securing effective workplace learning may be redressed.Design/methodology/approach – First, new challenges and perspectives on learning in the circumstances of work are summarised. Then, three key emerging concepts are reviewed. These are: changes in requirements of work; conceptual understandings about the processes of learning; and more elaborated views about the relations between the social and personal attributes. The procedural contributions of learning to improve learning for occupations, and employability and working life are also appraised.Findings – The authors suggest that current conceptual and procedural understandings of learning in the workplace, informed by fields of cognitive science, and learning and development are limited because learning in the workplace is multimodal and complex, considering the socio‐cult...

Partnerships between universities and workplaces: some challenges for work-integrated learning

Under contemporary highly competitive markets, organisations are demanding that any investment in learning be converted into productive outcomes that rapidly progress the organisation towards pre-defined strategic goals. A customised work-integrated learning curriculum has the potential to achieve such productive outcomes because it allows learners to quickly contextualise the study content within the socio-cultural and functional environment of the workplace. However, the development of a work-integrated learning curriculum relies on genuine partnerships between the universities and organisations. These types of partnerships require lengthy processes of negotiating the curriculum and pedagogies to support learning based in the workplace. Predictably, such partnerships challenge the traditional roles of the universities as transmitters of discipline specific knowledge and workplaces as less active partners in the learning processes and products. This paper is based on a case study and relates the challenges of developing a partnership, the transformed role of the academics and a more complex design and facilitation of the curriculum. What became evident was that such a partnership was problematic and demanded redistribution of knowledge-power relations between the university and the host organisation. The findings substantiate that successful work-integrated learning that meets the needs of individuals and their workplaces is premised on a learning partnership where the roles for the curriculum and pedagogy are genuinely shared. That such partnerships are integral to successful work-integrated learning and deeply problematic begs for more research to understand the dynamics and ways to approach learning partnerships between universities and organisations.

The Australian doctorate curriculum: responding to the needs of Asian candidates

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a case for appraisal of the current curriculum provisions for international students. In this paper, the authors summarise the key challenges of Asian international research graduate students pursuing doctorate studies in Australian universities to become researchers for the global communities. The intention is to advocate further research on current higher degree research curriculum with a view to enriching the developmental experiences of international research graduate students in preparation for global practice. Design/methodology/approach – This is an analytical paper that adopts a conceptual and rhetorical approach. Findings – The authors review a growing body of research on higher degree research studies and establish a need for appraisal of current curriculum provisions. Originality/value – This is the first paper to concentrate on an emerging need to appraise current higher degree research curriculum provisions to enhance the development internati...

Integrating Professional Learning Experiences Across University and Practice Settings

This chapter identifies and discusses the educational benefits of providing and integrating experiences in practice settings within tertiary education programs. It does so by adopting a broad curriculum perspective and focussing on developing the capacities required for effective professional practice. These capacities are now of growing importance as, in many countries with advanced industrial economies, higher education provisions are directed towards specific occupational outcomes. The provision and integration of practice-based experiences are seen as a way of securing that goal. Indeed, there are now growing expectations that higher education institutions will provide these experiences in preparing students who will be ready to proceed smoothly into their selected occupations upon graduation. A concern here is to identify an alignment between student experiences in educational institutions and those in practice-settings. This chapter explores ways in which these alignments can be considered and secured.

Provoking a (Re)newed Frontier in Theorising Educational Practice

To understand the accounts of practice and the theories that draw attention to the sociality and situatedness of practices presented in this volume, we take up the challenge of reflecting critically and concisely on the present state and the relevance of practice theory in education research. We do this by writing the chapter in the form of a Rundbriefe (“round letters”). The Rundbriefe process enables us, as the authors, to respond as both individuals and as a collective authorial team to these key questions: (1) How does a practice turn enhance our understandings of practices in education? (2) How does the various practice theories talk to one another? (3) What does a practice perspective make visible or leave invisible? (4) In what ways does practice theory help us to understand praxis, diversity and contestation ? Our writings circulate around the editorial team members of this book each inviting the other to respond and to deliberate further, coming together in the final section to make concluding comments.

Stakeholders′ conceptions of connecting learning at different sites in two national VET systems

Abstract Learning through active participation and engagement in education and workplace settings is a prerequisite for effective professional competence development through Vocational Education and Training (VET). Equally important is that learning from multiple sites and sources needs to be purposefully connected and integrated to construct meaningful knowledge and understandings. The quality of connectivity and learning outcomes is influenced by conceptions of the different actors. The aim of the research reported in this article was to gain an understanding of key stakeholders’ (learners, teachers, trainers and managers/coordinators) conceptions of connections between school-based and work-based learnings which offer the main sources for developing vocational competence, and are the main sites for the enacted and engaged curriculum for VET. We identify and compare conceptions of vocational learning and teaching across education and workplace settings in Swiss and Australian VET actors. Differences and similarities are discussed and implications for VET research and development of teachers and trainers are outlined.

Teaching and assessment for an organisation-centred curriculum

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the teaching and assessment strategies for an organisation‐centred curriculum.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a case study. Data were collected from interviews and a focus group with worker‐learners enrolled in a Graduate Certificate in Education (Educational Leadership) course.Findings – The study finds that a project that piloted an organisation‐centred curriculum framework where learning was integrated in the context of the workplace met the needs of both individuals and their workplace. The success of such learning for a cohort of worker‐learners was contingent on especially designed teaching and assessment strategies, aligned learning and assessment to the strategic goals of the organisation where the cohort was based and to needs of the individuals. The evaluation of the strategies in the framework shows their potential to optimise learning outcomes for other cohorts and courses. It also highlights the importance of skilling learners for work‐...

Implementing Indigenous Standpoint Theory: Challenges For A Tafe Trainer

Abstract Vocational education and training outcomes for Indigenous Australians have remained below expectations for some time. Implementation of Indigenous Standpoint Theory (IST) presents the opportunity to further enhance Vocational Education and Training for Indigenous people in Australia. This paper briefly discusses this theory, the concept of Indigenous knowledge and its integration to enhance Vocational Education and Training for Indigenous learners. It presents a case study on the experiences and challenges of a non-Indigenous Technical and Further Education (TAFE) teacher who has been working with Indigenous learners and communities in regional Queensland for over eight years. The paper highlights issues and challenges and identifies three binaries in integrating this theory to improve outcomes for Indigenous learners and their communities.

Teaching Practice in Australian Vocational Education and Training: A Practice Theory Analysis

In recent times practice theory has been used to analyse occupations and the dynamics of occupational reproduction. This kind of analysis throws a distinctive light on learning and teaching, which emerge as integral to the reproduction of practices . In contemporary society, however, the process of developing learners’ capacities for occupations has become an occupation in its own right within systems of vocational education and training (VET). A tension is indicated between teaching practice in VET as a process internal to the reproduction of occupational practices , and as a practice external to the occupational practices being taught. In this chapter, the theory of practice architectures is used to analyse teaching in the Australian VET system, highlighting contextual influences that shape this complex practice. Evidence is presented, that suggests the theoretical tension identified by practice theory between VET teaching as internal as well as external to occupational practices, illuminates the experience of contemporary VET teachers whose role has for some time been understood as expressing a ‘dual identity’. Practice theory helps to clarify this feature of contemporary VET teaching and identify factors underlying the tensions inherent in the system.

Australian stakeholders’ conceptions of connecting vocational learning at TAFE and workplaces

The quality of curriculum connectivity and integration across educational institutions and authentic practice settings, such as workplaces, is influenced by the conceptions of the different agents. Connectivity is about mediating connections between different situations to meet demands arising from educational institution-based knowledge and the everyday knowledge of the workplace. In this paper, we present findings from an Australian case study on how vocational education and training students, teachers and managers/coordinators conceptualise connectivity between what is learnt in educational institutions and in workplaces where they gain experiential learning. The findings show four main conceptions and suggest that connectivity is experienced on a continuum of linear and progressive circular processes, the latter being more complex yet enriching experiences that offer opportunities to quickly become proficient workers. These findings have implications for models, processes and practices to enhance connectivity and integration of learning in different sites.