WRAP-UP – Strategic Learning in the Workplace

Straight up I have to say my final assessment was not good but I submitted under a particularly stressful end of year – resigning from a role that was not a great fit for me and dealing with two managers who were micro-managing bullies – not fun. However that is behind me and I left the role with some good learning and insights and I’m excited about what 2022 has on offer! I would like to thank the staff at UTS, particularly Amanda, for their patience and support – it was and is greatly appreciated.

Even though the final assessment didn’t reflect the positive learning in the subject I would like to detail the key take-aways for me :
– The importance of a clearly defined business strategy that an entire team works to. The learning strategy must outline the high-level learning outcomes linked to the business strategy.
– Have the right people at the table. Designing a learning strategy must reflect the insights and voices of all key and relevant stakeholders – so evaluations/engagement sessions and milestone updates must be part of the design process to ensure alignment and advocacy.
– Data is King/Queen – understand and analyse it so agile responses can be made – this is part of the risk mitigation as well.
– Understand and embrace change management practices to ensure the learning strategy creates the over-arching business transformation.

Highlights:
– Michelle Ockers podcast – 9 key elements to a Learning Strategy. The high-level engagement and involvement before the strategy has landed.
– Jeremy Miller – his insights into the ABC’s corporate strategy and focus on human-centred design.
-Arguris and Shon 1996 – Organisational Learning article discussing the difference between organisations learning and individuals learning – adopting a practise approach to organisational learning.
– Several discussions I had with contributors to the Pivott program – designed to assist people to find work in startup and scale-up environments.

LEARNING GOALS FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND PRACTICE

I am interested in exploring the different approaches to professional learning in a TAFE environment and more recently in a startup environment.

I’m very interested in gaining a better understanding of professional learning practise in different contexts i.e. self motivated versus mandated for compliance requirements, and how organisational learning can be designed to resonate more holistically with the learners.

a. Identify and reflect on changing understandings of professional learning, practice and change. I’m really interested in learning more about the change in the understanding of professional learning, particularly in relation to a recent leadership course I was involved in – over the past 6 months – that has been shelved due to the appointment of a new CEO who sees leadership very differently and is embedding significant change (to the business model) in all professional learning. I think a combination of business objectives imbued with change management will be required moving forward. Encouraging staff to use their EQ to manage change with curiosity and agility. I think leaders need to ensure they walk the talk when it comes to new professional practise – ie embrace a more flexible and forward-thinking team and encourage the honest conversations to manage change productively, otherwise the training can appear disingenuous and a lack of engagement can ensue.

b. Observe professional practice and analyse it using relevant concepts/theories. I would like to apply this to a TAFE project that is looking at teacher mentoring. I could also apply this to the professional practise of virtual events – as I ran dozens last year – and have these saved on YouTube.

c. Identify the implications for learning, practice or change in student’s professional setting. This will be applied to the TAFE project – TAFE teachers have their teaching load and in the instance of this project there are compliance requirements, outside the BAU, that must be met to achieve re-registration. I’m curious to know if the Teacher Capability program might be seen as an added burden rather than a bonus. In the past training programs have not engaged with the teaching teams as part of the design process so have missed the mark and a lot of time and money has been wasted on ‘leadership’ programs for teachers and managers. A realistic approach that looks at simplifying and recognising rather than complicating the learning, utilising stakeholder intel to form the basis of the change.

d. Reflect, analyse and identify own learning in this subject.

e. Communicate appropriately using a range of genres for relevant professional learning contexts. I’m looking forward to being more engaged with other students this year.

Using observation, peer feedback and applied learning to an actual learning practice will be interesting.  I would like to use technology more effectively this year – develop my blog and regularly update learning and observations using images, recordings and video.

Notes: Module 1

TED TALK – 3 myths about the future of work and why they’re not true. Daniel Susskind.

I worked in event management last year, to have a break from education management, and focused on delivering a series of 50 workshops, talks and experiences. Sadly due to Covid the program, except for 6 events, was delivered virtually. The skills required to curate and facilitate virtual events are quite different to live events. The last couple of years has seen event professionals develop their knowledge of apps, platforms and programs to deliver engaging virtual events. There are different apps coming out all the time and to host and facilitate virtual events and workshops requires creativity and deft tech capabilities. The future of events will be a combination of virtual, hybrid and smaller in person events. The skills required will be far more technical and knowledge and skills in AV production will be required. Based on ticketing apps such as Humanitx; graphic design platforms such as CANVA and the use of social apps – LinkedIn, Insta, Facebook and Twitter – the event professional needs to fully embrace digital marketing or visa-versa to be successful. A professional event professional will have to be agile to respond to these changes and open to continuous learning to be a step ahead of their clients to manage the ongoing changes. With regard to the TED talk – I didn’t really understand how the automated future was going to be better – was he suggesting that the productivity created a bigger pie therefore there was improved equity? I don’t think this is correct. Lisa Trewin in this group has made some very valid observations about this below.

…conventional conceptions of professional learning are limited both in understanding different professionals’ challenges of learning in practice, and in promoting forms of professional education that can truly support their preparation for and continuing responses to the radical challenges confronting them

(Fenwick et al 2012, pp. 1-2).

Practice approach to professional learning provides a new perspective on how learning occurs. It requires thorough analysis of embedded practices in workplaces and the entwined learning opportunities

This shifts the focus from attributes of a learner to attributes of the practice

(Reich et al, 2015, p. 376)

NOTES: Module 2

FOCUS: Some writers have suggested that practice is often taken for granted and under-researched. It is usually co-located with various classifiers – teaching practice, yoga practice, legal practice etc. with the emphasis on the domain – legal, yoga, teaching. Green (2009, p.2) even states that the ‘term [is] almost compulsively in use, without always meaning much at all’. We will focus our attention on gaining new understandings of practice, and then how we can use these to gain a better understanding of professional learning. 

practice idiom stems in particular from its capacity to resonate with the contemporary experience that our world is increasingly in flux and interconnected, a world where social entities appear as the result of ongoing work and complex machinations, and in which boundaries around social entities are increasingly difficult to draw.

building blocks of the social (Schatzki, 2001, p. 10). Hence a practice should not be viewed as a unit circumscribed by given boundaries and constituted by defined elements, but rather as a connection-in-action.

How does Nicolini describe a practice approach to understanding bureaucracy differently to classic approach, such as Weber’s theories? Nicolini highlighted the fact that people will question practices and not simply adhere or obey them. The ability to apply critical thinking and analysis to practices after engaging with relevant stakeholders for meaningful feedback.

Module 4

2 frameworks: TSBT – Time; Spaces; Bodies; Things and TPA – Theory of Practice Architecture

Theory of Practice – means by which an individual participates in the world – Cognitively – sayings; Materially – doings and Socially – relatings. Practices happen in various systems and are made possible by particular arrangements.

TPA the PRACTICE architecture are:

SAYINGS – the arrangements are specific discourse; words and ideas. Might be professional jargon or policies. It is a semantic space realised through language.

RELATINGS – the arrangements are specific relationships; roles such as hierarchy; Government or collegiate relationships.

DOINGS – The arrangements are specific objects; place; times; set ups. Physical space and time (environment) are realised through the activity and work.

DR STEPHEN KEMMINS

Practices occur in the three-dimensional intersubjective space that lies between us, composed of interwoven semantic, material and social space. 

But its focus is less on the one who practices than on what happens in the intersubjective space between people (and people and things) when they practise: their talk, interactions, and interrelationships. The theory of practice architectures aims to see practices as they happen: their ‘happening-ness”, as they unfold in semantic, material and social space. …The theory of practice architectures sees the practitioner, the one who practices, but is not blinded by the practitioner. It aims to see the practitioner in the practice, and to see the practitioner in relation to the site in which the practice happens … in the intersubjective space between the practitioner and the site: something unfolding in the way a tree grows, reaching out on this side to find the sun, to avoid being shaded by the other tress around it, to find its own place among them. 

I found the analogy or a mountain stream, to describe practices as a valuable visual to grasp the concept of how they are malleable and shaped by their practice architecture. ‘ We see practices as shaped in their flow by practice architectures: the arrangements of ideas and things and relationships that are found in or are brought to a site, channelling what is said, what is done, and how people relate to one another in the site.’

Kemmis, S. (2019) Introducing the theory of practice architectures (Ch. 1). A Practice Sensibility: An invitation to the Theory of Practice Architectures (Links to an external site.), Springer, 20-22

Definition: a form of human action in history, in which particular activities (doings) are comprehensible in terms of particular ideas and talk (sayings), and when the people involved are distributed in particular kinds of relationships (relatings), and when this combination of sayings, doings and relatings ‘hangs together’ in the project of the practice (the ends and purposes that motivate the practice).

TSBT – Hopwood. Time, Space, Body and Things –

1. Always implicated in every moment of every practice
2. They are the fabric of practices – what they’re made of.
3. We need to pay attention to all 4 in order to reflect on past practices Practical, ethical and political consequences.

TIMES – clock time; time that moves forwards; sequence and flow (what happens before what; what loops back; time is also about pace – steady, rushed or like a mad dash and finally it’s about rhythm – steady and the same or could be complex and doesn’t repeat.

SPACES – physical space; amount of space; make a desk a place of isolation – use partitions/earphones to work in a solo way or have an open plan attitude and invite colleagues to share. Trajectories – what or who comes to interact i.e the watercooler. Spaces can be problematic as it may not meet everyone’s needs/expectations.

BODIES – practice is not done by a brain in a jar but by unique bodies – different ages; ethnicity; gender; differently abled. Using; use of hands; gut instincts; voice; sights; speaking. Practices become possible in bodies if seen.

THINGS – all objects involved in a practice – computers; plants; photos; post its; where do they move; where do they take you? Objects can be political – do we have enough of them; has there been suitable sharing and is it equitable?

How these four dimensions relate – they are not separate, they are not mutually exclusive; get an holistic understanding of practice.

How are they enacted? Plural – more than one version of each and multiple versions – there’s not one right answer for example. Each one overlaps. Subtle separation.

CASE STUDY – Hopwood: New understandings, client partnerships and relational work.

Empirical: ethnographic observations. Theory Schatzki and Gherardi.

Wanted to base findings on what was possible. Theories help you notice, interpret and tell a different story.

Potential issues: the trust between the learner and the expert practitioner – not wanting to wield their expertise as if there is no room for input and adjustment. Make learning happen.

Schatzki – Telos – purpose and intention. Gherardi – Texture – how one action is connected to another, changes in those connections. Aesthetics – qualities of actions, interactions.

TIMES: CLOCK; PACE; RHYTHMS – what is done the same and differently? More than one time at once – whose time counts?

SPACES: What has come together and how? Spaces are made not occupied – link with Things – what is in the space determines how it’s used – private or public? Intimate or Open?

BODIES: Whole of body / mind acts. Stillness/composure/facial expression. Body work: gaze, voice, posture, movement. Walking slowly – links to time/rhythm. More accessible.

THINGS: What happens because of things? Practical intelligibility: what does this thing mean in or for this practice? Things endure or not: What significance does this have?

Non-trivial learning. Practices are always changing and not changing.

AGENCY: struggle, striving for change

The rhythms of pedagogy: an ethnographic study of parenting education practices

Nick Hopwood Pages 115-131 | Received 07 Mar 2013, Accepted 17 Mar 2013, Published online: 01 May 2013

Rhythmanalysis offers a sensitivity to rhythms that moves beyond obvious notions of music. Things have rhythms (although they may appear slow or static relative to those of the human body). Concepts of sound, tone, intensity, frequency, measure, interaction and composition are used to expand on the nature of rhythm and what it means to attend to rhythms of social life.

Lefebvre (2004) describes the body as polyrhythmia, whose rhythms include heartbeat, breathing, hunger, thirst, fatigue and sleep. We might also add laughter, crying, movements of gaze, actions, gestures and postures. Bodies provide key metronomes that regulate and are changed or produced by pedagogic practices on the Unit (others include circadian rhythms and shift patterns).

Module 4

You will then focus on how learning is conceptualised in the professional learning practice framework you have used in your Practice-based Project  –  either Times Spaces Body Things – (TSBT) 

Is it rational, predictable, linear, cognitive? Or emergent, relational, embodied, situated (the 6 threads)?

My position on the relationship between professional practice and learning can be summarised in the points below. My sense is one of entanglement rather than equivalence, sameness, or apartness. 

1. Practice and connectedness in action have four essential dimensions: times. spaces, bodies and things.

2. Professional learning is entangled with but analytically separable from practice.

3. Professional learning involves changes in connectedness in action (texture) that further the ends of practices through meaningful changes in the way practitioners interpret and act in practice. 

4. These changes include producing new textures, repairing, modifying or restoring existing ones, or maintaining them in light of other changes. This is based on the ideas of stability and change as co-present features of practices

5. Professional learning in practice performs both connecting and sensitising functions through textual and epistemic work. Attuning is central to booth of these.

6. Professional practices that accomplish and unfold through partnership with service users have an intensified pedagogic dimension. This has implications for the nature and focus of professional learning: it creates particular imperatives to learn and foci for the use and emergence of professional expertise. (Hopwood, 2016, p. 95.)

MODULE 5 – implications of learning and change

Objective: critically discuss the implications of your findings for change in practices and learning in the professional context and to reflect on your changing understandings of professional learning, practice and change.  
Practice-based project: how implications can be drawn from examining practices. First you’ll work through some examples of published studies to see how the authors have drawn implications from their practice-based studies and then you will be guided to do draw out implications from your own practice-based project. This will provide an opportunity for you to tie together what you have learned about professional learning, practice and knowing through the subject and it will also be the building block for the final Assessment Task 3.How researchers adopt implications to their observation and apply to future learning practices.

• exploring how the observed practice connects to other practices
• the history of how the practice came about
• policies and regulations relating to the practice and/or related practices 
• examining alternative ways the practice is carried out in other contexts/organisations
• considering recent or impending changes in the industry/organisation/regulations
• education, training, professional development or information (like procedures) related to the practice),  

Literature – for example, policy documents, government or industry reports and published research related to the ideas associated with the suggested changes. 

Building an argument

explaining the context, outlining the problem or issues

describing the current approach taken in the context/with regard to the issues raised, with reference to the literature

addressing the issues raised by connecting the findings from the research described (analysis of the practice) to the current approach in the literature

Assessment 2 feedback – For some of you might want to revisit your observation notes and analysis and pull together more of the patterns and consequential claims – to set you up for Assessment 3 – which looks at the implications of these claims for practice change and/ or learning the practice.  

Quote to clarify online: Using TSBT would lead me to ask about Space – how is the meeting space providing learners with equal access to learning when this space depends on wi-fi? Could this space provide barriers because learning online can create a sense of isolation when people cannot interact using body language as they would in the classroom. Hopwood (2014) discussed that Nicolini called for more investigation of how  ‘practices hang together’ (2009, p. 1413) which interests me because I want to investigate the consequences of online learning as a practice. Can the online teaching practice provide space that enables enough interaction for learning to occur? What are the consequences of using a power point as a space to understand the context of the screen shots? Can the recording of the lesson enable time to be manipulated so students can rewatch or revisit areas of learning and therefore know how symbolism creates meaning and does this make effective practice? Is it important for practice that the point of learning can be repeated with the PPT through looping back to a specific moment in the lesson? Is this space problematic if students are still unsure or unmotivated in their learning because the practice of online learning creates fatigue? Mishelle
Hopwood, N. (2014). Four Essential Dimensions of Workplace Learning (Links to an external site.). Journal of Workplace Learning, 26(6/7), 349-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWL-09-2013-0069 (Links to an external site.) 
Nicolini, D. (2009), “Zooming in and out: studying practices by switching lenses and trailing connections”, Organization Studies, Vol.

ABSTRACT

In March 2020, the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit Italy and had dramatic and unforeseen consequences for millions of schoolchildren. Students with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) were faced with drastic changes to their local environment caused by the lockdown. This impacted their ability to function in ways in which they were acquired and posed new challenges for their teachers. This qualitative exploratory study aimed to capture and understand special education teachers’ perspectives of their own work and their perceived changes in SEND. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 21 special education teachers at the end of the 2020 school year in Italy. The interview guide was based on the structure of a microsystem, as described by Bronfenbrenner’s model, and targeted questions about perceived changes in their roles, relationships, and activities due to the lockdown. The interviews were examined by deductive thematic analysis. The lockdown situation caused marked changes in the teacher’s work and their students’ lives and significant losses in the developmental and educational processes compared to a pre-pandemic ordinary school setting. In some cases, teachers employed effective coping strategies that helped build resilience in SEND. Critical aspects of privacy and the lack of centralized online learning tools are discussed with relation to the vast and unregulated use of ICT. We conclude that three key aspects essential for good support are: providing specific teaching tools and caring human contact, having a supportive home environment, and having adequate ICT devices and a good internet connection. Our findings will inform teachers, caregivers, public administrators, stakeholders, and social services on support mechanisms for schooling during the lockdown.

Covid-19 Lockdown in Italy: Perspectives and Observations from Special Education Teachers of Changes in Teaching and the Student Experience

Michele Capurso &

Tara Devi Roy Boco

Field testing an Australian model of practice for teaching young school-age students on the autism spectrum

WendiBeamish^acAnnaliseTaylor^acLibbyMacdonald^aStephenHay^aMadonnaTucker^bcJessicaPaynter

Highlights

This study translated research-informed practices into a pedagogical model for mainstream teachers with limited autism-specific knowledge.•

As key stakeholders, participating early years teachers were actively engaged in the co-production of this practice model.•

Design-based research, with its multiple cycles of design-evaluate-redesign, was successfully employed throughout this educational study.•

Teachers reported that practice model can be used to support not only students on the autism spectrum but also those with diverse learning needs.

Background

Internationally, many mainstream teachers have identified that they lack the specialised knowledge and skills to adequately include and educate the increasing number of students on the autism spectrum in their classrooms.

Aims

We investigated the experiences and perceptions of Australian mainstream teachers who field-tested a validated Model of Practice designed to support their daily work with young school-aged students on the spectrum. This new online resource comprised 29 foundational research-informed practices, each accompanied by a 2-page practice brief.

Methods and procedures

A convergent parallel mixed-methods design used semi-structured interviews and surveys to gather data from a sample of teachers (n = 38) prior to and following an 8-week field-testing period. Differentiated levels of professional support to facilitate engagement with the model were provided, with teachers receiving either in-person support, online support, or no additional support.

Outcomes and results

A majority of teachers endorsed the practice model. Those who engaged with the model reported statistically significant increases in knowledge, confidence, and efficacy. Professional support facilitated teacher use of the model. No significant changes in practice use were found.

Conclusions and implications

This field-testing provides preliminary evidence of the applicability of the practice model in Australian early years classrooms. These findings have wider implications for the ways in which professional development can be targeted to promote research-informed teaching practice. What this paper adds This novel practice-based resource shows promise for building the capacity of mainstream teachers in educating young school-age students on the autism spectrum in the Australian context. Outcomes from this field testing confirm the usefulness of focusing on foundational teaching practices rather than single, stand-alone interventions. In addition, this research has highlighted the benefit of professional support in bridging the research-to-practice gap in autism education.

Quotes:

This perspective ‘challenges prominent paradigms in learning theory by conceptualising learning as practice and as occurring via and in practice’ (Schatzki [21], vi).Professional practice and the learning entwined is thus highly contextualised, responding to the ‘messiness’, unpredictability and complexity of everyday working.

TSBT framework – Links Learning is ‘irreducible to the sum of its parts, whilst drawing on specifiable and non-specifiable aspects only obtained through engagement in practice’ (Hager and Johnsson [12], 249)

Practices are not individual activities. They are complex embedded contextual interactions and have a purposeful outcome.

Dilemmas in continuing professional learning: learning inscribed in frameworks or elicited from practice. Authors:Reich, Ann¹ (AUTHOR) Ann.Reich@uts.edu.au
Rooney, Donna¹ (AUTHOR)
Boud, David¹ (AUTHOR)

These practices are prefigured and each instantiation keeps alive the possibility for reconfigurement (that is change).

collective knowing-in practice which was embodied and relational with a wide range of human actors 

 if appropriate work is selected, that gives rise to the learning desired, then that constitutes a programme of learning

Module 5 – The connection between learning and change is also apparent in the six prominent threads of practice in professional learning, you examined in Module 2. The first thread, knowing-in practice implies that professional knowledge is an ongoing and changing process. The second thread emphasises practice as sociomaterial networks that are in constant flux. The third thread, embodied suggests the changing ways bodies and material ‘things’ interact in practice. The fourth thread highlights the relationality of practice in which some of the relations are changing in the ‘choreography of practice’. The fifth thread stresses that practice evolves and changes in dynamic historical and social contexts of practice, and finally the sixth thread emphasises that practices emerge and change in ways that are not predictable in advance. 

Developing your argument.

1. Find the issues – argument builds to end with implications drawn from the study. So include a statement about the current approach to teaching children with autism and the online support for teachers during lockdown.  Ensure that the focus is clear to the reader.
2. See how the issue is explained – how are the issues addressed, establish an understanding of past practices (researchers’ literature review) and then add something new as a result of the practice observation (online tutorial/creating a platform/community for teachers’ professional learning/sharing.
3. Look for how the findings lead to implications by connecting them to the issues. What are the findings of the practice observation? INSIGHT: There were additional insights provided by the facilitator who was a teacher and Mother of an autistic child. IMPLICATIONS: The benefit of the ‘two hats’ allowed learners to gain first-hand insight into how to work effectively with parents of an autistic child. The recognition of behaviours at school and at home, and the different strategies to manage them was valuable. INSIGHT: There was a growth of online forums and platforms for learning during the covid-19 lockdowns. IMPLICATIONS: Was this forum inclusive of all learners i.e. were their visual aids, video, feedback channels? INSIGHT: The reach-out by professionals to create a community to share ideas, insights and support one another. IMPLICATIONS: An informal ‘place’ to meet and learn from an industry professional with personal experience about the subject-matter can be beneficial because it an extension of workplace learning.- Perhaps to create a genuine community of practice the opportunity for feedback, shared experiences and interactions could be facilitated more effectively using Zoom meetings, chat, polls, Q&A. How does this lead to the implications claimed? Adopting the TSBT framework helped define the different perspectives that the facilitator was bringing to the session. Her perspective as a teacher in the classroom (and online), with formal notes for referencing and her experience as a mother (at home and perhaps in the classroom when roles were reversed, and she was the parent at her son’s school). The unexpected aspect was the acknowledgement that personal contribution and perspective was equally valid to the learning. Using the TSBT framework uncovered the delineation between parent and teacher for the facilitator and for her audience. The practice demonstrated that learning can be formal and informal; from different actors’ perspectives – teacher and parent; in different settings – classroom, bedroom, online; with anecdotes describing things: tools, aids, pictures, photos, in a variety of settings/environments (outside, inside, art room, cooking room), at school during school time and at home with family; the teacher is the parent, and the parent is the teacher.
4. Focus on how the argument supporting the implications is built here, notice what data is used and explained, how it is brought into context and connected.   

QUOTE: This shifts the focus of understandings of CPL of engineers from attributes of the learner (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to the attributes of the practice (challenges, opportunities, interactions, etc.). It thus positions learning itself not as a technical matter of knowledge acquisition, but a complex act involving the social, the material and the cultural, all of which are necessarily implicated. (Reich et al, 2015, p 376)

Implications for learning/educational interventions in this setting (ie what might be done to improve practices or foster learning). How the ideas you come up with are different to the status quo, by linking your argument to the current thinking in the literature in relation to the practice or issues you have chosen to focus on. 

SUBJECT WRAP UP

– Understanding the 6 step process of observing professional practice and the required objective detail – Practice is not static or predictable – Not analysing in the first instance.

I found it challenging to put aside my analytical thinking as part of the observation process. The level of detail we had to go into for the observation.

For me personally the objectivity is the best takeaway that can be applied to my work environment.  Pause, observe, pause, take into account all aspects before analysing and making a judgement.

6/2/2022  Author: Paul Hager  Edited by: Margaret Malloch, Len Cairns, Karen Evans & Bridget N. O’Connor  Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning  Chapter Title: “Theories of Workplace Learning”  Pub. Date: 2011

Agree with:

The review of the theories of workplace learning was comprehensive and interesting. I feel like the paper reflected my experiences as a teacher and manager at TAFE.  I had concern as a business owner who practiced the discipline (Event Management) we were teaching curriculum that was not aligned with the practice.  It was outdated, lacked context and the teaching was stuck in the psychological approach as learning as a thing or entity and the commonly favoured metaphor of the past, acquisition and transfer, relying on a teacher imparting knowledge (thing) to a learner.  Without the experiential learning (participation) the understanding of a subject area such as Event Management would be stupefied and limited.  The product without context is limited and the research suggests that skilful practice of occupations is both holistic and significantly contextual (Hager, 2011).  I was fascinated by Argyris ad Shone, 1974 and 1978 identifying the issues with single-loop learning where the learner is encourage to reflect and amend or add to the previous learning, particularly when dealing with a challenging situation.  Schon’s later work on the ‘reflective practitioner’  was way a head of the curve as he acknowledged that practitioners should adopt spontaneous episodes of ‘noticing, seeing and feeling features in their actions to modify their practice accordingly.  He did focus on the rational and cognitive aspect of performance. The socio-material approach is influenced by both the findings in the psychological and the socio-cultural – without these there could not be  both learning that can be understood at the level of the individual, and  also some learning that is inherently at the level of the group or community of practitioners (Hager, 2011).

Curious about:

I was curious to see the progress of theories and how this reflected by own journey as a practitioner who innately felt the practices adopted at TAFE were limited and limiting for the practitioner (teacher), the students and the community. The socio cultural approach is probably the best approach for the TAFE course delivery however the Socio material approach could be adopted for the faculty teams.

Interested you:

I was interested to see early researchers such as Shon identified the importance of noticing, seeing and feeling features of their actions(Shone, 1987), and Shon and Argyris (1974, 1978) double loop learning (in which the learner reflectively amends or adds to previous learning in selecting a suitable course of action to deal with a challenging situation). Yet this practice was definitely not adopted when I first worked at TAFE in 2003.

Disagree with:

The exploration of a vast amount of published literature whilst fascinating and required – as part of research and due diligence – I am fiercely pragmatic and sometimes want less exploration and more definitive summaries of theories.  This is my deficit and my socio material journey or emergence!

What can I DO with these ideas?

These ideas do back up my instincts of the past 20 years as a TAFE trainer and a Manager. I would like to explore further an emergent theory such as Times, Spaces, Bodies, Things in real-life practice and see the impact on culture.

THEORIES:

The three theories and approaches to workplace learning:  Psychological – acquisition/transfer  Social Cultural – participation  Socio material – emergence/becoming  2. The history of workplace learning from ancient Greek apprenticeships, the development of the apprentice model during and post the industrial revolutions and the emergence of new theories such as TSBT. The theories of workplace learning and how some of the early researchers such as Schon, encouraged the reflective practitioner perspective but many teachers don’t do this that well.  3. How to apply an understanding of these theories to the assessment 3 task using the implications from the observation of practice and provides some examples of how researchers have drawn implications.  

I would like to see more examples of student/learner input and engagement – the theories are still very much practitioner-focused.  Whilst I can see genuine benefits in applying, for example, Hopwood’s TSBT framework in a TAFE setting I fear the capability of the practitioners may not be able to embrace the concepts fully.

I am slowly getting my very pragmatic brain more attuned to the importance of layered research and the journey this takes you on in the learning process.  I think it will give me licence to be more detail-oriented in future learning designs but only if the detail is relevant (non-trivial).