Talking up learning at work : cautionary tales in co‐opting everyday learning

Learning in workplaces is always mediated through talk. It is tempting for management to seek to utilise everyday talk as part of learning and therefore enhance productivity. This paper examines the responses of workers to interventions that aim to formalise informal conversations at work as part of an explicit workplace learning strategy. It draws on interviews with managers and workers in a public sector organisation to examine their experience of these practices. The paper raises questions about whether interventions in the name of fostering informal learning may well be hindering what they seek to promote.

Learning from others at work: communities of practice and informal learning

This paper addresses the question of who is involved in learning in workplaces and the ways in which members of workgroups learn as part of their normal work. It draws on qualitative data from a study of multiple worksites with differentiated work within a large organisation. It examines the value of the notion of communities of practice in conceptualising such workplace learning and suggests that other forms of conceptualisation are also needed.

Towards an emergent view of learning work

The purpose of this paper is to challenge models of workplace learning that seek to isolate or manipulate a limited set of features to increase the probability of learning. Such models typically attribute learning (or its absence) to individual engagement, manager expectations or organizational affordances and are therefore at least implicitly causative. In contrast, we discuss the contributions of complexity theory principles such as emergence and novelty that suggest that learning work is more a creative and opportunistic process that emerges from contextualized interactional understandings among actors. Using qualitative case study methods, we discuss the experiences of workers in two organizations asked to ‘act up’ in their managers’ role to ensure work continuity. We believe the differences in how workers take up these opportunities result from a complex combination of situational factors that generate invitational patterns signalled from and by various understandings and interactions among actors doing collective work. Rather than a deficit view of learning that needs fixing, an emergent model of learning work suggests that learning develops as a collective generative endeavour from changing patterns of interactional understandings with others. This re‐positioning recognizes that although invitational qualities cannot be deterministically predicted, paying attention to the patterns of cues and signals created from actors interacting together can condition ways of understandings to expand what is possible when work practices also become learning practices.

Industry-based learning

Research from the fields of adult learning, workplace education, professional development, organisational learning and co-operative education are drawn on to identify elements that should be considered in the design, implementation, management and sustained improvement of co-op programs. Each work placement is unique meld of stakeholders, the job and the organisational context. Key factors that promote learning in the workplace include the engagement of the work place supervisor in the student's professional development; the learning environment within the organisation; and the student's own motivation, abilities and learning orientation: It is proposed that information systems delivering co-op programs need to manage: (a) the development and performance of industry partnerships, (b) the relationships between key stakeholders; and (c) the professional skills development and learning. © 2009 Springer-Verlag US.

Problems experienced by students on field placement: using research findings to inform curriculum design and content

Recent recognition of workplace learning from within the University sector has resulted in more emphasis being placed on including field experiences in course curriculum across a range of disciplines. This article begins with a short review of the literature relating to the current context in which work-based learning occurs. Next, selected findings from a survey of 39 Victorian social work students on their experiences of placement learning are reported. The survey focused on problems encountered by students on placement. A number of the problems students faced suggested the need for additional opportunities both before and during the placements to engage with material on safety in the field, and ways to deal with workplace stress and conflict. In response to these issues the article summarises some pedagogical strategies that may be used to enhance student learning in these areas both leading up to and during their field placements. In addition to matters relating to safety and stress, financial pressures were evident for students endeavouring to complete field placements. The recent moves from universities to embrace industry based learning, clearly has implications for funding support made available to students undertaking this type of education.

A knowledge management approach to user support

This paper considers the problem of computer user support and workplace learning in general. Theoretically our work is influenced by ideas on knowledge management, expertise networks and communities of practice. Our approach seeks to tap into the powerful and situated learning potential of the collaborative support provided by colleagues. We consider that such support could be enhanced through the use of a collaborative support system. We outline our investigations into design issues, a generic model and various experiments related to the development of such a system. In particular, we emphasise the value of recorded demonstrations for representing computer-related practice. We present a number of design conclusions derived from our experiences, and warn that whereas active user participation is the essential ingredient in a support system it is perhaps the most difficult thing to achieve.

Preparing for flexible delivery in industry : learners and their workplaces

This thesis examines the learning preferences and learning strategies of apprentices, and the contexts within which they learn in their workplaces. Since the end of the 1980s Australian vocational education and training (VET) structures and processes have undergone radical change in attempts to develop skills in the workforce that will ensure enterprise, national, and international competitiveness. A major strategy in the national reforms has been the encouragement of flexible delivery as a means through which workplace-based learning can be accessed by a larger number of workers in ways that are cost-efficient, and that reduce the amount of time that workers spend away from their jobs. Although flexible delivery has been championed by governments and industry alike, there has been little attempt to identify the preparedness of either learners or their workplaces for the demands of flexible learning. The thesis examines the economic context for these changes to VET, and also examines the literature available on workplace learning. Additionally, the thesis examines the conceptualisations of flexible delivery that are available in the literature, pointing to the possibility that the wide range of meanings associated with the term ‘flexible delivery’ may result in quite different practices and expectations. The thesis also examines the literature on independent learning and self-directed learning, and explores the concept of ‘client-focused’ flexible delivery. The study of learner preferences uses data collected from apprentices over a period of some years, in the four occupational areas commanding the highest number of apprentices in Australia. These occupational areas are Metals and Machining, Building, Electrical, and Hairdressing. These data on learning preferences are collected using the commercially available Canfield Learning Styles Inventory (CLSI). The data from the sample of 389 apprentices are analysed statistically through analyses of variance, and indicate that variables such as age, gender, and occupational area are related to learning preferences. Apprentices are shown by this analysis to prefer structured programs of instruction that are instructor-led, and to not have a high preference for independent learning or the development of their own learning goals. Additionally, they are shown to have very low preferences for learning through reading, preferring instead to learn through direct hands-on experience. While these characteristics are largely common among the four occupational groups, the Hairdressing apprentices are shown to have a slightly higher preference for independent learning and goal setting. Females are shown to have a higher preference than males for learning qualitative material through reading. Interestingly, the younger apprentices are shown to have a higher preference than the older ones for self-directed learning. Some possibilities for that finding are discussed. The research also shows that the learning preferences displayed by different groups of apprentices in any one program are much the same over time, providing some confidence that data generated from one group of apprentices can be used to make instructional decisions for future groups in the same program. The data are also factor analysed to indicate three major factors underlying apprentice learning preferences. The first factor indicates a Verbal–Non-verbal preference factor, with apprentices clearly preferring to learn through non-verbal means. A second factor is described as Structure–Content, with apprentices showing a preference for learning from structured programs in a structured environment. A third factor, Self-directed–Social preference, indicates apprentices preferring to learn through socially mediated presentations and contexts rather than through more independent forms of learning. Qualitative data are also generated through interviewing eight apprentices, and focusing on the learning strategies they employ while constructing knowledge in the workplace. That component of the research uses a modification of the Marland, Patching and Putt (1992a, 1992b) stimulated recall technique, and a set of learning strategies derived from the work of O’Malley and Chamot (1990) and Billett (1996a). The eight apprentices are drawn from the Metals and Machining, Electrical, and Hairdressing trades. The findings indicate that the learning strategies most often used by apprentices in the workplace are those associated with the construction of knowledge that is structured and provided by the instructor or learning program, and those that include social mediation of learning. Additionally, the strategies associated with demonstration and hands-on practice are most favoured. The qualitative data are confirmatory of the quantitative data. The research also indicates, through the apprentice interviews, that support for apprentice’s learning in their workplace is typically unplanned and haphazard. Their experience was sometimes characterised by a reluctance on the part of the workplace to acknowledge learning needs such as trialling and practice of new knowledge, or pro-actively seeking understanding from other more skilled workers. The learning preferences and learning strategies findings for apprentices, coupled with the findings of typically poor or unplanned support in the workplace, indicate that effective flexible delivery of training to apprentices in the workplace provides a number of challenges. These challenges, it is argued, demand strategies to be developed and implemented to prepare both learners and workplaces for effective engagement with flexible delivery. Using as a theoretical framework Kember’s (1995) two-dimensional model of open learning for adults, the thesis integrates the findings into a proposed two-dimensional model of learner and workplace preparedness for flexible delivery. The model provides for a Learner Development Space, a Workplace Development Space, and a Strategy Space. Within the Learner Development Space, focuses for the development of learner preparedness are identified in terms of self-directed learning, skills developments, and effective participation in a community of practice. Focuses for workplace development identified in the Workplace Development Space are those associated with development of training policies, training structures, and trainer skills and abilities. The Strategy Space then provides detail of seventy-nine specific strategies developed to enhance learner and workplace preparedness within each of the focuses identified.

'I don’t think I am a learner': acts of naming learners at work

The terms “learning” and “learner” are used in discussions of workplace learning as if they were unproblematic and as if workers, organisations and researchers had a common, shared view about what these terms mean. A study of four different workgroups within an organisation in which the discourse of learning was pervasive suggests that having an identity as a learner may not be compatible with being regarded as a competent worker. The politics of naming oneself as a learner are considered and the power of naming learning and learners are discussed. The broader implications for research on workplace learning of such a discursive approach are noted.

Understanding the nature of school partnerships with business in delivery of vocational programmes in schools in Australia

This article seeks to provide a school perspective on the nature and quality of the partnerships which schools form with businesses in order to deliver work placements and workplace learning in Australia. It found that the ability of schools to engage with external partners depended on the ability of school leaders to define and communicate the role of VET within the school and its broader community. This dependence on individuals and leadership is vulnerable to changes in key personnel and the informality of some of the processes and relationships can lead to problems in monitoring, evaluating and replicating programmes. Our study shows that a balance is required between carefully documented processes and the flexibility required to operate programmes successfully. The study also noted the tension between the perceived needs of the school and those of industry. A successful partnership necessarily requires school flexibility – in the decisions as to what programmes should be offered and how work placements and timetabling should be organised.

E-training or e-learning : towards a synthesis for the knowledge-era workplace

Many E-training environments and processes are based on participatory learning models in which participants share their understandings and aim to develop new insights into their workplace knowledge through discussion, questioning. mentoring and personal reflection. Knowledge production is assumed to occur through the cumulative elfect of these actions. However, equally likely outcomes include the sharing of ignorance or the development of erreneous understandings. Cognitive and social views of learning posit, however, that humans learn by thinking (not just hy interacting), and that unless this is explicitly taken into account in developing training programs. optimal leaming outcomes may not be achieved. This paper examines the importance of incorporating cognitive and social-Ieaming perspectives in E-training environments in order to maximise the potential for optimal leaming to occur. and provides suggestions for a synthesis of participatory and cognitive models.

Adult learners in the workplace: online learning and communities of practice

Seven in-employment postgraduate Master's level students in an e-learning unit participated in this research, designed to identify tensions between participation in a community of learning that was part of their studies, and participation in the communities of practice that they were engaged in at their workplaces. It was hypothesised that participation in both these forms of community in their different contexts may enhance each other, or could potentially have a disrupting effect on each. The research employed an interviewing technique. The students' perceptions of the impact of participation in the one form of community on their participation in the other was mixed, with some suggesting that it was enhancing, and others suggesting the contrary, or that there was no impact. The findings indicate that the enhancing effect of participation in communities of learning relevant to a learner's workplace community of practice occur when the learning tasks are designed to enable negotiation of tasks and collaboration with learners who have similar workplace issues.

Australian women learning information technology skills in the workplace

This thesis investigated gender, learning and equity within the context of women learning IT skills in Australian workplaces. The research identified women's training needs and responses when attending IT classes and found that many women in the workplace grapple with issues of social conditioning predicated on common perceptions of IT being aligned with a masculine culture.