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The Balance between Communities and Personal Agency: Transferring and integrating knowledge and know-how between different communities and contexts Professor Michael Eraut, University of Sussex. Overview. Slides 3-8: What counts as Knowledge Slides 9-11: Three Placement examples
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The Balance between Communities and Personal Agency:Transferring and integrating knowledge and know-how between different communities and contextsProfessor Michael Eraut, University of Sussex
Overview Slides 3-8: What counts as Knowledge Slides 9-11: Three Placement examples Slides 12 -20: A Surrey questionnaire Slides 21 -24: Tools from Early Career Learning Research Slides 25-27: Lifelong Learning Trajectories Slide 28: Conclusion
Individual and Social Perspectives An individual perspective on knowledge and learning enables us to explore: what people know what people can do what and how they learn variations in how different people interpret and use what they learn. A social perspective draws attention to: the social nature of most contexts for learning the social origins of knowledge that is shared, passed on or developed by groups, networks or communities the wide range of cultural practices and products that provide knowledge resources for learning.
Types of Knowledge Codified scientific knowledge inthe form of scholarly publications, documentation and records, is judged by its source, truth claims and acceptability to appointed gate-keepers. Other cultural knowledge is constructed and shared among communities and groups without undergoing codification. Situated learning occurs when codified and cultural knowledge are shaped, both socially and individually, by: Its context(s) of acquisition Its context(s) of use Ongoing discussion and debate
Types of Personal Knowledge Personal knowledge is defined as what a person brings into new situations that enables then to think and act in those situations. It includes: Codified knowledge ready for use Knowledge acquired through acculturation Episodes, impressions and images Knowledge constructed from experience, social interaction and reflection Skills developed through practice with feedback Self-knowledge, attitudes, values and emotions
The Holistic Nature of Performance The evidence of personal knowledge comes mainly from observations of performance, This implies aholistic rather than fragmented approach to knowledge; because, unless one stops to deliberate, the knowledge one uses is already available in an integrated form and ready for action. The challengefor professional learning is finding the balance between (1) developing separate aspects of a performance or (2) focusing on simple holistic cases and then increasing their difficulty.
Transfer of Knowledge between Contexts The extraction of potentially relevant knowledge from the context(s) of its acquisition and previous use; Understanding the new situation, a process that often depends on informal social learning; Recognising what knowledge and skills are relevant; Transforming them to fit the new situation; Integrating them with other knowledge and skills in order to think / act / communicate in the new situation.
Problems with Transfer The forward-reachingapproachto transfer anticipates that certain kinds of knowledge will be useful in the future, and is most likely to occur in education and training contexts Nearly all the taught components of professional and vocational education are intended for future use at work; but the amount of new learning is underestimated (iceberg metaphor) Backward-reaching transfer is required when one faces a new situation and deliberately searches for relevant knowledge already acquired Committing time to searching for previously taught knowledge is rare unless someone has a memory trace that they can follow up quickly
Student A: Mathematics and Management Quality Control in Drug Trials All in same office Start as second checker Encouraged to modify each other’s programmes Started own project from New Year to conclusion
Student B: Chemical Engineering Four placements Variable quality Reliance on friend from university during first two projects More like management work in first three projects Fourth placement was in Systems Engineering
Student C: Tonmeister Work in Recording Studio with Bands Practical musician and sound recorder Developed relationships with two very different engineers and several very different bands Developed close work with bands from routine back-up to major contributions to sound Sometimes the only support person on site
Frequency and perceived Importance of Work Activities (4 point scale) In most activities the importance was higher than the frequency; and 12 of the activities had a highest department important score of 100%. The widest gaps were from Evaluation of situations (58 frequency v 89 importance), Presentations/performances (42 frequency v 81 importance), and Management of people (22 frequency v 71 importance).
Early Career Learning Project 1: Work processes with learning as a by-product Participation in group processes Working alongside others Consultation Tackling challenging tasks and roles Problem solving Trying things out Consolidating, extending and refining skills Working with clients
Early Career Learning Project 2: Learning Activitieslocated within working or learning processes Asking questions Getting information Locating resource people Listening and observing Reflecting Learning from mistakes Giving and receiving feedback Use of mediating artefacts
Factors affecting learning in the workplace # 1 Challenge and value of the work Feedback and support Learning Factors Confidence and commitment Personal agency and motivation
Factors affecting learning in the workplace # 2 Encounters and relationships with people at work Allocation and structuring of work Context Factors Individual participation and expectations of their performance and progress
Lifelong and Life-wide Learning Trajectories To improve the representation of Personal Knowledge To incorporate the principles and practices of Lifelong Learning To recognize that current capabilities cannot be matched to qualifications To take into account changes in context, variations in practices and changes in practices To include both formal and informal learning To ease the unreasonable burden placed on criterion-based assessment
Main Headings from our Typology of Learning Trajectories Task performance Role performance Awareness and understanding Personal development Teamwork Academic knowledge and skills Decision making and Problem solving Judgement
The implication of using entries based on complete episodes of practice is that: The data displayed in each entry represents a whole performance, involving not only the relevant trajectories but also the ways in which they interacted Each trajectory contains a sequence of entries which show how its particular track has progressed over time It enables future learning to address both further development along trajectories and whether the right trajectories were chosen and combined in the most appropriate way. Within this overall framework it is still possible, indeed desirable, for different types of representation to be used for different trajectories and at different career stages.
Conclusion The five presented tracks of evidence bring a wide range of evidence and use a wide range of concepts and ideas There are huge variations in the quality of paid work and unpaid placements, which are described differently across organisations and disciplines Before trying to tidy up all these apparent contexts, we need to address the issue of how learners themselves want to discuss and evaluate their own experiences at various stages in their lives The key note for this conference is the wider recognition of learning activities, and the dangers of seeking limited discourses to ‘solve’ rather than ‘enhance’ the complexity of life-wide learning
