Search Results for
"learning"

Recent policy developments within the public service sector have led to widespread de-professionalisation and a general loss of motivation and morale within education, health and social work. This state of affairs has been brought about by the imposition of a social market on public sector professions and through the introduction of competence-based education and training (CBET) strategies into professional studies. These developments are criticised for their failure to capture the essential epistemological and moral dimensions of the work of professionals, and programmes for professional regeneration are recommended through the renewed emphasis on the workplace as the site of professional learning. Work-based learning may enable professionals to re-affirm the importance of experiential learning and reinforce the centrality of the ethical bases of professional practice.

The disconnection between many inner-city youths and employment is symptomatic of a more fundamental disconnection between the nation's education system and its employment system. Educational reformers have begun to promote schools that use the workplace as a learning context. The next challenge is to envision workplaces that are contextualized by schools.

This article provides a rationale for exploring ways in which science educators can structure learning activities that more accurately reflect the scientific inquiry processes used by practicing research scientists. Science learning activities based on the experiential model are better able to promote student construction of scientific knowledge and provoke students into making the transition from naive to higher-order, scientific ways of thinking. The conclusion is drawn that experiential education strategies will strengthen school science performance, particularly among students from underrepresented groups, and create an increased pool of scientific and technical workers.

There is currently a widening interest in learning in the type of situation where the learnt knowledge is to be deployed - situated learning. However, the understanding of this approach to learning and its outcomes remains incomplete. It remains unclear how situations influence the co-construction of knowledge. This paper seeks to commence addressing this question through an analysis of the nature and possible cognitive consequences of situated learning. To engage in this analysis it is necessary to offer an initial reconciliation of aspects of cognitive and socio-cultural theorising. This reconciliation provides a basis to advance an account of how situations influence the co-construction of knowledge. It is held that individuals' participation-in-goal-directed activities is integral to a mutually transforming process of learning. Moreover, the situation and circumstances constitute a basis for understanding these activities and therefore cognition. Areas of compatibility between the two perspectives are first identified followed by a view of how social circumstances influence the reciprocal construction of knowledge using a review of the literature. Finally, an account of the likely cognitive consequences of situated learning and their sources is advanced. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Second-year pharmacy students were divided into two cohorts, one of which participated in structured work-based learning (WBL) activities in a summer vacation training programme (VTP) in a community pharmacy work placement. Assessment methods were developed to measure quantitatively any change in knowledge and knowledge-based transferable skills. Results from the assessments showed that participation in structured WBL activities increased the students' knowledge and knowledge-based transferable skills.

The Modern Apprenticeship programme in the United Kingdom has been broadly welcomed by employers, training providers, and commentators on the vocational education and training scene. A shift in policy focus has been detected from an emphasis on 'outcomes' (qualifications), which has come to dominate post-16 provision, towards a rediscovery of 'process'. One reason for this is that, at least at the level of policy, the Modern Apprenticeship can be linked to the challenges posed by a post-Fordist analysis of the relationship between the economy, work and skills. The paper identifies some of the features of Modern Apprenticeship and discusses three learning-related issues which emerged during development work for one sector's Modern Apprenticeship. It is argued that effective management and delivery of the learning process can be achieved through closer partnerships between employers and training providers. Relying on the measurement of outcomes alone, is likely to prove an inadequate approach to ensuring the quality of learning experiences on- and off-the-job. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The move towards courses of professional education being based in the workplace rather than in academic institutions raises a number of concerns relating to the relationship between the validating institution and the workplace organisation. This article identifies some of these concerns. In particular the role of the workplace (or work base) mentor is analysed in the light of empirical evidence of how this role can best be fulfilled in the context of the initial training of teachers and youth workers. Limitations of work-based training are described and a case is argued for the continuing role of academic coursework to provide a necessary conceptual framework for developing both skills and professionalism in the work base. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Analyses the development of vocational knowledge through two contrasting approaches which are referred to as the “instructional media” and everyday practice. The former is the text–based approach currently favoured by government and the latter is an approach to learning through participation in everyday activities. Using data from a study conducted in the workplace, appraises the processes and outcomes of these two approaches to learning. Indicates that everyday practice offers the greatest likelihood of securing vocational knowledge. Concludes that access to, and ongoing engagement with, authentic learning activities are significant attributes to this approach to the acquisition of vocational knowledge. © 1996, MCB UP Limited

This paper conceptualises value positions in education in terms of cognitive dispositions derived from critical theory and cognitive structures derived from cognitive science. Categorisations of value positions in general, adult and vocational education are analysed for commonalities and differences and it is argued that these categorisations need to be understood in terms of both cognitive dispositions and cognitive structures. This argument is synthesised from the inadequacies of existing taxonomies of curricular orientations where they tend to confine the treatment of cognitive structures to a single category of value positions, even though all categories either explicitly or implicitly rely on attaching importance to various cognitive structures. The conceptualisation of values in terms of both cognitive dispositions and cognitive structures is applied to various vocational educational goals, including contemporary governmental goals. The utility of this framework in examining such goals is discussed. © 1995, © 1995 Australian Council for Educational Research.

Political insistence on implementing higher level National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and General Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) currently dominates the ideological high ground for professional development for the post‐compulsory sector. There is a widespread and mistaken belief that GNVQs might redress NVQs’ shortcomings by adding ‘underpinning knowledge’ and offering a broader view of a vocational area. There is evidence that NVQs are adapting to criticism; at higher levels, they appear to be appropriating many features that underpin existing approaches to professional development. This article argues that this apparent reforming of NVQs obscures how the underlying values and educational purposes of professional learning are being completely redefined as both NVQs and GNVQs strengthen their powerful ideological and technical hold over the education and training system. Externally defined and restrictive mechanisms for learning and assessment will eventually dominate teachers’ and learners’ views about the content, scope and purposes of education and training. Yet in posing alternatives, there are important flaws in existing models which weaken our critiques of competence‐based qualifications. In responses to these difficulties, there is a need to combine a rich body of recent research into professional development, pedagogic practice and education policy making, with a concerted debate about ideology and educational values. This would resist the current tendency for research and critique to focus on the technicalities of implementing NVQs and GNVQs. It would also effect a resurrection in research of what Grace (1994) has called ‘policy scholarship’ as part of an attempt to evolve a better system for continuing professional development in the post‐16 sector than the one we already have, or the impoverished competence‐based version currently on offer. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.