Rethinking reflective practice in professional lifelong learning using learning metaphors

Studies relating to reflection and reflective practice in learning, specifically workplace learning, have gradually emerged from within the professional education literature. Evidence has seen a shift from an individualistic to a more collective approach to reflection, in an attempt to move away from viewing learning as an individual action. Simultaneously attention has been given to socio-cultural theories which view learning as social practice inherent in our everyday lives, including work. This paper aims to engage in the current debate regarding the polarised conceptualisations of reflective practice within the context of professional learning. Drawing on this debate, as well as on learning metaphors, this paper proposes that professionals should engage in collective reflective practice for both individual and organisational development within workplaces; locations which could be seen as increasingly ambiguous and unpredictable throughout individuals’ working lives. Hence, we need to rehabilitate and extend some of the key aspects of the traditional concept of reflective practice to accommodate the changing terrain of professional practice within an individual professional's lifelong learning.     

A practice-based approach to student reflection in the workplace during a Work-Integrated Learning placement

In the Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) curriculum, reflection on workplace activities is widely used to support student learning. Recent critiques have demonstrated the limitations of current approaches to support students' reflective learning of workplace practices. By employing a practice-based approach, we seek to refocus WIL reflection on workplace practices, emphasising the ‘embedded (social), engaged (practice) and embodied (material) aspects' of students' reflective practices in the workplace. We argue that reflection-in-the-midst-of-action includes an often-overlooked phenomenological contribution that shifts attention from cognition to action. This study uses a case study of one typical WIL student to illustrate the importance of reflection-in-the-midst-of-action and the limitations of pedagogical structure using an e-log and reflective journal to capture reflection-in-the-midst-of-action. We argue that the move to consider reflection as a practice, and the move to refocus reflection to reflection-in-the-midst-of-action, supports a learning approach that is more congruent with workplace action and context.     

The Learning Potential of Boundary Crossing in the Context of Product Introduction

The aim is to explore challenges related to the integration between product development and production in product introduction and, given these challenges, to analyse the learning potential of boundary crossing in the context of product introduction. The paper draws on evidence from a Swedish manufacturing company. The theoretical framework is based on a boundary-crossing perspective, which in turn is framed by a workplace learning perspective. Data were collected through interviews with 19 employees from the product development department and 21 employees from the production plant, and 8 focus-group interviews. Within the company, there were many challenges related to product introduction, but the findings also show these challenges can provide learning opportunities by enabling the boundaries to be crossed between the product development department and the production plant. Several forms of intrapersonal or interpersonal boundary crossing were identified. Individuals acted as brokers, and prototypes, pre-series, DfA analysis and a crossfunctional team served as boundary objects and encounters. Nothing in our study indicates that the boundary crossing identified on the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels created learning potentials on the organisational level in the company. The conclusion is that it is necessary to consider the learning potential made available by boundary crossing in order to support learning, and thereby improve the integration between product development and production in product introduction. By seeing and using prototypes and pre-series production as learning opportunities you can create a better preparedness and provide collective access to knowledge required for successful product introduction.     

A sociocultural analysis of organisational learning

The concept of organisational learning has been widely debated and frequently contested by educationalists, but the specific processes and actions which constitute this form of learning have received relatively little research attention. This paper reports a three‐year empirical investigation into organisational learning in a large industrial complex, with the aim of clarifying the practices of organisational learning and interpreting them within sociocultural learning theory. A sociocultural model is proposed which identifies dialogue as the fundamental process by which organisations learn, and relational practices as the social structure which embeds the dialogue and makes it sustainable in a potentially conflictual environment. Three relational practices are analysed in detail: opening space for the creation of shared meaning, reconstituting power relationships and providing cultural tools to mediate learning. A pedagogy of organisational learning is defined in terms of participation in these practices, either as the carrier of a practice or as the facilitator of participation by others. The theoretical requirement that adult learning must be autonomous is reconciled with the concept of collective learning in pursuit of organisational goals by rejecting the notion of an individually‐contained self in favour of a relational concept of the self, in which autonomy is achieved by building relationships with others.     

Workplace learning as a spiritual practice

This paper reviews the literature on workplace and transformational learning to explore how spirituality can be accessed to encourage individual growth through the development of critical awareness while providing a sense of direction in the workplace as part of organisational learning. In communities and societies where organisations may have replaced religious institutions as centres for adult learning, the workplace continues to respond to the universal need for community and support. These elements are related to spiritual values. Still, leaders of organisations need to consider values that underlie typical workplace activities and recognise how collective engagement and workplace interactions direct personal development and ground identity. Providing opportunities to reflect on meaning and direction at work supports a transformative approach to learning and leadership that promotes cooperative working conditions, conscious behaviour and informed citizenship through encouraging attitudes of critical awareness, praxis and collective engagement in workplace interaction.     

Improving the work climate in a TVET college through changing conversations

Abstract

As an HRD manager in a college, I am responsible for employee wellness within the organisation. However the culture of the college in which I work is toxic, characterised by bullying, destructive leadership, gossip and victimisation. Such a culture is difficult to change and requires a different approach to the expert-led, training interventions that are underpinned by diagnostic organisational development. In this article, I provide evidence that supports my claim that a participatory action research approach, embedded within a dialogic organisational development paradigm, succeeded in improving the work climate as it enabled individuals to identify the factors which contributed to the toxic environment and take action to improve it. The participatory methods employed allowed the x participating college mangers to deal with their own feelings, and enabled them to describe and evaluate the workplace climate as toxic. Armed with a discourse to discuss the problem, they were able to move from helplessness and self-blame to acceptance of responsibility for change. Viewing the problem as a systemic issue enabled them to understand how to modify their practice to embody life-enhancing values that diminished the toxic patterns of communication. By changing conversations, negativity was diminished and negative interactions were replaced by more positive workplace relations. The process described in this account of my learning may be useful to improve the climate in other similarly toxic workplaces.     

Workplace Learning in Dual Higher Professional Education

Workplace learning is considered an effective strategy for the development of vocation, career and professional identity. Dual training programs, in which learning at a vocational school and learning at work in a company are combined, are seen as strong carriers for skill formation processes. In this study we explore workplace learning in dual training programs in Dutch higher professional education. To gain an understanding of these learning environments and processes, a qualitative multiple case study was conducted in seven sectors. The findings show substantial differences in learning environments between and within sectors. However, cooperation between school and practice is minimal in all of the cases. Although students develop personal and job-related competencies that are useful for daily work routines, they acquire hardly any profound theoretical knowledge at the workplace. School fails to direct workplace learning. Given the considerable share of workplace learning in dual training programs, and the demands to higher professional education graduates in terms of being able to solve complex problems and develop new knowledge during their career as reflective practitioners, it is important that these shortcomings are resolved. More promising alternatives for workplace learning environments and questions for further research to improve workplace learning in higher professional education are discussed.     

Seeing and hearing: examining production workers' literacy and numeracy practices in a context of crisis

A policy consensus has emerged in Australia that there is a workforce literacy and numeracy crisis, similar to many other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. The study informing this paper examined this framing of crisis by interviewing and observing production workers in three manufacturing companies. Each company was implementing new lean production methods, known as ‘competitive systems and practices', based on a visual workplace management system. In this paper, we look at what is visible and invisible in production workers' literacy and numeracy practices at Hearing Solutions, one of the companies in the study. We begin by considering the overarching policy discourse around workers' literacy and numeracy before exploring the underpinning rationale of the new expression of lean manufacturing, in particular, its implementation through the Visual Workplace Management System. Detailing an example of the literacies used in producing hearing aid shells, we discuss the under-valuing by workers and managers of the skills being used; and the hidden process of industrial relations, reward and remuneration. Using an ethnographic and social practices approach, what emerges is a better understanding of the complex range of vocational knowledge and social skills being used that go unrecognised by policy makers, lobbyists and managers, and even by the workers themselves.     

Systemic action and learning in public services

Complex, systemic issues continue to challenge public services without respect for organisational and professional boundaries. In practice, collaborative working with others who have differing professional cultural norms and systems confront members with the need to learn about each other's values, priorities and practices. This paper explores the potential of action learning for the development of systemic leadership capabilities within public services. Starting from core principles it is argued that action learning be seen not simply as a small group process for problem-solving or individual development, but as a collective process for inquiring into and taking action on projects and practices within their complex, multi-agent contexts.     

Transformations at work: identity and learning

This paper examines how identity and learning are constituted and transformed at work. Its central concern is how individuals engage agentically in and learn through workplace practices, and in ways that transform work. Drawing upon recent research into work and participation in workplaces, the negotiated and contested relationship between workplace practices and individuals' identity and intentionality, and learning is illuminated and discussed. For instance, aged care workers and coal miners acquire work injuries that are almost emblematic of their work identity. Only particularly dramatic events (i.e. serious illness or workplace accidents) wholly transform their identity and views about work practice—their subjectivities. However, it is through the agentic actions of these individuals that workplace practices can be transformed. Yet individuals' agentic action is not necessarily directed to the abstracted and de‐contextualized economic and civic goals privileged in lifelong learning policies. Instead, there is relational interdependency between the individual and work that can act to sustain or transform both self and their work. Individuals' agentic action is exercised within these relations in ways directed by their subjectivities. So these relations and that agentic action have policy and practice implications for the conduct of work and learning through and for work.     

Reflections on working with critical action learning

Critical action learning engages participants in a process of drawing from critical perspectives to make connections between their learning and work experiences, to understand and change interpersonal and organisational practices. But what does this mean in practice? How can critical action learning be expedited? What outcomes can critical action learning have for participants, and can the hopes for critical action learning be fulfilled? The intentions of this paper are to contribute reflections of our empirical experience on working with critical action learning in management development.     

Action learning in East Africa: new encounters or impossible challenges?

Action learning is extending its reach internationally and is increasingly used in distinct cultural settings. This paper explores action learning in an African context and examines how action learning as a cultural product is biased towards Western values and practices. We draw attention to the political, cultural and social encounters of internationalizing action learning which are often glossed over in current debates. The paper illuminates the historical development of pedagogical practices in Africa to elucidate how the social, political, cultural and economic processes have influenced and informed learning in African societies. Second, we review action learning and question its relevance and transferability in non-Western contexts. Finally, we will reflect on the potential of action learning in Africa, and its implications for future research and practice.     

Gender,work and workplace learning

In this paper, I mill argue that contemporary debates about learning in the workplace fail to pay adequate attention to issues of gender and power in organisations. With reference to the feminist literature on the sociology of organisations, I will review some of the central ideas of the work of a few prominent adult educators on the topic of workplace learning. In this process, I will endeavour to highlight the uncritical way in which the discourse over workplace learning has developed within adult education circles. The relative absence of critical perspectives, and the embracing of dominant management thinking about organisational change, mean that this literature in fact fails to provide adult educators in organisations with an adequate framework for analysing and understanding the complex dynamics of their work, and threatens to further entrench structures and practices which discriminate against women.     

Developing cultural humility through experiential learning: How home visits transform early childhood preservice educators’ attitudes for engaging families

Research calls for teacher education to prepare early childhood educators for the needs of diverse and marginalized young children and their families in the U.S. With an increasing cultural divide between teachers and students, some early childhood educators may demonstrate limited understanding for how diverse cultural, linguistic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds inform the daily functions of families of young children. In this article, we examine how the use of experiential learning vis-à-vis conducting a home visit with a family from a diverse and marginalized background can shape early childhood preservice teachers’ (PST) development of cultural humility, an important component of cultural competence. During this experiential learning, PSTs engaged in critically reflective practices to uncover and challenge their implicit biases. While discovering the strengths and challenges among their home visit families, PSTs also learned what they had in common with the families. PSTs noted how the home visit process informed their work as future early childhood educators.     

The impact of action learning: what difference are we making in the world?

Involvement in a number of action-learning programmes and associated development opportunities has led the Professional Development Centre Limited to question the relevance of a strict adherence to the ‘rules’ of action learning as described by Reg Revans. A deliberate focus of one such programme to a financial services organisation offered some insights into the challenges of introducing action learning into the field. Pressures on organisations of time and business expedients might make them believe that action learning is too slow a technique to offer real rewards. However, elements of the action-learning story do resonate in the workplace, key concepts that appear to ‘stick’ are listening, questioning and equality. The utilisation of these skills enhances leadership and organisational development and can still provide a useful set of actions to aim for. This is especially true in problem solving and the way in which respect and equality can re-create a different environment or development space.     

Error Orientation and Reflection at Work

Reflection on events at work, including errors is often as a means to learn effectively through work. In a cross-sectional field study in the banking sector, we investigated attitudes towards workplace errors (i.e. error orientation) as predictors of reflective activity. We assumed the organisational climate for psychological safety to have a mediating effect. The study participants were 84 client advisors from the retail banking departments in branches of a German bank. The client advisors’ were being affected by a range of changes in their workplaces at the time of the data collection. This situation afforded these workers opportunity for learning but also involved the risk of error by these staff. Regression analyses identified that error competence and learning from errors were significant predictors of reflection. The results confirmed the mediating role of psychological safety on the association between attitudes towards errors and reflective working behaviour.     

The culture of learning from mistakes: How employees handle mistakes in everyday work

Workplace learning circumscribes processes leading to the development of competencies and skills through daily work. It is of increasing importance for many modern enterprises, which consider themselves as being learning organisations, to make use of the potential of their employees in order to be competitive within global markets. Dealing with mistakes is a particular strategic source of workplace learning for such organisations, because contemporary work often is so complex that mistakes cannot be avoided. A workplace culture of learning from mistakes stands to maximise them as effective learning experiences. Two empirical studies were conducted in order to investigate conditions of learning from mistakes in everyday work in modern enterprises. Study 1 assessed the role of individual mistake orientation using a questionnaire. Through the comparison of 52 managers and 108 working staff members the variability of learning from mistakes was investigated. Study 2 assessed how communities of practice deal with mistakes and what is done to prevent them occurring in future. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 subjects, 14 managers and 14 working staff members. Study 1 revealed a greater appraisal of mistakes as opportunities for learning by managers, but no differences in related strategies and emotions. Study 2 revealed that mistakes are constructively dealt with, and that they are appraised as learning opportunities. Both studies indicate the presence of a culture of learning from mistakes in everyday work. Conclusions are drawn about organisational and personal prerequisites for this kind of workplace learning.     

Developing vocational practice in the jewellery sector through the incubation of a new “project-object”

This paper analyses a work placement scheme established to create the conditions to: (i) incubate new designs in the jewellery sector in Birmingham; (ii) support a jewellery company compete more effectively in the global market; (iii) assist a newly qualified graduate jeweller to enter the jewellery sector. It introduces a new theoretical framework based on concepts from: Cultural–Historical Activity Theory—‘project-object’; Workplace Learning—‘vocational practice’; Philosophy of Mind—‘space of reasons’; to analyse individual and organisational contributions to workplace learning in this scheme. It identifies the strategies and tactics used by: (i) the organisations involved with the scheme to facilitate the incubation of the new designs, and (ii) an aspiring jewellery designer to create a new product range. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this conceptual framework for debates in workplace learning about: (i) the ‘front-loaded’ versus ‘practice-based’ conceptions of vocational education and (ii) the role of epistemic objects and practices in the development of vocational practice.     

Why is Marketing Education a Must for Engineers? A Manager's Viewpoint

Engineers are familiar with various techniques of design, manufacturing, production, distribution, etc. Education is primarily oriented towards learning product development and towards industrial processes. How can industry better achieve its goals? If engineers apply modern marketing techniques in their respective work environment, it can be foreseen that success will affect their organisations and their personal life! The marketing essentials are summarised with respect to a small company, that relies on R & D, production and servicing.