The role of apprenticeship in the cultivation of soft skills and dispositions

As a learning model, apprenticeship is well known for its capacity to develop skills and vocational identities. It is also increasingly appealing for its potential to develop soft skills and enhance dispositions. This article focuses on the nature and role of apprenticeship and employers in developing dispositions and soft skills. It draws on a two-year New Zealand study of 41 apprentices in general practice medicine, carpentry, and engineering technician work, and their workplace mentors and teachers. The study theorised that apprentices’ most significant learning is personally as well as professionally challenging, and can be understood in terms of ‘vocational thresholds’ – portals to deeper capability in the field. This article argues that crossing vocational thresholds requires ongoing development of dispositions and soft skills, critically supported by workplace mentors and teachers. The article suggests that the situated nature of apprenticeship uniquely positions it to foster dispositions and soft skills, and that these are field-specific and learnable, rather than general, abstract and fixed.     

Learning Through Apprenticeship: Belonging to a Workplace, Becoming and Being

The transition from school to work, in the form of a trade-based apprenticeship, is one with a long history. Recent socio-historical changes include increased use of technology, the changing nature of work and shifting patters in the employment market are influencing both the apprenticeship journey and its destination. In this article, the contemporary apprenticeship experience is described and explored using the metaphoric phases consisting of belonging to a workplace, becoming a baker and eventually being a baker. These phases are derived from a longitudinal case study of 13 baking apprentices as they entered bakery work mainly by happenstance and began to belong to the workplace; became bakers through various processes of skill acquisition, knowledge consolidation, dispositional transformation and occupational identity formation; and continued to be bakers, with many attaining a strong sense of vocation and identification with bakers’ occupation. An updated understanding of apprenticeship may inform the development of entry pathways into apprenticeship; improve workplace learning opportunities; and widen the means for recognition and certification of skill/knowledge attainment and dispositional transformation.     

Mobile and Online Learning Journal: Effects on Apprentices’ Reflection in Vocational Education and Training

While learning journals (LJs) have been shown to support self-regulated learning strategies, reflection and learning outcomes in academic contexts, few studies have investigated their relevance in vocational education. A mobile and online learning journal (MOLJ) was developed to support reflection on workplace experiences. However, acceptance of the mobile and online learning journal by apprentices and supervisors is not trivial. This study investigated how apprentices use the mobile and online learning journal and why they use it that way. The mobile and online learning journal was developed for apprentices in the field of bakery and contains a recipe book, a smartphone app to take pictures of workplace experiences, and a learning journal for reflection. Apprentices’ workplace supervisors have access to the mobile and online learning journal to provide support and feedback. A mixed method study was conducted with 16 apprentices. Indicators of their use of the mobile and online learning journal were recorded, while reasons for use were studied by questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Four kinds of users of the mobile and online learning journal were identified: Multifunction users, picture takers, learning journal users, and overall low users. The most determining factors for the acceptance and use of the mobile and online learning journal by apprentices were their interest in the use of a smartphone at the workplace, their acceptance of reflection on workplace experiences through the mobile and online learning journal, and supervisors’ participation and provision of feedback. Promoting the use of learning journals by apprentices requires strong guidance in the design of the learning journal as well as support and feedback from supervisors. Taking pictures from the workplace proves useful for learning and sharing experience in vocational training.     

VET students’ integration of knowledge engaged with in school-based and workplace-based learning environments in the Netherlands

In vocational education, students learn in different school-based and workplace-based learning environments and engage with different types of knowledge in these environments. Students are expected to integrate these experiences and make meaning of them in relation to their own professional knowledge base. This study focuses both on what types of knowledge students learn in these environments and how they integrate these different types of knowledge. Individual and group interviews were conducted with students, teachers and workplace supervisors in a vocational programme in the Netherlands. Results show that students recognise the importance of vocational knowledge learned in school-based learning environments while they are in the workplace and vice versa, and continuously contextualise knowledge to make it applicable for new circumstances. Also, students learn differently at school due to their experiences in the workplace.     

浅论英语的研究性学习及其教学实践

英语研究性学习具有问题性、过程性、主动性、开放性、合性综、指导性、合作性等特点。如果学习者有求知欲、好奇心、兴趣和问题意识,且学习内容具有研究性,就可以开展研究性学习。在这一学习过程中教师应做到适度设计教学方案、创设问题情境,激发学生探究的动机和兴趣,创设自由、民主、宽松的学习氛围,延迟评价,鼓励学生发表意见,让学生充分利用各种信息资源,提倡课内外学习相结合并进行必要的指导。     

The effects of goal-oriented instructions in digital game-based learning

Few studies have investigated the effects of the instructions provided in educational computer games on cognitive processing and learning outcomes. In our experiment, we sought to compare the effects on learning outcomes of two different types of goal-oriented instructions: mastery-goal instructions, which prompt learners to develop skills or master new knowledge, and performance-goal instructions, which are frequently used in game environments and which encourage individuals to demonstrate their ability to succeed, particularly by surpassing others. Results showed that a mastery-goal instruction elicited deeper learning (as assessed with a transfer task) than a performance-goal instruction. No effect of instruction was observed on either learning (demonstration consultation) times at the start of the game or on training task (solving riddles) performances during it. These results are discussed in terms of learning processes. This study demonstrates that mastery goal-oriented instructions can promote active processing of educational content in a serious game environment.     

How do teachers learn in the workplace? An examination of teacher learning activities

In this study, two data collection instruments were used to examine how Dutch secondary school teachers learn in the workplace. Firstly, they completed a questionnaire on their preferences for learning activities on two occasions. Secondly, during the intermediate period, they reported learning experiences in digital logs. Results of both instruments indicate that teachers often learn by critical individual reflection and by involving colleagues in particular challenging or problematic situations. An additional finding concerns the reporting of sequences of learning activities in the digital logs which is clearly different from the focus on single learning activities as found in most literature and as used in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the digital logs provided a fine‐tuning of the concepts of ‘involvement of colleagues’ and ‘experimentation’ in relation to teacher learning. The study concludes with a critical reflection on both data collection instruments. Finally, implications for future research on how teachers learn are discussed.     

Community of practice versus community of readers: the literacy tutors’ dilemma

This paper describes a journey undertaken by literacy tutors who were caught between incompatible values and needs in building apprentices’ literacy. The highly literate tutors were committed to teaching critical literacy. They believed that improved literacy could support learners’ aspirations to advance their prospects at work, build their connections within their community and improve their health. Hence, the tutors aimed to guide their learners into membership of an imagined community of fluent readers. They found, however, that the apprentices, along with their managers and training coordinators, saw literacy as instrumental rather than a desired outcome in its own right. Essentially, achieving a sufficient level of literacy was needed for the apprentices to become members of workplace communities of practice. Tutors then questioned their prior assumptions about the intrinsic importance of literacy, slowly accepting a dichotomous way of thinking where industrial ways of learning and knowing were predominant. Tutors’ realisation that apprentices already possessed embodied and oral literacies helped them to support the apprentices in escaping (though not leaving) workplace contexts that were becoming increasingly document-driven in character and featuring rising expectations of improved print literacy.     

研究性学习的课程与教学价值探析

研究性学习带来的不仅是一种学习方式的变革,而具有着课程与教学整合视角的深层意蕴。在课程领域,表现为课程本质观的更新、课程研究领域的拓展、课程开发主体的重建及课程教学形式的创新;在教学领域,通过对传统教学认识论的反动建构着新的教学观;研究性学习更从实践层面为整合态的课程教学的生成提供了启示。     

Following the action in action learning: towards ethnomethodological studies of (critical) action learning

Action learning is a pedagogical practice that helps participants learn by talking about their workplace action with fellow participants (‘comrades in adversity’) in their action learning set. This paper raises questions about the action in action learning, such as: how do members of an action learning set learn from and through each other? How do they learn through their developing conversation and interaction?

To answer such questions, I argue that, ‘ethnomethodology’ (the study of ‘member's methods’ or ‘folk methods’ for doing any kind of practical action) is useful for showing the intricacy of the practical learning process in action learning, as in learning in action, more generally. The paper illustrates the conversational and interactional work of members doing things and learning together in action (for example discovering things in science and in board meetings); and argues that this approach may also be used to study action learning in practice.     

How an orientation to learning influences the expansive–restrictive nature of teacher learning and change

This study examined teachers’ learning situated in a school to reveal factors that support and hinder learning in the workplace. The investigation analyzed teachers’ orientation to learning, examining beliefs, practices, and experiences about teachers’ learning in relation to change in the workplace. A hypothesis is that teacher learning and change is complex and unable to be fully understood outside of practice. Evidence is provided on the factors and forms of learning activities that appear to strengthen an expansive learning environment and those which contribute to a more restrictive learning environment. A distinctive finding was that teachers’ orientation to learning is related to self-reported change. Another promising finding with the potential of better understanding the interrelated combination of how teachers’ beliefs, practices, and workplace factors influence change was related to dissonance for learning. The implications for practice involved determining how to continue to support and strengthen an expansive workplace learning environment.     

Engineers' professional learning: a practice-theory perspective

With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, global and interdisciplinary contexts, different approaches to understanding how engineers practice and learn are necessary. This paper draws on recent research in the social sciences from the field of workplace learning, to suggest that a practice-theory perspective on engineers' professional learning is fruitful. It shifts the focus from the attributes of the individual learner (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to the attributes of the practice (interactions, materiality, opportunities and challenges). Learning is thus more than the technical acquisition and transfer of knowledge, but a complex bundle of activities, that is, social, material, embodied and emerging. The paper is illustrated with examples from a research study of the learning of experienced engineers in the construction industry to demonstrate common practices – site walks and design review meetings – in which learning takes place.     

PIAAC results on opportunities for informal learning in the workplace in Spain / Resultados PIAAC sobre las oportunidades para el aprendizaje informal en el puesto de trabajo en España

This article uses data from the PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences) Background Questionnaire to describe conditions related to informal learning (IL) in the workplace and opportunities to learn informally in organizations in Spain. PIAAC data indicate that in Spain, informal learning processes in organizations are a common, everyday practice. However, some differences have been found in the intensity of this learning by gender, the position that the employee occupies and the business sector in which the organization is framed. This study opens some future avenues to develop further knowledge about IL mechanisms and practices in the workplace, as a strategy to help towards the development of people and organizations.     

Gender, Learning and Social Practice

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between learning and gender at the workplace, by means of an empirical study. It is argued that gendered participation is learnt at the workplace and does not constitute a ‘natural’ division. The empirical part of the paper is based on a qualitative study of a bakery in which gender and learning in vocational training are the key focus. For centuries, bakeries have been masculine workplaces. However, in recent years, the percentage of female apprentices has increased. This paper takes a situated perspective on learning and gender, by focusing on how everyday work practices influence the discourses in workplace practice, and how this affects participant perceptions of themselves. Furthermore, Holzkamp’s distinction between expansive and restrictive perspective on learning is central to understanding the role of gendered discourses. In the first part of the paper, gender is situated in the bakeries, emphasizing the historical circumstances, physical environment and economic aspects that create a specific gendered discourse. In the second part of the paper, the focus is on how various ways of learning are situated in the bakeries.

工作场所学习概念的解读与思考

工作场所学习核心概念的准确界定有利于理论研究的深入,并正确的指导实践领域的工作。应该在整个社会经济变革的大背景下去理解工作场所内涵的变化,在动态中对其进行理解,把握工作场所的时代特点。对于工作场所学习这一概念的研究,目前成果较为丰富,很多学者都从不同角度给出了各自的见解,但却也都有不足之处。只有在正确理解工作场所学习各种要素、概念之后,才能对这一概念有深刻的把握,并能够清晰廓清工作场所学习作为一项研究领域的基本边界。     

How and what do academics learn through their personal networks

This paper investigates the role of personal networks in academics’ learning in relation to teaching. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 11 academics, this study examines, first, how and what academics learn through their personal networks; second, the perceived value of networks in relation to academics’ professional development; and, third, whether and how network participation affects professional learning and extant teaching practice. Findings suggest that personal networks equip academics with a diverse pool of knowledge and skills about teaching, offering both professional and emotional support. What academics learn through personal networks subsequently becomes embedded in their teaching practice. In this sample, change in teaching practice is focused on application of new learning technologies and new teaching and assessment strategies.     

关于形式教学与二语习得关系的研究

在交际课堂中融入形式教学能够有效促进学习者中介语系统的发展,确保习得的效果。以此为理念的新教学模式focus on form已成为目前形式教学研究的主流。本文分析了focus on form与传统形式教学的区别,归纳了这一新教学模式的具体教学方法并讨论了不同方法的优势和缺陷,同时提出了解决问题的办法,指出了未来的研究方向,并在此基础上探讨形式教学与二语习得的关系,力图找出行之有效的二语课堂教学的方法和途径,以便更好地促进二语学习和教学。     

Overarching professional identity themes in student teacher workplace learning

ABSTRACT

This study reports on how student teachers learn in the workplace. Data from 10 student teachers were collected by means of digital logs and in-depth interviews. By reconstructing data into stories and unravelling these stories, it became clear that the learning process of each student teacher was dominated by one specific theme, such as student-centred teaching or creating a positive learning climate. These themes could be typified as professional identity themes, because all appeared to be both personal and professional. Five student teachers experienced their workplace learning process as continuous: they integrated their teaching experiences relatively easily into their personal conceptual framework. The other five experienced their workplace learning process as discontinuous: they experienced tensions caused by frictions between personal and professional aspects of becoming a teacher. Both types of learning can stimulate and hinder student teachers’ professional development. The findings indicate that reconstructing data into stories and unravelling these stories is a useful technique for understanding student teacher workplace learning as a result of the interaction between personal and professional aspects of becoming a teacher.