Key Findings About Integrating Experiences

Abstract

This chapter presents a set of key findings from the fellowship projects that inform considerations for how the organisation, enactment and experiencing of practice-based experiences can be utilised and integrated within higher education programs. Eight propositions are initially advanced relating to the augmentation of students’ workplace experiences, the importance of students being prepared for those experiences, a consideration of students’ readiness to engage in and learn effectively at particular points in the development, and the important requirement of considering students as active learners who are also directed by other needs and priorities. Such considerations are central, because the most important educational process is what is referred to as the experience curriculum: That is, students experiencing of what is provided for them and how and what they learn from that experience. To respond to this important factor, it is necessary to consider and organise students and engagement in practice experiences in ways which are incremental and offer experiences that are associated with the readiness (i.e. ability to effectively engage). Beyond students’ interests and bases for engagement is that of teachers in higher education themselves and how their capacities and interests will be directed to engage in organising and utilising practice-based experiences. Finally, and however idealistic, efforts to align all of the understandings and interests of those who are involved in organising, implementing and experiencing practice-based learning opportunities need to be pursued. Together, these propositions stand as bases through which considerations of curriculum, pedagogic practice and also students’ personal epistemologies can progress. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Keywords

Author Keywords

High Education educational provision Personal Epistemology Practice Setting Workplace Setting

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

School of Education, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Funding & Acknowledgements

No funding information

References 10 References

1 Working Knowledge Work Based Learning and Education Reform, (2004)

2 Billett, Stephen Richard, Knowing in practice: Re-conceptualising vocational expertise, Learning and Instruction, 11, 6, pp. 431-452, (2001)

3 Billett, Stephen Richard, Conceptualizing learning experiences: Contributions and mediations of the social, personal, and brute, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 16, 1, pp. 32-47, (2009)

4 Billett, Stephen Richard, Personal epistemologies, work and learning, Educational Research Review, 4, 3, pp. 210-219, (2009)

5 Learning Through Practice Models Traditions Orientations and Approaches, (2010)

6 Vocational Education Purposes Traditions and Prospects, (2011)

7 Mimetic Learning at Work Learning in the Circumstances of Practice, (2014)

8 Billett, Stephen Richard, Building community through social partnerships around vocational education and training, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 56, 1, pp. 51-68, (2004)

9 Brown, John Seely, Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning, Educational Researcher, 18, 1, pp. 32-42, (1989)

10 Campbell, Matthew, Developing Critical Moral Agency Through Workplace Engagement, Professional and Practice-based Learning, 10, pp. 47-64, (2015)

Key Findings About Integrating Experiences

How to Cite