Search Results for
"learning"

Traditional lecture-based teaching methods are being replaced or supplemented by approaches which call for reframing the roles and identities of teachers and learners. Enquiry-Based learning (EBL) is one such approach. This paper reports on a study investigating the perceptions of staff and students (N=25) involved in an EBL capacity building project in the north-west of England. Q methodology was used to investigate the subjectivities of the participants. The findings are discussed using sociocultural learning concepts relating to activity theory and communities of practice. The paper concludes that EBL may improve the quality of teaching and learning in higher education, but careful consideration should be given to the dynamics of the specific context in which it is introduced.

The design of problems is crucial for the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL). Research has shown that PBL problems have not always been effective. Ineffective PBL problems could affect whether students acquire sufficient domain knowledge, activate appropriate prior knowledge, and properly direct their own learning. This paper builds on the 3C3R problem design model, which is a systematic conceptual framework for guiding the design of effective and reliable problems for PBL. To help practitioners apply the 3C3R model, this paper introduces a 9-step problem design process. The initial steps guide an instructional designer through analyses on learning goal, content, and context to help select problems. Later steps ensure that the problem appropriately affords the specifications identified in the analyses. The last two steps incorporate a reflection component, as well as ensure the integrity of the 3C3R components in the problem. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Whilst current research into teaching and learning offers many insights into the experiences of academics and students in higher education, it has two significant shortcomings. It does not highlight the dynamic ways in which students and academics impact on each other in teaching-learning interactions or the ways in which these interactions are shaped by wider social processes. This book offers critical insight into existing perspectives on researching teaching and learning in higher education and argues that alternative perspectives are required in order to account for structure and agency in teaching-learning interactions in higher education. In considering four alternative perspectives, it examines the ways in which teaching-learning interactions are shaped by teaching-learning environments, student and academic identities, disciplinary knowledge practices and institutional cultures. It concludes by examining the conceptual and methodological implications of these analyses of teaching-learning interactions and provides the reader with an invaluable guide to alternative ways of conceptualising and researching teaching and learning in higher education. © Paul Ashwin, 2012.

Current social and economic imperatives are leading to workplaces being seen as important and necessary learning environments in their own right, rather than places to augment knowledge learned elsewhere. Frameworks for workplace learning can draw upon a long tradition of learning through practice that predates processes of learning in educational institutions. However, to legitimize and extend their worth, there is a need to identify and elaborate their purposes, conceptions of learning through work, and augment these with recent conceptual and procedural advances. Ultimately, these frameworks are characterized by what workplaces afford learners and how individuals elect to engage with what is afforded them. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Apprenticeship is a tradition of training for work that usually includes work-based training, off-the-job training, and an employment relationship. This article discusses different ways of looking at apprenticeship and ways in which countries' models may vary. The article includes a case study of the Australian system and concludes by discussing some current challenges to apprenticeship systems. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

First, some definitions, structural aspects, and varieties of apprenticeship are outlined. Second, different theoretical approaches to apprenticeship are emphasized – anthropological, philosophical, and psychological. Two dynamic perspectives on the dynamics of the learning process in apprenticeship are presented: a person-centered versus a decentered approach. Different conceptions of the nature of apprenticeship learning are described such as learning in a community of practice, learning through participation in practice, bodily learning and imitation, and learning through assessment of practice. Finally, some reasons for the current interest in apprenticeship are discussed. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The main focus of this article is the dual system in Germany. The dual system here consists of a traditional pattern of skill formation which goes back to the medieval mode of apprenticeship training. This means that training is workplace-led and predominantly practical although there is a vocational school involved in the training process. In Germany, other traits, such as the vocational principle and a special kind of public regulation, define a learning culture which differs from most other countries, including England and Australia. On the one hand, the strength of the apprenticeship system implies borderlines to other subsystems, such as full-time vocational education and training (VET). On the other hand, it does not offer individually tailored VET programs, which exist in Anglo-Saxon countries, but resembles the VET systems of Denmark in some respects. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Vocational teacher education is explored and distinguished from other forms of teacher education. The many varieties of vocational education, ranging from state controlled to market oriented, are deeply intertwined with national traditions and culture. Different admission requirements and a complex steering system set it apart from conventional teacher education because of its origin in a work context, whereas subject-specialist teaching emerges from a scientific knowledge area. This factor, which affects learning material and place of training, requires vocational teacher education to be multidisciplinary, activity- and problem-oriented, while posing unique challenges in grading and quality control. A hidden work-cultural transfer also occurs. Two trends are indicated: an increasing academization and a resurgence of the apprenticeship model. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This article examines the issue of noncompletion in vocational education and training. It looks at how noncompletion is defined and at some of the different ways it is measured, presenting some estimates using recent OECD data. It then outlines some of the approaches to identifying causes of noncompletion, distinguishing between perspectives that highlight barriers associated with institutions themselves and the way they operate and are organized as places of learning, and factors associated with what individuals bring with them to the place of learning, including their family context, their intentions, work situation, dispositions, interests, and motivations. Following this is a brief outline of the sorts of strategies employed to reduce noncompletion. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This article reviews lifelong learning policy models proposed by Green (2000), including market-led, state-led, and social-partnership-led approaches. Different policy initiatives and/or systems can be deemed to belong to one of three different models, although they may not correspond precisely. This article depicts seven well-known policy examples according to the three models. The findings of this article reveal that (1) an economically oriented mindset has penetrated lifelong learning policies; (2) cooperation between many stakeholders seems to be an inevitable feature regardless of models above; and (3) government, in even in the social-partner-led model, is found to play a vital role and its intervention is unavoidable in all of three lifelong learning policy models. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.