Search Results for
"learning"

This paper presents the results of a study comparing student learning in an inquiry-based and a traditional course in biotransport. Collaborating learning scientists and biomedical engineers designed and implemented an inquiry-based method of instruction that followed learning principles presented in the National Research Council report "How People Learn" (HPL). In this study, the intervention group was taught a core biomedical engineering course in biotransport following the HPL method. The control group was taught by traditional didactic lecture methods. A primary objective of the study was to identify instructional methods that facilitate the early development of adaptive expertise (AE). AE requires a combination of two types of engineering skills: subject knowledge and the ability to think innovatively in new contexts. Therefore, student learning in biotransport was measured in two dimensions: A pre and posttest measured knowledge acquisition in the domain and development of innovative problem-solving abilities. HPL and traditional students' test scores were compared. Results show that HPL and traditional students made equivalent knowledge gains, but that HPL students demonstrated significantly greater improvement in innovative thinking abilities. We discuss these results in terms of their implications for improving undergraduate engineering education. © 2007 Biomedical Engineering Society.

Purpose - This paper aims to present the viewpoint of David Wright, head of External Affairs for SELECT, the Electrical Contractors' Association of Scotland. Its purpose is to highlight the adverse impact on the electrical sector of a disconnection between the Scottish Executive's education and vocational training policies. Design/methodology/approach - The paper chronicles relations between the Scottish Executive vis-à-vis its education and vocational training policies and Scotland's electrical sector regarding the funding (or otherwise) of apprenticeships. Findings - The paper points out that the Executive is simultaneously promoting a rise in the number of apprenticeships and a rise in the number of pupils staying on longer at school. The paper found that this contradiction has arisen largely as a consequence of the Westminster decision to fund apprenticeships for all 16-18 year-olds rather than provide social security payments for anyone unemployed within that age group, while the Executive is simultaneously encouraging 16-18 year-olds to stay on at school by funding them to do so. It found that an 18 year-old leaving school seeking to embark on an apprenticeship will be unlikely to receive any funding, while a 16 year-old will be guaranteed funding. Practical implications - The paper covers SELECT's support for the policy promoted by the Scottish Parliament's Enterprise and Culture Committee for lifelong learning through the creation of individual learning accounts, whereby funding for vocational training is available to individuals of any age rather than restricted to narrow age parameters. It calls for funding programmes which recognise the practical consequences of the government's policies and which will enable people in their late teens and early 20s - and older - to train or retrain as apprentices. Originality/value - This paper is of value to policymakers, employees, school pupils and apprentices. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

This article provides a conceptual account and empirical analyses of the development of boundary-crossing competencethe ability to function competently in multiple contextsusing representative cases from two after-school programs with immigrant and low-socioeconomic status students. Our findings suggest that organizational designs that create networks of related communities of practice can provide opportunities for nondominant students to develop boundary-crossing competences through participation in expanded, horizontalrather than hierarchalsystems of what Moll and colleagues have called networked expertise. These new directions in understanding competence have important implications for improving learning designs for nondominant students.

The aim of this article is to discuss the theoretical and practical problems in effecting transfer between school and work, and to present a new conceptualisation of transfer called developmental transfer that shifts the emphasis from the individual transfer of knowledge to the collaborative efforts of organisations to create new knowledge and practices. We give an overview and evaluate the current notions of transfer and present the need and characteristics of the developmental transfer. In a case study, we also describe the concrete tools for promoting the developmental transfer in professional higher education. A new way of enhancing collaboration between the school and the workplace is based on successful boundary crossing and the formation of a shared object between activity systems.

Purpose - To provide information and insight into the potential of reforms in full-time vocational education and training (VET) (practice firms in vocational colleges) in contrast with apprenticeships against the background of training market frictions in Germany. Design/methodology/approach - Structural information on the German VET system; empirical study (2006) within a research project to illustrate the didactical and social benefits of practice firms. Findings - Underlines that vocational colleges and practice firms within them are part of a "preparatory" system which predominantly serves further education needs and the follow-up intention to undertake an apprenticeship; confirms preceding research which put them in line with the "typical" full-time VET system. Research implications/limitations - Limitations are due to the focus on one type of full-time VET and the specific conditions in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Practical implications - Provides useful information to understand the nature of VET in a given country; insight into the limitations of full-time VET can help teachers to rethink co-operation with companies in general. Originality/value - Useful contribution to rethinking VET policy and to understanding limitations in the wake of an implementation of new forms of vocational learning against the background of culturally-rooted tradtions. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

This article explores how to enrich scaffolding processes among university students using specific Computer Supported Collaborative learning (CSCL) software. A longitudinal case study was designed, in which 18 students participated in a 12-month learning project. During this period the students followed an instructional process, using the CSCL software to support and improve their interaction processes, in particular the processes of giving and receiving assistance. The research analysed the evolution of the quality of the students' interaction processes and their learning results. The effects of the students' participation in the CSCL environment are described in terms of their development of affective, cognitive and metacognitive learning processes. The results showed that the specific activities that students performed while working with the CSCL system triggered specific learning processes, which had a positive incidence on their learning results.

This paper is a critique of the initial teacher education (ITE) of further and adult education teachers in the UK. It argues that the employer-led, national standards model in the UK is not the basis for ITE and professional development because it takes no account of learning in the workplace, disregards the multi-specialist and professional dimensions of professional practice and marginalizes the importance of knowledge. In the critique of the "standards-led model" the paper draws upon research and ideas on work-based learning, seeing the learning of teachers in the workplace as a complex relationship with many "experts" in multiple, often conflicting learning contexts. The paper stresses the importance of seeing work-based learning as more than just "learning by doing" to one that sees it as an intentional structuring of participatory activity. In other words, a "pedagogy of the workplace". Finally the paper suggests that learning is not just a process of "participation", but a learning zone where different types of knowledge and pedagogy are learnt and transformed. In highlighting the importance of knowledge the paper draws upon theories of professional knowledge that suggests that certain types of knowledge cannot be gained in the workplace alone, therefore focusing on the issues of the different types of knowledge, their acquisition and their transformation or recontextualisation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the assessment practices reported by Canadian educators and workplace supervisors involved in exemplary work-based education (WBE) programs for high-school students. Design/methodology/approach Six focus groups were conducted, four with teachers and coordinators and two with workplace supervisors from exemplary WBE programs, to identify the features of these exemplary programs that prepare adolescents to participate in WBE, that prepare workplace supervisors to mentor WBE students, and that characterize the day-to-day interactions in the workplace through which adolescents learn. Surprisingly, in the absence of any questions directly focused on assessment, participants spoke at length and with passion about the purpose and nature of assessment in their outstanding WBE programs. Findings Analyses of these interviews revealed six themes that describe the range of assessment practices associated with these three features of exemplary programs: identification of student interests and abilities; student self-assessment; communication of expectations and responsibilities; contextualized assessment; collaboration between school and workplace; and connections between assessment and instruction. Originality/value The findings highlight practical assessment procedures, for teachers and workplace supervisors, which facilitate the meaningful participation and learning of students in WBE programs and of workers in the workplace. © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Arising from work by the Gender and Lifelong learning Group of the Gender and Education Association, this book presents reconceptualisations of lifelong learning. It argues that the current field of lifelong learning is based on certain hidden values and assumptions and examines the mechanisms by which exclusionary discourses and practices are reproduced and maintained. The book opens up ways of conceptualising learning that takes into account multiple and shifting formations of learners from different social contexts. The authors broaden what counts as learning and who counts as a learner, offering different understandings of lifelong learning that are able to include currently marginalised values and principles. Organised in four sections the book looks at: • reclaiming - it draws on feminist and post-structural conceptual frameworks to create a critical analysis of the current 'field' of lifelong learning • retelling - it tells the tales of different multi-positions in lifelong learning • revisioning - it moves from narrative to analysis and the authors present their revisioning of learning which provide the tools to reconceptualise the field of lifelong learning • reconstructing - it furthers the discussion to outline new approaches to and practices in lifelong learning. © 2007 Penny Jane Burke and Sue Jackson. All rights reserved.

Purpose – This introduction to the special edition aims to focus on the issues that surround putting work-based learning into practice in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – The introduction is a brief survey and commentary on the issues surrounding work-based learning. A selection of papers is drawn from the timely 2006 University Vocational Awards Council (UVAC) Annual Conference. UVAC, an international membership organisation has championed higher level vocational learning, particularly higher education (HE) engagement with employers and the workforce, and the selection of conference papers demonstrates the seriousness with which HE educators are taking this work forward. Findings – The introduction finds that a rebalancing of the priorities of HE institutions to make available relevant, flexible and responsive provision that meets the high skills needs of employers and their staff has arrived which requires us to reevaluate the university offer and as Waterhouse argues, “it is not that they can teach, nor even that they can sell research, but that they can assess: they accredit learning and are awarding bodies. It is this social certification of successful learning that individuals, employers and ultimately society pay for.” The next reinvention for the sector is contemporary vocationalisation and responsiveness to economic imperatives rather than learning. Research limitations/implications – A wider survey of practice, particularly the use of employer standards, is now required to establish a common language between industry and HE. Practical implications – Implications are a progressive change to HE offering and an increased engagement with workforce development which requires changes to assessment and a greater use of accreditation and validation in the workplace. Originality/value – The introduction provides a succinct analysis of the work based learning and employer engagement in HE. © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited