Professional and Practice-based Learning

Transcription

1 Professional and Practice-based Learning Volume 2 For further volumes:

2 Series Editors: Stephen Billett, Griffith University, Australia Christian Harteis, University of Regensburg, Germany Hans Gruber, University of Regensburg, Germany Professional and practice-based learning brings together international research on the individual development of professionals and the organisation of professional life and educational experiences. It complements the Springer journal Vocations and Learning: Studies in vocational and professional education. Professional learning, and the practice-based processes that often support it, are the subject of increased interest and attention in the fields of educational, psychological, sociological, and business management research, and also by governments, employer organisations and unions. This professional learning goes beyond, what is often termed professional education, as it includes learning processes and experiences outside of educational institutions in both the initial and ongoing learning for the professional practice. Changes in these workplaces requirements usually manifest themselves in the everyday work tasks, professional development provisions in educational institution decrease in their salience, and learning and development during professional activities increase in their salience. There are a range of scientific challenges and important focuses within the field of professional learning. These include: - understanding and making explicit the complex and massive knowledge that is required for professional practice and identifying ways in which this knowledge can best be initially learnt and developed further throughout professional life. - analytical explications of those processes that support learning at an individual and an organisational level. - understanding how learning experiences and educational processes might best be aligned or integrated to support professional learning. The series integrates research from different disciplines: education, sociology, psychology, amongst others. The series is comprehensive in scope as it not only focusses on professional learning of teachers and those in schools, colleges and universities, but all professional development within organisations.

3 Ann Webster-Wright Authentic Professional Learning Making a Difference Through Learning at Work 123

4 Dr. Ann Webster-Wright University of Queensland Teaching & Educational Development Institute 4072 Brisbane Queensland Australia ISBN e-isbn DOI / Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: Springer Science+Business Media B.V No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (

5 Series Editors Foreword There is considerable and growing interest in professionals learning across their working lives. The growth in this interest is likely premised upon the increasing percentage of those who are being employed under the designation as professionals or para-professional workers in advanced industrial economies. Part of being designated in this way is a requirement to be able to work autonomously and in a relatively self-regulated manner. Of course, many other kinds of employment also demand such behaviours. However, there is particular attention being given to the ongoing development of workers who are seen to make crucial decisions and take actions about health, legal and financial matters. Part of this attention derives from expectations within the community that those who are granted relative autonomy and are often paid handsomely should be current and informed in their decisionmaking. Then, like all other workers, professionals are required to maintain their competence in the face of changing requirements for work. Consequently, a volume that seeks to inform how best this ongoing learning can be understood, supported and assisted is most timely and welcomed. This volume seeks to elaborate professional learning through a consideration of the concept of authentic professional learning. What is proposed here is that, in contrast to programmatic approaches towards professional development, the process of continuing professional learning is a personal, complex and diverse process that does not lend itself to easy prescription or the realisation of others intents. Instead, a phenomenological approach is adopted here that emphasises the importance of personal experience and intentionality as the key premise for professionals ongoing learning. The author makes the point that, while seeking to capture this learning through advancing the concept of authentic professional learning, it is important to understand it as a personal phenomenon and not to lose its unique diversity and complexity for each individual. Not surprisingly, the methodological orientation adopted here is one of phenomenology (i.e. the study of experience). Consistent with this orientation is a strong focus on learning, rather than the provision of courses and developmental strategies. Instead, the pedagogic emphasis is on professional learning as a self-directed activity and not only in terms of activity-directed towards achieving what others wish to be achieved. The emphasis here is on what each individual wishes to achieve, hence, the interest in intentionality. Such an orientation is argued v

6 vi Series Editors Foreword for throughout this book. The emphasis is on respecting the diversity of meaning and highlights agency and capability in self-directed approaches to learning. Consequently, here pedagogic qualities are those enacted and directed by the learner. Epistemology, here, focuses strongly on the set of beliefs and interests which individuals exercise in their learning. The theorising draws upon seminal contributions from phenomenology, yet these contributions are supported and augmented by those from a range of other disciplines. Consistent with the key orientation, however, and throughout, the author emphasises that professional learning cannot be mandated, coerced and controlled by others, but can be effectively supported, assisted and guided. This orientation is supported by empirical work, which concluded that professionals learn in situations that are important for them. These situations are usually areas they care enough about to engage with effortfully and with intentionality, yet, at the same time, experience uncertainty and doubt. The author proposes that learning in such situations involves complex interconnections with previous experiences, of themselves and others, and leads through transitions involving novel features to a change in professional understanding. Such learning follows a circuitous trajectory, being open to many possibilities in the path that is taken, so that it is not easily amenable to outside control. It is proposed in this book that there is a need to understand professional learning from the perspective of the professionals themselves and through a consideration of the context of everyday professional practice in which they think, act and learn. Moreover, by using such a theoretical framework to conceptualise professional learning as being something that is personally constructed and becomes embedded within the lived experience of being a practising professional, this book does more than merely challenge the traditional way of conceptualising professional development. It also offers bases for reshaping efforts to secure all ongoing professional learning in ways centred on the learners themselves. Brisbane, Australia Regensburg, Germany Regensburg, Germany January 2010 Stephen Billett Hans Gruber Christian Harteis

7 Preface Professional learning has been eclipsed for many years by the rise of mandatory continuing education. As part of a discourse of justification and audit, many professions have instituted systematic programmes for registration or awarding continuing status for their members. These systems, that typically involve the collection of credit points or hours, have dominated discussion of professionals learning. In the process they have taken a complex process, over-simplified it and packaged it as a consumer product. While this may be effective in managing accountability and in exposing some less-committed members of the professions to current knowledge and practice, it is not necessarily good at promoting responsible continuing professional learning that will enhance the quality of practice. One of the reasons for this is that there has been a rollout of programmes and measures without concomitant research that helps us understand how professionals learn independently of the goading of continuing professional education systems. A deep appreciation of how professionals view their continuing development and what they do when they learn professionally is needed if practice is to be improved. Ann Webster-Wright is one of a small number of researchers seeking this understanding and conducting research that illuminates the development of professional practice after registration. This excellent book portrays the professional learning that a group of practitioners undertakes for themselves. It attends in a vivid way to what they do and what is important for them in their daily professional practices and through this explores implications for continuing professional development. It uses a phenomenology of the experience of a group of professionals learning in their current working context to argue for a paradigmatic shift in the conceptualisation of continuing professional learning. The study has major implications for how professional education is regarded and how it needs to move beyond the assumption that learning can be equated with participation in certain kinds of programs. The author takes the phenomenology as an empirical grounding for a thoughtful discussion of both practical considerations and philosophical issues. These range from the dissonance between the reality of professionals experiences of learning and the rhetoric of stakeholders expectations of professional development to vii

8 viii Preface the question of what being a professional means. She argues for a paradigm shift in professional education, sketches a framework of what she terms authentic professional learning and discusses how it might be supported. This book is a pioneering example of the kind of studies that are needed to further understanding of professional practice and how it can be improved. It focuses on what practitioners can do to act together for themselves. It applies the notion of being professional to the core of practice: learning from what one does. Professor of Adult Education University of Technology, Sydney, Australia January, 2010 David Boud

9 Acknowledgements There are many people who have supported me in different ways through the undertaking of this research and writing of this book. I am grateful to the professionals who shared their experiences with me, openly acknowledging the dilemmas and delights of their professional practices. I am particularly indebted to Gloria Dall Alba and Merrilyn Goos, at the University of Queensland, without whose encouragement and support this book, and the original research that informs it, may not have occurred. I deeply value the influence of multiple colleagues, too numerous to mention individually, whose ideas and experiences, shared through conversations and read in books, shaped and continue to inspire my learning and my life. Finally, but not least, I am eternally thankful for the ongoing love and support of my partner and children. ix

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11 Contents Part I Introduction 1 Professional Learning at Work AMorningatWork IntentofThisBook ResearchBasis Understanding Professional Learning References Part II Exploration 2 Mapping the Research Terrain Exploring Professional Learning and Development Learning Theories Conceptions of Professional Knowing and Learning Traditional and Innovative Professional Development TheDevelopmentofProfessions PathwaystoProfessionalism CharacteristicsofaProfession Developing Authoritative Experts Defining Boundaries and Uniform Standards Seeking Scientific Rigour and Evidence Progressing Relentlessly Towards Excellence Managing Uncertainty and Complexity Valuing Possibilities of Professionalism Tracing Professional Development Threads of Inquiry PatternsofTensions Professional Development Terrain Setting the Scene References A Phenomenological Perspective Wondering About Phenomenology xi

12 xii Contents 3.2 Phenomenology as a Conceptual Framework Phenomenological Philosophy Phenomenological Concepts Philosophical Assumptions of This Research Phenomenology as a Methodological Approach Principles of Phenomenological Research Empirical Phenomenology Summary of Phenomenological Perspective References Delving into Methodology Reflexive Methodology Criteria of Quality in Research ResearchDesign Rigour, Relevance and Reflexivity Engaging with the Participants DataAnalysis Dwelling with the Data TransformationofData DevelopingtheStructure Looking Back References Part III Understanding 5 Authentic Professional Learning Professional Life-World Professional Affiliations EmployerOrganisations Local Workplaces Situations Where Professionals Learn Phenomenological Structure of APL Overview of Authentic Professional Learning Learning as Change in Professional Understanding Learning Through Engagement in Professional Practice Learning Through Interconnection Over Time Learning as Circumscribed Openness to Possibilities SummaryoftheStructureofAPL Learning as Part of Being a Professional Part IV Integration 6 Rhetoric Versus Reality Dealing with Dissonance ProblematicIssuesinAPL QuestioningAssumptions

13 Contents xiii Engaging with Uncertainty ImaginingConversations VoicingWhatIsValued Wider Context of Professional Dissonance Competing Life-World Discourses The Hidden Nature of Dissonance References Authenticity in Professional Life OntologicalClaims What Does Being a Professional Mean? Being-in-the-Professional-World OntologicalDimensionsofLearning Authenticity in Professional Learning MavericksandImpostors Describing the Concept of Authenticity Transformation Through APL Change Through APL Experiences TransformativeLearning Values in Professional Life References Finding a Way Forward Scaffolding Authentic Professional Learning Awareness as a Resource LearningRelationships Challenging Support Critical Capability Intelligent Accountability LearningEcologies Creating Cultural Change Culture of Inquiry ReflexiveAuthenticity Sustainable Change Professional Learning Pathways Interconnected Matrix of Flexible Options Authentic Professional Learning Groups Existing Models for Supporting Learning Existing Resources for Supporting Learning MovingForward References Part V Conclusion 9 Making a Difference Revisiting the Research

14 xiv Contents ExplorationoftheField KeyFindingsoftheResearch Continuation of Traditional PD Finding What I Was Looking for PhilosophyandPractice Contributions of Phenomenological Philosophy What Matters in Professional and Public Life? Making a Difference by Supporting APL Making a Difference at Work Making a Difference Beyond Work Understanding Authentic Professional Learning Reflections on the Day IntheCar At Lunch Time IntheCar References Index

15 List of Figure & Tables Figure 4.1 Overview of research process Tables 4.1 Participant selection matrix Transformation of meaning unit Constituents and sub-constituents of the structure of APL Sources of variation in participants experiences of APL xv