WBL Futures

University of Derby, Buxton 19 and 20 April 2007


ABSTRACTS


Professor Freda Tallantyre

Senior Associate

Higher Education Academy

This plenary session summarises the key implications of the Leitch Report for higher education, and indicates aspects of strategy adopted by key national agencies, including DfES, HEFCE, HEA and UUK, in order to implement it. The presentation will raise questions for participants to address in the context of the conference and their own institutions.


Wendy Stubbs QAA

Assistant Director,

Development and Enhancement Group

Quality Assurance Agency

This session focuses on the QAA Precepts for Placement and Work-Based Learning, currently out for consultation.



Paper 1

Derek Portwood, Middlesex University

Eliciting Epistemological Clues from Work Based Projects

Longstanding versions of work based learning in higher education have a clear epistemological base in established disciplines. Their role through placements and training practice is to apply subject knowledge to the work situation. In this way they use experience to apply and test theory.


The latest version of WBL, however, takes the knowledge based in the workplace as the source and sphere of its epistemology. Moreover, it uses some of the knowledge forms, competencies and instruments of the workplace – primarily, collaboration and projects – for this purpose. In this sense, the epistemology of WBL may be construed as performativity only.


However, the latest version of WBL also brings knowledge competencies – notably, reflection and criticality – and subject matter from the academy into epistemological equation. In this sense, it relates contemplative and performative knowledge and spans propositional, procedural and practical forms of knowledge.


What this means epistemologically is obviously a complex matter, particularly as the latest version of WBL is still at an early stage of gaining recognition in both the academy and workplace. That recognition, however, is underway mainly because both parties have found common interest and value in work based projects. These draw on and exploit the various resources and capabilities of both contexts and expose the creative possibilities and problematics of concepts such as transdisciplinarity and interprofessionalism.


Accordingly, the principal features of the epistemology of WBL are beginning to become apparent through the design, execution and use of work based projects. However, different types of projects, competing ideologies, varying structures and cultures, relation of tacit and explicit knowledge and lack of understanding and competence by members of both parties are blurring the picture.


This paper contends, nonetheless, that work based projects are the best means available to clarify and fill out that picture. Indeed, the paper examines how projects are already eliciting epistemological clues of work based learning. From this premise and perspective, the paper explores what has already been learned and what is entailed in developing further the epistemology of work based learning.



Paper 2

Jonathan Garnett, Middlesex University

Challenging the Structural Capital of the University to Support Work Based Learning: The Case of Middlesex University

University work based learning programmes are often represented by academia as an appropriate response to the needs of the “knowledge driven economy”. However to date the challenges and contribution of University work based learning to the structural capital of the university has rarely been considered. Stewart (1997) identified structural capital as the organizing and structuring capability of the organization expressed in formal instruments such as mission statements, policies, regulations, procedures, codes, functional business units, task groups, committees or less formal culture, networks and practices.


This paper draws upon current knowledge management literature, the extensive work based learning experience of Middlesex University and the recent development of a “Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning” in work based learning at Middlesex at a time of major institutional change.


The paper considers a range of distinctive work based learning features identified by Boud and Solomon (2001):

And the model for pan-university curriculum innovation developed by Garnett and Portwood (2000) in order to focus upon key areas of structural capital. The paper argues that WBL challenges and has the potential to enhance the structural capital of the university and that attention to structural capital issues is essential if work based learning is to be successful.



Paper 3

John Edmunds DFES

Policy and Experience in Work Based Learning: a personal view from each end of the telescope.

Over the past 3 three years I’ve been responsible within the Department for Education and Skills for developing the policy for ‘Train to Gain’ - the Government’s new national employer training programme, and for overseeing its implementation in partnership with the Learning and Skills Council. In the process of doing that work I came across the ‘Learning through Work’ programme - flexibly delivered, work based Higher Education developed by the University for Industry with a small number of Higher Education Institutions. While I hold qualifications in management and accounting I’ve been conscious for a long time that I’d missed out on a degree bearing education and do not have any qualifications specific to education and to policy making. So I decided to experience work based learning for myself and obtain some academic credit for the work I do.


I enrolled with the University of Derby through their ‘Learning Through Work’ programme, an experience that has been illuminating in a number of respects: building knowledge of Higher Education disciplines; understanding better the learning I have but which is not accredited or recognised in any formal way; learning that engagement is difficult but at the same time rewarding for employer and employee; and being able to look employers and other learners in the eye when developing policy and communicating it. I am part way through my programme of study and acquiring new knowledge and experience that I am already bringing to bear on our next phase of policy making around Train to Gain and the Government’s Skills Strategy.


The Government’s Skills Strategy, published in two White Papers, aims to improve the skills of the UK workforce in the face increasing global competition and the relative advantage its major competitors have in that respect. With rapid improvements in the education of workforces being made in Asia and the far East the future, if the issue of skills is not addressed, is stark according to Lord Sandy Leitch’s report ‘Prosperity for all in a Global Economy - World Class Skills’, published in December 2006. To make the improvements needed Government has already committed to a strategy that shares investment in skills between the State, employers and individuals. Lord Leitch recommends that, by 2010, all Government funding for work based learning for adults should be routed through its new national employer training programme ‘Train to Gain’ or through learner accounts.


It is possible - perhaps even likely - that traditional routes to Higher Education may not be sufficient to deliver the ambition that Lord Leitch has set out. Other delivery methods might be needed especially if we are to engage with adults already in the workforce - as we must - given those people are already busy juggling work and family commitments. And their employers, most of them small employing less than 50 people, may be equally reluctant to engage through traditional routeways.



Paper 4

Mike Lucas, Open University, Ann Minton, University of Derby, Dave Perrin, University of Chester

Meeting Employer Need: A Consortium Approach

The Leitch Review (2006) of long-term skills needs identifies the need to increase employer engagement and investment in skills, with a recommendation to improve engagement between employers and universities. In order to address the key educational needs of large employers, HE institutions must adopt a flexible approach to the design and delivery of work based learning, whilst maintaining the quality standards required by the QAA.


This Foundation Degree development originated with the client, the Royal Air Force (RAF), approaching the Learning Through Work (LTW) Manager at UfI in the Autumn of 2004 with a request that they broker a meeting of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The idea was to assemble a consortium of HEIs who could work together to develop bespoke Foundation Degrees (Arts) in Business and in Leadership and Management, to be offered as an elective learning opportunity to personnel within the service. This development clearly predates Leitch, but nevertheless addresses many of the key issues raised and provides a context for discussion about how HEI’s could work with large employers.


The RAF is one of the largest providers of training in the UK and has clearly identified a need to further enhance and develop the skills within the work force in the provision of foundation degrees (Perrin And Young, 2005). The diverse nature of the working environment, the number of potential students and their wide-ranging experience of Further and Higher Education led to an identified need to involve a number of universities rather than a development with a single provider. From this experience we will therefore consider the future implications for HEIs of working together; of working with large employers, both at strategic and operational levels, particularly focussing on employer involvement in curriculum design, delivery and assessment of work-based programmes.


Initial discussions, convened in conjunction with UFI/learndirect and Foundation Degree Forward, lead to the formation of a consortium which also included the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), who worked with the RAF to accredit a number of in-house training courses. Four HEI’s (Chester, Derby, Open and Staffordshire) were involved in the consortium, offering a variety of approaches to work based learning, together with the RAF. The QAA were also consulted and clarified that the proposed model did not constitute a collaborative provision.


The RAF chaired a steering group involving key personnel from each organisation, and from this a number of workstreams were identified, including curriculum design, marketing, finance and quality assurance, for smaller groups to develop and bring back to the full consortium group for discussion and agreement.


The shared curriculum, built on a common set of programme learning outcomes developed co-operatively by all partner institutions, is consistent and congruent with QAA Honours Degree Benchmark Statements for General Business and Management (2000). These statements were then developed into mandatory, core and subject ‘topics’ that could be addressed by a variety of learning strategies relating to the needs of the learners, many of whom were liable to posted during the lifetime of their studies. The provision would allow learners to address topics by accessing learning at more than one of the HEIs involved, should they need to.


It was also important to the client that prior learning, and in particular experiential learning, was recognised and that a mechanism for such recognition, together with the opportunity to use work based projects, should be an integral part of the curriculum design.


Operationally it was important to recognise that the learners would need to have a “home” institution, with whom they would be formally registered and from whom ultimately they would receive their award, and that quality assurance and finance procedures should support learners to utilise the consortium approach to learning.


Although there were a number of challenges in this development ,the four HEIs involved validated two foundation degrees each, which were ready to run in September 2006, with a formal launch within the RAF in January 2007.


The success of the consortium is founded in the shared vision of cooperative, rather than competitive working, the leadership of the RAF and their close involvement in all aspects of the consortium, together with the involvement of quality and finance managers from each HEI. In many respects it is a unique intervention by the HE sector in the field of FD provision and joint-working with clients.



Paper 5

David Young, University of Derby, John Stephenson, Middlesex University

The use of an interactive learning environment to support learning through work leading to full university qualifications

Built on evaluative interviews with participants and analysis of detailed online exchanges between students and tutors, this paper, which is the first stage of a work in progress, explores an emerging typology of remote student / tutor engagement within the context of learner managed learning through work,


Through a range of case histories, the paper explores what it feels like to be a remote participant pursuing personally negotiated programmes to degree level and beyond, identifying and discussing issues raised, patterns and cycles of learner concerns and assessing what kinds of tutorial responses are helpful (or not).


Discussion leads towards an understanding of pedagogical and personal issues associated with online supervision in the emerging paradigm of self-managed Learning Through Work.



Paper 6

Lyn MacLeod, Joy Lyon, University of Southampton

Facilitation of Work Based Learning in Health and Social Care Settings

Changes within health service delivery have made it necessary to develop alternative ways to deliver education and training for health and social care staff. This paper provides an account of how work based learning (WBL) was used to facilitate development of two different groups. The first group comprised recently qualified staff that needed to develop their clinical skills; the second group were experienced senior staff who needed to devise and implement strategic plans in a context where rapid change was normal.



Thorne & Hackwood (2002) discuss how “the emphasis on learning that is relevant to and used in the clinical area, in order to benefit patients directly, was a feature in the NHS plan (DoH, 2000): it was anticipated that a WBL approach would enable nurses to enhance their knowledge and become more confident, motivated and empowered. This approach also addressed the organizational objective for staff to be enabled to maximise learning opportunities whilst remaining in practice and providing quality care


An evaluation of current literature related to WBL revealed a range of methods to recognise learning from practice experience, which once evidenced could contribute towards academic credit. The School of Nursing & Midwifery following consultation with service representatives adopted a model based on :

Learning in practice

Learning for practice

Learning through practice


A robust structure for recognition of APEL already exists within the School of Nursing and Midwifery together with expertise in identifying learning from experience and awarding credit.

After examination of a variety of models for implementing Work Based Learning, it was decided that an “open” learning contract module with no learning outcomes would provide total flexibility, be suitable for both individuals and groups of students, and avoided multiple validations of similar modules.


Using this module, two approaches to WBL were identified; the first used existing validated learning outcomes to formulate learning contracts that supported clinical staff teaching within the practice setting. Several teaching methods were used including lectures, tutorials, nursing rounds, and mentoring. The second approach required developing individual learning outcomes informed by personal development plans in collaboration with practice-based educators.


It was recognised that for WBL to be successful, support within the clinical area was essential. Presentations were made to key stakeholders, who were keen for staff to gain academic qualifications without having to be absent from the workplace.


Some early difficulties are identified from our early experience of WBL. These are predominantly related to pressures to deliver health services and a lack of appreciation of the resources required for effective life-long learning. The time and expertise required to support learning in practice was underestimated by clinical staff.


Students identified difficulties such as relative isolation and lack of computer skills to effectively utilise electronic support. Students studying for degrees or recently qualified students fared significantly better than those who had not engaged in recent study. Students with overseas qualifications who were unfamiliar with UK reflective writing style for health/social care assignments also needed more academic support.


WBL is gathering momentum within the local area as financial pressures reduce the education budget and the numbers of staff who can be released for study. The University and the NHS continue to work collaboratively to increase the range, scope and support of WBL.



Roy Seden, University of Derby

Personal Pedagogies and Professional Standards

Derby University is one of 4 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) nationally piloting the accreditation scheme of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) for Continuing Professional Development (CPD). The HEA is effectively the national custodian of the professional standards for teachers in Higher Education, and these provide the basic characteristics of its framework.


The University has already approved its CPD Framework for Academic and Learning Support Staff which is its response to the standards. At the heart of its approach is recognising, valuing, encouraging and guiding the developmental dimensions of the activities that colleagues already undertake. The approach assumes that what we ask of our learners we should also practice ourselves. Thus as we move into ever more flexible learning provision so we ourselves need to demonstrate situated learning capability and capacity.


The paper outlines the project over its 6 year span and describes its progress to date. It identifies and analyses some leading characteristics of the work including:


The paper concludes by inviting further comment on what are the key drivers in enabling personal and institutional/organisational learning in a CPD context.



Paper 7

Sue Graham, Garth Rhodes, Northumbria University

Critical Reflection in the 21st century workplace

This workshop will review critical reflection in the workplace context and explore the role of the lifelong reflector in the 21st century.


Issues to be covered will include:



The workshop will be take the form of a short presentation drawing upon relevant key texts (see below), which will hopefully form the basis for lively debate in the second half of the session.


The intention is build on lessons learnt so far and to move the debate forward drawing on the expertise and experience of participants. The findings and outcomes of the discussion will be utilised to form the basis of a paper.


References

Boud, D and Walker, D. (1998) ‘Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: the challenge of context’, Studies in Higher Education 23 (2): 191-206

Doherty, P, Boud, D and Cressey, P. (2006) ‘Lessons and Issues for Practice and Development’ in Boud, D et al (ed.) Productive Reflection at Work: Learning for Changing Organisations, Routledge, London, pp 193-206.



Paper 8

Barbara Workman, Pauline Armsby, Middlesex University

Mapping out work based learning across differing continuums

This seminar will take a workshop approach to explore the concept of a work based learning continuum and what characteristics might be evident in one. Certain aspects of a continuum have been identified by Workman (2001,2003) as ranging from prescriptive learning to negotiated learning and Costley and Armsby (2006), as ranging from a mode of study to a field of study.


As practitioners in work based learning and familiar with its many forms, this conference seems to offer a timely opportunity to develop some ideas further and explore a range of factors that present in differing work based learning contexts and consider where and how these might contribute to a WBL continuum. The aim of this would be to assist in the development and understanding of work based learning across a range of contexts and approaches thus enabling WBL practitioners to articulate the type of learning and teaching activities that might suit a particular WBL situation and what supporting structures could contribute to successful learning.


References

Costley, C. and Armsby, P (2006) ‘Work Based Learning Assessed as a Field or a Mode of Study’   Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Vol 31 no 4

Workman B (2001) Case studies on the use of Methodologies in practice based research - Work Based Learning Projects in Health WBL Masterclass, Research methodolgies in Practice. July 2001

Workman B. A. (2003) Methodologies in practice based projects as used by Work Based Learning students in the former School of Health, Biological and Environmental Sciences Journal of Health, Science and Environmental Issues Vol 4, 2, pp23-26



Paper 9

Learner Perspectives on Work-Based Learning: Three Views from LTW learners at Derby

John Blundell, University of Derby

This paper documents the experiences gained by a student during the successful completion of a Work Based Learning Master’s Degree. The case study includes examining the relationships between the student, employer and University. Although, these three aspects are of importance the paper will mainly examine the role of the student (myself), which will be interspersed where appropriate with comments relating to the roles of the employer and the University of Derby.


The first aspect to be overcome is the construction of the learning contract, which forms the basis of the modules to be studied; enabling the appropriate award to be granted. This concentrates on the construction of the learning contract from the positive aspect of designing your own course to the more difficult area of understanding the academic / educational phraseology. It is at this point that the involvement of the university, in particular the important and essential role of the personal tutor, web based examples and literature from Learn Direct is critical to the successful completion of the contract. Further, the university through my personal tutor provided support in the required areas of expertise to enable the structure of the course to contain sufficient academic content to meet the appropriate level of study. Although this may appear to be a restriction it soon became apparent that this approach meant that I became actively involved with my learning from the beginning, which enabled me to own the learning process. In addition, the main advantage of this type of learning process is the ability to tailor each section of the course of study to reflect your own work based experience and role within the company.


From the company viewpoint the course modules and content was relevant to the business unit requirements, which in addition, extended my professional development to other pertinent areas of interest and research. This research not only benefited the company but also enabled me to increase my knowledge and investigate new design and technological concepts. Therefore, support from the company was essential for the successful completion of this type of study programme. In particular, the company needs to actively participate in the learning process by being prepared to provide material, finance and the time to attend tutorials, exams, etc at the university. It is important to stress that due to the sensitivity of the material then it will become essential that the company and university enter into a confidentiality agreement.


Gaining my Master’s degree has been a rewarding process as I have become more technically confident. In addition, my company appear to have considered it to be of benefit as their response has been to promote me to the highest level of engineer with the department.


Jane Lyon, University of Derby

“What constitutes an activity as work, as opposed to something else such as leisure, is not whether it is paid but whether it involves the provision of a service to others or the production of goods for the consumption of others” (Taylor, 2004).


I completed an MA degree entitled “Ethical Practice in Personal & Professional Development” in October 2005. My experience of worked based learning was probably atypical as I had been unable to carry out paid employment since 1992, due to a debilitating and disabling health condition. Much of that time, I have been involved in a rich variety of voluntary work and so my life experience has formed my work base. Initially, I expected that the charity for which I did most of my voluntary work, would take the role of employer, but that organisation was not prepared to work with me. Therefore there has been no employer or even an employer equivalent for most of my learning programme, but that is not to say that my studies have been without impact on any organisations.


Now that I have reflected on my valuable work based learning experience, I see three key areas of the learning process:


  1. The role of my unique personalised curriculum and the different approaches to assessment of my evidence of learning

  2. My personal journey in making paths

  3. The impact of infrastructure considerations and the future challenges to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), employing organisations and government policy of this individualised approach to worked based learning.


Throughout my study, there have been very strong, interactive links between areas 1 and 2 above. The very nature of a personalised curriculum and assessment process has enabled my learning programme to reflect my personal journey and help to make new paths. This is demonstrated by the fact that I renegotiated my learning contract twice to take account of changed personal circumstances.


Any links to 3 above have been much more tenuous. In my own situation, this is partly accounted for by the lack of an employer role, but HEI and government policy issues have at least as much relevance to my situation as to other WBL learners.


I suggest that attention to development of stronger links with HEIs, employers and government departments will need to be at the core of WBL futures.


Michael Myciunka, University of Derby

Written from the perspectives of an LTW learner running a hairdressing business, this paper provides visceral experiences of learning processes encountered at the University of Derby. These may form the basis for exploration of the futures of Work-Based Learning (WBL).


Drawing on discrete facts from auto-ethnographic activity, implications for andragogy are discussed. How may enactors, who are training providers, help learners develop new perspectives that enrich their lives to open new opportunities for becoming? How may learners be transmuted or transmute themselves into James’ (2002: 369) “procedural technical knowers” in the workplace?


Not intending to constitute anecdotalism, the study tries to move beyond what is the case, to explaining why or how events occur.


My HE learning realities formed a barrier. My ontology contributed to faulty thinking surrounding what I thought I could be doing and what I thought the university should be doing. I confused LTW with OU/previous HE study. This led a pattern of confusion. Types of knowledge appeared to be prioritised and marginalised. I was shown how to “do research” using electronic journals, but it was taken as axiomatic that I could write an essay introduction. I learnt through differing communications. Sometimes these were formal and virtual, at other times they were informal by my visiting the department. Are some communications best served physically?


As a “returner to learn” I believed I knew what to study in my workplace. I generated my epistemology through humanistic paradigm. Then, by pedestrian behavioural learning activity I rendered adequate work. Deconstruction of my writing happened as a result of my contemplating tutor feedback. I climbed to higher learning stages. Cognition had occurred.


Because I could communicate more effectively in academic work, I experienced a shift in academic thinking. I returned to learning in the humanistic paradigm. This fed into my workplace practices where I forge more positive relationships with my staff. This helps me enculterate the team to learn more about the business we are in, as my knowledge stream gains momentum.


In Work-Based Learning, Wenger (1998: 96) claims that, ”knowledge and practice are emergent.” Gibbons et al. (1994) speak of mode 2 knowledge, where knowledge emerging from a particular context of application, such as in the service sector, develops outside university structures; within the space of work. Here lies one implication for the futures. Will a liminal tutor with one foot in the workplace arise to understand and propound differing epistemologies? Is this feasible given workplace connotations and new fields of study opening up? Is a new type of learner emerging, who, as James (2002:373) depicts, “really knows how to do it” practically?


Regarding futures and epistemologies, Gunaratnam (2006) asks the question, “How might we know differently” about learning? Van de Stege (2003) suggests re-conceptualisation using 3 units of analysis. They are, policy makers/advisers to education, tutors/faculties as the implementers of policy, and the learners themselves. Johnson (2001) goes on to advocate a force field analysis of the resisting and enabling factors to development of WBL in higher education.



Plenary

Judy Saxton, Learndirect learning through work

Learning through Work – a comprehensive web-resource for planning and delivering work based learning.

This session will incorporate an introduction to the re-developed Learning through Work environment. LtW has been operational in its ‘Mark 1’ format since 2001 and is used by nine HEIs to support a diverse range of work based and blended learning activities.


The re-developed system will be available in September 2007 and has been specifically designed to provide a comprehensive set of resources to facilitate WBL including:



Plenary

Simon Roodhouse, University of the Arts, London

Employers, Skills and Higher Education

Roodhouse, S and Swailes, S

ISBN; 978- 1-904235-15-8 Kingsham Press Chichester

This book will appeal to anyone interested in understanding how to improve and maintain standards in higher education and better meet the needs of employers. Through its coverage of recent policy initiatives and reactions to them, researchers will be able to draw on its definitive accounts of how vocational education and its accompanying concern for standards have developed in a British context. It will be of interest to those in countries where occupational standards systems have been established and there is a policy and practice interest in employ ability and workforce development.


The book will be a useful resource to academics responsible for developing courses in higher education and elsewhere, to those interested in British education policy and practice as well as to students on higher courses and to Sector Skills Councils and others responsible for training who have a direct interest in workforce development and HE engagement in the workplace.


It is intended to make a contribution to the discourse around employers, skills and higher education by explaining the history, exploring the barriers to engagement and by providing an impressive spectrum of practice. This includes an explanation of the role of higher education in contributing to the economic needs of society from past and present perspectives. It also engages with the relationship between the professions and higher education which forms an important component of any consideration of workforce development and employer engagement but which is often overlooked.


A brief history of the competency movement is included not least to encourage a reappraisal of previous positions in the context of the new higher education context. This is then explained through an emerging university model where work based learning, accreditation of prior learning and competence frameworks are combined with higher educational requirements to provide a tailored programme of study for employees linked to the business objectives of employers. Taking this theme, examples of other national occupational standards application models in higher education expand our understanding of how employer standards can be applied.


The book is informed by the work of the University Vocational Awards Council over the past eight years; in particular it draws on key UVAC publications to provide an overview of interactions between employers, skills and higher education.



Paper 10

Maggie Challis, Skills for Care

The ‘caring’ employer: developing a sectoral approach to work-based learning

The move towards employer-led education and training is set to change the way in which higher education engages with the world of work. The Leitch Review of Skills is one of a range of policy papers emerging from government departments, all of which urge closer engagement between what have been separate, but contiguous, approaches to the development of the workforce. Key to the central tenet of a demand-led education system are the Sector Skills Councils, who represent employers and, through their sector skills agreements, define the terrain for the future of education and training.


Skills for Care and Development is a partnership of five organisations which, together, work across social care for adults and children in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Skills for Care is responsible for the workforce in adult social care in England. The sector is broadly divided into social care – where NVQs are the mainstay of the qualifications structure – and social work – which is a graduate profession. Work-based learning is therefore defined by the qualification, not necessarily by the personal aspiration of the learner. A major drawback to this structure is that there is a conceptual divide between staff who are ‘trained’ to be vocationally competent, and those who are ‘educated’ to be autonomous professionals. Yet employers are increasingly expecting all their employees to demonstrate meta-competences such as communication, leadership and management and interprofessional working. The current qualifications structure in the sector and the way in which finance flows do not always facilitate this.


In addition, employers undertake a range of in-house training for their staff in order to meet the quality inspection standards which enable them to continue to operate. Such courses may, or may not, fit within a qualifications structure. Some are delivered by employers themselves; others are commissioned from a range of providers in the public, private, voluntary and independent sectors. Determining the quality of such a range of provision is not always simple.


Employers in the sector range from large local authorities to small care-home managers, and people who use services, and carers, who increasingly employ carers directly. The challenge for Skills for Care is to bring education and training together across the whole vocational domain so that employers are able to identify and articulate their needs, and education and training providers can meet these needs within a sound pedagogical framework. This role has been given to all Sector Skills Councils, and their work will influence the way in which providers react to the stated needs of the sector.


This paper will:



Paper 11

Carol Costley, Middlesex University

Epistemologies for high level work practices

The nature of work in the ‘knowledge era’ or ‘knowledge work’ is fundamentally different from what we have traditionally encountered and requires a different order of thinking. The questions about epistemology addressed in this paper are about how Work Based Learning as a field and mode of study addresses: what constitutes knowledge about work and learning; how we find out about this knowledge (includes methodology in research contexts); how and by whom it is recognised; how it relates to truth and how it is entangled with power.


what constitutes knowledge about work and learning

Knowledge about work and learning includes the academic/ researcher’s view of how people learn and construct knowledge at work and also the worker/learner’s perception of researching their own practice. Both sets of constructions represent a particular relationship between learning and knowledge that has a set of priorities that position various facets of knowledge, work and learning differently to more conventional approaches. The knowledge production, generation and use tends to be practice-based and is goal-oriented yet is often constrained by values, resources and time, given the imperatives of specific situations. The chief concern is more with creating, development and change than with research as an end in itself. This points to a conception of knowledge, based on levels of thinking equivalent to those expected in academia, leading to making a significant contribution to work practices.


how we find out about learning for, in and through work

Researching and understanding knowledge about learning at work requires academics/ researchers to address the social context of learning, the socio-historical construction of work situations and to acknowledge the huge differences between disparate work practices and situations. Complexity is inbuilt to this field. It involves recognising the crucial importance of knowing who problems belongs to, their positionality and location. For those researching and developing their own work situations, epistemology can be based on differing interests or standpoints and many different methodologies can be employed where their knowledge is grounded in experience and understanding of their work practices and values.


how and by whom work-based knowledge is recognised

Knowledge derived from formalising learning about work entails at least three or more parties; the learner/s, the organisations or communities where their work is undertaken and the university. The institutional and community perspective of knowledge goes beyond the ‘knowledge in the head’ of the individual practitioner/ learner and ventures into the material, social-political, discursive space-time in which practices are conducted. A shift from Mode-1 science to Mode-2 knowledge production (Nowotny et al, 2001) is increasingly becoming accepted by the rise of a more contextualised ‘science’ where both scientific and social functions are being acknowledged by universities.


how work-based knowledge relates to truth and how it is entangled with power

Poststructuralists and Feminists have challenged the conventional approaches to such research and knowledge construction, especially in terms of the relation to truth and to power. New epistemologies arose by asking new research questions and employing new methodologies and this was done in large part by staging a critique of positivism. Universities’ interests in work based and professional learning have in some respects borrowed from and developed some of these new approaches to fit the needs of knowledge-work. The act of studying, reflecting upon and researching the views of others within work communities brings worker/learners to an academic level where they have to take responsibility for themselves, ordering and controlling themselves in the process, leading to a situation that some authors have described as a powerful means for ‘self-surveillance’.


I conclude that knowledge in practice is constituted in the reflexive processes of the practitioner, the discursive and material processes of the particular context and the socio-political setting. This knowledge does not fit easily into disciplines but it is increasingly acknowledged as valuable in work settings and academia. New epistemologies have significant implications for universities, particularly in developing practices and systems to support high-level work practices that are neither generated nor used in an academic context.


Reference

Nowotny, H., Scott, P. and Gibbons, M. (2001) Re-thinking Science: knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty, Cambridge, Polity Press.



Paper 12

Judy Harris, Institute of Education

The influences of employment sector and knowledge on the character of Foundation degrees: Three cases

This paper represents work-in-progress on a two-year research and development project entitled ‘“Putting Knowledge to Work”: Integrating Work-based and Subject-based Knowledge in Intermediate-level Qualifications’. The project is funded by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and located at the Institute Of Education, University of London (Centre for Excellence in work-based learning for education professionals). A key rationale for the project is that WBL programmes relate to the practicalities of occupations and to subject-based formal knowledge in many different ways. In the face of such complexity, the term ‘integration’ is frequently used rather loosely and over-optimistically. The ‘Putting Knowledge to Work’ research holds that WBL programmes would benefit from greater conceptual clarity regarding relationships and possible relationships between knowledge in all its forms, including skills and ‘know how’ as well as propositional knowledge, or ‘knowing that’.


A broad ‘scoping’ exercise undertaken in the first six months of the project confirmed a multiplicity of meanings attached to ‘integration’. It also found that work-related and work-based programmes tend to pull towards either work or knowledge - a situation frequently exacerbated by a false dichotomy that all WBL is ‘progressive’ and all subject-based learning is ‘irrelevant’. Evidence from the scoping exercise also suggested that work-related and work-based learning programmes are influenced greatly by the nature of the particular employment sector and the qualifications and knowledge areas traditionally associated with it. On the basis of these findings, this project aims to research and develop contextually-aligned ‘both-and’ approaches to programme design and delivery at the intermediate level in order to maximise synergies between knowledge and work.


The first stage in doing this has been to undertake 10-12 case studies of how knowledge is currently put to work in intermediate-level learning programmes across different employment sectors and knowledge areas: Engineering; Business, Management and IT; and, the Creative Industries. Sectors which are employment growth areas have been selected. The aim of the case studies is to investigate exactly how (and why) the character of Foundation degrees is influenced by sector and knowledge criteria and to identify areas of good practice that can form the basis of contextually-aligned exemplar development in the later stages of the project.



Paper 13

Jeff Braham, Jo Pickering, University of Derby

Widening Participation and Work Based Learning.

We believe that WBL can serve to redress the emerging imbalance between the two agendas which have been generally at the heart of promoting work-based learning solutions, those of widening participation/social justice and economic competitiveness.


This paper will look at the way in which WBL has failed to deliver in some areas on the promise which original APEL work in the late 80s and early 90s suggested. Planned experiential learning was hailed as a way of using learning from the work context as the basis of academic credit, and so as a liberator of people for whom first chance education had not delivered success.


Although it is true to say that some programmes, such as the Learning through work programme at University of Derby were set up to deliver against this model of planned experiential or work-based learning, it is also the case that many HEIs found the principles of APEL too difficult to apply in any practical sense, and notions of credit transfer were not taken up in any numbers across the sector.


It therefore became a very small area of work, with only a few institutions actively involved, and the promised impact on levels of social equity of the experiential learning and work-based learning initiatives was correspondingly small.


When the focus shifted to the improvement of UK PLC higher level skills, and so economic competitiveness, the movement received new impetus, and work-based learning is now seen as an important supplement to institutional learning, and a vital contribution to making the context for learning relevant to the developing employment needs of any given sector.


We believe that the case study of the Foundation Degree in Children’s and Young People’s Services supporting classroom assistants shows that social equity and economic competitiveness can co-exist as the rationale for and product of a work-based learning programme.


Non traditional learners, particularly those working in Educational settings, rarely fall into the category of confident self-starters, and until the Re-modelling agenda was established (Raising standards and tackling workload TDA Jan 2003) there were no clear roles for them to progress towards.


These students are adult learners, in a more traditional sense. Many have low expectations of themselves, high expectations of their teachers, and their only confidence is in their own perceived ability to be unsuccessful. This is perpetuated by the accepted hierarchy of a school environment, some teachers still being intimidated by other adults in the classroom, and protecting their own status, by unconsciously reinforcing the pecking order.


Contrary to this, Teaching Assistants, and Early Years staff are in realty, talented, skilled, professionals, with real insight into classroom dynamics. They also have a strong work ethic, excellent organizational skills, and can easily find their way around educational systems, and IT, they just don’t acknowledge it yet!


The key has been 2 fold, close relationships with employers in the design of Foundation degree awards, producing a course which matches the role against the theoretical input, so learners immediately see the application of theory to (reflective) practice. Secondly, the careful selection of the delivery team, who need themselves to have appropriate vocational experience, but perhaps as importantly have the interpersonal skills as an adult education tutor. To build the confidence of their students, provide tutorial support, encourage, reassure, and know that what moves them is wanting and needing to learn (Race 2005).


The end result is the same, these students are high achievers, have moved into significant roles across the broad field of education, are making a difference, and meeting the new expectations of “Every Child Matters” (DfES 2003), and the strategy of the Children’s Workforce Development Council. Many of them would never make that transition without TLC, a small, but vital, specialist element of WBL in this case.


http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/B889EFF62F56A9E4C69778A869B3DA44.pdf Downloaded 12/1/07


http://www.tda.gov.uk/upload/resources/na_standards_workload.pdf Downloaded 12/1/07


Race, P.(2005) “Making Learning Happen” Sage Publications: London



Paper 14

Morag Harvey, Open University

The Changing Power Balance between Learners, Universities and Work Contexts

The Centre for Outcomes-Based Education (COBE) at the Open University has been carrying out research and development into work-based learning over the last six years. This research has focused on how learning occurs in the workplace and how that learning can be equated to higher education level. Over this period there has been a shift in approach to curriculum design from institution-led work-based learning developments to an increasing recognition of the experiences and knowledge already achieved by individuals through their workplace activities. This shift represents the future direction of work-based learning developments within higher education: a route which is moving towards a partnership between the individual worker, who has their own portfolio of work-based learning, and the educational institution that can provide a structure for that learning but does not restrict or constrain the type of learning experienced by the individual. Therefore the power balance between learners, university and work context is changing and current trends suggest that this change will be more significant in the future.


At the Open University, development within COBE of a generic approach to work-based learning, both in terms of support and key topic areas, has enabled some faculties to present work-based learning courses that place the student at the heart of the learning experience. In this approach the student mediates between the workplace and the university, and is responsible for finding a suitable person, such as a line-manager, to support them in the workplace. At the time that this approach was being developed, in the early 2000s, this represented an initial change in the power balance in terms of giving more power to the individual to negotiate their workplace learning support and was a move away from institutionally organised workplace mentors.


Current development activity in COBE is now following the future direction of work-based learning, and concentrating on the knowledge and learning experiences that workers have gained prior to becoming a student. This on-going development has recognised the progressively changing pedagogical role for universities and in parallel to designing a framework that enables students to equate their work-based learning to higher education, liaison with employers and professional groups has been undertaken to ensure that the needs of workers with expertise and experiences are met.


Based on these developments, future work-based learning initiatives can be predicted to involve an increasing role for students and their workplace. Given the changes that have occurred in the last six years, work-based learning curriculum initiatives in the future are likely to include more emphasis on the individual's design of their own learning programmes in line with their unique learning needs.



Paper 15

Lyn Brennan, BBAcademic Consulting

The Market and Context for HE in Work Based Learning: Building on Success, Facing New Challenges

During 2005 I carried out work on behalf of the University Vocational Awards Council the report of which was published under the title, Integrating Work-Based Learning into Higher Education: A Guide to Good Practice. Part of that report addressed the question, “Why should higher education engage with work-based learning?” In response to that question the Report considered the drivers that link higher education to economic competitiveness and aspects of the policy agenda for higher education and its impact on the funding of higher education. Since then, various initiatives and developments have already had an impact on the engagement of higher education with work based learning, a trend which can only be enhanced with the roll out of the developments and recommendations emanating from the recently published Leitch report.


A further publication, again with UVAC, entitled Incorporating the Learning People do for, In and Through Work into Higher Education Programmes of Study: A How to Manual is currently in preparation. This conference presentation will report on work in progress for the new publication, to include an update of recent policy initiatives and developments and analysis of the impact and implications for higher education of developments such as the extension of Train to Gain, work based learning CETLs, Lifelong Learning Networks, Sector Skills Agreements, and Employer Engagement initiatives.





Paper 16

Jenny Naish, Middlesex University

Think globally, act locally

The international map of work based learning makes for interesting observation: to date (February 2007) forms of higher education WBL as understood in the UK can be found, even in emergent form, in every single inhabited continent of the globe. But what does this mean? How can we understand the diversity of cultural, political and pedagogic cultures when we look at WBL in places as diverse as Hong Kong, Australia, Europe, the Caribbean and Malaysia? Tackling the question of “how to do” WBL in China raises fundamental questions about UK higher education and English as the given model of teaching, learning and assessment for instance. Of course one version of WBL cannot “fit all”, or if that is desirable (ie a Middlesex model for instance?) must still be culturally adaptive, even if there was some consensus about exactly what WBL is across the paradigms of “mode of learning” and/or “field of study”.


The development of WBL as a global form of higher education raises a series of complex, modern and demanding questions about the very nature of work and learning, and this must also be perceived within the growing internationalisation of a dominant western model of higher education. This in itself is of course deeply problematic. How might the classical, old and new worlds communicate about WBL, not least when how old and new and developing or development nation status maps uncomfortably on the dialectic between “eastern” and “western” approaches to teaching and learning? Such dialectics will challenge us to explore the nature of WBL within oral and visual traditions both within the UK and cultures with strong indigenous ethnicities and enable us to explore any transferences and transparencies between employment sectors that favour modes of learning at, through and for work that see oral and/or visual communication as dominant rather than subjugate. Even to pose such naïve questions indicates that WBL futures needs to think globally and act locally, or is it think locally and act globally?


This paper seeks to draw on my experience of working with WBL over the last 15 years, but specifically in the last 18 months or so with the responsibility for the international development of work based learning. My experience is both anecdotal and narrative, full of stories of other people’s experiences and perceptions of WBL; it is also of course highly partial and limited, but perhaps nonetheless interesting and worthy of discussion, debate and understanding.


Above all else I seek to ask some questions and discover whether these are the questions for the future and talk about what we don’t yet know about WBL and its global significance and potential.



Paper 17

Ruth Helyer, Elaine Hooker, University of Teesside

Employer/Employee Engagement - Who Pays?

This paper will use case studies of work-based learners from the university’s Work-Based Studies Degree or one of its several projects aimed at employer engagement, to examine some of the contexts in which work-based learning needs to be scrutinised to facilitate its future development.


Student and company evaluations, a vital way of gathering data, raise many issues about the experience of both employers and employees and their thoughts and feelings about HE level learning, for example, its relevance, its accessibility and its value. The ongoing evaluations of the companies involved will be a central part of this paper.


Many of the companies assisted are Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) and for them the economic implications are particularly vital – who pays for the module/programme/degree? – the employer? The employee? If it is the employer then can they pay ‘in-kind’ – for example by allowing staff time away from their job to study? Do they pay the fees? and if so are they full fees, reduced fees? is there some other way they can pay in services to the university? How does a company with very few members of staff find the time, realistically, to allow staff time off?


Remaining with financial questions, will better trained employees make the company more profitable? Will the employees stay with the company? Will they expect a higher salary in recognition of the new skills their employer may feel he has already paid for? The major project under discussion is half way through its 3 year life and many of these questions cannot be satisfactorily answered yet – but they can be discussed.


When they are set within the larger context of up-skilling the nation’s workforce these questions become even more important. As do the individual priorities of bettering oneself and/or improving the company. An employee’s wish to better themselves and even their performance at work may actually have little to do with how they feel about the company as a whole or the owner/manager.


There are also massive implications for the university. The projects we are undertaking at the moment are all externally funded. What would happen to this crucial work if there was no funding or no specific project? It seems obvious that this kind of activity needs to be embedded within university provision – yet this rarely happens. The Work-based Studies Degree we work on is viewed by the majority of our colleagues as a very marginal activity.


What does this mean for our future? It seems obvious that there are millions of learners too busy at work to attend university full-time who would benefit from HE level interaction. How do we cope with this in the future, if the country is going to survive competitively? Do universities have to become 24/7 institutions?



Paper 18

Andrew Haldane, Chris Newman, John Wallace, University of Derby

Can the APEL Process Be Facilitated Through The Use Of Technology?

The paper examines how certain practical difficulties associated with the APEL process, particularly, the investment of time necessary one a one to one basis between a tutor and the prospective APEL candidate can be ameliorated through the use of technology.

The need for an investigation into the potential for developing “E-APEL “tools had arisen in the context of the rapid growth in demand for “Learning Through Work” programmes at University level.


The recent UK Department of Trade and Industry “Global Watch” report on current and anticipated trends in the United States “Beyond e-Learning” highlighted a trend toward people development based on desired job-related learning outcomes with more emphasis on accreditation, apparently representing a move toward wider use in industry of the problem-based learning approach previously adopted in professions such as medicine. (eg Staunton and Grant 1999)


Corradi (ed) (2006) describes a trend toward increasing attention across Europe to the use of APEL to support the widening participation agenda. These trends suggest in future the number of learners ( and employers) approaching Universities and seeking APEL recognition may increase,


Already, at one UK University, 85 to 90 percent of individual learners applying for Learning Through Work also hope to achieve appropriate recognition and Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL). The University’s process for APEL, which closely follows the Guidelines on the accreditation of prior learning from the Quality Assurance Agency1, is a largely manual one at present.


Two factors have been placing a strain on this process:

  1. The current system for APEL cannot easily be scaled up to meet the increase in demand.

  2. Much of the work required by APEL needs to be undertaken before the potential student makes a commitment to study and pays any fees.


When exploring the possibility of using technology to support this process certain parallels were seen between the uses of technology to support diagnostic questioning in the context of online learning at HE level and the diagnostic questioning used in semi-structured APEL ( Meijer and Wallace, 2006).


However, authors such as Lueddeke (1997) and Puget and Osbourne (20040 have described a process in which the tutor’s probing of the intellectual capabilities previously demonstrated by the learner in the context of developing and applying the knowledge base. Gray, (2001) identified the scope for technology to mediate an action-learning approach to work-based learning and the UfI learndirect ( www.learndirect-ltw.co.uk ) VLE supports the development of an individual learning contract online. Authors such as Ball et al (2000) describe the capturing evidence of achievement within e-portfolios, but there appears to be little evidence to date of this approach being extended to APEL.


This paper therefore seeks to describe an E-APEL platform, currently under development, which automates to a significant extent the informal pre-entry estimation of the likely scope for a claim. The continuing need for tutor-claimant dialogue at the formal claim stage is recognised, however the paper will suggest that technology can also facilitate this process to mutual advantage.


References

Corradi, C. 2006 (Editor), Recognising experiential learning : practices in European universities edited by Consuelo Corradi, Norman Evans, Aune Valk, Tartu: Tartu University Press. 2006


Department of Trade and Industry, (2006) Global Watch Mission Report, Beyond elearning: Practical Insights from the USA. Melton Mowbary: PERA.


Gray, D. (2001) Work-based Learning, Action Learning and the Virtual ParadigmJournal of Further and Higher Education, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2001,


Meijer, R and Wallace, J. (2006), e-APEL. Learning Through Work, Presentation to JISC Projects Group 2006


Pouget, M. & Osborne, M. (2004) Accreditation or validation of prior experiential learning: knowledge and savoirs in France-a different perspective? Studies in Continuing Education, Vol. 26, No. 1, March 2004


Stanton, F and Grant , J. (1999) Approaches to Experiential Learning, course delivery and validation in medicine. A background document, Medical Education 1999; 33 282-297


1 Guidelines on the accreditation of prior learning. . . . . . The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, September 2004.

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