The Pedagogy of Work-related Learning
A brief overview commissioned by the DCSF 14-19 Expert Pedagogy Group
Professor Bill Lucas1
“And out of each *schoolhouse+ is vomited the standard product of the
new pedagogy - an endless procession of adolescents who have been taught everything
save that which is true, and outfitted with every trick save those that are socially useful.”
Henry Louis Mencken
Since the early 20th century, education has been seen as a means of delivering both social and
economic outcomes, preparing young people for life and for work. In the UK’s general system
of education, even for those opting for a more vocational pathway, the majority of a student’s
time is spent in educational institutions (rather than in workplaces). However separation
between the worlds of work and education is becoming less stark. Universities which used to
have most of their courses as purer, academic based study are increasingly offering degrees
with significant amounts of work-related learning (WRL). And in secondary schools and colleges
WRL is now an explicit pathway for young people involved in apprenticeships, the new
Diplomas and a range of other vocational courses.
1
With thanks to my Centre for Real-World Learning colleague Guy Claxton and to Julian Stanley (and other
members of the DCSF 14-19 Expert Pedagogy Group) for their comments on earlier drafts
1
This short paper seeks to describe some of the main traditions in the pedagogy of work-related
learning (WRL). The focus is primarily on 14-19 where WRL becomes especially important for
young people and where there are a number of current policy developments taking place.
While some reference is made to more general thinking about work-based learning (in other
words the learning or training undertaken by adults), the emphasis is on WRL for 14-19 year
olds, in work experience, on apprenticeships and undertaking vocational courses. An underlying
principle throughout the paper is that, as Kurt Lewin observed: “There is nothing so practical as
a good theory”2. In other words, that, in becoming a better learner or teacher, it may be useful
to have clearer and more accurate mental models of what is going on beneath the surface, and
that such understanding may be practically useful.
Initially intended to initiate discussion among the DCSF 14-19 Expert Pedagogy Group3, the
paper is also designed to stimulate discussion between policy-makers, researchers and
practitioners about the relative benefits of using different pedagogies in different WRL
situations. The paper is necessarily limited in scope as it has involved a short rather than
exhaustive review of the literature.
Pedagogy in general
Internationally, as the quotation from the USA which begins this paper illustrates, pedagogy has
not always had a good name! Too often it is associated either with new-fangled methods or
with an overly abstract view of what practitioners actually do when they are actually teaching
(the “socially useful” jibe of the Mencken quotation) In England we are, arguably, even more
reticent than other European countries with regard to pedagogy although there has often been
talk about “teaching methods”. So, nearly thirty years ago Brian Simon lamented our lack of
interest in pedagogy.4 In 2004 Robin Alexander was driven to make a similar complaint, this
time with regard to the Primary curriculum5. Most recently there has been an explicit attempt
to underpin 14-19 policy with pedagogical thinking in The Diploma and its pedagogy.6 And the
formation of the Department for Children Schools and Families 14-19 Expert Pedagogy Group
which commissioned this paper is a further indication of a resurgence of interest in matters
pedagogical.
There are, of course, many different kinds of workplaces, from production lines to the creative
industries, social enterprises to global companies and we should not be surprised if learning
within these different kinds of organizations is very different. It will be interesting to see
2
Lewin, Kurt (1951) Field theory in social science; selected theoretical papers. Cartwright, Dorwin (Ed.) New York:
Harper & Row
3
The DCSF 14-19 Expert Pedagogy Group was created by the Department for Children Schools and Families in 2009
4
Simon, Brian (1981) Why no pedagogy in England? In Simon, Brian and Taylor W (Eds) Education in the eighties:
the central issues. London: Batsford, 124-145
5
Alexander, Robin (2004) Still no pedagogy? Principle, pragmatism and compliance in primary education
Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol 34, No 1, 7-33
6
Centre for Education and Industry, University of Warwick (2008) The Diploma and its pedagogy London: QCA
2
whether there are any commonly applicable principles of pedagogy which may be useful in
workplaces and in the educational institutions which offer WRL and which are different from
traditional school-based pedagogies.
A definition of work-related Learning (WRL)
For the purpose of this paper, WRL is considered to be a broader concept than work-based or
work-place learning. Practical examples of WRL include work experience, apprenticeship, work
shadowing, service learning, community-based projects, vocational courses, Diplomas,
simulations, and the teaching of wider employability and real world skills. WRL involves learning
for, at and through work. It includes learning which is formal and informal, assessed and not
assessed. WRL can be experienced in a range of settings and learned in a variety of ways. The
formal DCSF definition of WRL is “planned activity that uses the context of work to develop
knowledge, skills and understanding useful in work, including learning through the experience
of work, learning about work and working practices, and learning the skills for work.” 7 But these
descriptions do not quite do the complex subject of WRL justice. For it sits on a continuum
between classroom-based and work-based learning, often explicitly requiring transfer of
learning between work and education contexts.
Given that WRL is provided in England by and at a range of institutions - schools, colleges,
universities, independent learning providers and workplaces - our interest is primarily in the
interface between these organizations and in what each can do to ensure that WRL is most
effective. The supposition is that, if we understand more about the pedagogy of WRL, we may
be able to acquire practically useful insights about learners, learning, teaching, attitudes to
knowing and doing, and the affordances of and demands of the different contexts in which WRL
takes place. WRL became a statutory requirement of the Key Stage 4 curriculum from
September 20048.
Characteristics of Work-related Learning (WRL)
Much WRL takes place in contexts whose primary purpose is not teaching or learning and
where the “teaching” may be done by many different people who are not teachers. As has
already been observed, not all WRL takes place at work, although a significant amount of it –
apprenticeship and elements of diplomas are two obvious examples - clearly does. Work
environments and cultures are very different, and various commentators have attempted to
describe the complexity of workplace contexts.
7
DCSF (2008) The Work-related Learning Guide – First edition A guidance document for employers, schools,
colleges, students and their parents and carers
8
For more on the progress of WRL in schools, see a useful study of 2007, Work-related learning at key stage 4 First
replication study: a QCA-commissioned report on the development of work-related learning in the three years since
September 2004
3
Michael Eraut9, usefully summarises the factors which may facilitate or inhibit learning in a
workplace. These include:
 the extent to which there are transactions with other outside people
 the range and variety of activities
 the extent to which activities allow flexible and discretionary decisions
 the scope and demand for inventiveness, problem-solving and creativity, individually
and in teams
 the degree to which there are opportunities for planning, reviewing and strategic
thinking
 the degree to which it is possible for individuals to perform to the best of their
competence, and the nature of formal and informal communications within the
workplace.
Eraut also found that two specific factors above others were influential10 – the “micro-culture
of the workplace” and “how a person is managed”. Each of these can be hugely pro- or antilearning.
It would seem logical to assume that, within workplaces, different pedagogies may be required
depending on the:
 different kinds of learners and their prior experiences
 subject being learned
 available resources and, of course
 context.
Within schools and colleges, the primary locations of WRL provided by educational institutions,
a range of pedagogies are utilized. Some of these are explicit (as with formative approaches to
learning epitomized by Assessment for Learning11). Others are much less so, as for example, in
the range of approaches that can be found to the organization of work experience or in the
ways that colleges deliver components of apprenticeships.
A classic description of the difference between learning in educational institutions and learning
elsewhere (at work and at home, for example) was provided by Lauren Resnick12 more than
twenty years ago. Toni Griffiths and David Guile helpfully summarise Resnick’s thinking13:
9
Eraut, Michael (2004) Deconstructing apprenticeship learning: what factors affect its quality? In New Approaches
to Vocational Education in Europe Oxford: Symposium Books
10
Op. cit.
11
See http://www.qcda.gov.uk/4334.aspx for a summary of the principles developed by Paula Black and Dylan
Wiliam and now interpreted by QCDA
12
Resnick, Lauren (1987) Learning in school and out, Educational Researcher, Vol 16, 13-40
13
Figure 1 is adapted from Griffiths, Toni and Guile, David, Pedagogy in work-based contexts in Mortimer, Peter
(1999) Understanding Pedagogy and its impact on learning. London: Sage Publications
4
Figure 1 – Different approaches to learning
Learning in school and college
Decontextualised
Second-hand
Extrinsically motivated
Often individualistic
Assessed by others
Formal
Learning at work and at home
Real context
First-hand
Intrinsically motivated
Often collaborative
Self-assessed
Informal
A key question, and one asked by a series of Teaching and Learning Research Programme
seminars in 2005 and 200614, is: “What forms of pedagogy can most effectively mobilize
learning across domains, and for what purposes?”15 In other words, given that a characteristic
of WRL is that it occurs across a number of different contexts, which pedagogies are most
effective? What follows is an attempt to stimulate discussion of some possible answers to this
question.
WRL, wherever it occurs, takes as its starting point the task associated with a particular working
practice and, through a combination of on the job and off the job methods, seeks to extract the
learning from this. Or it might anticipate a workplace activity and prepare learners by teaching
them or allowing them to discover some core aspects of theory, processes and practices
beforehand. In this WRL is different from general education and learning which is still largely
predicated on areas of knowledge, frequently described as “subjects”.
Where a student in a school learns aspects of Geography or Biology, an apprentice might be
learning about aspects of farming which require both geographical and biological knowledge. In
WRL the eventual application is likely to influence the methods by which learners are
introduced to key concepts and skills. Arguably the second of these “models” of learning has
much to commend it in pedagogical terms, whereas the subject-based tradition, the first of the
two just mentioned, may leave the learner uncertain about how what they have learned can
best be applied (other than in tests or examinations).
Indeed this shift away from a narrow focus on subjects has been recognized for younger
learners in the broader Programmes of Learning and the accompanying Essentials for Learning
and Life that make up the new Primary curriculum16 and in other contributions to the policy
debate17. Of course in good teaching and learning such crude polarizations are seldom present
14
See http://crll.gcal.ac.uk/tlrp/tlrp_seminar.htm
See Edwards, Richard and Miller, Kate (2007) Putting the context into learning Pedagogy, Culture and Society
Vol 15, no 3, 263-274 for a summary of many of these issues
16
Rose, Sir Jim (2009) Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum: Final Report London: HMSO
17
Lucas, Bill and Claxton, Guy (2009) Wider skills for learning; what are they, how can they be cultivated, how could
they be measured and why are they important for innovation? London: NESTA
15
5
as the educators concerned select those pedagogies and methods most appropriate for the
learning to be undertaken.
If “pedagogy” seems too general a term to describe what goes on in WRL, Figure 2 offers some
specific examples of the kinds of methods which tend to be used.
Figure 2 - Some examples of Work-related Learning (WRL) methods18
Learning by watching. The importance of learning by observation is often
underestimated and it is a key element of much WRL. Young children are extremely
good at it, though they often get ‘educated’ out of it, to their detriment.19 Brains are
built to learn by observation, and they do not stop doing it when children become
teenagers.20
Learning by practising. Practising is a complex set of learnable learning skills. The
literature shows how different kinds of practice are optimal for different learning
’jobs’.21
Learning by imitating. Observation and practice combine most powerfully in imitation:
the attempt to emulate an observed performance. The human brain is designed to
learn by imitation, and this disposition provides vital social ‘glue’ that holds groups
together, as well as being one of the apprentice’s most powerful learning methods.22
Learning through feedback. Students learn faster if they can ‘hear’ feedback as a useful
guide to improvement, rather than as a negative evaluation of self-worth. This
disposition can be cultivated through conversation and modelling.23
Learning by chatting. Much useful learning happens in informal conversation between
peers, and between more and less experienced students. The exchange of peer
information and ideas remains a central learning strategy throughout working life in
many sectors.24
18
This set of examples is largely adapted from Lucas, Bill, Claxton, Guy and Webster, Rob (2010) Mind the gap;
research and reality in practical and vocational education. London: Edge
19
Rogoff, Barbara (2003) The Cultural Nature of Human Development, New York: Oxford University Press
20
Hurley, Susan and Chater, Nick (eds) (2005) Perspectives on Imitation, Vols I and II, Cambridge MA: Bradford/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
21
Lavallee, David, Williams, Jean and Jones, Marc (eds) (2008), Key Studies in Sport and Exercise Psychology,
Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education
22
Hurley, Susan and Chater, Nick (eds) (2005) Perspectives on Imitation, Vols I and II, Cambridge MA: Bradford/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
23
Dweck, Carol (2006) Mindset; the new psychology of success New York: Ballantine
24
Mercer, Neil (2000) Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together London: Routledge
6
Learning by teaching and helping. Apprentices often act as teachers as well as learners.
Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin25 describe apprentices claiming to learn a good deal from
their efforts to help other people, as well as deriving satisfaction and self-esteem.
Learning by real-world problem-solving. Problem-based learning is commonly used in
WRL. Effective simulations and role-plays offer learners the opportunity to develop
qualities of mind such as thinking, imagination, resilience and collaboration in the
process of tackling genuinely difficult tasks together.26
Learning by listening, transcribing and remembering. There are many things that an
apprentice has to know and remember, and some of these can be efficiently learned
through drill and repetition. However this method becomes overused and
counterproductive when learners have to commit knowledge to memory that is
necessary only to pass exams, and can thereafter be safely forgotten.
Learning by writing and sketching. There is a necessary place in WRL for developing the
sense of when and how it is useful to think something carefully through on paper; the
ability to use drafts, sketches, diagrams and models to clarify and stimulate thinking;
the know-how to write necessary reports and accounts.
Learning on the fly. This is a nice phrase27 to describe the opportunistic nature of WRL
whereby learners make requests for help from whoever is available to answer their
questions.
Characteristics of 14-19 year old learners
The period of teenage life on which we are focusing has specific challenges in terms of
pedagogy. For in addition to understanding factors such as the content of what it to be learned
and the context in which this takes place, the young learners are themselves in a relatively
volatile state. Young people at this age tend, quite naturally, to be risk taking and boundary
pushing as they seek to develop their own identity. Knud Illeris28 puts it like this:
“All learning from the age of 12 or 13 onwards is very much orientated towards the
formation of identity and can only be understood in this light…Whereas childhood is a
period for constructive assimilative learning, youth is a period for major accommodations
25
Fuller, Alison and Unwin, Lorna (2004) Young People as Teachers and Learners in the Workplace: Challenging the
Novice-Expert Dichotomy, International Journal of Training and Development, 8(1), 31-41
26
Barell, John (2007) Problem-Based Learning: An Inquiry Approach, New York: Corwin Press
27
Suggested by Beach, King and Vyas, Sapna (1998) Light pickles and heavy mustard; horizontal development
among students negotiating how to learn in production activity. Paper presented at the Fourth Conferences of the
International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory, University of Aarhus, Denmark
28
Illeris, Knud (2007) How we learn; learning and non-learning in school and beyond. Oxford: Routledge
7
and transformations in which, one by one, profound changes are made to the knowledge
structures and emotional patterns with regard to identity.”
For some learners there is an additional challenge of low esteem in that, if they are following a
learning pathway involving WRL, this may largely be because they have failed to jump over
various academic hurdles during their school life and consequently feel in some sense secondrate. While practitioners are often acutely aware of this, there has not yet been enough
discussion of the implications of low esteem for pedagogy?
On the other hand, the chance of moving into a WRL context can be a motivating force too.
William Richardson sees the more adult atmosphere of work (and life in an FE college) as more
motivating for those learners who have not done well academically:
“The majority of this group who want to leave school [early] have huge capacities and
abilities and potential, but we have just incredibly crude institutions and structures for
enabling and releasing it. So they get shunted into a low status, low prospects route and
then feel trapped and let down. But their potential could have come alive had the
pedagogic environment been much richer. You see people thrive quickly when the setting
changes.”29
The clear implication of the Richardson comment is that the development of richer pedagogic
environments for 14-19 WRL must assume more importance.
Richard Pring and colleagues helpfully approach the issue of the characteristics of 14-19
learners from another angle, namely by considering what a 19 year old learner might be able to
do and know by age 19. The Nuffield 14-19 research30 which he led concluded, among other
matters, that more active and practical learning of the kind found in WRL was required for
everyone.
And, of course, we should not forget the fact that, in terms of learning media, the younger
generation – and 14-19 year-olds are often at the leading edge of this – is adept at using ICT in
ways which baffle many of their teachers and mentors.
Key traditions of pedagogy in WRL
While there is much less written about the pedagogy of WRL than about more general schoolbased education, WRL has a long history stretching back to the early days of apprenticeship in
the Middle Ages. As WRL has developed over the centuries it has also borrowed and adapted
pedagogies from other contexts. And since the 1980s, when Peter Senge coined the phrase
29
Interviewed as part of research in Lucas, Bill, Claxton, Guy and Webster, Rob (2010) Mind the gap; research and
reality in practical and vocational education. London: Edge
30
Pring, Richard et al (2009) Education for All: the future of education and training for 14-19 year olds Oxford:
Routledge
8
“The Learning Organisation” to suggest that the workplace could be a specific location for
learning, there has been a new interest in understanding the socio-cultural implications of
working and learning while being employed. Indeed Peter Senge31 argues for the value of WRL:
“As the world becomes more inter-connected organizations that will truly excel in the
future will be (those)...that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to
learn.”
What follows is a brief overview of some of the key traditions of WRL pedagogies32. While each
one may appear to be a discrete entity, in practice the boundaries between them are more
permeable.
The Transmission Method
Without necessarily being dignified by any specific research tradition, the idea that learning
takes place best when the teacher or tutor or expert is transmitting their knowledge to their
class or to their pupil or to their apprentice is deeply embedded in educational history. This
approach to pedagogy is not unconnected to longstanding (and false) views of young learners
being either tabula rasa (blank slates) waiting to be “written” upon by those who know better
or “little vessels” needing to be filled up with facts chosen by the knowledgeable adult.
In this model of pedagogy, the teacher is firmly in control of the knowledge that is delivered to
learners and the students demonstrate their successful acquisition of the knowledge by some
form of testing. This approach can appear to be effective (as in efficient) in that maximum
information is transmitted by an “expert” in relatively small amounts of time, with activities
designed to embed knowledge. But in fact it is frequently ineffective, with learners having a
passive and dependent relationship to what is being taught.
In a much more positive vein, skilled expert instruction and demonstration can be an extremely
effective means of cultivating habits of mind and of learning certain skills in learners. Indeed
this approach is at the heart of traditions of apprenticeship across the world. Klaus Nielsen, for
example, has shown how a subtle combination of instruction, observation and increasing
opportunities for learner practical experimentation is a highly effective method of developing
apprentice bakers33.
31
Peter Senge (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization, Doubleday, New York
There are a number of useful existing summaries of workplace pedagogies of which Fuller, Alison and Unwin,
Lorna, Developing pedagogies for the contemporary workplace, in Evans, Karen, Hodkinson, Phil and Unwin, Lorna
(Eds) (2002) Working to Learn; transforming learning in the workplace London: Routledge is particularly useful
33
Nielsen, Klaus (2008) 'Scaffold instruction at the workplace from a situated perspective', Studies in Continuing
Education, 30: 3, 247-261
32
9
The Humanistic Approach
Although developed in a therapeutic context, echoes of the thinking of Carl Rogers34 can be
found in the practice of many WRL practitioners. Often referred to as Humanist on account of
his special respect for the individual learner, Rogers saw teaching not as didacticism but as a
kind of facilitation. All people, he believed, have the potential for growth and it is the teacher’s
role to facilitate such development. In manifesting his approach Rogers considered that
teachers should be “real” (prepared to share what they are really thinking or feeling with
learners), should value the learner as an individual and should constantly strive to be
empathetic in their relationship with learners.
Arguably the impact of Rogers thinking on education is in his emphasis on the quality of the
relationship between teacher and learner: ‘The facilitation of significant learning rests upon
certain attitudinal qualities that exist in the personal relationship between facilitator and
learner’35.
Experiential Learning
In many ways the idea of experiential learning is related to the Humanist or person-centred
tradition. As David Kolb argues: “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through
the transformation of experience.” 36 First we experience something, then we observe and
reflect on our experience, then we develop theories to account for what we experience and
finally we actively test out our conceptual understanding and experiment. This is the
experiential learning cycle associated with Kolb.
Kolb’s theory is at least in name one of the most often cited with regard to WRL (indeed it is
specifically mentioned in The Diploma and its pedagogy and is part of the thinking behind the
use of the term “applied learning” in the Diploma). Perhaps because of its attractive simplicity
or because of the way that, through valuing experience, it empowers an individual, Kolb’s
learning cycle is widely used as an example of pedagogy in action. And there is much commonsense contained in it. You learn how to use a lathe by using a lathe not by reading about it or
being told about it, the argument goes.
One of the most important features of Kolb’s thinking is not its emphasis on experience but its
focus on reflection. So it is not the fact that you do something that is valuable but more that
you may do it differently (better) as a consequence of reflecting on and “extracting the learning
juice” from the situation in which you are involved.
But as a pedagogical theory, Kolb’s cyclical approach to experience can appear to be too neat
with regard to how we learn. In some cases as we will see later in this paper, Kolb is just plain
34
Rogers, Carl (1969) Freedom to Learn : a view of what Education might become Columbus, OH: Merrill
Kirschenbaum, Howard and Henderson, Valerie (Eds.) (1990) The Carl Rogers Reader, London: Constable
36
Kolb, David (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall
35
10
wrong in that sometimes we learn more effectively when we develop a theoretical
understanding first and then test it out later in practice! Overstressing the value of experience
can also run the risk of undervaluing the value of the teacher and neglect the pedagogic
processes involved. It also says nothing about the context in which WRL is situated.
Constructivism
Perhaps the most widely drawn upon set of pedagogies in WRL are those which are broadly
described as constructivist. Clearly related to both the experiential and the Humanistic
traditions, constructivism puts more emphasis still on the learner’s role in creating knowledge
and new thinking. Constructivism has implications both for the role of the teacher (increasingly
more facilitative than didactic). It also articulates a profound shift in the balance of power in
any relationship between learners and teachers in its attitude to knowledge. Knowledge, this
view of pedagogy suggests, is something that can be created by anyone, even those who are
not experts. Indeed it is precisely the act of constructing meaning that is at the core of learning.
Knowledge ceases to be something existing independently and abstractly and becomes a
personal act of meaning-making from experience.
Some core principles of constructivist teaching have been summarised by John Savery and
Thomas Duffy37:
1. Anchor all learning activities to a larger task or problem.
2. Support the learner in developing ownership for the overall problem or task.
3. Design authentic tasks.
4. Design the task and the learning environment to reflect the complexity of the
environment the learner should be able to function in at the end of the learning.
5. Give the learner ownership of the process used to develop a solution.
6. Design the learning environment to support and challenge the learner's thinking.
7. Encourage the generation of alternative ideas, views and contexts.
8. Support opportunities for reflection on both the content learned and the learning
process throughout the learning.
Whether in WRL or more generally in any learning situation, these principles resonate with
many practitioners today. They helpfully introduce a new element in our discussions, namely
the idea of authenticity, that the learning needs to seem “real” to the learner for it to be
successful.
One aspect of authentic, constructivist pedagogy developed directly in a WRL context is
normally referred to as problem-based learning. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical
approach that suggests that learning is effective when the learner is empowered to undertake
research into real problems or challenges applying both theory and practice to develop
solutions. Developed in the 1970s for the training of doctors in North America, PBL sought to
37
Savery, John and Duffy, Thomas (1995) ‘Problem Based Learning: An Instructional Model and its Constructivist
Framework’, Educational Technology, 35, 31-38
11
take medical education away from its abstracts by recreating the kind of real-world work
environment into which doctors will go as part of their training. Researchers examining this
problem-based approach found that it was at least equal to more conventional methods when
it came to medical board examinations but superior in terms of the development of clinical
problem-solving skills38.
Problem-based learning is intuitively attractive to WRL practitioners as it somehow replicates
the messy real-worlds of work in which challenges abound. However grappling with problems
without other methods being used – personal reflection and collaborative enquiry, for example
– may mean that the approach is less useful39.
A logical extension of constructivist thinking is the idea of peer learning, where learners
explicitly seek to learn from and each other. David Boud’s description40 makes this clear:
“Students learn a great deal by explaining their ideas to others and by participating in activities
in which they can learn from their peers”. The use of peer learning indicates a potential role
development beyond the idea of teachers becoming facilitators to one where learners become
teachers. This is no mere whimsy. For it turns out that, when learners act as teachers, there is a
major impact on their educational achievement. John Hattie in his exemplary review41 of
hundreds of meta-analyses of aspects of teaching and learning puts it like this:
“The remarkable feature of [all this] evidence is that the biggest effects on student
learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students
become their own teachers…Many of the most debated issues are the ones with the least
effects.”
It should be noted that the constructivist tradition has its critics. Paul Kirschner42 and
colleagues, draw on current understanding of memory structures in the brain to argue that
depriving novice learners of explicit guidance early on in a process can reduce the effectiveness
of the learning. For without appropriate mental models, schema or rules, novices may struggle
to integrate what they have learned with their prior knowledge and experience. So, instead of
leaving learners to “flounder” in a highly experiential and minimally guided environment,
Kirschner argues that giving them worked examples and process worksheets is likely to be
38
Albanese, Mark and Mitchell, Sandra (1993) Problem-based learning: a review of the literature on its outcomes
and implementation issues Academic Medicine, Vol 68, 52-81
39
See Yeo, Roland (2008) How does learning (not) take place in problem-based activities in workplace contexts
Human Resource Development International Vol 11, No 3, 317-330
40
Boud, David (2001) Introduction: Making the Move to Peer Learning. In Boud, David, Cohen, Ruth and Sampson,
Jane (Eds.) Peer Learning in Higher Education: Learning from and with others London: Kogan Page Ltd
41
Hattie, John (2009) Visible Learning; a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement Oxford:
Routledge
42
Kirschener, Paul, Sweller, John and Clark, Richard (2006) Why minimal guidance during instruction does not
work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery-based, experiential and inquiry-based teaching
Educational Psychologist Vol 41, 75-86
12
beneficial. Practitioners may of course conclude that these aspects of pedagogy can both be
usefully incorporated into WRL.
WRL is a broad concept and practice. And many of the different strands of pedagogy mentioned
so far can complement each other and be incorporated in WRL at 14-19. But sometimes there
are potential clashes or at least questions of concern. These include consideration as to the
timing of formal instruction, the degree to which teachers instruct or facilitate, and, to return to
the criticism levelled by Richardson on page 8, how we can create richer pedagogic
environments for 14-19 education more generally.
Social views of learning
Most learning is social or at least has a social dimension. We learn through observation,
imitation and collaborative endeavour and a key influence on pedagogy in WRL and elsewhere
is the work of Lev Vygotsky.43 Knowledge, Vygotsky argues, is something that we construct
socially through our interactions with our peers and with those who are more knowledgeable
than ourselves. From Vygotsky’s translators we have acquired the idea of the ‘zone of proximal
development’ (ZPD). Unlikely as it may sound, the ZPD is a very useful idea in PBL. The ZPD
describes the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she might
be able to achieve with expert support. It is at the heart of much apprenticeship, coaching and
teaching. For the good teacher understands the learner’s stages of development and is able to
provide the necessary ‘scaffolding’ - tools, maxims, access to other more expert learners and so
forth - for him or her to progress and grow.
Vygotsky also suggests that social interaction precedes (rather than follows) individual
development: “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the
social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and
then inside the child (intrapsychological).”44 This also has potential application within WRL in
terms of the explicit valuing and legitimizing of social interaction.
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger take Vygotsky’s thinking a stage further with their idea of
Communities of Practice (CoP)45, groups of people who are undertaking a common or similar
activity. Indeed CoP have been one of the most influential conceptualizations of WRL in the last
few decades. The originality of the idea is in the way it suggests that learning is largely social
and largely based on our experiences of taking part in day to day living rather than mainly
modeled on some kind of classroom.
43
Vygotsky, Lev (1978) Mind and society: the development of higher mental processes, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press
44
45
Op. cit.
Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne (1991) Situated Learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
13
Lave and Wenger also coined a specific phrase - legitimate peripheral participation - to describe
the complex and largely informal learning which takes place within a CoP as someone moves
from the edge of the group:
“Legitimate peripheral participation provides a way to speak about the relations between
newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, artefacts and communities of knowledge
and practice. It concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community
of practice.”46
Their research into various craft apprenticeships, such as tailoring, for example, showed how
people learn to become experts without there being formal pedagogical processes in place as
they move from being peripheral members to fully participating members of a particular
community. (Although the expert tailors had cleverly worked out that apprenticeships should
start at the end of the process with simple activities unlikely to damage the garment, only
working back to the cutting, where expensive mistakes could be made, once they were more
expert. The expert tailors had ordered the learning experiences of their apprentices accordingly
in their CoP.)
The specific nature of the learning involved arise from the way that it is “situated”, in other
words from its context. So a community of footballers or dry-stone wallers or professors or
garage mechanics are situated in their places and cultures, developing processes, patterns of
behavior, tools, stories and vocabularies to suit their specific needs. Significantly we are all in
some kind of community of practice so whether we are in a “teaching” or “learning” role we
will have experience and knowledge of the process of becoming more expert in something to
bring to any new situation.
CoP goes beyond the idea of experiential learning in the way that it specifically anchors learning
to social contexts; knowledge, even that gained through experience, exists in context and to
talk of it in isolation from where it is used is, according to Lave and Wenger nonsensical.
Alongside CoP and ultimately tracing its roots to Vygotsky is another approach to WRL known
as Activity Theory, a model or framework for understanding complex human activities (such as
those situated in a work environment). Activity Theory suggests that internal activities cannot
be understood if they are explored separately, in isolation from external activities. So tools
developed in a specific work context are closely connected to and influenced by the context of
that environment. Tools are influenced by the environment in which they are created and
become a means by which learning is shared within that context. So, a landscape gardener will
have various methods for checking the levels within a garden that go beyond go beyond the use
of the obvious tool, a spirit level.
46
Op. cit.
14
From this tradition of thinking Yrjö Engeström has developed the idea of CoP to create the
concept of “expansive learning”. Expansive learning occurs “when a community of practice
begins to analyse and transform itself.…a long-term process of re-defining the objects, tools
and social structures of the workplace”. 47 Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin have taken this
approach further still to describe different approaches to apprenticeship, one which they term
“expansive” (which is full of opportunities for learning and development of many kinds) and the
other called “restrictive” (where the constraints of the working environment and the demands
of the institution leave little space for individual learning).48
As with all pedagogies there are those who point out areas of weakness in the idea of CoP.
Fuller and Unwin and colleagues, for example, while broadly positive about the essence of Lave
and Wenger’s thinking, helpfully remind us of its potential limitations as a theory49. These are
as follows:
1. CoP, while useful as a way of understanding how novices progress, has less to say about
experts continue to learn.
2. Lave and Wenger’s opposition to formal teaching is unhelpful and limiting.
3. Learner identity, especially the knowledge and skills brought by new members of a CoP
from outside is insufficiently developed.
4. CoP does not acknowledge the very considerable power inequalities which exist in
workplaces and is, in this area, potentially over idealistic.
Toni Griffiths and David Guile have attempted further to develop the CoP concept to overcome
some of the limitations implied so far. They call it the “connective model of learning”50 which is
characterized by:
 an emphasis on reflexive activity (learners extracting the meaning of what they are
doing)
 vertical and horizontal development (learners of all levels of expertise learning together)
 organizations full of environments which facilitate learning.
Another way of viewing complex, connected working environments is through the lens of a
psychological theory developed by Edwin Hutchins to describe the ways in which groups of
people are able to work and learn together “in the wild”51. In his research Hutchins reports a
47
Engeström, Yrjö (1994) Training for change: new approach to instruction and learning in working life Geneva:
International Labour Office
48
Fuller, Alison and Unwin, Lorna (2003) Learning as apprentices in the contemporary UK workplace: creating and
managing expansive and restrictive participation Journal of Education and Work Vol 16 no 4 407-426
49
Fuller, Alison, Hodkinson, Heather, Hodkinson, Phil and Unwin, Lorna (2005) Learning as peripheral participation
in communities of practice: a reassessment of key concepts in workplace learning. British Educational Research
Journal Vol 31, No 1 49-68
50
Griffiths, Toni and Guile, David A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge
European Educational Research Journal Vol 2 No 1 56-73
51
Hutchins, Edwin (1995) Cognition in the wild, Cambridge MA: MIT Press
15
detailed case study of the way in which a ship is navigated in and out of a harbour. He noted
the extraordinary way in which tasks are intelligently shared among the different people
on board. So a course is steered with a new set of data being relayed every few seconds. No
one individual could manage alone, because nobody is in possession of all the information
needed – there is no individual ‘in charge’. A sophisticated piece of problem-solving relies on
each member of the team doing their bit at the right time, and passing their vital pieces of
information on to the right person. It is not just that people are being intelligent and socially
aware in a group; complex, intelligent action emerges from the coordinated efforts of the group
itself. From the field of distributed cognition comes a direct challenge to all those involved in
WRL – to understand the complex roles played by individuals in a fast-moving task in a complex
environment and then to find the right balance of direct experience and facilitated guidance to
help learners to become expert members of the team. The potential influence of various
aspects of new thinking about cognition on learning and teaching has been explored in work
commissioned by the Edge Foundation52.
The opportunities of e-learning
In schools, colleges and workplaces there have been extraordinary advances in ICT in the last
decade which have provided a range of new learning methods and virtual learning
environments. In this short overview of pedagogy there is not space to explore developments in
this area in any detail. There is currently some significant research53 underway from which it
should be possible to learn much. One question seems immediately important. Does ICT offer
different pedagogies? I wonder whether it may be the case that ICT offers e-versions of many of
the existing WRL pedagogies.)
Issues arising
In this short paper I have described some of the main traditions of pedagogy with regard to
WRL. They raise a number of issues which I close by addressing in the form of some questions
to stimulate further discussion.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
To what extent are there pedagogies which are useful across all aspects of WRL?
To what extent is the selection of appropriate pedagogies context-specific?
How does learner experience and biography impact on choice of pedagogy?
What can we learn from each of the different traditions of WRL pedagogy?
To what extent is authenticity in the eye of the beholder or can it be anticipated?
How can we make the informal learning which is so characteristic of WRL more visible,
how can we “surface” what is going on more clearly?
7. What do we know about learning transfer between different contexts for WRL and how
can we “teach” for transfer more effectively?
52
Claxton, Guy, Lucas, Bill and Webster, Rob (2010) Bodies of Knowledge; how the learning sciences could
transform practical and vocational education
53
The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) e-Learning programme and in particular the e-Learning and
Pedagogy strand www.jisc.ac.uk/elearning_pedagogy.html is currently underway
16
8. Can the different demands of spaces set up for working as opposed to those created for
learning be reconciled and, if so, how?
9. How can the tensions between the development of specific expertise and the need for
wider skills - for employability and living – be better resolved?
10. What can we apply in WRL from other pedagogies not mentioned in this paper?
Endnote
As David Boud says: “The conventional separation of learning and work is breaking down. Our
practice is grounded at a very deep level in a set of assumptions about the separateness of
learning and work.”54 This has to change. What’s good for WRL may actually be good for all
learning. And increasingly it may be desirable for all learners to have experiences of WRL
throughout their formal education.
Given the huge variety of working practices, it seems logical to conclude that no one pedagogy
can adequately describe the different kinds of learning and learners, the skills and dispositions
they are seeking to acquire and the hugely variable contexts in which learners find themselves.
By the same token it may well be that some learning theories turn out, to misquote Kurt Lewin,
to be much more practically useful than others. It is hoped that discussion by the DCSF 14-19
Expert pedagogy Group may begin to enable us to be clearer about the specific utility of the
different pedagogical approaches currently used in WRL for 14-19 year olds.
54
Boud, David (2003), Combining work and learning: the disturbing challenge of practice, Keynote address to the
International Conference on Experiential-Community-Workbased: Researching Learning outside the Academy,
Glasgow, 27-29 June 2003.
17