Learning on the Workplace

Frank Lyons Director of Foundation Direct University of Portsmouth

Victoria University, Melbourne August 8 2006

Work-based and Placement Learning

Forms of Work-based Learning

Learning Contracts

Supporting work-based learning

Barriers to Mutual Engagement

Developing Mutual Benefits

Best Companies for WBL and Placements

Portsmouth’s engagement strategies

Mentor support

Work-based (and Placement) Learning

• Explicit, planned and appropriately articulated learning

• Appropriate assessment artefacts

• Building on existing achievements and knowledge base

• Multidisciplinary and complex learning\

• Responsibilities for learning is shared and understood by stakeholders

• Staff development  

A planned period of learning, normally outside the institution at which the student is enrolled, where the learning outcomes are an intended part of a programme of study (QAA. 2001)

Forms of Work-based Learning

Learning in work placements and at own place of work:• Organisational learning: taking orders, following

discipline, time keeping. • Skills training (including shadowing)• Projects• Working with a Mentor

Learning for work: • Simulations• Live Briefs• Conferences• Action Learning Sets

Work-based Learning by Learning Contract

Hants and Sussex Aviation CAA Licence

Assessing WBL and Learning Contracts

Hants and Sussex Aviation(part of the BBA Group)

Corrosion Chemistry

Materials Manufacture

Pratt and Whitney Training

Report onHolisticlearning

Assessment of theory, learning

and professional practice and

self.

Learning Contract

Negotiations with

company and university

Learning Management

Module

QAA

A

A

A

The Dipstick Exercise

The company has lost its dipstick. The dipstick isused to measure the oil in the storage tank which is buried in a location outside the factory. The fuel is used for office and workshop heating, the companies drying rooms and for emergency power generation. This is your work-based project.

What will you do?What are the learning outcomes?

Foundation Direct

Centre of Excellence in Teaching & Learning

 

Professional Skills: WBL & Mentor management

Benchmark Progress Review

Critical ThinkingProfessional Ethics

WBL Project

End Review

Mentor

FD Professional Development Unit

Work practice

University Units

Curriculum planning and legislation

LOutcome: Ability to know and put into practice in a designed curriculum the relevant aspects of legislation, regulations and guidance relating to early years curriculum provision that meets the needs of individual children. 

Assessing WBL in Early Years Care and Education

Computer Gremlins: Learning on WebCT

 

This stupid computer, I'm just no good,

I'd use it more, if only I could.

But no matter how hard I try,

Those computer gremlins make me cry.

 

My degree course I have started,

and those computer gremlins have not parted.

Helga and Joy encourage and say,

"It's easy to use you will be ok".

 

So off I go “Lookup” loaded,

all that computer jargon now un-coded.

Can I do it? Yes I can,

With help from tutors and the computer man.

 

I log on day after day,

the computer gremlins slowly decay.

To my surprise I'm having fun,

those computer gremlins off they run.

 

So here I am I.T. success,

hurdles to jump still, I guess.

Can I do it? Yes I can,

with help from tutors and the computer man.

 

DONNA WALL FdA Early Years 2005

Barriers to Mutual Benefit • Misunderstanding: needs, goals, and possibilities• Time • The bottom line• Lack of Leadership• Cultural differences: knowledge and standards• Quality misalignment• Financial year vs. Academic calendars• Commercial confidence vs. educational openness

Companies want skilled workers rather than qualified workers

Developing Mutual Benefit • Research the company• Communicate benefits• Negotiate what can be achieved• Network • Cultural Understanding• Commitment

New Communities of Practice occur when all parties reposition themselves

Best WBL & placement companiesHigh degree of exposure to customer, managers, colleagues, owners & professionals

Learning potential of the task: complexity, variety and control

High degree of technological change

Matrix management V Hierarchical work division of labour and deskilling

Time and space for analysis interaction

Technical skills valued V taken for granted

Cross disciplinary working and communication

Workplace mobility and expanding job designs

Formative appraisal and/or Mentoring systems (Skule and Raichbom 2001 Unwin and Fuller, 2003)

Purple DoorPurple DoorIndustry linksIndustry links

Vocational historyVocational historyR&D projectsR&D projects

AlumniAlumni

Industry boardsBreakfast briefings

Governors

Prizes

Celebratory meetings

Sponsorships

Websites:

Mentor direct Placements Office

Curriculum

Work-based projects

PD Unit

Professional BodiesChambers of CommerceMarket ResearchIndustry

Engagement:Placements

WBL degrees

Placement & WBL: Company Benefits

• Placements as a temporary workforce and source of recruits

• WBL involves training own staff• Placement and WBL Curricula for company needs:

- brings in new ideas- problem solving and projects

• Credentials carry value for customers• Learning companies attract staff• Retain staff

Engagement leads to cost-effective benefits for Learning Companies

Mentor Direct

Foundation degree mentoring: an introduction

So what is reflective practice? As a professional you will already be doing this, although you may not be aware of it!

Reflection is a process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse and evaluate and so inform learning about practice.

Click on the boxes in the diagram on the right to see examples.

Reflective practice

Purple DoorPurple DoorIndustry linksIndustry links

Vocational historyVocational historyR&D projectsR&D projects

AlumniAlumni

Industry boardsBreakfast briefings

Governors

Prizes

Celebratory meetings

Sponsorships

Websites:

Mentor direct Placements Office

Curriculum

Work-based projects

PD Unit

Professional BodiesChambers of CommerceMarket ResearchIndustry

Engagement:Placements

WBL degrees

Advantages of E Portfolios

• Can’t be left in a train or bus

• Can be linked to online help and guidance

• Easier for some to reveal problems online

• Structures within can support reflection

We will encourage every institution to offer a personalised online learning space to store coursework, course resources, results and achievements. DfES E Learning Strategy 2005

Problems with E Portfolios

• What is it: record of achievements; competency checklists, action/career planner; scrapbook, part of PDP; personalised learning links + narrative?

• IT skills and resources of users• Who owns, what happens when student

leaves• Ownership, rights to view• How to assess?

Within 5 years all awarding bodies should be set up to accept and assess e-portfolios QCA 2004

Family of Transcripts

Award Transcript

Competency Transcript

Narrative Transcriptgrown from PDP activity

E-portfolio /student created records and evidence of and reflections on learning, experiences and achievements, and personal knowledge assets.

Simplified Award

Transcript foremployers

EmployersHelps students represent and communicate their capability and competencies

SUMMATIVETRANSCRIPTS

FORMATIVETRANSCRIPTS‘ALL TYPES’

Family of Transcripts SCEPTrE Working Paper (Jackson 2005).

WBL at Different Levels

• HE Level 1: Toward an Equal Opportunities Policy for University of Portsmouth

• HE Level 2 “Multicultural welcomes” with Rose Lodge nursery

• HE Level 3 Licence to service and repair aero engines with Hants & Sussex Aviation

• HE Masters Level Biometric Identity project with Citibank and Motion Touch)

Learning at Work: Learning for Profit

Precepts for Work-based Learning

  

Work-based Learning is as unique to the workplace and workrole

1. Learning is planned

2. Learning opportunities are appropriate

3. Good communications with placement providers

4. Student briefings, guidance and support

5. Staff development

6. Formal complaints, monitoring and evaluation