EHRD Conference "Professional Learning in a Changing Society"
This international research conference was organized by the European Human Resource Development Network (EHRD).
Betty and I had submitted a paper and I went to Oslo to present. Spent three interesting and intellectually stimulating days, although contrary to what one might expect from the conference description, most of the papers were focused on learning for professions in institutions of higher education rather than professional learning in the workplace. The keynotes, particularly of Yrjö Engeström and Michael Eraut, were definitely the highlight of the conference.
Some key points from the presentations:
Introduction by prof. Karen Jensen
- Professionals have always been ranked high by society because of the dual nature of professional claim: superiority of knowledge and morality.
- Professionals continue to possess the power to define the nature of the problems in their expert domains and control their own work
- Current trends within the professional work:
- flexibility and mobility, which challenge the long-established professional communities that have always been crucial in learning of professionals;
- "your value for my money" logic;
- shifts in organisational structure, particularly from local and personal knowledge to abstract and symbolic; new energies and life chances; winners and losers in terms of access to knowledge (professionals don't take measures to update their knowledge, but accept status-quo or follow their experienced peers).
Researchers (particularly Yrjo Engestrom) working within the Activity Theory have criticized the local focus of situated learning and apprenticeship programmes; call to study learning from longitudinal perspective.
Keynote by prof. Karin Knorr-Cetina “Postsocial Knowledge Society”
She spoke about the rise of knowledge society, factors influencing transformation, levels of knowledge societies, epistemic cultures in modern Western knowledge societies, which run on expert processes and systems typified by science and structured into all areas of social life, as well as commodification of knowledge.
Levels of knowledge societies:
Cultures --à Knowledge cultures/epistemic cultures
Institutional --à Epistemic communities
Societal/multiinstitutional --à Information architecture
Sociality -à Object relations
Transformations:
- History of objects
- History of the social
- Increase of objects in the social world
- Importance of understanding epistemic cultures and internal object relationships in knowledge management.
There was a lot of talk about her recent book; must read it.
Keynote by prof. Michael Eraut “Professional Learning in a Comparative Perspective”
He spoke about transfer of knowledge within practice and across practices, tacit knowledge, factors affecting performance, trajectories, learning processes and activities, as well as shared some results from the Project LiNEA (Learning in Nursing, Engineering and Accounting), that he is currently working on with Brighton University.
Stages of knowledge transfer
Extraction of relevant knowledge and skill à Understanding new situation à Transforming the relevant knowledge and skill into new situation à Integrating the relevant knowledge and skill with the new situation in order to act on it
Overt activity - routines punctuated by rapid decisions; e.g. riding a bicycle (routine activity) in heavy traffic (requires rapid decisions).
Tacit knowledge
Understanding
Skills
Decision-making
Knowledge use
Are these arranged hierarchically? Are these levels of tacit knowledge?
Factors affecting performance
Competence
Disposition
Capacity
Contexts
Developmental trajectories:
- take into account changes in context
- take into account variations in practice
- take into account changes in practice
- include both formal and informal learning
- ease unreasonable burden on criterion-based assessment
Learning processes and activities:
- working processes, e.g. participation, problem solving;
- formal or quasi-formal learning processes, e.g. formal courses, coaching/supervision, shadowing;
- embedded learning activities, e.g. listening, trial-and-error, reflecting.
“Stop talking about mentors, talk about ‘helpful other’”
Some findings from the Project LiNEA, a longitudinal study of the learning of 30 Accountants, 30 Engineers and 30 Nurses at the start of their careers, using four two-day visits to each learner's workplace over a three year period when researchers will shadow to observe the workplace context before interviewing learners, and talking to mentors, preceptors, managers and trainers. The aim is to investigate what is being learned, how it is being learned, and the factors affecting the level and direction of learning effort, as well as the use and extension of prior knowledge and generic skills brought into employment from higher education and other life experience:
Some learning factors common to all three categories of professionals where found:
- Challenge and value of the work
- Feedback and support (variable mentor support, skills coaching, variable back up, emotional support, access to training, learning culture of the workplace)
- Confidence and commitment.
The interim reports on learning of Engineers, Accountants, and Nurses.
Keynote by prof. Yrjö Engeström “New Developments in Cultural-Historical Learning Theory”
Spoke about exploitation learning vs. exploration learning, emphasized that the current use of activity theory in research focuses only on cultural and social aspects, and historical (longitudinal) aspects are disregarded, hence calls it cultural-historical learning theory (CHLT) rather than socio-cultural activity theory; discussed four main themes in current research in CHLT.
Exploitation learning (using the existing knowledge) vs. Exploration learning (constructing new knowledge)
EXPLORATION
Restructuring
(constructivism)
Old business
Expansion
(expansive learning; radical shift, the “Baron Muenchhausen” metaphor)
New business
Old activity
Tuning
(apprenticeship, etc.)
New activity
Accretion
(school teaching)
EXPLOITATION
Parallels with Bateson’s four levels of learning?
Main themes/developments in CHLT:
- Learning as turning points in the construction of the object
Traditional learning seen as changes in the subject’s behaviour vs. learning as manifested in changes in the shared object (e.g. in our model learning demonstrated via completion of work-based activities as the shared object). “Beware: objects are not something that you as subject can have control on; objects can bite back”
- Learning as movement of an activity system in the historical space of it’s zone of proximal development
Organisational learning is traditionally reduced to improvement in organization’s performance rather than a radical change/transformation.
Radical changes are disruptive, hence avoided by the organizations?
- Learning as movement across levels
Learning in organizational networks is depicted usually as a lateral movement of information between organisational units rather than multileveled/vertical.
- Learning as movement across boundaries
Professional learning is conceptualised as advancement of competencies within the boundaries of a given profession rather than fusing various professions into flexible “knotworking” in dealing with complex “biting” objects.
The importance of rubbish