When we are on a good team, we know it. Whether in music, sports, research collaborations or workplaces, there is a mutual learning and synergy that exceeds the sum of the individual parts. Most of the literature on interprofessional teams, however, still assumes that learning occurs only within individuals; assessments typically measure the attitudes, knowledge or competencies ‘acquired’ by individuals… Read more →
Recent postings on the ProPEL blog highlight how the involvement of ‘amateurs’ in ‘citizen science’ and the ‘co-production’ by service users and professionals are important emerging issues in research on professional learning. Less noted is the recent growth of interest in ideas about ‘civic hacking’ involving volunteer computer programmers and software designers in the co-production of public services. ‘Hack’ events,… Read more →
Changing practice, and what it means to be a professional Many things are changing how professionals go about their work. New technologies, new policy frameworks, fiscal austerity, changing expectations from government and society at large, shifting needs of clients and service users – these all have important implications for what professionals do, and how they maintain high standards of responsibility… Read more →
As a researcher, have you considered how the many things assisting you with your research—laptop, wireless internet, email, data analysis and visualization software, digital recorder, voice recognition software, digitized transcripts, multimedia files, academia.org, backup systems, digital calendars—may also be silently shaping your scholarly practices? Cathy Adams (University of Alberta, Canada) and I are interested in how such thingly gatherings… Read more →
Computer technologies and computer-mediated information and communication are increasingly parts of professional practice and learning. They are part of the programmes of preparation for professionals and the assemblages of professional work and learning once in situ. These technologies are often taken simply to be tools to be used to enhance professional practice. Technology has always been important to work, but… Read more →
When I was a physicist, studying the structure of atomic nuclei, I needed to listen to the language spoken by the nucleus – the emission of radiation and matter, high energy pulses of light and protons, neutrons and alpha particles – and learn to read from those signals insights into the internal structure and behaviour of nuclei. The interrogative tools… Read more →
I’m currently studying how the everyday work-learning practices of the entrepreneurial workforce are changing through the infusion of web and mobile technologies. The data in this study suggests that increasingly sophisticated digital fluencies have come to matter in online work and learning practices. I prefer the term fluencies to literacies in an attempt to move beyond narrow conceptions of skill… Read more →
There is no shortage of historical or contemporary examples of unqualified amateurs working and learning alongside qualified professionals and the boundary issues associated with defining the nature and extent of different contributions. In, for instance, health and social care, policing, some aspects of teaching, the contribution of the non-qualified volunteer can be significant. Yet while there is great attention of… Read more →
Policymakers and academics often hold different assumptions about the policymaking world based on their different experiences. Academics may enjoy enough distance from the policy process to develop a breadth of knowledge and produce generalisable conclusions across governments, while policymakers/ practitioners such as civil servants may develop in-depth expertise when developing policy for a number of years. In turn, both may learn… Read more →
It’s no big news to point to the increased emphasis on ‘co-production’ in public policy. For professional services and products, this implies that clients or service users – the community in other words – will be active involved as co-developers in designing and delivering public services. The general rationale is that ‘service user’ voice and choice needs to be taken… Read more →