Informal learning:

All of a sudden a number of researchers and policy pundits have rediscovered ‘informal learning’. But is there really such a thing?
Eraut (2000) on non-formal and informal learning including a typology (taxonony?)
posted by Pete at 7:02 PM

Refractive practice, Tait Some findings from a research project in the distributed communities of the Open University, UK
(OU) suggest that situated and appreciative inquiry methods - both online and face-to-face - can
support the development of individuals and groups of part-time tutors. Tutors from a range of
disciplines were invited to reflect, individually and collectively, on the processes of marking and
commenting on students' work, and, in a related project, on feedback to students' essays. Tutors'
insights about reflective processes and the environments that best facilitate useful reflection are
summarised to highlight some important differences between: journaling as personal reflection;
collective reflections in face-to-face groups; and the affordances of online reflection.
posted by Pete at 6:50 PM

APPENDIX E: Extract from Eraut, M (1994) APPENDIX E: EXTRACT FROM ERAUT, M (1994) 'DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE', LONDON, THE FALMER PRESS, pp.142-149

posted by Pete at 6:06 PM

Slaouti (1999) BERA There is much debate about the repositioning of the academic-practitioner research balance and this relates to where knowledge use and creation are located. Eraut (1994: 54) argues knowledge use and knowledge creation cannot easily be separated. Eraut draws on Weiss's (1977) interactive model of research use to present a reconceptualisation of the relationship between academic and professional. He argues for higher education to extend its role from creator and transmitter of generalisable knowledge to that of enhancing the knowledge creation capacities of individuals and professional communities.
posted by Pete at 5:49 PM

Researching Adult and Vocational Learning (RAVL) at UTS Tennant and Melville (1999) This paper reports on a number of interviews with designated "experts'. The focus is not on the stories of the experts per se, but on the storied nature of expertise, as revealed by the stories that experts narrate. In this approach the stories are not seen as the product of any particular individual, rather they are seen as social and cultural productions into which 'subject positions' (rather than individuals) are inscribed. In a research interview, then, the task is to identify the themes and the subject positions contained in the story, not with a view to determining the 'truth' of the story, but to look at its constructive effects: what it is doing and what it achieves.

posted by Pete at 5:43 PM

Teaching in post-compulsory education Elliott (1996) BERA paper Abstract

This paper argues that a new conceptualisation of teaching in post-compulsory education is required. Taking into account the radical ideology-driven change experienced in the sector in recent times, it is suggested that there are difficulties with traditional and reworked models of the lecturer as a 'professional', chief amongst which is that lecturers do not seem to think of themselves in this way. It is suggested that any alternative conceptualisation must (i) take into account lecturers' own conception of their working practices, (ii) reflect the range of these practices, and (iii) reflect the epistemological and ethical basis of teaching, in particular, lecturers' sense of the value and worth of what they do. Such a model may contribute to our understanding of the nature and extent of the policy crisis in the sector, since it potentially conflicts with both the radical conceptualisation of knowledge and understanding which underpins the NCVQ vocational qualifications framework, and assumptions underlying current managerialist practices.

posted by Pete at 5:38 PM

Mapping professional expertise Blackmore (1999) Warwick University. Contains critiques of Eraut's and Schon's view of profession in a discussion of professional learning and competnece-based qualifications
posted by Pete at 5:31 PM

This brings me to the 'epistemology' and 'ontology' bits in the sub-heading of this section. Epistemology is the study of how we know: what are the rules that enable us to know? Ontology is the study of what we know: what are the facts of the world? To summarize much of the received wisdom of cultural studies, we may then say that 'epistemology determines ontology', or, as James Curran put it, 'believing is seeing'. How I see determines what I see. 'Facts' are not even 'facts' unless my interpretive framework provides for the recognition of them as 'facts'.

From CCMS - Communication studies, cultural studies, media studies infobase by Mick Underwood
posted by Pete at 1:37 PM