Work as the curriculum: pedagogical and identity implications

Abstract

Work based learning (WBL) awards present a radical re-definition of what constitutes a university education and university-level learning. In such programs learners study for a degree or a diploma primarily in their workplace, through activities that arise from their everyday work activities. Academics are struggling with the pedagogical implications of the learning of non-disciplinary knowledge as their role as an expert knower and subject authority in a disciplinary area is displaced by roles that involve facilitation of learning and the interpretation of new conceptions of academic standards and values. This paper examines the pedagogical relationships that are emerging through academics’ engagement with the teaching and learning of new kinds of local and specific knowledge that is not disciplinary-based but is derived from the context of application. Features of new forms of pedagogy and the tensions they create in the academy are outlined and explored. The paper takes one of the very many challenges posed by WBL (what constitutes learning?) and explores it in detail. It is argued that through examining the shift of perspective that WBL demands, new ways of viewing learning in more traditional courses are revealed. From initial consideration of what knowledge actually is in WBL the paper proceeds to the question of what is actually learned.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 22 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.