Work based learning and communities of practice
Different Contexts, different learners
TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project 2006, managed by Lynne Stallard, ICVET
This is one of five articles bringing together themes and trends from the 2006 literature review of the TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project 2006. Presenting the findings in this format both highlights pedagogical challenges as distinct and lively areas for discussion by teachers while also making the information easily accessible online.
The authors, Roslin Brennan Kemmis, AM Acting Head, School of Education and Erica Smith, Associate Professor Vocational Education and Training from Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga conducted this research through the auspice of RIVET (Research in Vocational Education and Training) for and with TAFE NSW ICVET.
Take home Messages
- Communities of practice in workplaces may operate in either a positive or negative way for students’ learning.
- TAFE teachers are increasingly likely to spend their time supervising work based trainees, which means a radical change in work roles and skill sets.
- The UK experience offers a number of lessons about good practice in work based traineeships.
- Students may find accessing workplaces to carry out assessment tasks quite problematic.
- Different ways of replicating and simulating workplaces may have different advantages and shortcomings.
Recently, much has been written by VET researchers about work based learning. While it is all interesting and of some relevance, the task for the VET teacher is to think very precisely about what he or she needs to know.
The levels of usefulness and relevance to the average TAFE teacher can be characterised as follows:
- Literature specifically about work based trainees that enables teachers managing such trainees to facilitate their learning more effectively.
- Literature about work placements and other work visits that enables teachers managing students that are in workplaces for learning purposes to understand better what is happening to their students when they are ‘out’ in workplaces.
- Literature about general work based learning that is of use where TAFE teachers are based in workplaces and helping to plan and deliver large scale programs in partnership with the enterprise.
- Literature about general work based learning that helps TAFE teachers understand better about the ways in which their students learn in workplaces in situations where the teachers are not responsible for them, eg after they have graduated.
This section focuses on the first two levels, as these are of the most
relevance to most TAFE teachers. Moreover some of the lower-quality Level
3 and Level 4 literature argues in an uncritical manner that learning in
workplaces is more effective and authentic than learning off the job, and
that off the job teaching needs to replicate more closely the conditions
of workplaces. This emphasis is sometimes quite unhelpful to TAFE teachers
and can reduce self-efficacy. Teachers should be confident that the learning
they are providing in colleges is useful to students. As Harris et al (1998)
pointed out some time ago, and has been supported by more recent research,
both off the job and on the job learning have value, and learners are quite
capable of making their own links between the two.
Two initial points need to be made:
- There is very little published literature on the first two levels, yet these are the most important for TAFE teachers.
- The general (Level 4) workbased learning literature is of relevance to teachers’ own learning in their own workplaces (ie colleges) but this issue is outside the scope of the section.
Communities of practice
An important underpinning concept to understand when looking at learning in workplaces is that of communities of practice. The term ‘communities of practice’ derives from the literature on ‘situated learning’. Situated learning, which means learning in the place where the tasks that are being learned are ultimately to be carried out. According to Collins, Brown & Newman (1989), this enables learners to see the conditions in which what they have learned will be practised. It encourages a ‘culture of expert practice’ in which discussion of practice and reflection on practice are routine. The way in which new people enter the culture is through what Lave & Wenger (1991) call ‘legitimate peripheral practice’. This is the ‘process by which a novice or newcomer becomes an expert or old-timer’ (Hay 1996, p90). The person moves from the periphery of the community of practice to its centre, engaging in ‘authentic’ activities which progressively develop expertise and full membership of the culture of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The concept, however, needs to be approached with care. Lave & Wenger (1991) themselves acknowledged that a community of practice may be ‘diffuse, fragmented and contentious’. Wenger (1998, p101) goes further, suggesting that communities may well reject newcomers and therefore they ‘would have a hard time learning’. As Hay (1996, p92) puts it, ‘communities of practice can be sectarian, dictatorial and controlling’, and the situated learning literature does not address these difficulties even where it acknowledges them. Tripp (1996) adds further arguments against the concept, arguing on the one hand that it leads to ‘fossilisation’ and truncated skills, and on the other hand, that the ‘real world’ is too ‘unforgiving’ for many learners, who need to start learning in a classroom situation.
What can the teacher take away from these academic debates about communities of practice? In terms of their responsibilities for their learners, teachers need to be aware:
- In the workplace in which their students work or are placed for various learning purposes, there will be communities of practice among the workers. These communities will help students settle in, teach them about what is the accepted way to do things, and enable them to grow in confidence; but may also reject students, teach them bad ways of doing things, and resist any new ideas.
- Students need to be explicitly made aware of the communities of practice they might encounter in workplaces, and how to deal with dysfunctions.
- Teachers may need to compensate for deficiencies among the workplace communities of practice.
- When teachers are working within workplaces they themselves will need to negotiate workplace communities of practice.
Level 1: Managing work based trainees
Although national data does not yet allow trends to be described, anecdotal evidence from TAFE teachers suggests that traineeships are now much more likely to be carried out fully on the job than even five years ago. Managing trainees requires skills quite different from those utilised in traditional institution-based learning. This new role has been recognised in the new unit of competency TAA DEL404A Facilitate work based learning in the Training and Assessment Training Package TAA04 (www.ntis.gov.au)
Around the turn of the century there were many ‘scandals’ reported in the popular press and on TV about on-the-job traineeships. Government inquiries were carried out in several States that uncovered some poor practices (eg Schofield, 1999). Some of these practices were prevented by the implementation of the Australian Quality Training Framework in 2002 (revised in 2005) and by new State government rules about funding apprenticeships and traineeships that required some formal ‘training’ to occur in such contracts of training. In on the job traineeships there is of course always an RTO involved in the training; the trainer from the RTO is supposed to maintain contact with the trainee. A report by Wood (2004) on such traineeships found the following key messages:
- Fully on-the-job training theoretically does not involve any off-the-job training. However, it is very rare for 100% of training to take place as part of the productive work of the learner.
- Registered training organisations are aware of constructive measures to assure the quality of fully on-the-job training. This includes a good working relationship and regular contact between both the training organisation and employer, and the training organisation and trainee. However, the majority of trainees felt that their registered training organisation did not maintain sufficient contact with them.
- While registered training organisations and trainees are generally in favour of fully on-the-job training, important areas for improvement must be addressed. Suggestions include: improving the level of networking among students, especially from outside the firm; the level of trainees’ time management skills; the balance between work and study loads; the level of theory training; the breadth of trainees’ skill base and work experience; employers’ training capacity; and the way trainees are valued in the workplace.
- Fully on-the-job training is generally seen to suit the various stakeholders. This type of training provides financial incentives to employers and flexibility for all concerned.
(Wood, 2004: 5)
In England, Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller are the best known researchers on learning in apprenticeships. They have carried out many studies of work based apprenticeships (in the UK the term includes what we know as traineeships as well). In the UK, ‘work based apprenticeships’ are viewed quite separately from ordinary apprenticeships that include college study. Work based apprenticeships have their own funding source and most are offered by private training providers; those public Further Education colleges that offer them do so through separate departments. So it is comparatively easy to study them as distinct entities.
The following extract is taken from Unwin & Fuller (2003) and shows
what they call ‘expansive’ and ‘restrictive’ approaches
to apprenticeships. Note the reference in the extract to communities of practice.
An expansive approach to apprenticeship
This company manufactures bathroom showers and employs some 700 people. It has a well-established apprenticeship programme which has been used to develop successive generations of skilled and qualified engineers and technicians. Many of the company’s ex-apprentices have progressed to senior management positions. Currently, the company employs five apprentices in engineering, one in steel production and processing, and one in accountancy. The apprentices participate in learning over time and in many internal ‘communities of practice’ by rotating through the different departments. They attend the local college on a day-release basis where they pursue knowledge-based vocational qualifications that can also qualify them for entrance to higher education. The apprentices take part in residential courses to develop team-working skills and, through the company’s apprentice association, they get involved in charity activities in the local community. This means they cross boundaries in terms of the places in they develop their skills and are not restricted to one part of the actual workplace.
A restricted approach to apprenticeship
Company B is a small, family-run company of around 40 employees providing steel polishing services to other businesses. The vast majority of employees work on the shop floor as semi-skilled machine operators. The company offered its first apprenticeships two years ago, as a response to difficulties it was having in recruiting adults with relevant experience, and currently employs two apprentices in (steel) production processes. The apprentices are primarily members of one community of practice, which centres on the operation of steel polishing machines in a shop floor environment. They have learned from more experienced employees and have become full participants in under one year. Access to participation in communities of practice beyond the workplace is limited to attendance at a series (about ten) of off-the-job, half-day sessions on ‘steel industry awareness’ which take place in the training provider’s premises. The apprentices pursue standards-based National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) at work with the help of their supervisor and a training provider who makes occasional visits to monitor their progress. They do not have access to knowledge-based vocational qualifications and are now stuck in a job which offers no progression.
Source: Unwin, L & Fuller, A 2003, Expanding learning in the workplace, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, Leicester, p18.
In the British context, Hughes & Monteiro (2005), in a study carried out with providers of work based apprentices, identified a large number of features of good practice. The report includes a self-assessment tool for training providers and is worth looking at in detail. The report can be accessed on the Learning & Skills Development Agency (see link below). The study concluded that the greatest amount of work was to be done in relation to small and medium enterprises. Speilhofer & Sims (2004) found that the retail sector was particularly problematic. A survey of work based apprentices in the UK (Learning & Skills Council, DATEXX ) found that while most of them were satisfied with their training, there were a number of areas that needed improvement: pre-entry advice, skills of trainers and assessors, cost of learning resources and rapid resolution of complaints and problems.
A particular issue where learners are work based is their access to learning support. Special learning support is comparatively straightforward when students attend a college, particularly TAFE, but is much harder when they don’t come in for training. This problem has been recognised in the UK as well, and Gentleman (2006) proposes a number of measures that relate to delivery, assessment of learning and social needs. In many cases in Australia of course some of these needs are addressed by Group Training Organisations where the trainees are employed by GTOs.
One of the very few pieces of empirical research on TAFE teachers and work based traineeships was carried out by Favero (2003). Favero, in teacher focus groups, found that teachers were concerned about meeting the demands both of employers and of trainees, about the changing role that they were undertaking compared with traditional classroom teaching, and about excessive time spent travelling. But Favero (2003, p11) maintains that most teachers felt they had adapted well to teaching in this mode.
Level 2: Learning placements and activities in workplaces
The inclusion of work placements in courses is common and is increasingly needed because Training Package qualifications often mandate that certain tasks must be assessed in the workplace. Training Package qualifications can rarely be delivered and assessed entirely in institutions (Boorman 2001). Sometimes simulated workplaces are acceptable in Training Package regimes, but not always. Work placements carry a number of risks and benefits, whether they are part of school, university or TAFE courses. These have been summarised as follows in Smith & Keating (2003, p206):
Benefits
- Students get a real or authentic experience of work
- Students see how individual skills fit into the context of a job and a workplace
- Generic skills can be developed in meaningful ways
- Students may get employment directly or indirectly through their placement (if they are not already employed)
- VET teachers build up close links with industry, which improves the quality of their teaching
- With time for discussion, students can learn from their fellow students’ experiences
Risks
Some problems of delivering part of a course in the workplace include
- Students will not all get comparable experiences
- Standards of supervision may vary
- Standards of assessment may vary
- It can be difficult for college staff to visit the workplaces, especially in rural areas where placements may have to be distant
- A lot of time is spent organising and monitoring the work placement, and such tasks can be difficult to fit around a teacher’s classroom duties
- Insurance issues are common in some industries
These issues are similar to those in work based traineeships but carry the additional weight that the placement, unlike the work based part of a traineeship, is the clear responsibility of the training provider. A well-publicised successful example in Australia is Douglas Mawson TAFE Institute in South Australia in its Information Technology (IT) courses. After examining a number of models for workplace assessment, teachers decided that a work placement would normally be required, unless a student was unable to find a placement, in which case they were allowed to work in the college’s practice firm (Ruiz, Earl, Ruiz & van den Broeke, 2001). An evaluation of the first year of offering showed that of 124 students in IT courses in 2000, 67 went into placements, 37 were excused placement because of recognition of current competency or because they failed the course before they reached the placement module, and 20 students went into the practice firm instead. This left 67 students for whom work placements were successfully obtained; 57 of these students (85.1%) passed (Ruiz et al, 2001, p6).
An increasingly common practice is for students to undertake some sort of research or activity in workplaces that contributes towards assessment. This requires them to access workplaces in which they are neither working nor undertaking a formal placement. There does not appear to be any formal literature in this area although Charles Sturt University has produced a guide to students undertaking research-based assignments that relate to the Certificate IV in Training & Assessment (Smith, 2005), that emphasises ethical and confidentiality issues as well as guidelines on how to plan ahead for such experiences. It needs to be remembered, however, that students are often in workplaces ‘on sufferance’ and this can make the situation quite difficult (Smith, 2002). A particular example of this practice is where students undertake ‘community projects’ which might involve working with several organisations particularly in the non-profit sector.
In entering workplaces as trainees or on placements or learning assignments, students need to negotiate the communities of practice that exist within those workplaces. If they are not suitably prepared for coping with both the positive and negative aspects of communities of practice, then they may not make the most of their time in workplaces. Similarly, TAFE teachers supervising and visiting students in workplaces need to understand the deep communities of practice that exist.
Since placements are sometimes hard to find, and have other shortcomings, as discussed above, a common practice is to provide ‘practice firms’ within the college. These have been in existence for many years in hairdressing, hospitality and business administration, and are extending to other areas. They are more than just simulated workplaces as they (generally) actually do business. McNickle (1999) explores the importance of close relationships between practice firms and their business partners, while Davey & de Vries (2004) examine how entreprenuerial skills can be developed within a practice firm framework. Overseas, practice firms are becoming increasingly common in the German ‘dual system’ where high unemployment has led to a shortage of apprenticeship places. Many young people now attend ‘full-time vocational school’ where the workplace experience takes place within a practice firm context. Deissinger & Ruf (2006) in a study in Germany found that while there were some definite pedagogical advantages to utilising practice firms, there were also some difficulties, and the external ‘stakeholders’ (companies and industry bodies) tended to hold negative views about them. So the concept has problems with, as Deissinger & Ruf (2006) put it, ‘political and pedagogical legitimation’. Not least is the absence of a true workplace community of practice.
Discussion Points
- Look at the unit of competency TAA DEL404A Facilitate work based learning on the National Training Information Service
- Do you utilise these skills in your TAFE work?
- In which of these skills do you currently feel competent?
- Which skills do you need to develop and how can you develop them?
- Look at the criteria for good practice in the Hughes & Monteiro (2005) report. Identify TWO ways in which your teaching section can improve the way it manages work based trainees.
- If you students cannot access a work placement, how might you replicate the workplace in an authentic way?
- Does your own experience with students and workplaces support the problematic view that has been put forward in this section?
Also see
Learning & Skills Development Agency
Different contexts, different learners LITERATURE REVIEWS | TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project 2006
Community of Practice | A-Z Resources
2006 TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project