The afternoon sessions were on moderation with focus on voices of sessional academics and support for disabled assessees. Rapid orals were then presented and these covered a range of topics. I did not take notes on these when too quickly.
The closing sessions begin with a keynote from ProfessorMonika Nerland who is Professor of Education at the University of Oslo. She
speaks on ‘Reconfiguring relations between higher education and work:
Knowledge practices and learning in the (post)digital era’.
The presentation concentrates on how knowledge practices
have changed in the workplace and in turn, this impacts on how the processes
are recognised as complex work. Examples from professional learning used to
explain the various perspectives. Began with an overview of HE and
digitalisation. Much attention now focused on digital platforms for learning
and communication. Within work, specialised digitalisation processes are now advancing
rapidly. There is therefore an extension and complexity of the possible
learning spaces which are distributed across activities and resources. Less
attention to the digitisation and its effects on work. Yet, as work shifts,
work tasks also shift and these require attention and study.
Discussed the concepts of expert communities and how they
are characterised by distinct knowledge practices. Professional expertise tends
to be recognised by fellow-experts. May rest on different forms of knowledge
and ways of knowing that are applicable in different work contexts. Ways of
developing, enacting and recognising expertise is embedded in the distinct
forms within specialised communities. The actors and networks at play are
variable and specific to occupational specialities.
Epistemic practises is the knowledge which is generated and
shared in a given field of practice. Includes the socially and interactionally
accomplished ways that the group
communicate, justify, assess and legitimise knowledge. They play a crucial role
in making knowledge ‘actionable’ and are required to help assemble, translate
and represent practice.
In the post digital area has increased epistemic complexity.
There is more abstraction in how knowledge is visualised to allow for
computation thinking and automation. This
makes it difficult to access these knowledge domains.
Challenges to professional expertise includes the working
with advanced technologies and representations as demanding’ increased need for
systems understanding; extended responsibilitie for mastering knowledge; and
the need to also establish and manage social relations both internally and
externally of organisations.
Provided examples from an ongoing project (CORPUS) to study
the changing requirements in public services due to the consequences of digitisation
in general and specialised occupations. For example, a study of the
introduction of ‘smart care tech’ into the health sector’. How is this new
process/system developed and how does it evolve as it forms their new
professional roles and responsibilities and a new approach to work. Requires
system understanding to bring in the many ‘actors’. Listed a few research
challenges – access to observing and participating in knowledge practice as a
learner; develop specialised expertise; and navigating complex information
environments and constructing productive spaces for learning.
So what is the role of HE in supporting the new demands on
learning. Need to enrol students in evolving professional knowledge culture –
to providing access to and participation in epistemic practices help to make
the profession’s ‘machinery’ of knowledge construction more transparent. With
learning an ongoing process of becoming rather that predicated on one end
point.
Provided case studies in legal, teacher and software
engineering education through design of inquiry tasks to help learning
identified epistemic practices (learning outcomes) with professional knowledge
sources and the ‘transformative’ means for getting there (i.e. signature
pedagogies).
Another way is to attend to students’ navigation and ways of
constructing spaces for learning – i.e. moving between educational and
professional environments. Also a need to keep pace with an evolving field by
developing productive relations between sets of epistemic practice in education
ad work and to reconfigure educational arrangements, roles and responsibilities
to move beyond the education-work divide.
Conclude with a call to move beyond the education – work
dichotomy and to understand that professionalism is not a given. It needs to be
continually worked on.
The conference closes with the launch of the book ‘ReimaginingUniversity Assessment in a Digital World’ by Emeritus Professor Beverley
Oliver (Deakin). See brief notes on book here.
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