CRADLE 2020 - keynote #2 with Professor Monika Nerland

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. 

The return of 'making'

Summer holiday reading included a couple of books on the return of ‘making’. Firstly, a book published in the UK by the Crafts Council, edited by D. Charny (2011) called ‘power of making: the importance of beingskilled’ and a book by C. Anderson (editor for Wired Magazine) called ‘Makers: Thenew industrial revolution (kindle version 2012).

Both extol the return to making. Humans evolved as makers of things. The industrial revolution shifted manufacturing into mass production, removing many artisanal , small /family owned businesses. Specialised craft skills and craftsmanship approaches have been lost as a result of the ‘material’ society whereby all products are ‘mass-produced’ / manufactured and purchased from retailers. A similar theme explored in other books, including Sennett’s ‘the craftsman’ and Crawford’s ‘shop class as soul craft’.

Now, it is possible for designers to manufacture their own product through using open source / crowd sourced software / hardware, ability to tap in to specialised manufacturers for components / parts and access to the ‘long tail’ of the market demand curve.  Specialists products / bespoke / individualised items now attainable. Rapid prototying using 3D printers and crowdsourcing lowers time for product development. Availability / democratising of hardware also assist the process. In the Makers book, Anderson compares the example of his grandfather, who invented a system to set up automatic / timed lawn watering. Anderson’s grandfather had great difficulty finding a manufacturer and then keeping control of the quality of the product. In contrast, Anderson himself set up a business that designed, assembled and sold radio-controlled  or robot helicopters. The process evolved quickly, with design and software development in US of A, parts sourced via internet, website took care of sales, just-in time manufacture in Mexico and delivery via the extensive courier / mail delivery system we now all take for granted. Development of hardware and software was completed with a mixture of open-source, crowd-source and mashing, leveraging on global intellectual minds of enthusiasts and specialists. 

Therefore, there is now greater need for skill sets that include conceptualisation of the ‘entire’ making from notion, to design process, to testing and production. The focus of the ‘crafts person’ has also shifted - a book reviewer who is also a cabinet maker details how his business now works. Customised kitchen cabinets etc. are ordered from specialist manufacturers who put together these components using CNC machines. Delivery time 24 hours. Then a need for craftsmanship skills (Pye’s - craftsmanship of risk) to fit the cabinets into kitchens where walls, floors and ceilings are not always guaranteed to be square. So focus has changed from skill sets required to manufacture to problem solving required to work through real-world challenges. Another example of how not all types of work can be ‘outsourced’.  Production of cabinet components may be mass produced but installation still needs to occur in-situ. Therefore, training of young trades people need to account for work skills now required plus include generic skills to learn new technology / new skill sets as the market evolves. 

Ways of knowing and making knowledge

ways of knowing and making knowledge

Had a day over the long weekend to put into exploring in greater detail, two new books just arrived in the CPIT library. The contents of both books, complement my current reading around 'how trade skills are learnt'. The first book is 'Ways of knowing: new approaches in the anthropology of experience of learning'. published in 2007 and edited by Mark Harris. I had skimmed read this book at the Griffith University library and placed at order at the CPIT library, so good to be able to get back into the interesting chapters. The second book is published 2010 and edited by Trevor Marchand called "Making knowledge: explorations of the indissoluble relation between mind, body and environment'. Both books have common anthropological roots with several chapters written by the same authors.

The above books complement two other books I have been working through. "Knowing work: the social relations of working and knowing", 2009 edited by Markus Weil, Leena Koski and Liv Mjelde and 'Emerging perspectives of workplace learning", 2008 edited by Stephen Billett, Christian Harteis and Anneli Etelapelto. Both have socio-cultural leanings and education backgrounds. In the knowing work book, chapters of interest and relevance include Richard Daly on 'communicating the working knowledge of working life: making visible the invisible' - using the need to decode a totally diagrammic ikea instruction sheet to built a stool, as an example.

In the book 'Emerging perspectives' chapters of relevance include:
Stephen Billett's introduction providing a summary of the purposes of workplace learning.
'Negotiating professional identity' by Katja Vahasantanen and Stephen Billet report on how individuals negotiate identity as vocational teachers in the face of continual top-down directed change.
'Learning through Errors' by Johannes Bauer and Regina Mulder provides an overview of concepts of 'error' and how we can learn from through making mistakes
'Reflection and professional competence' by Martin Gartmeier, Stefanie Kipfmueller, Helmut Heid and Hans Gruber - provides an activity theory and social perspective on processes of learning through reflection
'Developing conceptual knowledge in road transport' by Jason Lewis (avetra paper) is of interest for its exploration of guided learning and its role in helping drivers learn problem solving.

Of the ways of knowing, important chapters are
Trevor Marchand on 'Crafting knowledge: the role of parsing and production' - uses a study of masons in Mali to try to explain how craft people communicate at work with very little verbal interaction.
Greg Downey on 'Seeing with a sideways glance', derived from studies of the Brazilian martial art/dance form capoeira.

Most of the chapters in the 'Making knowledge book' are pertinent.
Trevor Marchand's introductory chapter provides a very good overview, marrying the anthropological findings reported in the book to studies in brain function, cognition, psychology, biology, etc.
His chapter on 'Embodied cognition' extends on the work reported in the 'ways of knowing book' and uses examples from a joinery programme, to again explain how people seem to be able to use bodily movements as a form of conversation, including interjections and agreement.
Of interest are the chapters on embodied learning (Greg Downey), Kazakh women's everyday craft practice (Anna Odland Portisch), Central Slovak lace makers (Nicolette Makovicky), weavers in South India (Soumhya Venkatesan) and medical students learning how to hear heart sounds (Tom Rice).

The challenge over the next couple of years is for to formulate projects that study trades skills learning, bringing together the literature on workplace learning, identity formation, socio-cultural influences with the anthropological literature on human knowledge.