Learning in vivo

Add value through partnerships between HEI and organisations

In order to harness mutual advantages, a need for more creative ways of interacting between organisations and higher education institutions (HEIs) is advocated (Barnes & Phillips 2000). Reduced state funding and increased student numbers place HEIs under strain, especially with regard to staff time. The development of working links with organisations is considered essential to ‘unlock’ professional development of staff, research opportunities and community-service scholarly activity. Partnerships may offer academics the opportunity to access new sources of finance (value for money) and in-kind support for project work, research and other scholarly initiatives. In addition collaboration with voluntary-activity groups offers avenues of opportunity for responsible HEIs.

In practical terms it means that partnerships should be complimentary and result in synergy, which would harness academic interests and add value for the community. HEI involvement in projects proposals/bids could contribute academic rigour. Collaboration with community groupings may result in voluntary input in research and acquisition of local information that is not generally available, as well as local expertise and data. Joint publishing could be mutually beneficial with regard to promoting respective objectives, raising the profile of academics and HEI access to data sets.

Collaboration may involve promoting career advancement of ‘under-employed’ minority groups through tailor-made programmes drawing from HEI counselling and guidance expertise and real-life learning in organisations. Collaboration may result in major cost-savings for organisations and a ‘ripple-effect’ in that other organisations learn about the benefits. HEIs are by definition centres of knowledge and expertise, which are constantly evolving, and which could be applied to the benefit of organisations. Collaborations may further result in jointly winning awards for achievements. Relationships may offer scope for future capacity building.

HEIs' reaching out to organisations, is vital for establishing Cooperative and Work-integrated Education (CWIE) partnership, but also an important step in order to discover other potential areas of mutual benefit.

Barnes, N. J. & Phillips P. S. 2000. Higher education partnerships: creating new value in the environmental sector. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 1 (2): 181-190.

Real-world learning opportunities help students increase their understanding

Real-world learning complement the methodological competence of students in applying problem-solving approaches, say Brundiers, Wiek and Redman (2010). Real-world learning affords students opportunities to critically reflect on, to negotiate and collaborate with academic supervisors and community project partners. Students get the opportunity to turn intellectual concepts and methods into personal practical ability. Learning from addressing real-world sustainability problems exposes students to “where the rubber hits the road”, according to Brundiers, Wiek and Redman (2010: 311). Students learn from the development of sustainability strategies and projects, within the context of real-life politics, culture, traditions, and existing processes. Real-world scenarios force students to explore and identify accountability; to hold the relevant people accountable; and to accept own accountability with respect to the real-world sustainability project agreement.

Although students are likely to develop key competencies in sustainability from real-world learning opportunities; the key competencies which students need to develop must be made known’ Brundiers, Wiek and Redman (2010: 313) caution that “the devil is in the details”. The design and implementation of the real-world learning determines the nature and scope of the experience. The “functional and progressive” model of integrating real-world learning into the curriculum comprises a number of loosely structured real-world learning experiences in preparation for the capstone experience. This is illustrated by Brundiers, Wiek and Redman (2010: 314) in Figure 1 below. The real-world learning is spread over four years. Three factors shape the nature of the learning, namely (1) the role of the instructors to design and facilitate; (2) the level of interaction of students with the partners in the community project; and (3) the different forms of collaboration. There is linear progression. Figure 2 illustrates the capstone module in more detail and Figure 3 indicates how the capstone-module option may help students develop certain key competencies but not necessary all/others.

Brundiers, K.; Wiek, A. & Redman C. L. 2010. Real-world learning opportunities in sustainability: from classroom into the real world. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 11 (4): 308-324.

Sustainability as emerging academic field challenges what is taught and how

If higher education graduates are to cope with society’s sustainability-challenges, universities must provide students with interactive, experiential, transformative, and real-world learning to suitably prepare them; say Brundiers, Wiek and Redman (2010). The authors undertook a synthesis of literature on sustainability education (an emerging academic field) with the view of determining how real-world learning can contribute to building key competencies in sustainability. Consensus exists that the capacity-uilding pathways of sustainability education should engage the “head, hands, and heart”.

Sustainability education is concerned with complex non-linear problems with long-term implications; that cut across economic, social, and environmental domains; not just on local but global scales; and involve high degrees of damage potential; and therefore urgency. These often manifest as a conglomerate of problems that require sophisticated “post-normal” solutions and elaborate problem-solving techniques; that challenges basic assumptions; and call for systems-thinking, anticipation, and participatory strategy-building models across established disciplines.

Key competencies in sustainability cannot be acquired by being told about sustainable development. Students need to see and work within a living learning place. They need to experience what a sustainable lifestyle means. Learning must focus on real-world problems, exposing students to corresponding real-world settings. A variety of learning models might be considered, for example project- and/or problem-based learning; service learning; and internships. However, not all real-world learning opportunities are appropriate. Some are more appropriate for extracurricular activities; whereas others do not relate well to the key features of sustainability. Brundiers, Wiek and Redman (2010: 311) present this “overview of key differences among dominant models of real-world learning formats”:

	Project-based learning	Service learning	Internship
Outcomes: what students learn/benefit	Collaborative problem-solving capacity	Education and teaching capacity	Professional working experience; career development
Practices: what students do	Collaborating with partners to develop solution approach	Educating people	Assisting or working on a professional project
Interaction with stakeholder	Two-way knowledge generation (co-production)	One-way knowledge transfer (students to community)	One-way knowledge transfer (employer to student and student to employer)
Integration of theory and practice	Explicit, supervised by faculty and stakeholder	Implicit, not supervised by faculty	Implicit, not supervised by faculty
Impacts on world	Systemic innovation	Support of social innovation and change	Modular innovation

Brundiers, K.; Wiek, A. & Redman C. L. 2010. Real-world learning opportunities in sustainability: from classroom into the real world. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 11 (4): 308-324.

The journal (IJSHE) is published by Emerald Group Publishing Limited in conjunction with Society of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF).

eService to enable experiential learning for online programmes

Constructing experiential learning for online or distance learning qualifications, presents specific challenges. Interactions, both among students and with teaching staff, are further considered essential to the online or distance learning environment. Preparing students academically is not sufficient; higher education institutions are accountable to society to prepare students for the complex issues they will as graduates encounter in the workplace. Experiential learning serves a vehicle with regard to the latter.

Higher education institutions have embraced service-learning as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs and have structured opportunities to participate in activities designed to promote their learning and development” (Strait & Sauer, 2004: 62). Service-learning fosters critical thinking and interpersonal skills in that students provide community service as part of the curriculum of their qualification/s; learn about the community context and reflect about it; and gain an understanding of the connection between academic studies and the service rendered.

Conventional service-learning of residential higher education institution is generally in proximity to the institution where students are studying and access therefore relatively easy. With online or distance learning students are scattered and based in their own communities, which may be diverse. The challenge is to facilitate quality service-learning experience of multiple students in multiple communities. This type of distributed service-learning Strait and Sauer (2004: 62) call eService.

The published article shares the eService model and scope of attempts. A Language and a science application are portrayed. The authors share what the learned and challenges. They conclude with suggestions and future plans.

Strait, J. & Sauer, T. 2004. Constructing experiential learning for online courses: the birth of e-service. Educause Quarterly, 1(1), January 2004, 62-65. Retrieved from Internet 28 March 2013 from: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/constructing-experiential-learning-online-courses-birth-e-service

Three modes of experiential education

The Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) publication of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) represents the fruit of 25 years of rich dialogue among American law teachers, lawyers, and judges, regarding the education of lawyers. In the foreword is stated that the American Bar Association convened a 1984 conference ‘Legal Education and the Profession: Approaching the 21st Century’. The foreword further states that in 1987 Justice Rosalie Wahl of the Minnesota Supreme Court and Chair of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar rhetorically asked:

Have we really tried in law school to determine what skills, what attitudes, what character traits, what quality of mind are required of lawyers? Are we adequately educating students through the content and methodology of our present law school curriculums to perform effectively as lawyers after graduation?

The purpose of this elaborate prologue is to convey the credible nature of the three modes of experiential education identified in Chapter 5: Best Practices for Experiential Courses (pp 121 – 152, note that the page numbers of individual online chapters differ from the full publication) of the CLEA Best Practices for Legal Education (2007: 122), namely:

• In-house law clinics offering students opportunities to represent clients or perform other professional roles under the supervision of members of the faculty
• Externships — where students represent clients or perform other professional roles under the supervision of practicing lawyers or they observe or assist practicing lawyers or judges in their work
• Simulation-based courses granting students hypothetical situations to assume professional roles and perform law-related tasks

These three modes, although many different terms are used, are common in many disciplines, for example:

• Practicals, laboratory work, applied field experiences facilitated and managed by lecturers
• Work-integrated/experiential/work-based learning in the occupational field under supervision of an experienced practitioner
• Simulated learning providing experience in hypothetical situations

Brayne, Duncan and Grimes (1998: 244) address externships as a means for law students to obtain a credit “working in legal settings”. It is interesting to note that “in the United States, students may not receive financial compensation for work which warrants educational credit”. Brayne, Duncan and Grimes (1998) identify both advantages and disadvantages with regard to externships. Potential advantages include “lower costs, variety of opportunities, work experience, service to the community, and flexibility”. As far as disadvantages are concerned, the main one identified is the potential “lack of control over the quality of the educational experience”.

Brayne, H; Duncan, N & Grimes, R. 1998. Clinical legal education: active learning in your law school. London: Blackstone.

Stuckey, R & Others. 2007. Best Practices for Legal Education. United States: Clinical Legal Education Association. Retrieved 2 November 2011 from: http://www.cleaweb.org/best-practices -- note the hyperlink to the best practices blog at the bottom of the web page.

A systemic enabling environment for successful work-integrated learning

Distance education (DE) and work-integrated learning (WiL) appear to be incompatible to the minds of some higher education (HE) open distance learning (ODL) purists. Yet, WiL is supposed to occur in authentic learning spaces, for example the appropriate work-place.

The Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) of the South African Council for Higher Education (CHE) specifies imperatives, which might be foreign to DE academics that are used to purely theoretical teaching and that do not want to deviate from set resourcing models. However, the imperatives are not much different from those recommended for service learning (as a form of community engagement and outreach). Download Extract_Good_Practice_Guide+Self_Evaluation

One of the nine critical success factors the CHE highlights at module level is reciprocity, which entail a state of mutual exchange. A well coordinated collaborative effort, with clarity of roles and databases, are necessary in order to succeed with regard to the obligation of a higher education institutions (HEIs) to place students that need WiL as part of the qualification/programme registered for. Now reciprocity is a foreign concept for an advocate of academic freedom, which in an era of stake holder accountability got replaced by evidence of adequate consultation before the introduction of or changes to a qualification is approved by the CHE.

The people of the ancient world considered the universe to be constructed from the five elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, and Sky. During the past week a colleague sketched—illustrated below—her vision with regard to a WiL enabling environment, comprising fundamentally five elements with interaction in-between. Another colleague immediately picked up on the systemic nature. While looking on Internet for an illustration of five elements interacting, I came across the traditional Chinese philosophy of five elements; as well as the classical Greek five elements, Hinduism (Tattva), Buddhism (Mahābhūta), Japanese (Godai), Chinese (Wu Xing), Modern and Neo-paganism — fascinating!

We have scheduled a workshop to engage with the five fundamental elements, in order to produce a Procedural Manual on Experiential Learning, is a means towards a systemic enabling environment for successful WiL. Here are some of the triggers already generated.

Student — What is needed in order to enable students to successfully complete their WiL? For example:

• The students in need of WiL placements need to be known
• Unisa need to be know when and where such students are likely to be required to do their WiL
• Students need to know when first registering for a programme/qualification that contains one or more WiL modules that they would be required to complete such and what is involved
• Students need clear guidelines of what learning is required and what learning evidence must be submitted, e.g. portfolio or logbook.
• And?
•  

 Academic — What must lecturers do and/or provide to enable completion of WiL? For example:

• A vocational programme is designed, developed and offered in close collaboration with the fraternity/profession/industry it intends to produce qualified people for—a functional advisory committee with adequate representation of stake holder if critical. Collaboration is the second critical success factor of good practice identified by the CHE.
• The contact details of committed employers, willing to offer our students WiL opportunities, should be accessible on a central database
• The academic designs and develop suitable learning enabling material
• Academics provide guidelines to work-place mentors
• Academic management and lecturers responsible for programmes that entail WiL should continuously expand their networks and recruit employers that are willing to offer our students WiL opportunities
• Lecturers undertake monitoring visits and the summative assessment of the WiL evidence students submit, as well as their mentor assessments
• Where mentors/employers indicate that they are prepared to host other students for WiL, such details should be centrally captured, in order to be available to regional support staff.
• And?
•  

 Regional Support — What is it envisaged, how would regional staff support students regarding WiL? For example:

• Regional staff need access to various data bases:
  • Which students need WiL placements in a particular semester
  • Employers in the area that indicated willingness to take our students for their prerequisite WiL
  • The mentor agreements outlining the role of the workplace mentor (suitable remuneration for mentors need to be addressed)
  • The employer contracts, setting out roles and accountability
• Would identify potential employers in the geographical area concerned and endeavour to recruit such in conjunction with the academics concerned
• Would identify community service need/opportunities that could equate/substitute work-integrated learning and develop such in conjunction with the academics concerned
• Would facilitate preparation of students prior to selection by would be host employers
• And?
•  

Employer — What do employers need and what does the role of employers include regarding the WiL of students? For example:

• Both those of current employed students and those that host students for placements need clarity on the role of the employer, what is expected from the mentor (often the student's workplace supervisor), what the university expects the student to learn and to submit as learning evidence
• Need to be made aware of Sectoral Education & Training Authority (SETA) funding benefits accessible for offering our students workplace experience (SETA terminology) towards obtaining a higher education qualification
• And?
•  

Coordination — What is the expected role of a central unit and what services are expected? For example:

• A comprehensive database of the students involved, who need placements, etc.
• A database of employers that declared willingness to host students for WiL.
• And?

The other seven critical success factors of good practice identified by the CHE are: Needs assessment; Alignment; Student placements; Student orientation; Role clarification; Reflection; and Logistics

Service Learning Continuum

The diagram ending in a service learning continuum crudely outlines the historical context: On the left the developments concerning cooperative education and work-integrated learning are outlined. On the right service learning is sketched. The transition of higher education, from the binary system to the current landscape is pointed out. Six important documents are identified next, with extracts downloadable. It is important to take note that cooperative education is identified as one of the means of service learning.

 

Council on Higher Education (CHE). 2004a. Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). Criteria for Institutional Audits. June 2004. CHE publication - ISBN: 1-919586-37-4. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000061/CHE_Institutional-Audit-Criteria_June2004.pdf - Download Extract_HEQC_Criteria_Institutional_Audits

Council on Higher Education (CHE). 2004b. Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). Criteria for Programme Accreditation. November 2004. CHE publication - ISBN: 1-919586-42-0. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000084/CHE_accreditation_criteria_Nov2004.pdf - Download Extract_HEQC_Criteria_Programme_Accreditation

Council on Higher Education (CHE). 2006a. A Good Practice Guide and Self-evaluation Instruments for Managing the Quality of Service-Learning. June 2006. CHE publication - ISBN: 1-919586-56-0. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000122/HEQC_Good_Practice_guide_Jun2006.pdf - Download Extract_Good_Practice_Guide+Self_Evaluation

Council on Higher Education (CHE). 2006b. Service-Learning in the Curriculum: A Resource for Higher Education Institutions. June 2006. C J Bender, P Daniels, J Lazarus, L Naude, K Sattar. CHE publication - ISBN: 1-919586-57-9. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000121/HEQC_Service-Learning_Curriculum_Jun2006.pdf - Download Extract_Service_Learning_in_Curriculum_HE_Resource

Council on Higher Education (CHE). 2008. Service-Learning in the Disciplines: Lessons from the Field. July 2008. CHE publication - ISBN: 978-1-919856-66-7. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000194/Service_Learning_in_the_Disciplines_-_Lessons_from_the_Field.pdf - Download Extract_Service_Learning_in_Disciplines

South Africa. 2007. The Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF), Department of Education. Government Notice No 928. Government Gazette (No. 30353). Department of Education Notice (No. 928). 5 October 2007. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000148/Higher_Education_Qualifications_Framework_Oct2007.pdf - Download Extract_HEQF

Learning in Work and the Community (LiWC)

Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) is, according to Victoria University, "an umbrella term that encompasses the many models and integrated approaches to teaching, learning and assessment that involve learning in and through the workplace and community. These LiWC models and approaches may include but are not limited to, projects in a workplace, practical, co-operative and clinical placements, fieldwork, simulated learning environments, apprenticeships, traineeships or internships and enterprise initiatives."

Community engagement — official voice

The South African Higher Education Community Engagement Forum (SAHECEF) has been launched between 1 and 3 November 2009; as the official voice of community engagement (CE) in the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. "Constitutionally, the forum is committed to promoting, supporting, monitoring, coordinating and consolidating community engagement within the country's higher education institutions. This includes furthering community engagement to ensure the efforts are economically and socially sustainable". Prof Naftali Mollel of the University of Limpopo advocated that CE should be managed by senior managers who should train and equip younger generations with the relevant skills for the CE. These senior managers should also ensure that CE is place at the highest level. And also to have such managers running the CE divisions in HEIs indicate that HEIs take CE seriously.

In addition to teaching and learning, research and development as well as community engagement are generally regarded as integral parts of the mission of higher education. HEIs are urged to "demonstrate social responsibility and their commitment to the common good by making available expertise and infrastructure for community service programmes".

Stellenbosch University's Vice-Rector: Community Interaction and Staff, Prof Julian Smith, was honoured at the formal launch for the leading role he played in the establishment and dedicate the award received to his "colleagues in Management, who have accepted and promoted Community Interaction (CI) as a complete academic function; to the Division for Community Interaction, who meticulously gave shape to the institutional policy; to the Deans and academics in general, who enthusiastically accepted the emphasis of the academic foundation of CI; and to the successive student leaders in the Student Council who adapted their priorities and activities to that of the CI-policy."

I asked the vice president of the Sourthen African Society for Cooperative Education (SASCE) the following:

• What is the position of SASCE about the launch of SAHECEF? Are there plans to collaborate regarding service learning as form of work-integrated learning (WiL)?
• I further remarked that I noted that Prof Roy du Preez (President of SASCE) concurred with the KZN Premier by pointing out that community engagement (CE) should be part of daily university life.

I received the following reply:

Dear Thomas
Thanks for the enquiry. SASCE has taken note of the establishment of SAHECEF with interest and we will align ourselves with representation from within our ranks. We see no conflict or threat as CE in its scope is broad and varied but at heart it is founded on social responsibility and community upliftment.
 
As SASCE our representation firstly targets a wider stakeholder forum and is not limited to HE but all providers(HE, FET & Private) and stakeholders in commerce, industry and community. We are primarily focussed on co-operative education as a partnership that through the partnership is to provide learners enhanced learning experiences by integrating theory with practise in the world of work. As SASCE we have positioned ourselves to strengthen the partnership with industry into our structures so that "voice" of industry has a platform that directly links with the curriculum mandate of providers.
Thanks for the interest.
Brian