Learning in vivo

Eight categories of assessing work-integrated learning

Sonia Ferns and Keri Moore (2012) indicate that assessment of fieldwork generally comprise three broad elements, namely (a) actual workplace performance; (b) a record of the experience (diary or journal); and (c) a reflection on the work-based experience. However, they mapped eight categories of assessment in use for assessing student outcomes from fieldwork placements:

• Case Studies research on cases: applying disciplinary knowledge in a professional context, roles, ethics, and responsibilities, systems, processes and lateral and higher order thinking, debates. Can be inter-professional or discipline specific.
• Reflection/portfolio: Reflection of work place experience and collection of evidence.
• Simulation: Institutional based assessment intended to replicate the workplace environment e.g., role play including Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE), peer and self-assessment.
• Knowledge test: Testing recall of facts such as online quizzes or multiple choice quizzes (MCQ).
• Performance - real-time in situ: Practical assessment of work place performance - detailed understanding of disciplinary systems, roles, ethics, and responsibilities, systems, processes and lateral thinking, proficiency in basic disciplinary skills, communication and core disciplinary knowledge.
• Oral Presentations: oral test - detailed understanding of disciplinary systems, roles, ethics, and responsibilities, systems, processes and lateral thinking.
• Written task: Essays or reports (other than case studies) higher order thinking.
• Industry-based case study: Investigation of actual work place scenarios.

Their research findings include, among others, some interesting graphs about frequencies of use of the above mentioned assessment types; and of graduate attributes assessed.

Ferns, S. & Moore, K. 2012. Assessing student outcomes in fieldwork placements: An overview of current practice. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 13(4), 207-224.

Log as in shingles cut from wooden logs used for books

Keeping a log book is a common activity in learning from work experience. In many cases it is used as evidence of experience acquired and entries ratified by workplace supervisors. But where does the term log book originate from? I was pleasantly surprised today to stumble over the term among navy terminology: “In the early days of sailing ships, the ship's records were written on shingles cut from logs. These shingles were hinged and opened like a book. The record was called the ‘log book.’ Later on, when paper was readily available and bound into books, the record maintained it name.” Also of interest are terms such as:

• Hunky-Dory
• Long Shot
• Port Holes
• Taken Aback
• Took the Wind Out of His Sails

Reflective practice for collective learning

Raelin (2000: 101) calls "the process of public reflection" reflective practice; it is a community of inquiry and creates a collective identity. He defines reflection as "the practice of periodically stepping back to ponder the meaning to self and others in one's immediate environment about what has transpired. It illuminates what has been experienced by both self and others, providing a basic for future education", he adds.

Raelin (2000: 101-2) emphasises learning dialogues, as element of reflective practice, taking place in the security of trustworthy peers based on the direct experiences of work. Raelin (p. 103) refers to Plato's statement that 'the unexamined life isn't worth living' meaning that others need to be included in the examination of life experiences. It is more than collective naval gazing; it isintorspection midst of practice and in the presence of others.

"Reflective practitioners 'reinvest' in learning by participating in continuing education" and "engage in problem posing as much as problem solving, continually expand[ing] their solution database rather than select the first solution that works, view inconsistencies as opportunities rather than inconveniences, and enjoy reflecting back on their decision making rather than sealing off debate" (Raelin 2000: 105). Four explicit reflective practices that can be used each on its own or combined are presented by Raelin (2000: 115-145):

1. Learning teams

Work-based learning often involves action learning in teams. Co-workers undertake projects together, discuss dilemmas of work actions, as well as "the application or misapplication of concepts and theories to these actions" (p. 115). The learning device is to pose questions to one another.

2. Journaling

But "the journal is arguably the most endemic technique we have to enhance our self-reflection" admits Raelin (p. 124). Yet, he continues, although it is "often used as an introspective tool for personal growth, it can also serve as an aid to bring together the inner and outer parts of our lives. It offers a lens to view experience—be it before, during, or after the event under scrutiny—and it even allows further reflection on the journal entries themselves." The journal is a potent vehicle to collect private data for public learning dialogues and may include any one or more of the following:

• Logs or reports of specific factual experiences.
• Lists of observations or ideas.
• Portraits or descriptions of people or situations.
• Memoirs of personal experiences.
• Catalogues of feelings/perceptions in situations or about people.
• Intimate accounts including personal sentiments, confessions and notes.
• Dialogues recordings.
• Conceptual understandings.
• Commentary of applications of concepts.
• Social histories (stories) of issues unfolding.
• Maps of consciousness to capture the state of mind.
• Guided imagery, meditated frames of reference and/or dreams.
• Altered points of view in different contexts or timeframes.
• Contradictions or dilemmas experiences or observed.
• Inconsistencies noticed
• Surprises experiences.

3. Developmental planning

Developmental planning often linked to career development. It involves the individual interests, needs and expectations, as well as the organisational objectives and resource requirements. It is often an element of the overall organisational performance management strategy.

4. Developmental relationships

Examples of developmental relationships include coaching and mentoring.

Raelin, J.A. 2000. Work-based learning—the new frontier of management development. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Analysis of experiential narrative instead of portfolios

It has often been said that it is naive to assume that students would actually learn from an in vivo (real-life) setting what they need to—i.e. what has been specified in the curriculum. It is my experience that students do not necessary experience, despite prior arrangements, what they should from a work placement. This is because of various reasons, among others work pressures. Besides the learning environmental factors, the student's own attitude may also restrict the student's learning.

In vivo learning educators/coordinators/work-integrated learning lecturers have tried many ways to bring about the desired learning of students, for example:

• Conducting on-campus orientation prior to placement of students in the in vivo learning setting (going for experiential/work-integrated learning)
• Providing students with work-integrated learning guidelines, detailing the relevant learning outcomes students must achieve and specifying what evidence of learning is required (this is especially important in the case of distance education institutions), for example, what the portfolio of evidence or work-project report should include
• Providing mentors (the work-place learning supervisors) with guidelines detailing what the students should be exposed to, their roles a learning mentors and what evidence of learning is expected from students
• Monitoring the learning and progress of students during in vivo/work-integrated learning
• Facilitate debriefing (or reflection) of students on return from in vivo/work-integrated learning stints away from campus
• Providing students with log books (to capture their experience and have each entry ratified) or with journals to capture their learning
• Require of students to present their portfolios to a panel that would interrogate their mastery of the specified learning outcomes

What about making use of story-telling and narrative analysis?

The in vivo/work-integrated learning guide would include the learning outcomes to be accomplished and suggested in vivo (real-life) settings.

The guide would further include (a) examples of daily journaling and/or recording of experiences, observations and realisations; (b) some indicators about story telling; and (c) a narrative analysis model—such as Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach and Zilber (1998)—with basic explanations.

The instruction would be simple:

1. when the student is of opinion that she/he has mastered the specified learning outcomes she/he must write or tell the story about the learning experiences. If told, the student must transcribe the audio recording to text and edit it for readability
2. to do an analysis of her/his own narrative/experience-story (making use of the model in the guide)
3. illustrate/explain/qualify by linking up the analysis of the narrative with the specified learning outcomes to substantiate why she/he is of opinion the outcomes were mastered/accomplished

What do blog readers think? Could such an approach work? If readers think not, why? What are the potential pitfalls?

Feedback from a friend:

"Hi, Thomas.

Taking a rather oblique look at the problem, I'd ask, "What is it about the situation that mitigates against the desired outcome?"  Assuming the student has been given all the essential input (as you've listed) he knows what is wanted of him.   OK.  He's probably in a real-life workplace for the first time; it's and entirely new and perhaps stressful experience.  He's encountering the sort of people, rules, procedures and environment he's never experienced before.  Pressures will be on him to perform a job.   He may be earning a salary for the first time - which will be a distraction.  It will be during what is normally a holiday period, and his friends may be on the beach, or whatever. -- Just some ideas, based on observation of "Vac Students" in the Chemical industry."