Can anyone be a trainer?:

Can anyone be a trainer?: towards a more embedded role for vocational trainers Professor Lorna Unwin Institute of Education University of London For more information see http:// learningaswork . cardiff.ac.uk

Research Methods
Multi-sector study of relationship between learning in the workplace, the organization of work and performance
Qualitative methods – interviews, ‘work shadowing’, observation, photo elicitation Quantitative – surveys of employees, ‘learning logs’, development of ‘better’ survey questions

Importance of Context for Learning
Learning in the workplace arises from everyday workplace activity plus specific need (e.g. technological change)
Learning can be deliberate, unplanned, individual or collaborative, incidental, productive, subversive
Workplace context shapes the learning environment

Worlds within Worlds: Locating Work within its Productive System
Organisations operate within productive systems
External regulation from government, EU, professional bodies, owners
Ownership - foreign, stock market, family, self-employed
Role of customers and supply chains

The Workplace as a Learning Environment
Workplaces are structured environments – can be analysed on an ‘expansive-restrictive continuum’
Learning treated as homogenous ‘good’ - subversion, complacency, bad practice ignored
Learning anchored in and manipulated by context
Managers crucial to supporting and sustaining learning

Software Company – Managers as ‘Teachers’
HQ is ‘mother ship’ - all training in-house and largely ‘on-the-job’ - rotating teams
Intensive performance review process - 3, 6 and 9 months for newcomers - every 9 months for all
After first year, an engineer becomes mentor for newcomer, demonstrates ‘teaching’ skills and progresses to managing up to 5 people

Using Artefacts to Stimulate Learning in an Automotive Plant
Large group of production Operatives selected to act as ‘tutors’ to new employees
Designed a ‘live’ tutor pack – available across the factory - workers added new information/ideas to packs
Built on shared occupational/organisational language
Artefacts generated as part of everyday activity to stimulate and expose/illuminate learning

Implications for Policy and Practice
Role of the ‘trainer’ increasingly fluid
Employees assist each other as part of everyday work activity – young people (e.g. apprentices) can help older workers
Pedagogical techniques need to be part of every employee’s skill set
employers need help to create more effective learning environments

Can anyone be a trainer?:

by network_trainers on Nov 10, 2008

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Can anyone be a trainer?: — Presentation Transcript