Jedd Bartlett :: Blog

Bentley, T. (1998) Learning beyond the Classroom: Education for a changing world, London: Routledge. 208 pages. Argues the case for a focus on learning beyond the formal sector and the need to connect what happens in schools to wider opportunities for learning. The book is rather light on theorization, coming, as it does, from a policy perspective (Demos).

Boud, D. and Garrick, J. (eds.) (1999) Understanding Learning at Work, London: Routledge. 238 + x pages. Contributions examine the context of workplace learning, some different perspectives on it; some issues arising from practice and some questions for the future.

Coffield, F. (2000) The Necessity of Informal Learning, Bristol: The Policy Press. 80 + iv pages. Useful collection of material arising out of ESRC Learning Society Programme. Includes Coffield on the significance of informal learning; an excellent piece by Michael Eraut on non-formal learning – implicit learning and tacit knowledge in professional work; Field and Spence on informal learning and social capital; Barron et al on implicit knowledge, phenomenology and learning difficulties; Davies on the impact of accreditation; and Fevre etal on necessary and unnecessary learning.

P. H. Coombs and M. Ahmed (1974) Attacking Rural Poverty. How non-formal education can help, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. See, also, Coombs, P. H. with Prosser, C. and Ahmed, M. (1973) New Paths to Learning for Rural Children and Youth, New York: International Council for Educational Development. There were several reports involving Coombs that popularized the institutional split between informal, formal and non-formal education.

Dale, M. and Bell, J. (1999) Informal Learning in the Workplace. DfEE Research Report 134, London: Department for Education and Employment. Concludes that informal learning has an impact on employability and a companies’ long-term success. Simple actions can reap large benefits for companies. Summary: DfEE Research – Informal learning in the workplace

Dreyfus, H. L. and Dreyfus, S. E. (1986) Mind Over Machine. The power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Ellis, J. (1990) ‘Informal education – a Christian perspective’ in T. Jeffs and M. Smith (eds.) Using Informal Education, Buckingham: Open University Press. Full text is in the archives.

Eraut, M. (1994) Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence, London: Falmer Press.

Eraut, M. (2000) ‘Non-formal learning, implicit learning and tacit knowledge in professional work’ in F. Coffield The Necessity of Informal Learning, Bristol: The Policy Press.

Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think 2e, New York: D. C. Heath. Classic and highly influential discussion of reflective enquiry, with Dewey's famous five elements: suggestion, problem, hypothesis, reasoning, testing. For a discussion that focuses on learning communities see, J. Dewey (1915) The School and Society, 2e., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Garrick, J. (1997) Informal Learning in the Workplace, London: Routledge.

Heath, S. B. (1983) Ways with Words. Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 421 + xiii pages. Fascinating and influential ethnological study of children learning to use language in two different communities.

Heath, S. B. and McLaughlin, M. W. (eds.) (1994) Identity and Inner-City Youth: Beyond ethnicity and gender, New York: Teachers College Press. Important study of the operation of youth organizations that explores how they offer local opportunities for the creation of a positive sense of self.

Henze, R. C. (1992) Informal Teaching and Learning: a study of everyday cognition in a Greek community, Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Excellent ethnographic account of informal teaching and learning.

Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. (1990) (eds.) Using Informal Education, Buckingham: Open University Press. Has a number of case studies concerning both organisationally and community based initiatives; plus an analytical overview of the concept and practice of informal education. Criticizes approaches that focus on informal education as an institutional form. Instead focuses on setting and process. 

Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall. 256 pages. Learning is approached as a process leading to the production of knowledge. Substantial discussion of the ideas underpinning Kolb's well-known model.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning. Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. 138 pages. Significant exploration of learning as participation in communities of practice. Participation moves from the periphery to the 'centre'. Learning is, thus, not seen as the acquisition of knowledge by individuals so much as a process of social participation. The nature of the situation impacts significantly on the process. Chapters on legitimate peripheral participation; practice, person, social world; specific communities of practice.

Leadbeater, C. (2000) Living on Thin Air. The new economy, London: Penguin. 264 + xiv pages. Examines the implications of living in a ‘knowledge economy’ and the role of ‘knowledge entrepreneurs’.

Marsick, V. J. and Watkins, K. E. (1991) Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace, London: Routledge. Interesting exploration of the nature of informal education which is grounded in an examination of a number of specific examples of practice.

McGiveney, V. (1999) Informal Learning in the Community. A trigger for change and development,Leicester: NIACE. 99 + xii pages. Report of a short DfEE-funded study that focuses on the role of informal learning in ‘starting people on a learning pathway’.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (1977) Learning Opportunities for Adults Vol IV: Participation in Adult Education, Paris: OECD.

Polanyi, M. (1967) The Tacit Dimension, New York: Doubleday.

Reber, A. S. (1993) Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge. An essay on the cognitive unconscious, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Salomon, G. (ed.) (1993) Distributed Cognition: Psychological and educational considerations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 275 + xxi pages. Fascinating collection of articles exploring debates around distributed cognition.

Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. How professionals think in action, London: Temple Smith. 374 + x. Influential book that examines professional knowledge, professional contexts and reflection-in-action. Examines the move from technical rationality to reflection-in-action and examines the process involved in various instances of professional judgement.

Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 355 + xvii pages. Development of the thinking in the 1983 book with sections on understanding the need for artistry in professional education; the architectural studio as educational model for reflection-in-action; how the reflective practicum works; and implications for improving professional education.

Smith, M. (1988) Developing Youth Work. Informal education, mutual aid and popular practice, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Smith, M. K. (1994) Local Education. Community, conversation, action, Buckingham: Open University Press. Examines the work of community educators, youth workers and community workers. Includes chapters on being local; being an educator; engaging in conversation; organising the work; curriculum and direction; embedding practice; reflecting in action; and dialogue and praxis.

Tennant, M. (1997) Psychology and Adult Learning 2e, London: Routledge.

Tennant, M. (1999) ‘Is learning transferable?’ in D. Boud and J. Garrick (eds.) Understanding Learning at Work, London: Routledge.

Tight, M. (1996) Key Concepts in Adult Education and Training, London: Routledge.

A good discussion of informal learning at http://www.infed.org/biblio/inf-lrn.htm, including this quote:

We must move away from a view of education as a rite of passage involving the acquisition of enough knowledge and qualifications to acquire and adult station in life. The point of education should not be to inculcate a body of knowledge, but to develop capabilities: the basic ones of literacy and numeracy as well as the capability to act responsibly towards others, to take initiative and to work creatively and collaboratively. The most important capability, and the one which traditional education is worst at creating is the ability and yearning to carry on learning. Too much schooling kills off a desire to learn.... Schools and universities should become more like hubs of learning, within the community, capable of extending into the community... More learning needs to be done at home, in offices and kitchens, in the contexts where knowledge is deployed to solve problems and add value to people's lives. (Leadbeater 2000: 111-112)

In an ichat conversation with my UK colleague Stephen discussing my plans and initial ideas, he pointed out that because COP is a learning theory rather than an analytical tool, I might consider looking at activity theory. Stephen is coincidentally about to seriously tackle his doctorate which is using activity theory as a lense through which to analyse interactions in Ultraversity where he is lecturer/moderator.

I have encountered activity theory a little in my reading of Etienne Wenger's COP, with references to Vygotsky and Engestrom. Seems like the next step is to become familiar with activity theory.

From Engestrom's "Activity theory as a framework for analyzing and redesigning work"...

"Activity systems are driven by communal motives that are often difficult to articulate for individual participants. Activity systems are in constant movement and internally contradictory. Their systemic contradictions, manifested in disturbances and mundane innovations, offer possibilities for expansive developmental transformations. Such transformations proceed through stepwise cycles of expansive learning which begin with actions of questioning the existing standard practice, then proceed to actions of analyzing its contradictions and modelling a vision for its zone of proximal development, then to actions of examining and implementing the new model in practice".

Clear connections here with blogging communities; more reading needed here to see what has been done using activity theory as analytical tool in education. 

In July I started thinking about the possibility of undertaking PhD studies, and began thinking about what exactly it would be that I would spend the next 4 - 5 years thinking and learning about. Six weeks later I think I am getting closer... Although there is a wide range of educational areas that I have explored in the past in my studies at Otago University, my current enthusiasm is quite definitely in the nature of knowledge and learning that is emerging in the world of social sites, blogs, wikis and social software.

I am fascinated by the discussion and commentary surrounding these new technologies and associated communities, and the natural area for investigation is in the implications of these technologies for learning, for teachers and for our models of schooling. So here's my first list (one of many no doubt);

 Explore COPs (Wenger) and develop framework of COP characteristics
Cover the existing research on COP at tertiary level -  elearning (VLE/CMS/LMS)
Define and explore characteristics of blogging communities
Define online environment of the blogger; social nature, self-selecting communities
Explore new ways of learning and new nature knowledge
Investigate blogging communities through the lens of COP
Choose a variety of distinct groups with varying characteristics
• Academics across institutes with common field of study (self selecting)
• Teachers internationally with common interest (self selecting)
• Senior school students in the same school (required to collaborate)
• Primary school students (required to collaborate)

Questions...
• How do these blogging communities measure up as communities of practice?
• Is a community of capable, reflective, autonomous bloggers in fact the ideal online COP?
• How does this relate to andragogy?
• Are the skills, habits and metacognitive abilities required for the blog-based COP too sophisticated for school-age students, meaning that a child in this environment has little chance of developing substantial new or deep understanding? 

First ruminations on the possible doctorate, and my thinking is focused on the new nature of knowledge, as in Jane Gilbert/Lyotard/Stephen Downes et al. Knowledge as a process rather than a product (Manuel Cassells).

I'm attracted to the thought that a learning environment where everyone's an expert because they can google and skim read, where multitasking gets in the way of cognition, where "good enough knowledge is good enough" (Weinberger), must inevitably lead to superficial understandings, puddles rather than silos = not a good situation. So here's where I start. One day done, 5 years to go...

... oh and also with Ze Franks version of knowledge on the move