Informa Work Based Learning Forum 22nd – 23rd November 2011 | Vibe Savoy Melbourne Interpreting practice Merilyn Childs and Regine Wagner

1. Interpreting practice
Merilyn Childs & Regine Wagner
Flexible Learning Institute
Charles Sturt University
Informa Work Based Learning
Forum
22nd – 23rd November 2011 |
Vibe Savoy Melbourne

2. Interpreting practice
 Practice as a site of interpretation
 Hierarchies of knowledge and
knowing
 Radicalising the value of practice
 Resistance in/by HE: hope for change

3. Key Proposition of this presentation
Life and work is more complex and potentially more
thoughtful than a single undergraduate or
postgraduate semester long subject – and perhaps
even an entire undergraduate or postgraduate
degree.
 If this is the case, what does this mean for Higher
Education?

4. Practice as a
site of interpretation

6. What we did
After a number of years experimenting with project based
learning at the University of Western Sydney, we introduced
workbased degrees in the context of a number of practice
domains: community services, fire fighting, adult education
(1994-2007).
Two of the degrees were full-time, completed in one year; and
typically students were full-time employees.
Study load was calculated on the basis that work was
curriculum. The learning process integrated learning
outcomes, project based learning, four off-the-job block
sessions, and the support of workbased learning
coordinators.

7. These were the propositions that underpinned our
workbased learning practices
 Work is curriculum
 “Work” is a generative theme
 Academic practice is work, and needs to be
demystified
 Hierarchies of knowledge and knowing are
unhelpful for valuing practice in Higher Education
 Practice can be interpreted and valued
 Praxis is theorised practice; and practiced theory

8. When work is curriculum (academic
practice as a site of interpretation)...
Academics
 demystifying their work
 do their work at the nexus of
work and the institution
 engage in acts of interpretation
at that nexus(eg learning
outcomes; partnerships;
assessments)

9. Practice as a site of interpretation
Fire sciences Policy studies
Disaster studies Social sciences
Human factors Resilience
studies
Environmental
studies Exercise
sciences
Material
sciences
Psychology
Leadership
Sociology
Social policy studies
Gender studies
Decision sciences
Terrorism studies
Climate sciences

10. Work is a generative theme (radicalising
the value of practice)
 The idea that “work is a generative theme” guided our
capacity to work with practice interpretively to make choices
about relevant theory (Searching for and looking at theory
from the point of view of practice)
 It allows the „curriculum‟ to be responsive to student
experience, changing practice and current trends.
 Work as a generative theme gives the student an external
standpoint, a yardstick upon which one can make choices to
establish or extend a personal epistemology. From that
standpoint, the student is able to “view” theory as less
arbitrary and received, atomised and separated.

11. A story from practice
 In 2002 our cohort included several African Muslim
students. In the aftermath of 9/11 they experienced
various forms of harassment, paranoia and
workplace scrutiny. This generated a theme about
racism, fascism and religious intolerance
underpinning much of our academic work at the
time. It also generated critical discussions between
non-Muslim and Muslim students and academics
on the relevance and strength of anti-discrimination
legislation and its impact on community sector
work.

12. Demystifying academic work
(institutional habits/resistance)
 Question the invisible hierarchy of expertise
◦ Create a dynamic continuum
 Question gatekeeping
◦ The habits of the institution are practices and as such are open to
interrogation
 Question disciplinary boundaries
◦ Enquiry through the lens of work
 Question “higher”
◦ Students need to learn theory before they can practice
◦ Theory should be applied to practice
◦ Theory is more rigorous than practice
◦ Practice is un-theorised unless it has been interrogated through university
studies

13. One version of the meeting point between
theory and practice?
 http://youtu.be/uvpikUEIaLI

14. A story from practice
We were invited to this forum on the basis of a paper we published in
2001. Our WBL practice has continued in different guises since 1994
and in different locations since 2006. Shamelessly, we have
attempted to exploit any new developments that could be interpreted
to be moving in a similar direction, whether work integrated
learning, practice- based learning, professional practice, problem-
based learning etc., last but not least, the „learning space‟ discourse.
When we took this particular idea to Jordan recently, we
encountered a very tangible example of resistance to change in
Higher Education: in the lecture rooms at the University of Jordan,
the chairs are bolted to the floor. As one of our Jordanian
colleagues put it aptly: let‟s go and get a wrench. Workbased
learning at its finest!

15. Hope for change? Hmmm...?
Hopes:
 hypertext and hyperlinks
 Ubiquitous learning etc
 Open universities
 Open Education Resources (OERs)
 “authentic learning” discourses
 New forms of resistance
Threats:
 WIL that fails to engage with and value
practice “not manufactured here”
 Academic practice that remains
rhetorical in relationship to lifewide and
lifelong learning

16. Thankyou and questions
 We welcome further contact at
mchilds@csu.edu.au and
rwagner@csu.edu.au