The document discusses challenges in designing for horizontal learning in the Danish VET (vocational education and training) system. It notes that apprentices often experience vocational school and workplace practice as dissimilar contexts with different norms. The research aims to understand how VET teachers use ICT artifacts as boundary objects to facilitate boundary crossing between contexts. Preliminary findings show teachers focus on vertical transfer of knowledge rather than horizontal learning across contexts. Contradictions exist between educational and workplace logics that could be transformed into learning opportunities if boundary crossing was a core design principle.

1. Challenges in designing
for horizontal learning
- in the Danish VET system
Marianne Riis, Palle Bergstedt, Claus. B. Jørgensen,
Hans H. Koch & Carsten L. Rasmussen
National Centre for Vocational Pedagogy
Designs for Learning – 5th International conference, AAU-CPH, May 19th, 2016

2. Training to become …

3. Agenda
■ Why
 Research purpose and RQs
■ What
 Vertical and horizontal learning in the dual VET
system
 Boundary crossing and boundary objects
■ How
 Case study, ethnographic interviews, CHAT
inspired analysis
■ Preliminary findings
■ Future research

4. The VET
challenge?!
Apprentices often experience trade
vocational school and trade practice as
very dissimilar contexts with different
norms and guidelines for action.
Tanggaard (2007, p. 453)

5. Research purpose and RQs
1. In what ways and why do VET teachers use ICT-
based artefacts as boundary objects to design
for boundary crossing and continuity in and
across different contexts?
2. What didactic and pedagogic recommendations can
support VET schools' future work with establishing
enhanced school-workplace interaction through the
use of ICT?

VET teacher-students (diploma – NQF 6)
Research community
Practitioners

6. Vertical and horizontal learning
Vertical learning
 Focus on learning in an single system
 Narrow, hierarchical view of knowledge and
expertise
 Transfer is the dominant metaphor
Horizontal learning
 Focus on learning in and across multiple systems
 Broad, multidimensional view of knowledge and
expertise
 Transition/crossing is the dominant metaphor
Note! Both approaches are necessary
Engeström et al. (1995), Tuomi-Grön et al. (2003)

7. Boundary crossing and
boundary objects
 Boundaries can lead to discontinuity in action or interaction
 Boundary crossing is a concept that has been proposed as an
enriched notion of transfer
 Boundary crossing includes ongoing, two-sided actions and
interactions in and across practices
 Boundary crossing acknowledges conflicts and contradictions as
potential for learning and development
 Boundary objects refer to artefacts bridging/mediating the
crossing – analog or digital

 Boundary crossing is about finding productive ways of relating
intersecting dissimilar practices
(Akkerman & Bakker, 2012 & 2011)

8. Research design
 Multiple case study
 Three dominant strands: Technical*, Business and Social & Health
 4 schools – teachers, students/apprentices and trainers
 Longitudinal study
 Research methods
 Interviews (different types), observations and design experiments
 Six ethnographic interviews (inspired by Spradley, 1979)
 Purpose: gain insight into the VET teachers’ experiences and
vocabulary regarding boundary crossing and their use of boundary
objects and ICT
*) Includes both ”Technology, construction and transportation” and ”Food, farming and experiences”

9. Sociocultural CHAT inspired
analysis
 Cultural Historical Activity Theory (3rd gen. ) - as framework for
interviews and subsequent analysis
 Analytical unit: minimum of two systems, focus on all elements,
incl. boundary objects  contradictions

10.  Predominant focus on and design for transfer as
part of a vertical learning process (individual, tasks
and identical elements)
 All interviewed VET teachers use ICT
 Mediating tools within the educational/school
logic
 Video differs as preferred tool regarding the
theory-practice dichotomy
 The digital ”Student plan” – administrative tool,
not a boundary object
 Horizontal learning and boundary crossing is
perceived as a didactic design challenge
Preliminary findings

11. Contradictions
Examples
“Our job is to give them
[the students] theory,
and then the companies
will give them the
practical knowledge.”
“You know: the companies
aren’t educational institutions
– they want to make money
off an apprentice. But that
also means that they’re
interested in getting good
apprentices.”
“We [the teachers] have no
influence on the learning
goals in the apprenticeship
periods.”
“Unfortunately, when I let
the students go on
Friday [last day of the
school period], I don’t
necessarily meet them
again.”

12. The VET student perspective
(… ) apprentices do not, per se, perceive any gap
between theory and practice. Rather, the
difference (...) concerns the seemingly conflicting
emphasis on what makes theoretical sense at
trade vocational school and what makes practical
sense in the workplace.
Tanggaard, 2007, p. 453-454

13.  How can we move (the teachers) beyond one-
time, one-directional transfer conceptions?
 How can we support the teachers’ work with
transforming contradictions into teaching and
learning opportunities?
 For whom is boundary crossing and/or
discontinuity a challenge – (how) is it a
challenge?
 If ICT is the solution – what was the
challenge?
Ruminations …

14. Future research
Spring 2016
 Analysis of ICTs as boundary
objects (cf. Carlile, 2002 & 2004)
 Classroom observations
 Interviews with VET students
 Interviews with VET trainers
Fall 2016
 Design experiments
 Focus on sociomateriality
 Interviews with and observations of
VET teachers and VET students
acting with technology!
Inspired by Dirckinck-Holmfeld (2006)

15. Closing statement
If transfer or rather boundary crossing in VET is
based on ongoing, two-sided actions and interactions
in and across practices, then perhaps it should be seen
as a guiding didactic design principle for all teaching
and learning processes
– and not just an occasional phenomenon?!

16. Thank you!
– follow the project (in Danish)
https://iktogtransferieud.wordpress.com/

17. References – cited in the paper
 Akkerman, S.F. & Bakker, A. (2012). Crossing boundaries between school and work during apprenticeship. Vocations
and Learning. 5:153-173
 Akkerman, S.F. & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research. June
2011, Vol. 81, No. 2, pp. 132-169
 Engle, R.A. (2012). The resurgence of research into transfer: an introduction to the final articles of the transfer stand.
Journal of the Learning Sciences, 21:3, 347-352.
 Engeström, Y., Engeström, R. & Kärkkäinen, M. (1995). Polycontextuality and boundary crossing in expert cognition:
Learning and problem solving in complex work activities. Learning and Instruction, Vol. 5. pp. 219-336.
 Fenwick, T., Edwards, R. & Sawchuk, P. (2011). Emerging approaches to educational research. Tracing the
sociomaterial. New York. Routledge.
 Lobato, J. (2006). Alternative perspectives on the transfer of learning. History, issues, and challenges for future
research. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(4), 431-449.
 Riis, M., Bergstedt, P. & Rasmussen, C.L. (unpublished). Undervisningsdifferentiering og it i de erhvervsrettede
uddannelser – en eksploartiv forundersøgelse. Intern rapport udarbejdet 2014.

18. References – cited in the paper 2
 Rogoff, B. (1995). Observing sociocultural activity on three planes. Participatory appropriation, guided
participation, and apprenticeship. In Wertsch, J.V., Del Rio, P. & Alvarez, A. (Eds.) Sociocultural studies of
mind pp. 139-164. New York: Cambridge Press.
 Spradley, J.P. (1979). The Ethnographic Interview. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
 Star, S.L. (2010), This is not a boundary object; Reflections on the origin of the concept. Science,
Technology, and Human Values, 25(5), 601-617.
 Tuomi-Gröhn, T. Engeström, Y., & Young, M. (2003). From transfer to boundary crossing between school
and work as a tool for developing vocational education: An introduction. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström
(Eds.), Between school and work: New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing pp. 1–18.
Amsterdam, Netherlands: Pergamon.
 Yin, R. K. (2009). Case Study Research. Design and methods. 4th edition. SAGE.
 Aarkrog, V. (2010). Erhvervsuddannelsesforskningen i Danmark. In Størner, T. & Hansen, J.A. (red.)
Erhvervspædagogik – mål, temaer og vilkår i eud’s verden. s. 73-82. Erhvervsskolernes Forlag.

19. Additional references
- for this presentation
 Carlile, P.R. (2004). Transfering, translating, and transforming: An integrative framework for managing
knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science, Vol. 15, No. 5, September-October 2004, pp. 555-568.
 Carlile, P.R.(2002). A pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries: boundary objects in new product
development. Organization Science, Vol. 13, No. 4, July-August 2002, pp. 442-455
 Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L. (2006). Designing for collaboration and mutual negotiation of mening: Boundary
objects in networked learning environments. Banks, S., Hodgson, V., Jones, C., Kemp, B. & McConnel, D.
(eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conferencen on Networked Learning.
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/organisations/netlc/past/nlc2006/abstracts/pdfs/01LDHolmfeld.pdf
 Tanggard, L. (2007). Learning at a trade vocational school and learning at work: boundary crossing in
apprentices’ everyday life. Journal of Education and Work. Vol. 20, No. 5, November 2007, pp. 453-466