Cooperative Education: Supporting and guiding ongoing development

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand further the processes of learning arising from students' experiences in both education and workplace settings and proposes implications for cooperative education. It emphasises the significance of individuals' experiencing cooperative education across both workplaces and educational institutions. Using case studies of individuals' learning throughout working life and school students' engagement in reflecting on paid work, the interdependence between the personal and social contributions of this learning is elaborated. That is, how workplaces and educational institutions afford opportunities for participation and learning, and how individuals elect to engage with what is afforded them in and across these settings. Therefore, it is necessary to account for the imperatives of both settings (i.e. their intentions and enactments) in seeking to integrate contributions of educational institutions and workplaces, and how individuals' personal histories or ontogenies shape what they experience, engage with and learn. Yet, without accounting for how individuals engage with what is afforded them in cooperative education programs, its goals for securing rich learning may remain unfulfilled.