Integrating experiences in workplace and university settings: A conceptual perspective

Abstract

Given the ambitious goals for and interest in integrating students’ experiences in both educational and practice settings, it is helpful to have some clear bases with which to proceed in planning, enacting and evaluating these educational provisions. It is necessary, therefore, to understand the kinds of educational purposes to be achieved, and means by which those purposes can likely be realised. Accordingly, this chapter first identifies the forms and kinds of knowledge required to be developed for effective professional practice, that then become the key educational purposes for integrating these experiences. They comprise the canonical conceptual, procedural and dispositional knowledge of the occupation and the particular situational requirements of that occupational knowledge for the circumstances where it is enacted. Following this, the likely contributions of experiences in academic and practice settings are discussed in terms of how they separately and when integrated together can best secure the kinds and forms of knowledge required to be learnt. That is to identify how best the fit between the experiences provided and their integration can realise both the canonical and situational knowledge required for effective professional practice. Hence, the consideration of these integrations goes beyond what is provided or afforded by the two settings and needs to include how novice and experienced practitioners come to draw upon and reconcile both sets of contributions. In doing so, it extends beyond what is enacted as experiences for students and includes their epistemological development as agentic learners. Consequently, it will not be sufficient to consider the only development of appropriate curriculum and pedagogies to integrate experiences. In addition, it will be necessary to account for the development of agentic personal epistemologies.