Learning in the Workplace

A Toolkit for Facilitating Learning and Assessment in Health and Social Care Settings

Joan Mulholland, Chris Turnock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415537896
• eBook ISBN: 9781136272776
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

This toolkit is designed for preparing health and social care practitioners for their role in facilitating learning in their workplace. It enables readers to recognise learning opportunities, communicate their professional knowledge, provide students with appropriate support, judge performance, co-ordinate student contact with others in the workplace and develop awareness of the needs of students from diverse backgrounds. With plenty of activities and questions, the reader can assess their knowledge base and apply the concepts in the toolkit to their work setting.

This new edition is fully updated and now includes: international contexualisation; more coverage on meeting the diverse needs of students; and a new section on meeting professional standards, which discusses the NMC standards as well as those of other disciplines. A new companion website makes valuable supplementary material available – including further activities and articles on managing the placement learning experience, developing new supervisors, and making the most of reflection among others.

Practical and easy-to-read, this is an important resource for all those practitioners who support students in the workplace.

UNIT 1

Learning and teaching in the workplace

Introduction

The work-based facilitator requires an understanding of the principles of learning theory and their application to teaching in the workplace. The ability to use research to both inform teaching methods and content of practice-based education is fundamental to good teaching practice. This section will explore the ways in which people learn, including their learning styles and the role of the teacher in facilitating learning in the workplace. The section also examines various teaching methods that can be used in workplace learning as well as dealing with difficult situations and designing a learning programme.

Aim of the unit

The aim of this unit is to examine the way in which adults learn and to consider the skills required for effective teaching.

Outcomes of the unit

At the end of this unit you will be able to:

1	discuss the different ways that people learn
2	evaluate the range of methods used to aid learning in the workplace
3	develop the skills essential to successfully teach in the workplace
4	design, plan, implement and evaluate a learning programme in the workplace.

ACTIVITY 1.1

The following exercise is designed to help you to understand how you are assisted to learn and to identify different theories of learning.

You are undertaking a university course and notice that the lecturers use different approaches. When you ask why, you are told that they use different theories of learning. Read the following section and answer these questions:

•	Which of the theories helps you learn most?
•	Which theory do you learn least from?

Theories of learning

There are various theories of learning. One website (Kearsley 2012) lists over 50 different theories. This unit will provide you with an overview of a selection of mainstream theories that are particularly pertinent to the role of the work-based facilitator.

Andragogy

Knowle’s theory of andragogy (Knowles 1975, 1984) is an attempt to develop a theory specifically for adult learning. Knowles emphasises that adults are self-directed and expect to take responsibility for decisions. Adult-learning programmes must accommodate this fundamental aspect.

Andragogy makes the following assumptions about the design of learning: (1) adults need to know why they need to learn something; (2) adults need to learn experientially; (3) adults approach learning as problem-solving; and (4) adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.

In practical terms, andragogy means that instruction for adults needs to focus more on the process and less on the content being taught. Strategies such as case studies, role-playing, simulations and self-evaluation are most useful. Instructors adopt a role of facilitator or resource, rather than lecturer or grader.

Andragogy applies to any form of adult learning and has been used extensively in the design of organisational training programmes (especially for ‘soft skill’ domains such as management development).

Principles of andragogy

1	Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.
2	Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for learning activities.
3	Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their job or personal life.
4	Adult learning is problem-centred rather than content-oriented.

Constructivist theory

A major theme in the theoretical framework of Bruner is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure, i.e. a mental model, to do so. Cognitive structure provides meaning and organisation to experiences and allows the individual to ‘go beyond the information given’.

As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and student should engage in an active dialogue (i.e. Socratic learning). The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner’s current state of understanding. Curriculum should be organised in a spiral manner, so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned.

Bruner (1966) states that instruction should address four major aspects: (1) predisposition towards learning; (2) the ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner; (3) the most effective sequences in which to present material; and (4) the nature and pacing of rewards and punishments. Good methods for structuring knowledge should result in simplifying, generating new propositions and increasing the manipulation of information.

Bruner’s constructivist theory is a general framework for instruction based...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Learning and teaching in the workplace
• 2 Supporting learning in the workplace
• 3 Reflection on and in the workplace
• 4 Assessment in the workplace
• 5 Working with others in the workplace
• 6 Diversity in the workplace
• 7 Portfolio completion guidelines
• Index