International PLAR Research Centre: Inaugural Meeting

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International PLAR Research Centre Inaugural
Meeting

• Thompson Rivers University Open Learning
• Research Round-up Part 1
• Judy Harris

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Judy Harris Research interests

• Multiple intersections of
• Further and higher education
• Non-traditional learners
• Community
• Industry
• Profession
• Occupation
• Workplace.
• Multiple expressions over the years
• Recognition of Prior Learning
• Widening Participation
• Work-based Learning
• Spanning academic, policy and practitioner
  dimensions in the UK and South Africa

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RPL-related research activity the early days

• UK experiential learning onto agendas (late
  1980s)
• Learning from Experience Trust (first study trips
  etc)
• Development work in County of Avon publication
  in 1987 Handbook for the Assessment of
  Experiential Learning, County of Avon LET

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PLAR-related research activity the South Africa
days
Pre-election policy-related research 1993,
COSATU, Participatory Research Programme 1994,
National Training Board, Dept of Labour RPL
Current Thinking and Status in South
Africa Post-election policy-related
research 1994, Dept of Adult Ed and EMS, UCT RPL
International Models of Assessment 1995,
Peninsula Technikon, RPL feasibility study 1995,
Study tour to USA (Ford Foundation/CAEL) 1996,
COSATU RPL pilot with NUM 1996-99, HSRC RPL in
Higher Education, a national research and
development project 1999, Dept of Education,
Pretoria Prior Learning Theories of Learning and
RPL 1999, A Conceptual Framework for RPL, South
African Journal of Higher Education, 13 (2)
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RPL-related research activity back to the UK,
Open University days

• 1999 Ways of Seeing the Recognition of Prior
  Learning What contribution can such practices
  make to social inclusion, Studies in the
  Education of Adults, 20 (2)
• Describes four models of RPL
• Procrustean - PL is made to match predetermined
  standards
• Learning and Development - PL approximates
  (sometimes implicit) academic standards
• Radical - PL as an alternative to dominant forms
  of knowledge
• Trojan-horse all learning seen as socially
  constructed and valuable

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PhD The Hidden Curriculum of the Recognition of
Prior Learning A case study

• EXTRACTS FROM ABSTRACT
• A review of the literature reveals silences,
  paradoxes and contradictions around
  understandings of knowledge, pedagogy, power and
  identity in RPL.
• An absence of academic, empirical research at the
  micro-level of RPL practices is noted.
• Theoretical resources from the sociology of
  education (the work of Bernstein) and from
  continental philosophy (the work of Foucault).

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PhD The Hidden Curriculum of the Recognition of
Prior Learning A case study

• EXTRACTS FROM ABSTRACT (ctd)
• A hidden curriculum rewarded particular ways of
  thinking and acting confirmed prior experiential
  knowledge that was similar to that valued in the
  context and brought the former under the control
  of the latter.
• The RPL pedagogy was ambiguous, presenting an
  informal style through which power and control
  were signaled in a disguised way.
• Success in RPL was dependent on four prior
  affordances proximity to academic discourse,
  being schooled in reflective practice, a clear
  pedagogic identity and a well-developed learner
  identity.
• An approach proposed based on knowing the
  borders and crossing the lines i.e. theorizing
  relationships between mainstream curricula and
  pedagogy and prior experiential knowledge.
• Concludes that such approaches might be useful in
  the broader fields of work-based learning and
  widening participation in HE.

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Example of a seminar developed from PhD

• Analysing hidden pedagogies in a case study of
  the Recognition of Prior Learning
• Dr Judy Harris, Institute of Education,
  University of London
• Glasgow Caledonian University, Govan Mbeki
  Building (A427a)

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Example of a seminar developed from PhD

• Event information
• Relationship between implicit and explicit
  teaching and learning strategies in an RPL
  process using Basil Bernsteins competence and
  performance pedagogic models.
• Pedagogic moves in RPL were tracked. A complex
  intertwining of competence and performance
  elements was found.
• Formal institutional requirements became
  increasingly explicit as the RPL process
  progressed with emphasis on academic logic,
  institutional requirements and rule systems
  (performance pedagogy).
• The pedagogic mix rewarded particular ways of
  thinking and acting.
• Some candidates more comfortable and literate
  in competence (helping) pedagogies than others.
• Competence mode may inhibit the acquisition of
  the rule systems it is designed to broker,
  particularly for the educationally disadvantaged?

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Researching Learning Outside the AcademyCRLL
International Conference (2003)University of
StirlingRound-table session A research agenda
for RPL

• Knowledge
• What happens to knowledge in and around RPL, and
  how?
• In RPL practices, (how) are distinctions made
  between types of knowledge, especially between
  formal knowledge and informal/local knowledge?
• What forms of knowledge are most highly valued in
  RPL processes? What are silenced?
• Do adults acquire formal knowledge informally? To
  what extent and under what conditions?
• What knowledge structures constitute RPL
  candidates prior learning?
• Under what mainstream curricula conditions can
  RPL be most effective?

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• Pedagogy
• What do RPL facilitators and candidates do in the
  act of recognition?
• What pedagogic styles are at work?
• What happens during reflection?
• What are the most appropriate pedagogic processes
  to assist RPL candidates to identify and
  articulate their prior learning?
• Does putting together an individual portfolio
  prepare a candidate for a future academic
  learning programme?
• Can reflection and experiential learning cycle
  methodologies replace formal learning via
  acquisition?

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• Learning
• Is RPL about prior learning or new learning, or
  both?
• Is RPL an assessment process or a learning
  process?
• Is there some translation of knowledge going on
  in RPL? If there is, what learning issues are
  involved?
• What theories of learning underpin RPL e.g. in
  portfolio development and portfolio assessment?
• What other theories of learning could be brought
  to bear on RPL?
• Individual candidates learning styles, how do
  they differ?

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• Identity
• What effect does RPL have on candidates
  identities and self-perception?
• What happens to candidates and the way they come
  to know their experience?
• Individual candidates journeys through the
  process, how do they differ?
• What understandings of self are at work in and
  around RPL? What understandings of self are
  required when candidates put together a
  portfolio?
• What learner identities are constructed within an
  RPL practice? Do different aspects of an RPL
  process require different identity positionings?
• How do RPL practitioners see themselves? In
  relation to candidates, in relation to RPL and in
  relation to their institutional or organisational
  context?

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• Power
• Does RPL shift traditional patterns of inclusion
  and exclusion in education, vocational training
  and working life?
• Does RPL challenge assumptions about what counts
  as knowledge and whose knowledge has value?
• Is RPL reproductive of existing power relations?
• Is RPL a good way to increase social inclusion?
• What is the relationship between epistemological
  inclusion and social inclusion?
• What discourses characterise RPL? With what
  power-effects?

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Re-theorising the Recognition of Prior Learning

• Moving beyond experiential learning
• Bringing a range of theoretical lenses to bear on
  RPL
• Assessment theory
• Sociology of education/curriculum
• Post-structuralism situated knowledge
• Critical discourse analysis
• Activity theory
• Actor-network theory
• Complexity theory
• Symbolic interactionism social identity
  theory

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Judy Harris Research interests

• Multiple intersections of
• Further and higher education
• Non-traditional learners
• Community
• Industry
• Profession
• Occupation
• Workplace.
• Multiple expressions over the years
• Recognition of Prior Learning
• Widening Participation
• Work-based Learning
• Spanning academic, policy and practitioner
  dimensions in the UK and South Africa

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Human Sciences Research Council, South
AfricaStudent Support in the Further Education
and College Sector

• A review of the literature re student support
  (aka learning development, academic support)
• Discussion of merits of dis/embedded approaches
  to student support
• Same issues relationships between forms of
  knowledge in this case between thinking
  skills and content/subject knowledge i.e.
  epistemological and pedagogical concerns

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Centre for Higher Education Research and
Information (CHERI) Literature Review to inform
HEFCE strategy on workplace learning in higher
education

• Literature review called Work, Higher Education,
  Knowledge and Learning An exploration of the
  potential for greater integration
• Same issues conceptual confusion and
  contradiction in the literature in respect of key
  issues of knowledge, learning and their contexts

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Putting Knowledge to Work

• Putting Knowledge to Work' Integrating
  Work-based and Subject-based Knowledge in
  Intermediate-level Qualifications
• Institute of Education and London Chamber of
  Commerce and Industry Commercial Education Trust
• Karen Evans, David Guile and Judy Harris, 2006
  and 2008
• An associated project of the Economic and Social
  Research Councils Teaching and Learning Research
  Programme.
• http//www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/EvansRB60.pdf

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Putting Knowledge to Work

• Learning programmes (like FDs) that incorporate
  some form of (assessed) work-based learning
• Getting behind the problematic notion of
  integration of theory and practice
• Based on knowledge differentiation ? knowledge
  relationships ? potential relationships
• Points of articulation between different forms of
  knowledge best fits how knowledge gets
  stretched across contexts
• Recontextualisation
• Same issues relationships between forms of
  knowledge within programmes

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Putting Knowledge to Work

• The outcomes of the project were presented in
  February 2009
• Putting knowledge to work a new approach
• Book of exemplars
• Cross-cutting themes
• Exemplar-specific guidance notes
• ESRC/TLRP research briefing
• http//www.wlecentre.ac.uk

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Research position

• Not locked into experientialism, social
  constructivism
• Sociological, social realist position?
• Development of theoretical discourses around RPL
  ? re-theorising ?new theorising ? improved
  practice

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Research interests Knowing the borders and
crossing the lines complex

• Knowing the borders
• Epistemological concerns what is knowledge?
• Changing forms of knowledge within and without
  the university - instability
• What knowledge is being related to what in RPL?
  i.e. the relationships between specialist
  knowledge and experience
• Knowledge differentiation as basis for building
  connections
• Crossing the lines
• Pedagogical concerns how to build connections?
• Special pedagogies? Boundary-crossing practices
• What works and why?
• Smart reworking of long-standing pedagogic
  practices?
• Enhancing the predictive validity of RPL
  (Starr-Glass 2002 223)