Professionalisation of Supervisors and RPL
Abstract
The recognition of prior learning (RPL) has been introduced to higher education throughout the world. Learning that has taken place during work activities and leisure time has been far more challenging to recognise than learning in educational programmes. To enhance the effectiveness of the recognition of prior learning in higher education institutions, there is a need now for more thorough support and guidance to facilitate this process. This chapter explores how students with prior learning should be supervised to optimise the recognition of their learning secured outside of educational programmes and how their supervisors are able to provide this support. This chapter also attempts to analyse the process of tailoring prior learning processes for higher education programmes by introducing the concepts of professional identity and agency. The negotiations between the institutional demands and individual learning histories in the supervisors’ work are seen as based on reflective processes, comprising a transformation of the professional identity and the exercise of their agency. The analysis is based on the data collected from participants of a professional development programme for the recognition of prior learning in Finnish higher education.
Keywords
High Education Professional Development Social Identity Work Role Professional IdentityNotes
Acknowledgements
This chapter has been produced in the framework of the European Social Fund-financed project Recognition of Prior Learning in Higher Education (Finland).
References
- Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 619–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Archer, M. S. (2000). Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Archer, M. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Billett, S. (2008). Emergent perspectives on workplace learning. In S. Billett, C. Harteis, & A. Eteläpelto (Eds.), Emerging perspectives of workplace learning (pp. 1–15). Rotterdam: Sense.Google Scholar
- Billett, S., & Smith, R. (2006). Personal agency and epistemology at work. In S. Billett, T. Fenwick, & M. Somerville (Eds.), Work, subjectivity and learning (pp. 141–156). Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Brännlund, A., Nordlander, E., & Strandh, M. (2012). Higher education and self-governance: The effects of higher education and field of study on voice and agency in Sweden. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 31(6), 817–834.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Cranton, P., & Carusetta, E. (2002). Reflecting on teaching: The influence of context. International Journal for Academic Development, 7(2), 167–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Dachler, H. P., & Hosking, D. M. (1995). The primacy of relations in socially constructing organizational realities. In D. M. Hosking, H. P. Dachler, & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Management and organisation: Relational alternatives to individualism (pp. 1–28). Aldershot: Ashgate/Avebury.Google Scholar
- Eteläpelto, A. (2007). Työidentiteetti ja subjektius rakenteiden ja toimijuuden ristiaallokossa [Work identity and subjectivity in the cross-current of structures and agency]. In A. Eteläpelto, K. Collin, & J. Saarinen (Eds.), Työ, identiteetti ja oppiminen [Work, identity and learning] (pp. 90–142). Helsinki/Porvoo: WSOY.Google Scholar
- Eteläpelto, A. (2008). Perspectives, prospects and progress in work-related learning. In S. Billett, C. Harteis, & A. Eteläpelto (Eds.), Emerging perspectives of workplace learning (pp. 233–247). Rotterdam: Sense.Google Scholar
- Eteläpelto, A., & Vähäsantanen, K. (2008). Ammatillinen identiteetti persoonallisena ja sosiaalisena konstruktiona. In A. Eteläpelto & J. Onnismaa (Eds.), Ammatillisuus ja ammatillinen kasvu [Promoting professional growth] (pp. 26–49). Aikuiskasvatuksen 46. vuosikirja. Kansanvalistusseura ja Aikuiskasvatuksen Tutkimusseura. Vantaa: Hansaprint.Google Scholar
- Filliettaz, L. (2010). Guidance as an interactional accomplishment. Practice-based learning within the Swiss VET system. In S. Billett (Ed.), Learning through practice. Professional and practice-based learning (pp. 156–179). Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
- Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford/Cambridge: Stanford University Press/Polity Press.Google Scholar
- Grant, D., Hardy, C., Oswick, C., & Putnam, L. (2004). Introduction: Organizational discourse: Exploring the field. In D. Grant, T. Keenoy, & C. Oswick (Eds.), Handbook of organizational discourse (pp. 1–36). London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hökkä, P., Eteläpelto, A., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2012). The professional agency of teacher educators amid academic discourses. Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, 38(1), 83–102.Google Scholar
- Kahn, P. E., Wareham, T., Young, R., Willis, I., & Pilkington, R. (2006). The role and effectiveness of reflective practices in programmes for new academic staff: A grounded practitioner review of the research literature. York: Higher Education Academy.Google Scholar
- Kahn, P. E., Wareham, T., Young, R., Willis, I., & Pilkington, R. (2008a). Exploring a practitioner-based interpretive approach to reviewing research literature. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 31(2), 169–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kahn, P. E., Young, R., Grace, S., Pilkington, R., Rush, L., Tomkinson, C. B., & Willis, I. (2008b). A practitioner review of reflective practice within programmes for new academic staff: Theory and legitimacy in professional education. International Journal for Academic Development, 13(3), 199–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kahn, P., Qualter, A., & Young, R. (2012). Structure and agency in learning: A critical realist theory of the development of capacity to reflect on academic practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(6), 859–871.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kember, D., Leung, D., Jones, A., & Loke, A. Y. (2000). Development of a questionnaire to measure the level of reflective thinking. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 25(4), 381–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Leibowitz, B., van Schalkwyk, S., Ruiters, J., Farmer, J., & Adendorff, H. (2012). “It’s been a wonderful life”: Accounts of the interplay between structure and agency by “good” university teachers. Higher Education, 63(3), 353–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Marton, F., Hounsell, D., & Entwistle, N (Eds.). (1997). The experience of learning: Implications for teaching and studying in higher education. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. http://www.tla.ed.ac.uk/resources/EoL.html. Accessed 25 Apr 2013.
- McIntyre, M., & Cole, A. L. (2001). Conversations in relation: The research relationship in/as artful self-study. Reflective Practice, 2(1), 5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Mills, C. W. (1970, originally 1959). The sociological imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
- Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Nussbaum, M. (2003). Capabilities as fundamental entitlements: Sen and social justice. Feminist Economics, 9(2/3), 33–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Robeyns, I. (2005). The capability approach: A theoretical survey. Journal of Human Development, 6(1), 93–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Saarinen, J. (2007). Subjektius ja sukupuoli tutkimustyössä. In A. Eteläpelto, K. Collin, & J. Saarinen (Eds.), Työ, identiteetti ja oppiminen. [Work, identity and learning] (pp. 143–155). Helsinki/Porvoo: WSOY.Google Scholar
- Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
- Sen, A. (1990). Justice: Means versus freedoms. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 19, 111–121.Google Scholar
- Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Sveningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle. Human Relations, 56(10), 1163–1193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Watson, T. J. (2008). Managing identity: Identity work, personal predicaments and structural circumstances. Organization Articles, 15(1), 121–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Wenger, E. (2007, originally 1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Ybema, S., Keenoy, T., Oswick, C., Beverungen, A., Ellis, N., & Sabelis, I. (2009). Articulating identities. Human Relations, 62, 299–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar