This book advances understandings about and practices for effectively integrating practice-based (e.g. workplace) experiences in higher education programs. This issue is becoming of increasing salient because higher education programs globally are increasingly focussing on preparing students for specific occupations. Such imperatives are reflected in the cooperative education movement in North America, the foundation degree programs of the United Kingdom, the work integrated learning approach within Australian higher education and initiatives in a range of other countries. There are clear and growing expectations that graduates from such should be able to move smoothly into being effective in their occupational practice. These expectations rise from the imperatives and interest of government, employers, community and students themselves. The book achieves a number of important goals. Firstly, it identifies and delineates the educational worth of students and engagement in practice-based experiences and their integration within their programs of study. Secondly, it advances conceptions of the integration of such experiences that is essential to inform how these programs might be enacted. Thirdly, drawing on the findings of two teaching fellowships, it proposed bases and propositions for how experiences in higher education programs might be organised and augmented to support effective learning. Fourthly pedagogic practices seen to be effective in maximising the learning from those practice experiences and integrating them within the curriculum are identified and discussed. Fifthly, a particular focus is given to students’ personal epistemologies and how these might be developed and directed towards supporting effective learning within practice settings and the integration of that learning in their university programs.

In higher education institutions across the globe, there is a growing interest in integrating classroom learning with experience in practice settings. This interest is the result of an increased emphasis on courses that prepare students for specific occupations in the hopes that upon graduation students will be job-ready. Developing Learning Professionals: Integrating Experiences in University and Practice Settings explores how the integration of student experiences across university and practice settings might best be used to produce college graduates who are adept, critical practitioners. To do so, it draws on the findings of a series of projects in Australia that investigated diverse aspects of work-related learning. Through these projects, a range of scholars and researchers consider different aspects of this educational initiative within the same national higher education context. They address pedagogic and curriculum practices, institutional arrangements and partnerships of varying kinds, and a consolidated set of perspectives.

This book addresses issues confronting universities’ attempts to integrate practice-based learning in higher education curriculum, yet which reveals the jostling of cultures which exist within and amongst the academy, industry, government and professional bodies and other educational providers. The book engages theory in practices, and draws upon research highlighting the issues and transactions that emerge with implementation of work integrated learning arrangements as uses these resources to discuss and develop further both theoretical premises and procedural contributions. The illustrative cases derive utilise metaphors of culture in their exploration of the epistemologies, structures, politics, histories and rituals which constrain program opportunity and success in making these advances. The volume comprises two main sections, the first laying out focal issues in the integration of learning and work in higher education. This section presents the issues at multiple levels of analysis and in theoretical terms. This section provides a foundation for the second section of the book which introduces a number of research studies illustrative of the issues theorised in the first. The cases highlight the practice of workplace and higher education pedagogy. They provide thick descriptions of experiences of integration and are explicitly focused on the implementation of work integrated programs in higher education. The volume commences with an introductory chapter which sets out the range of issues addressed both theoretically and through illustration in the book and a final chapter critically reviews the contributions and acts to provide a cohesive picture of the learning practices of work and higher education and the possibilities of their integration.

Students’ ability to integrate learning across contexts is a critical outcome for higher education. Often the most powerful learning experiences that students report from their college years are those that prompt integration of learning, yet it remains an outcome that few educators explicitly work towards or specify as a course objective. Given that students will be more successful in college (and in life) if they can integrate their learning, James Barber offers a guide for college educators on how to promote students’ integration of learning, and help them connect knowledge and insights across contexts, whether in-class or out-of-class, in co-curricular activities, or across courses and disciplinary boundaries. The opening chapters lay the foundation for the book, defining what integration of learning is, how to promote it and students’ capacities for reflection; and introduce the author’s research-based Integration of Learning (IOL) model.The second section of the book provides practical, real-world strategies for facilitating integration of learning that college educators can use right away in multiple learning contexts. James Barber describes practices that readers can integrate as appropriate in their classes or activities, under chapters respectively devoted to Mentoring, Writing as Praxis, Juxtaposition, Hands-On Experiences, and Diversity and Identity. The author concludes by outlining how to apply IOL to a multiplicity of settings, such as a major, a single course, programming for a student organization, or other co-curricular experience; as well as offering guidance on assessing and documenting students’ mastery of this outcome.This book is addressed to a wide range of educators engaged with college student learning, from faculty to student affairs administrators, athletic coaches, internship supervisors, or anyone concerned with student development.

In higher education institutions across the globe, there is a growing interest in integrating classroom learning with experience in practice settings. This interest is the result of an increased emphasis on courses that prepare students for specific occupations in the hopes that upon graduation students will be job-ready. Developing Learning Professionals: Integrating Experiences in University and Practice Settings explores how the integration of student experiences across university and practice settings might best be used to produce college graduates who are adept, critical practitioners. To do so, it draws on the findings of a series of projects in Australia that investigated diverse aspects of work-related learning. Through these projects, a range of scholars and researchers consider different aspects of this educational initiative within the same national higher education context. They address pedagogic and curriculum practices, institutional arrangements and partnerships of varying kinds, and a consolidated set of perspectives.