3.5 Theoretical Framework for the Study
3.5.2 Experiential Learning Theorists
3.5.2.4 Joplin (1981)
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Forrest (2004) believes that producing reflection tests these models of experiential learning and ignores the non-experiential ways of learning. Kolb's (1984)’s learning cycle gives inadequate care to goals, purposes, plans, choice, and decision-making, also which make up a unit of learning (Harrison, 2002). For example, Rogers (1996: 108) explains that “learning includes goals, purposes, aims, choice, and decision-making, and not allowed where these elements fit into the learning cycle." Rogers (1996) further proposes at least three forms of learning and argues that specific learning modes for each exist. Therefore, diverse forms of this model have determined, innovative pedagogical patterns in the workplace’s development of gaining skill or knowledge and in higher education. The active participation of the learner with experience allows the learner in an approach to solving real-life problems that involve acting and reflecting upon the results. These patterns often report as “action learning or action research” (Ariizumi, 2005; Dilworth & Willis, 2003). The contributions of Kolb (1984) have moved the education model from the teachers’ centred to the student-centred’ by explaining his model of experience in a technological form. Many researchers in the field have commented that experience has once more become a matter of debate (Cross, 1981; Knowles, 1990; Brookfield, 1990; McKeachie, 1994). Higher education applies Kolb’s theory to a greater degree in higher education and other developments in higher intellectual achievements (Cantor, 1997; Lempert, 1996; Kolb & Kolb, 2005; Kuh, 2008).
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The first stage of the model - focus-, presents the material to be learned and the challenge that will be encountered. The focus can be direct or indirect; for example, the teacher gives a brief presentation or gives the students an instruction list to read to prepare them for the next activity.
For indirect focus, the teacher may allow the students to see the equipment that they will use for the activity.
I portray the second stage of the model as a hurricane to characterise challenge and struggle.
During this stage, I place the student in a stressful situation in which they have a great responsibility, but also the freedom to fail. The student cannot avoid the problem at hand and can either become familiar or unfamiliar with the skills or knowledge needed to solve the problem. For example, I could give the students a task involving safety aspects in which the situation requires individual responsibility and action.
The third stage involves supporting the students to stimulate their challenging experiences. This allows them to appreciate that they are safe, knowing that help is available if they need it. They can provide support through written, verbal, or physical means.
The fourth stage of the model is feedback which, provides the student with information about their activities. It is more likely to be accepted if the student and teacher share an equal amount of power in the learning process. Also, if the feedback is specific, then the student has an increased chance of understanding the importance of such experience.
The last stage of the model involves debriefing the student according to their specific actions.
During this stage, the learning objective is recognised, expressed, and assessed. The teacher ensures that the experience does not go unrealised by the student projects, group discussions, writing essays, or by what doing a presentation can accomplish. It is during this stage that learner’s sort and order their observations from the experience and relate those observations to what they already know.
Joplin’s experiential learning model sets out to provide an appropriate theoretical framework for the current study. Thus, the model shows the processes involved in an individual (graduate) developing employability skills through training or gaining skills per on-the-job training (internship). The challenge for graduates is to understand directives, perform the job professionally and responsibly while observing all the safety precautions.
105 3.5.2.5 Lave and Wenger (1990)
Lave and Wenger (1990) first used the term “community of practice” to report learning through a practice session and sharing in the activities of a group (participation). Later, they changed the term “community of practice” to that of “situated learning” in which students, as entrants, become a member of a community at the beginning by taking part in low-risk and straightforward jobs (Lave & Wenger, 1990). The researcher frames the Situated Learning Theory on how individuals develop professional skills, increase in scope research on an internship, and how novices turn into experienced people in a social group. This theory helps an individual to become a veteran of a community of practice or a planned undertaking performed by a collaboration (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The tasks are productive and are essential in promoting the objectives of that society. As a result, beginners become acquainted with roles, the system of techniques, and organising rules of the community. They turn into experienced professionals, and their engagement becomes essential for working with the society of learners (Lave & Wenger, 1990).
Wenger (1998) uses dualities, the production, and preservation of a community of practice. Each duality is “a unit formed by two inseparable and constitutive elements whose inherent tensions and complementarity give richness and dynamism” (Wenger, 1998: 66). Many researchers equate the two opposed parts to that of the “yin” and the “yang,” that is, two deciding opponents (Wenger, 1998; Hildreth & Kimble, 2002; Barab, Makinster & Scheckler, 2003; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). The stresses in dualities can be both creative and restrictive. The four communities of practice are (1) “participation–reification,” (2) “designed–emergent,” (3)
“identification–negotiability” and (4) “local-global” (Polin, 2008: 282).
Situated learning theory has shown that knowledge is presented in the original circumstance that involves its application. Lave presents reasons and arguments I situate in an operation that affects mental contents of developing a skill or experience. Most classroom learning actions that need dealing with a subject without practical know-how are not on situated learning theory. For example, as it took place, learning implanted among any specific behaviour, background, and culture is regarded as an intent. Lave and Wenger assign a name to this, a unique mode of action aimed to solve “legitimate participation”. This refers to how learners engage in actions of socio- cultural practice. They develop the practical skills in this exercise that engages students and offers them the means to belong to a community of practice. Legitimate peripheral participation refers to the social organisation of and power to direct the source of wealth (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Again, it takes time and experience for a person to access resources.
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Another point to consider is that the word “peripheral” recognises “between newcomers and experienced people who cover multiple, changed, enlisted and comprehensive means of being in the fields of participation determined by a community” (Driscoll, 2000: 72). For instance, Brown, Collins, and Dugid (1989) confirm their suggestions on situated learning and cognitive apprenticeship. They found that there is a not match between conventional learning situations and real-world situations. In particular, social interaction, and the act of working in collaboration are necessary constituents of situated learning. Therefore, when students are connected by participation in a “community of practice” this allows in bodily form specific feelings and behaviours to develop. As the learner goes from the boundary of a community to its centre, he or she is disposed to act. However, he or she causes change, following the culture and accepting the work of an expert.
In the workplace, learners aim to gain professional knowledge, skills, attitudes, and competencies. They continue their internship as the people who compose a social group, a community of practice. Lave’s situated learning (1988) discourses on the state of difficulty that is needed to resolve knowledge transfer. The author suggests that learning in nature and environment takes place as a part of the cultural activity in which it exists. Lave (1988) experiences knowledge every day in different circumstances and expects to improve performance. As a result, he accepts that ability is a determined understanding and approval and that social conditions can both limit and hold back, or help to understand. Lave (1988) further mentions that research ought to analyse experience as generalising of skills that involve education and create the role of culture in growing abilities. The individual plans acceptable opportunistic solutions in a normal place to difficulties; individuals do not apply general thoughts or actions proposed to take effect on a problem in their daily thinking. The willingness to share with others in the actions of a group leads to an adaptive “survival” skill, and successful learning (Lave, 1988). Therefore, this belief proposes that learning occurs through social connections, within a cultural, environmental condition, and by associating prior understanding to new contexts. The situated model of education is a unit of the theory of communities of practice which purports that the cognitive action of gaining skill or knowledge should not be considered a mere transmission of know-how but viewed as an implanted and effective procedure (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The authors suggest that circumstances cause this learning within the specific social and physical natural world.
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My research is to develop specific words that enable me to tell a story. What can I learn from graduates, employers, and academics that will give me a theory of learning? One thing that this theory offers in my study is the confirmation of the importance of a careful choice of places for an internship; I seek not any experience. If learning is a claim to competence, then there is always an issue of power. Always ask in any community – which voices are being silenced by the relationship of power, for example, power is something that someone with 30 years of experience has. Do my voice and those of the workplace supervisors silence the interns? These silent voices may be those that may have helped me to learn.