Search results for "Professional expertise"

A Finnish viewpoint on professionalism in early childhood education

2008

ABSTRACT This article discusses professionalism in early childhood education through the analytical tool of a research‐based multi‐level perspective that sees this as a cultural, communal, organisational, and individual phenomenon. Starting from an understanding of professionalism derived from a model of professional expertise, the article discusses the Finnish day‐care context at the social and cultural level, followed by a discussion of field‐specific knowledge as a tool for building professionalism. Professionalism is further examined as it plays out in the employees’ working environment, the day‐care centre and its working culture and from the perspective of the professionals themselves…

Exploring the construction of professional expertise in HRD: analysis of four HR developers’ work histories and career stories

2002

Explores the construction of professional expertise in HRD work through the examination of the careers of four individual HR developers who are employed as full‐time HRD personnel in various work organisations and already possess considerable experience of HRD work. A narrative approach to the development of professional expertise was applied and the building materials for professional expertise in HRD work retrospectively extracted from the developers’ formal work histories and career stories. The empirical data used consist of interviews with 20 full‐time HR developers working in large enterprises and governmental organisations in Finland. The present analysis is based on four career stor…

TEL@work: Toward integration of theory and practice

2014

This paper examines technology-enhanced learning at work in the context of the integrative pedagogy model. The basic idea behind this model is to create learning environments whereby the four basic elements of professional expertise (ie, theoretical, practical, self-regulative and sociocultural knowledge) can be integrated. The paper illustrates two basic ways of applying the model in technology-enhanced learning at work. First, examples of how to make use of existing technologies, especially social media, to empower learning at work is presented, and second, an instance of the way the model is used in the design of specific technologies for enhancing collaborative learning in the work cont…

Integrating theory and practice? Employees’ and students’ experiences of learning at work

2003

The integration of theory and practice has been recognised as one of the key questions in the development of professional expertise and vocational competence. In this study the question of how theory and practice meet each other during professional development was approached from the point of view of two different groups of learners: employees with varying length of work experience and university students taking a working life project course. Altogether 18 employees and 51 students were interviewed, after which transcribed interviews were qualitatively categorised. The opinions expressed by the informants indicate that work‐based learning is not a unified phenomenon but varies in different …

From Individual Cognition to Communities of Practice

2006

Modelling in evaluating a working life project in higher education

2012

Abstract This article describes an evaluation method based on collaboration between the higher education, a care home and university, in a RD (2) comprehensive data collection methods are needed; (3) shared tools can be developed in interactive forums in ongoing evaluation, and (4) modelling makes professional expertise visible and brakes boundaries between different professions.

Object, problem, or subject?: A child with a disability as found in reports of professionals

2009

This study examined the representations of one Finnish child with disabilities as constructed in reports written by professionals. The professional action models which appeared in the discourse of the reports were also explored. The theoretical framework of the study was based on the social constructionist approach. Research data consisted of 145 documents, the analyses of which were based on critical discourse analysis developed by Fairclough (1992). Results indicated that the child with a disability was constructed in the documents in varying ways, either as an object, a problem, or a subject Professional expertise, mechanistic and objectivist practices, and seeing disability as an indivi…

Barnet som aktør og kunnskapsbærer –– en utfordring for barnevernets profesjonelle ekspertise

2010

Author's version of an article published in the journal: Norges Barnevern. Also available from the publisher at: http://www.idunn.no/ts/tnb/2010/03/art04 During recent years, it has become more and more common to consider children as competent participants in their own lives, also in the child protective services. This agrees with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and more recent research on children and childhood. That is to say that the child is seen as the expert on his own life, at the same time as the child protective services with their professional expertise have competence to say what is best for children. What does this imply and how can we understand the relation betwee…

The Acquisition of Professional Expertise—a challenge for educational research

1997

This article examines the acquisition of professional expertise from the educational viewpoint and outlines emerging approaches to research on expertise. The starting points are the need to reflect the nature and content of expertise in the changing world and the aim to understand the preconditions for integrating the viewpoints of working life and education in developing prerequisities for expertise in educational contexts. The section after the Introduction briefly reviews how expertise has been conceptualized in recent research. The next section deals with the role of higher education in developing expertise from the viewpoint of constructivist approaches in research on learning. Then cu…

Professional expertise, integrative thinking, wisdom, and phronēsis

2020

This chapter examines adult thinking from the perspective of professional expertise and phronēsis, that is, practical wisdom. It first describes differences between experts and novices, and presents three conceptualisations of the development of expertise. This is followed by an analysis of the form of adult thinking referred to as integrative thinking, and phronēsis. The relationship of these two with expertise is examined. The analysis shows that professional expertise requires holistic thinking involving the ability to integrate or conciliate various and even conflicting perspectives in order to find new solutions to problems. Furthermore, the role of emotions and ethical reflection is e…