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The notion of effective strategic alliances provides the basis on which this paper proposes a framework to manage the application and outcomes of management learning. The management of key partner collaboration emerges in this paper as a major success factor in determining effective management learning. A proactive structured approach to partnerships and alliances is proposed as a robust framework for management learning that is based on the advantages and effectiveness of management theories and concepts.

This paper describes the results of a longitudinal research study of an inter‐organisational partnership; this paper explores the contributions, experiences and perceptions of the central stakeholders in management learning (HE, organisations and students). Through a case study approach to three collaborative projects, an analysis of the learning cycle of planning, designing, monitoring and assessing programmes is presented.

The results demonstrate that, as well as being a diagnostic tool, the framework underpinning strategic alliances – their formation, risks and challenges – provides the basis of an anticipatory and proactive approach to successful management‐learning partnerships. The research shows that, if stakeholders in the management‐learning relationship are to achieve their individual and diverse objectives, managing their interaction with each other and input into the process is essential. The need for partners to be explicit about their collaboration and each stakeholder's objectives is demonstrated. The learning agreement is a mechanism through which these desired outcomes could be made tangible and thus through which the strategic partnership can be managed.

The distinct contribution of this paper is that it brings together different management concepts to make practical use of the ideas of management learning. It provides evidence of successful programme design and delivery for management learning, as well as issues that have not worked well in the development of successful alliances, which underpin these programmes. Finally, the paper contributes to the continuing progression of thinking about the very nature of management learning as a theoretical framework to enhance the link between research, learning and the practice of management.

Lifelong learning links vocational education to learning for both career and personal development. Such learning clearly has benefits for the employer, the employee and society as a whole. Recently in the UK, trade union learning representatives (ULRs) have become an important tool in the pursuit of lifelong learning and a learning society. The 2002 Employment Act gave legal recognition to ULRs and allowed them paid time off to organize learning for other employees. In this regard, ULRs now enjoy the same legal status as other trade union lay officials. The purpose of this short article is to provide an outline of those rights and to discuss some of the interesting initiatives that have taken place regarding ULRs, to help highlight best practice to date. The article will discuss in turn, learning representatives and the provisions of the 2002 Employment Act, learning agreements, learning committees and learning centers, and draws on the research we are conducting here at the University of Sheffield.

The book has generated a passionate dialogue-disagreement (mostly but not entirely) with the book. Dialogue-disagreement is based on challenges, disagreements and rebuttals between opponents, often belonging to different, even irreconcilable, paradigms. The goal of dialogue-disagreement is not so much to convince the opponent to change their mind but rather to critically examine and problematize the two involved paradigms: the authors’ and the reviewer’s. By taking the generated challenges and disagreements seriously, both irreconcilable paradigms can grow through their replies. Dialogue-disagreement gives the participants–opponents the gift of revealing their own paradigmatic blind spots, which are often invisible from within their paradigms. Dialogue-disagreement is exploratory and based on an agnostic relationship between frenemies, i.e. “friendly enemies.”

This is a critical book review essay of Self Managed Learning and the New Educational Paradigm (Cunningham, 2021).

The reviewer views Ian Cunningham’s Self Managed Learning educational paradigm as a hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education, while the reviewer sees his/her Self-Education paradigm as entirely Democratic (and Dialogic). Elsewhere, the reviewer discussed and critically analyzed the Progressive Education paradigm, which generally involves channeling the student’s learning activism and subjectivity toward learning outcomes desired by an educator. It uses the educator’s manipulation of the student’s subjectivity to make them study what the educator wants them to study. In contrast, the paradigm of Democratic Education assumes that the educatee is the final authority of their own education. The educatee decides whether to study, when to study, what to study, how to study, with whom to study, where to study, for what purpose to study and so on. The educatee makes these decisions by themselves or with the help of other people at the educatee’s discretion and conditions. The reviewer charges that Ian’s Self Managed Learning paradigm is a hybrid of both paradigms, with the Progressive Education paradigm taking the lead and exploiting the Democratic Education paradigm.

The book presented a unique, innovative practice worth a critical analysis. The reviewer’s dialogue-disagreement with the book reveals a particular hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education which is common to some innovative self-directed learning.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding of the experience of qualified nurses managing the process of learning through work when enrolled on a work-based learning module.

The study was based on constructivist grounded theory using semi-structured interviews with purposive and theoretical sampling of 13 health professionals across acute and community settings. Constant comparative method of data analysis used.

A core category revealed a social process of learning to learn through work as the nurse shifted from a relatively passive view of the self in the workplace to one that actively constructed an environment that facilitated the realisation of learning objectives. The outcome was the development of metacognition skills of learning to learn promoting intentional learning behaviour towards a lifelong learning attitude.

If knowledge generated from work-based learning is to nourish the organisation, there needs to be opportunities for knowledge exchange in the workplace, consistent mentor support, protective time and a positive attitude to learning in work from colleagues. The study did not include master's students.

While studies have highlighted the influence and impact of organisations on the quality and scope of learning through work, less is known about how health care professionals, in particular qualified nurses, learn to learn in the workplace. This study is of value to those investigating and supporting individuals learning through work-based learning. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge introduce a creative perspective to explore the meaning of learning through work.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for creating a strand of negotiated qualifications in the English (and more generally UK) vocational education and training (VET) system, using the approach established through Ufi-Learndirect Learning through Work (LtW).

The paper identifies some limitations in the recent Whitehead review of adult vocational education in relation to people already in work. Drawing on research into learning at work, modifications to the VET qualifications system are proposed based on the LtW approach.

The VET qualifications system assumes a purpose of preparing people for occupational entry and developing essential competence. The needs of adults already in work can be accommodated provided that they can be fitted within structures reflecting this assumption. It is less able to meet the bespoke needs of individual workers or employers. The LtW approach, which enables individual accredited programmes to be negotiated, offers a way forward that preserves the integrity of the qualification system.

Implementing a LtW-type approach in the VET sector is structurally more difficult than in higher education, although less likely to encounter academic resistance. The main challenge is likely to come from the need to modify regulatory rules and design principles for vocational qualifications.

Individually negotiated qualifications have been resisted in VET due to largely unfounded fears about reduced rigour and loss of control of content. The proposed approach offers a means of meeting individual needs while retaining the integrity of the qualifications system and reducing the proliferation of units and content within it.

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the degree to which current union learning strategy and practice in the UK can become a catalyst for greater activism and participation by their members in the workplace and beyond. To this end, the paper seeks to draw on the rich heritage of pedagogic theory and practice in adult education writing to bring a fresh perspective to a key aspect of industrial relations.

Through a meta-analysis of the current literature on the role of union learning representatives, learning centres and the context of that learning, the paper seeks to enhance understanding of how such initiatives in addition to upskilling workers lead to members' greater enlightenment with respect to the asymmetric power relations within the workplace and society. Using a conceptual model devised by the author from Freirean theory, this potentially increased awareness of their position in the organisation and society leading to greater levels of subsequent activism and participation by these learners is then critically assessed.

Utilising the radical perspective of Paulo Freire, the article critically analyses the key elements of current union learning strategies in the UK. The paper concludes that union pedagogy strategy not just often raises members' awareness, as Freire would advocate, of their “subordinate” position in society, but potentially also genuinely equips them with the skills, knowledge and understanding to challenge that position through subsequent union activism and, therefore, greater participation in decision-making in the workplace. Union-facilitated learning, it is argued, can also develop the skills and knowledge necessary to increase members' job security.

To the author's knowledge, this is the first time that a Freirean analysis has been applied to this key element of contemporary trade union strategy and practice. In particular, the study seeks to also go beyond most studies of union pedagogic approaches and focus on the learner's journey and how this may imbue a propensity to become more active in the union and, therefore, the workplace.

Challenge-based learning (CBL), the experiential learning and pedagogical approach through which learners (students, instructors, companies, stakeholders, communities) are actively involved in designing a sustainable solution for a real-world problem, is gaining momentum in various higher education institutions around the world. Despite this multiplication of learning initiatives, evaluation in CBL is still an overlooked topic both by scholars and practitioners. Moreover, assessment is closely linked to the teaching and learning process and can also influence the evolution of the challenge because it is directly involved in the feedback, teamwork, and relationship between students, instructors, challenge providers, and stakeholders. Explaining why assessment is so important in CBL is one of the objectives of this chapter. Therefore, in line with the spirit of the handbook, the aim of this chapter is also to inspire, and give suggestions and tools for novel ways of assessing the learning process in CBL.

Through a challenge launched by the University of Trento, involving a local nonprofit integrative health fund, we understood the importance to integrate the formative with the summative assessment, to evaluate not only the final results but also the learning process. We experienced the fundamentals and the difficulties of self-directed learning through which students are called to codesign their learning experience, monitor teamwork, and assess their progress. Support and guidance from instructors are required to be successful in this cultural shift through which teachers are no more traditional professors and students are finally the experts in the challenge.

The aim of this paper is to describe how academic institutions that focus improvement of student learning do much better than those that focus on compliance and assessment.

A reflective observation of institutional interaction with the North Central Association Higher Learning Commission, especially the 264 colleges and universities that have participated in the Commission's assessment workshops, provides insight into the characteristics that make the most positive difference.

The paper finds that academic institutions do better when: assessment is best understood as the means and student learning itself as the end; shared responsibility and collective capacity are intentionally developed; internal leaders, of different types, are identified and developed; collaborative processes that actively engage people replace concerns about buy‐in; institutions jump in and learn as they go along; program review becomes an area of shared faculty/administration interest; changed, parallel or separate core processes permit attention to enduring issues; and institutions begin wherever they chose to begin and from there develop the means to complete a full cycle of outcomes assessment. Another more recent emphasis is the need to inform the public and other stakeholders about what students are learning.

This paper draws on the insights of those who work at the Higher Learning Commission, who share the unusual perspective of having experience of dealing with hundreds of academic institutions.

Describes an aspect of the work on quality in open learning undertaken by the SATURN quality sub‐group. Argues that a key to the achievement of quality in learning is the setting of clear expectations of what is required, both of providers and users in learning contracts. Lists codes of practice for both providers and users and defines provider and user groups. Discusses the use of the codes in developing an individual learning contract for the three stages in a learning contract‐before, during and after.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate short-term, unpaid placements offered to students reading for a degree in public policy. They provide added value to their tertiary education experience. Elective placements were offered in 2012 and became a mandatory requirement for students reading for a three-year bachelor of commerce degree in public policy in 2018. To date, no research has been carried out on these placements and this may serve as a model for a post-evaluation assessment.

Data were collected from students who undertook placements, embedded in the public policy undergraduate programme. A document analysis of selected student and placement provider's reports was carried out to complement the students' responses to an online questionnaire.

Placements are of value to students as they served as an introduction to the working world. They enable students to establish connections with the course content and carry out research. They were exposed to real-life situations, developing their knowledge, acquiring soft skills and learning new tools, sought after by employers. These placements were valued as a route to graduate employment tailor-made to the degree's requirements. Students were able to embark on a soul-searching, introspective discovery and journey which made them mature and shed light in the direction of future work prospects.

Placements give students the opportunity to gain insights into real-work environments and are able to link theories learnt in the class-room with real-life situations. Placements have positive implications on students adjusting to their work life easily after graduation. The limitations are that the sample size was small and that the reflective reports which were randomly selected may not have necessarily been representative of the full complement.

The practical implications are that the placements system and process can easily be implemented and replicated in other academic disciplines and universities as a compulsory component of their studies.

Placements gave students the opportunity to reflect on their learning, develop non-technical skills and enhance their confidence levels. They were also able to network and communicate with different employees.

Placements provided exposure to relevant organisations and personal enrichment in terms of acquiring skills, autonomy and independence. Students with placement experience are also more likely to secure future employment, relevant to their undergraduate degree.