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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 contexts and between actors. The findings suggest, however, that the transformation of students’ explicit “book knowledge” into implicit or tacit knowledge may begin already while the student is still in education, provided that formal knowledge is used for authentic problem solving.

This paper aims to focus on academic library managers’ learning practices in the context of cooperative work supported by computational artefacts. Academic library managers’ everyday work is mainly cooperative. Their cooperation is supported predominantly by computational artefacts. Learning how to use the computational artefacts efficiently and effectively involves understanding the changes in everyday work that affect managers and, therefore, it requires deep understanding of their cooperative work practices.

Focused ethnography was conducted through participant observations, interviews and document analysis. Ten managers from a university library in Sweden participated in the research. A thematic method was used to analyse the empirical material. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and work-integrated learning was used as the conceptual lens.

Five learning practices were identified: collaboration, communication, coordination, decision-making processes and computational artefacts’ use. The findings show that learning is embedded in managers’ cooperative work practices, which do not necessarily include sufficient training time. Furthermore, learning was intertwined with cooperating and was situational. Managers learned by reflecting together on their own experiences and through joint cooperation and information sharing while using the computational artefacts.

The main contribution lies in providing insights into how academic library managers learn and cooperate in their everyday work, emphasizing the role of computational artefacts, the importance of the work context and the collective nature of learning. It also highlights the need for continual workplace learning in contemporary knowledge work environments. Thus, the research generates contributions to the informatics field by extending the understanding of managers’ work-integrated learning in their everyday cooperative work practices supported by computational artefacts’ use. It also contributes to the intersection of CSCW and work-integrated learning.

Research is starting to suggest the value of professional learning networks (PLN) in terms of supporting educators in their practice. But further research is needed into how teachers’ on-going learning and practice development can be supported by features unique to a PLN. To fill that gap, the research described in this chapter examined the ways in which opportunities and supports for educators embedded within a unique multi-layered PLN enhanced and strengthened their knowledge and practice. Across one-year of a longitudinal project, we gathered multiple forms of evidence to trace 18 teachers’ experiences. Findings reported in this chapter identified conditions in the PLN overall that were combining to support teachers’ inquiry-oriented learning and practice. In addition, the authors conducted an in-depth analysis of one teacher’s experiences. The detailed analyses of this embedded case further uncovered how supports at different “grain sizes” (i.e., across the year; out-of-class activities; reflections in/on practice) were combining to foster shifts in her practice and transformative learning over time. The authors conclude with implications for conceptualizing how a multi-layered PLN can be structured to support teachers’ professional learning and practice development.

Currently, the world is experiencing the highest levels of displaced peoples ever recorded by The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2016). Consequently, greater numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers are being resettled in host nations in Anglophone and some European nations. An increasing body of literature is examining the consequences for educational systems as this new and increasingly diverse cohort of students enters various education sectors – preschools, schools, universities and adult education. Despite a surge of interest in this area, however, the practical and theoretical implications for school leaders’ practices and praxis remain under-examined and under-theorized. Moreover, scholarship on leadership for diversity fails to capture the complex nature of leading learning for refugee students who too frequently are homogenized and essentialized under the umbrella of immigrant or culturally diverse students. This chapter contributes to filling a critical gap in our knowledge in these areas.

The field of entrepreneurial education has struggled with fundamental questions in regards to the subject’s nature and purpose – to whom and for what means are educational agendas ultimately directed; these questions have become of central importance to policy makers, practitioners and academics alike in the context of the dynamic nature of the business world. Concerns have been expressed about University Business schools engaging more critically with the lived experiences of practicing entrepreneurs through alternative pedagogical approaches and methods, seeking to account for and highlighting the social, political and moral aspect of management practice. For example, in the United Kingdom where funding in higher education has become increasingly dependent on student fees there are renewed pressures to educate students for management practice as opposed to educate them about management and what it does. This latter point will be the main focus of this workshop and one which demands the inclusion of critique. Government and EU policies are calling on Business Schools to develop and enhance entrepreneurial skill sets, in order to meet these challenges entrepreneurial focused education programs must be more proactive in providing innovative educational practices that helps and facilitates life experiences and experiential learning.

When designing learning environments in primary teacher education, there is an attempt to represent real teaching practice in an authentic way to prospective teachers. When constructing these environments, teacher educators have to consider how to best motivate the student teacher, identifying the most relevant practice-based principles and the ways in which the theory and practice can be bridged. There are other considerations as well. For example, in the Netherlands, as in some other countries, teacher education is changing drastically. Controversial teacher education curricula, consisting of primary school subjects originated after more than one hundred years of reflection on the subject matter of primary education and the ways teachers have taught, have been replaced by curricula merely intended to improve the general professionalization of the prospective teacher, neglecting the school subjects. More specifically, the new objective is to adequately prepare students to become competent beginning teachers.

Due to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, primary and secondary schools worldwide are deploying online teaching/learning practices, fostering and thus innovation practices. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which practices reflecting educational innovation are implemented in the Greek public primary and secondary schools operating under conditions characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Determining the relationship among these educational innovation practices is also an aim of the present study.

A research study was conducted in the Greek public primary and secondary schools. 522 teachers fully completed a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that administration-related innovation practices, teaching-related innovation practices and online teaching/learning practices are implemented to some extent in primary and secondary schools in Greece, but there is still scope for continued development. The online teaching/learning practices set the foundations for further developing a culture of fully adopting other educational innovation practices in these schools to improve education.

Limited research concerning educational innovation practices has focused on primary and secondary schools. The need for more studies on teaching and learning innovations that have resulted from the COVID-19 crisis is highlighted by the literature. The results of this study support the fact that online teaching/learning implemented in primary and secondary schools is positively associated with administration-related and teaching-related innovation practices, concluding that this forced change in the educational process can act as a catalyst for more changes and innovative actions.

How might deeply embodied student experiences and nonhuman agency change the way we think about learning theory? Pushing the conceptual boundaries of practice-based learning and communities of practice, this chapter draws on student experiential fieldwork ‘on Country’ with Indigenous people in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, to explore the peculiar silence when it comes to more-than-human ¹ features of situated learning models. As students engage with, and learn from, Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, they become open to the ways their learning is co-produced in and with place. The chapter builds a case for an inclusive conceptualisation of communities of practice, one that takes seriously the material performativity of nonhuman actors – rock art, animals, plants and emotions in the ‘situatedness’ of socio-cultural contexts. As a co-participant in the students’ community of practice, the more-than-human forms part of the process of identity formation and actively helps students learn. To shed light on the student experiences we employ Leximancer, a software tool that provides visual representations of the qualitative data drawn from focus groups with students and field diaries.

This study aims to examine the effect of strategic human resource management (SHRM) practices on two learning outcomes, learning orientation and learning competence, which past research has seldom examined in the UAE context. SHRM practices consisted of four factors, namely, talent acquisition, learning and development, performance appraisal and developmental pay.

Primary data was collected from 285 employees from retail outlets operating in Dubai. Partial least squares regression analysis using the tool, SmartPLS, was used to empirically validate the measurement model and test the structural model.

Findings reveal that SHRM practices talent acquisition, learning and development and developmental pay have a positive association with learning orientation, and learning and development and performance appraisal have a positive association with learning competence of employees. The path coefficient and total effects signify that learning orientation acts as a conduit to pass on the effect of the SHRM practices to learning competence.

The sample considered for the study was from the retail industry. Furthermore, to generalize the findings of this research, cross-national studies should be conducted across various sectors and organizations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research study is the first of its kind in retail firms in Dubai (UAE) to empirically test the association of SHRM practices with learning outcomes. Retail outlets can implement SHRM practices to improve learning orientation and learning competence in a highly dynamic operating environment such as retail industry.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of healthcare professionals’ practice, where learning is taking place when a digital artefact is implemented for identification of patients’ cognitive impairment. The use of digital artefacts is increasing in various workplaces, to include professionals in healthcare. This paper aims to explore the following research question: How is the professional learning unfolding in patient-based work when a digital artefact transforms the practice?

Various data collection methods are used for this study, consisting of dialogue meetings, interviews and a reference-group meeting. Thematic analysis is used to inductively bring forth the themes of the collected data.

Professionals’ knowledge and experience are of vital importance in learning and changing work practices. Together with their ability to reflect on changes, their knowledge and experience constitute the prefiguration when the introduction of a digital application brings about indeterminacy in the work practice.

This paper makes a contribution to practice-based research as it consolidates previous research and identifies professionals knowledge and learning in a healthcare context. This can be used to further explore and advance the field, as well as to establish the evidence-based importance of transforming practices based on implementation of digital artefacts.