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Work Experience
This section brings together materials that relate to work experience in compulsory and post compulsory education settings. 'Work Experience' here refers to short periods of non salaried experience in the workplace with an emphasis on learning. The new 14 - 19 Diploma, to be introduced from September 2008, will include a minimum of ten days’ work experience at each level, with a proposal that there should be clear routes between the specialised Diplomas and Apprenticeships.
What might learners expect from their work experience? It might be useful to examine previous research into the work experience for 16-19 year olds that was conducted in six countries. It examined the purpose and assumptions about learning, and the practice and outcomes of work experience in the light of changes in the European labour market and trends in workplace requirements and organisation. The project analysed how students learn and develop through work experience. The project addressed the concept of 'context' as the starting point for considering learning through work experience, arguing that any analysis of work experience should take account of, first, different types of context (e.g. education and work – whether knowledge 'rich' or 'poor'), different strategies within contexts and the influence of context on the process of learning; second, the extent to which students have to learn how to 'negotiate' their learning during work experience; and, third, the extent to which students must be supported to relate formal and informal learning, given that knowledge is unevenly distributed in workplaces. On the basis of this analysis, a typology of five models of work experience has been developed which embodies changing responses to policy, to the learner, to skills needed and to pedagogy and reflects the influence of different economic, technological and social factors prevailing within European countries as well as new ideas about learning and development. For more details, see: Work Experience as an education and training strategy: new approaches for the 21st Century and a linked paper by Griffiths and Guile Learning and work experience: European perspectives on policy, theory and practice.
Resources on work experience
Last cached: 2008-05-14 10:58 AM