Learning Through Work

Stephen Billett is Professor of Adult and Vocational Education at Griffith University, Australia, a fellow of Social Science Academy of Australia, National Teaching fellow, Australian Research Council Future fellow and Fulbright scholar and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Jyväskylä (Finland), Geneva (Switzerland) and West (Sweden). He has worked in manufacturing as a vocational educator, teacher educator, professional developer, teacher and researcher at Griffith University, and held policy roles in vocational education.

"In this book, Professor Billett provides an exceptionally rich account on the diverse value of workplaces as sites for learning. In our fast-changing world, this book is extremely timely and must-read for all who wish to develop deep understanding of how learning takes place, how it can be facilitated and how it can lead to innovations."Päivi Tynjälä, Professor, University of Jyväskylä, Finland"Billett draws on evidence-based knowledge and a well-articulated theory of workplace learning to trace the continuities and adaptive responses of occupational knowledge over time. He shows how societies often privilege declarative knowing over professional or vocational knowing. Rejecting that stance, Billett reconceives occupational knowledge and its effective learning strategies as … complex, sensory-inclusive, adaptive, and based on an interdependent mix of procedural (“knowing how”), conceptual (“knowing what”), and dispositional (“knowing for”) capacities. Organizational leaders will appreciate chapters offering pathways for developing sequenced occupational capacities through work; practice pedagogies; and examples for how to catalyze both learning and innovation by transforming work practices."Victoria Marsick, Professor, Adult Learning & Leadership, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York"This book makes strong theoretical, epistemological and conceptual contributions to the topic of workplace learning and offers empirically grounded and explicit pedagogical resources for sustaining learning through practice. It advances an explicit conceptual frame for understanding and sustaining learning through practice and is a must-read for students, researchers and practitioners. The author is one of most cited and renowned authors in the field of adult education and learning through work."Laurent Filliettaz, Professor of Adult Education, Language and Work, University of Geneva, Switzerland

• Part I: Learning through work1. Learning through work2. Occupations, occupational knowledge and its learning: origins and legaciesPart II: Foundations of learning through work3. Learning through work: personal processes and social contributions4. Occupations, situations and knowledge required for work5. Being innovative: aligning learning and workplace innovationsPart III: Practice-based learning and educative experiences6. Practice curriculum7. Practice pedagogies8. Personal (epistemological) practices at work9. Prospects for learning through work