Situated Learning, a Workplace Experience - Report Example

AUDIT OF A WORKPLACE AS A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: (10 May, 2010) Audit Of A Workplace As A Learning Environment Introduction The workplace chosen for audit as a learning environment for this essay is the Finance Department in a large organization that is publicly owned. The department employs about 70 employees, with the accounting office having a staff of fifteen: a Finance Director, a Chief Accountant, three senior accountants and the rest of the staff will be junior accountants who work as the support staff in the department, working on the company accounting records and enhancement of training. The learning in the Finance Department will be conducted and discussed in three ways. The assignment will first consider the kinds of learning that are required for the ten employees to carry out their tasks. Next the assignment will discuss the ways in which the workplace supports or hinders learning. The final part will be a discussion of the opinion, which will be contained in the final summary, giving an opinion if the Finance Department in this public owned company is a strong or weak learning environment. Like every work place, the learning that is required for effectiveness can be analyzed in various ways. For example it can simply be seen in terms of what Billet (1994) describes as ‘routine’ and ‘non-routine’ tasks. In the accounting, the routine tasks include recording and filing of the documents, recording the petty cash transactions on a daily basis. The non-routine tasks include the follow up on customer payments, the calculation of bad debts, and a quarterly physical stock take. Finance department complexities There are complexities that come with a Finance Department in a large organization and therefore it is required that these complexities should be understood. There are tight deadlines to submit the monthly reports, sometimes dealing with uncooperative internal customers, and having to deal with customer counts disputes. Thus learning in such a department would need to be analyzed more carefully and should be broken into declarative, procedural and dispositional knowledge. Declarative knowledge, also known as propositional knowledge is that knowledge which is inclusive of state-able facts, information, assertions, concepts and propositions (Harris, Et al. 1996). It starts from simple factual knowledge to deeper levels of conceptual knowledge. The deep understanding will be inclusive of the strength relationship among concepts. It thus emphasizes on the inter-correctedness as a basis for deep understanding. The problem will be solved in novel tasks will need to go beyond the surface. The deep conceptual knowledge will one, facilitate the resolution of complex problem solving an example being knowledge transfer of novel situations and two provides a basis where one can determine what is of more importance and what is trivial in a problem situation, and hence aiding in getting a solution to the problem (Scott & Andresen, 1988). In the finance office the sort of declarative knowledge will include learning to allocate expenses and income in the correct category. Procedure Knowledge Procedural knowledge is also know as ‘knowledge how’. It enables skilful action and consists of technique and skills and also the ability to secure goals. Stevensons (1991) has proposed three levels of orders. The first order is the specific procedures that are used in order to achieve set out and specific goals that are only applied only in routine situations. In the second order the task is dividend into sub-goals or by the application of the means end analysis (Newell & Simon 1972). The third, also called the high-order procedural knowledge manages the first and second order by acting on the lower orders of knowledge. This is done by monitoring and organizing the activities, and switching between orders whenever the situation requires. The higher order procedure works by monitoring the performance and making a prediction of the likely outcome of the performance. This high-order procedure is important in non-routine activities and in solving complex problems and in knowledge transfer in novel situations. The emphasis in higher order deals with the how and the competency to make goals. In this case the procedural knowledge will be applied in dealing and recording of customers accounts to whom the organization offers two types of services (Harris, 1998). The situation is made more complex since this customer pays in advance and in quarterly basis. The goal being to allocate these payments to the customer’s ledger and also to allocate the revenue to the service provided. Dispositions are particularly of importance in the Finance department because they emphasize and include the learner’s attitudes, values, interests and identities (Prawat 1989), or ones inclinations to puts his/her abilities into action. Disposition deals with the question of whether the individual is capable of securing the set goals or if the goals are worth securing. More interested in the values for each particular case and are influenced by cultural and social factors that have been picked and learnt from an individual’s history. They address the question if the individual value learning enough to make the learner to want to participate in the learning process? Disposition cannot be separated from both the declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge but works together with and in support of and add strength to them. In the finance department the learner’s attitude towards learning is very important. Accounting is a wide subject and for the learner to be able to learn all that is required will need one to be positive and to have interest in the accounting procedures. Due to the urgency of the finance reports and the need for accuracy, the job can be very demanding. The learner will therefore need to be positive and willing to learn. Because there is such a variety of different learning required, the extent to which the workplace supports or hinders that learning is a crucial issue Workplace Support For Learning To be recruited in the Finance Department accounting professional qualifications are a basic requirement, therefore six of the ten employees in this department are fully qualified professional accountants with three of them having an additional degree. However the organization in its duty to encouragement accommodates less qualified staff who have the initiative to improve their qualifications and who are attending part time classes to achieve this qualification. Two of these were promoted from the low level non-formal employment, and the other two had been employed as casual employees but were accommodated in the department. To support in the growth of these employees, the department has a mentor system. Mentoring is meant to informally transform physiological, social capital and knowledge; this transformation is relevant for development of career and work it also improves communication between different stakeholders who are at the working environment. (Bozeman and Feeney, 2007). In this organization, a mentor is selected and educated on the benefits and stages of mentoring, how to work with the protégé and how to increase the protégés confidence, self esteem and competence. The mentor is not the protégés supervisor but must be within the same department. The two are introduced to each other two weeks before the onset of the program. The process includes a continuous monitoring by the head of department, in this case the Finance Director to ensure the smooth learning of the program. Apart fro mentoring there are other forms of learning that include coaching, scaffolding and modeling. One of the limitations of the workplace support is that the needs of administrative person are not always considered. The accounting department being a very busy office and with strict deadlines it is possible that the learner is left to discover on their own. The sensitiveness of the accounting department also hinders training meaning there are several functions that the learner cannot be trained on because they involve confidentiality. In some instances the learner is provided with the work manuals. This has proved valuable in some instances but only with the support of the trainer guiding the learner. They only prove valuable as a pointer to support the trainer. Another way the learner will learn is by observing and listening to the other staff within the department. This proved more helpful in dealing with customers and how to respond to their queries. Therefore, in terms of affordance, which Billet (2006) defines as an environment where an individual is allowed to perform actions in a learning process, this particular company workplace offers a reliable and a good learning environment where the trainer and the trainee work together with occasional criticism and positive feedback. The level of employee engagement in this organization deepens as the learners stays in the training program. Workplace As A Learning Organisation In his article ‘Are you a learning company?’ Pedler Et al (1991) gave eleven descriptors of a learning company. A learning company has a learning approach and strategy whereby the company’s policies and strategies, their implementation methods and processes are all structured as a learning process, where the managerial actions are experiments that are done consciously and in small bits rather than set solutions. In this organization there are strategies to support learning. There are departmental and sectional meetings where there are open discussions are held on where improvements need to be made. In a learning company there are participative policy making where all members in the company share in the policymaking process. Each person is encouraged to make contributions, including employees, customers, owners and the neighboring community and in diversity, in forms of gender, and age. In my organization the monthly meetings are an open forum and all staff members are encouraged to contribute in the discussions. The company has a recruitment policy where gender and age discrimination is discouraged. This has resulted to a well balanced workforce, both in gender and age. Information by the use of technology is also a descriptor in a learning company. This is where information through use of Information Technology is used as means empowering and of informing people by ensuring that information which must be relevant and up-to-date is distributed to as many people as possible; that information is put into positive use but not as a reward or as a way to punish (Harris Et al. 1997). In my organization there is a staff magazine that is distributed to all the staff by email. The staff magazine contains updates on all the new policies that have been put into place in the last one month. As part of delivering transparent information transmitting the learning company needs to be informative in formative accounting and control that accounting budgeting and reporting are structured to enhance learning. The emphasis is on the accountability and auditing and proper management of accounts. This means the accounts are done in a transparent manner and the budgeting process takes into consideration. In my organization there are limitations in the accounting procedures in that only the senior accountants have some of the information, especially dealing with senior management salary processing (Clutterbuck, 1987). This takes us to a related descriptor where a learning company should have flexibility in rewarding the employees and the organization, should come up with new ways of rewarding people and the basis of payments, why pay some more, why pay at all, is it as an encouragement to work hard, to buy their skills,. The answers lead to an agreement by all in the company and brought in the open and alternatives discussed. In my organization this is another area where openness is not encouraged. There is no clear guideline how rewards are calculated. Internal exchange is another descriptor that shows that the organization is a learning company which means that all the departments within the company views each other as customers and suppliers. They engage each other in dialogue and they pass information and freely. They work in collaboration with each, without competing with each other. My organization has interdepartmental meetings and interdepartmental social gatherings to encourage team work within the company. In the same line a learning company has enabling structures that create growth opportunities and departmental boundaries are only temporary structures, which are flexible and can be changed if need be to allow personal development. Responsive to future changes. This has also been a success in my organization. In the same line there are training programs, seminars and workshops where inter-company learning training is done jointly and there are interdepartmental job exchanges, research and development investment is for the whole company, allow benchmarking that is job exchanges with other companies and even competitors learning together. The organization is however to introduce inter-company training programs with its competitors. A learning company should have boundary workers as environmental scanners, information data from external sources by all who are in contact with them, them being customers, suppliers or neighbors. This means that all those who are dealing with external customers take responsibility in ensuring a good relationship exists with the company. This has been observed in my organization where every one has a responsibility to respond to a customers query, in the absence of the person who is allocated this duty. In my organization there exists a conducive learning climate created by the managers who allow for experimentation in handling tasks and have time to offer feedback and mistakes are accepted and realization that no one is good enough, there is always room to improve and get better (Watkins & Marsink, 1992). This is available for all, customers, suppliers, neighbors and even competitors. The organization also provides enough resources and facilities for self development opportunities for all employees at whichever level and there is guidance enabling everyone to take responsibility for their learning and development. There are workshop seminars, development groups which are frequently organized for all level employees. The company also holds a staff party once in an year that is a forum for all the employees, from the Chief Executive Officer to the most junior staff to come together to interact with each other. Conclusion The analysis presented in the preceding section shows that there are some good point in what the workplace provides to support learning as well as some weak ones. On the one hand there are the strengths and advantages that come with workplace learning. The learner gets the opportunity to come up with tentative solutions to job related tasks and later attempts to obtain these solutions. The knowledge gained is organized to work in line with the workplace goals. The trainee learns the procedures required in performing a task in a mature approximations through testing and modification of the procedures which helps the learner to develop the best procedure in performing a particular task (Zuber-Skerritt, 1993). The repeated testing and modifying of procedures will mean a close association with the concepts that are associated with the goals and sub-goals being deepened which means it will be easier to achieve the goals. The proximal interacting with the experts guides the learner through tentative solutions and the learner gets to learn the methods to apply to achieve the goals. This has some similarities with modeling, coaching and scaffolding where the learner accomplishes task that she/he would not have accomplished on his/her own. Listening and observing other workers assists the worker in having a general idea and gains approximations of the tasks in the workplace (Billet 1994). Learning in the workplace is an active and constructive way of learning focusing on the learner, and it focuses the learner into activities that are goal-oriented activities which helps develop more specific forms of knowledge. The learner is routinely engaged in problem solving activities which leads to reinforcement, through the satisfaction the individual feels after adapting new stimuli to the already existing knowledge. On the other hand there are the limitations first that the learner is learning though observation and listening. In the process there is a possibility of inappropriate knowledge. This may include learning or acquiring negative attitudes and values that may have some acceptance in the organization. For example if absenteeism is the norm in an organization the learner may take this value and accept it in his character. The learner may be limited to accessing to authentic activities by being denied challenging activities. This may have an effect in the learning. The learner needs to be taken through the simple tasks and onto more challenging tasks (McGill & Beaty, 1995). The experts may be reluctant to provide the required knowledge and may refuse to cooperate and show reluctance in sharing their expertise to the learner. The cooperation of the trainer is very important. if the trainer or mentor is not properly trained in how to deal with the trainee, then the program becomes ineffective. There is the possibility that the organization may lack access to expertise especially if it relies on external expertise. Accessing conceptual propositional knowledge, the work places may lack the ability to secure the depth of understanding that is necessary in complex work related activities. There is a possibility the learning procedures that are available may develop procedures over propositions Overall, the audit of the Finance Department office in a large public owned company as a learning environment indicates that it is reasonably supportive of learning, but still has a fair way to go particularly in providing opportunities in confidential accounting areas and in acknowledging the skills employees already have. References Billet, S. (1994) Situated Learning, A Workplace Experience. Australian Journal of Adult and Community Education. 34(2): 112-130 Billet, S. (1996). Towards A Model Of Workplace Learning: The Learning Curriculum. Studies In Continuing Education. 18(1): 43-58 Clutterbuck, D. (1987). Setting Up the Mentoring Programme: Chapter 7: Setting up the Mentoring Programme. London: Croom Helm. Harris, L., Hull, E & Volet, S. (1997). Linking Organizational Change, Learning Opportunities and Quality Improvement in the Workplace. Brisbane: Griffith University. Harris, R. (1998). Reflections on self-directed adult learning: Some implications for educators of adults. In studies in Continuing Education. 11(2): 102-115 Harris, R., Simons, M., Willis, P & Underwood, F. (1996). “You watch and then do it…They talk and you listen”; On and off-job Sites as Learning Environment. Anatarac Conference. pp. 1-15 McGill, L & Beaty, L. (1995). Action Learning: A Guide For Professional, Management And Education Development. Charter 2: What is action Learning? Landon: Kogan Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J & Boydell, T. (1991). The Learning Company: A Strategy For Sustainable Development. London: McGraw Hill Scott, G & Andresen, L. (1988). The hypothetical: A New Training Resource For Adult Educators. Studies in Continuing Education. 10(2): 14-32 Watkins, K & Marsink, J. (1992). Building The Learning Organisation: A New Role Of Human Resource Developers. Studies In Continuing Education. 14(2): 115-129 Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1993). Improving Learning and Teaching Through Action Learning and Action Research. Higher Education Research and Development. 12(1): 45-58 Read More