Work experience constructed by polytechnics, students, and working life: Spaces for connectivity and transformation

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of the connective model of work experience (Griffiths & Guile, 2004; Guile & Griffiths, 2001) in the context of higher education and identifies some of the limits and challenges that may be encountered in seeking to implement connectivity in practice. The question considered here is that of organising placements through cooperation between working life and the polytechnics1 in Finland. The process of introducing connective links appears to be somewhat contradictory but nevertheless negotiable, with plenty of room for improvement. As one teacher in social and health care put it: "Our students, when they go on a placement and they have been given the task, like, to figure out the central processes of the workplace, those main rehabilitation processes, this is a task the existing employees would not be able to do. That's what it is . . .And our students will have to, they won't get any guidance at the workplace, they will have to invent and think and that is what it is all about. And when we ask the employees, they say that students' competences don't meet their requirements, and our students are thinking about completely different things. They are thinking holistically about processes and actions at the workplace and then they are expected to open doors, and serve food and that sort of mechanical work." This chapter seeks to scrutinise the contradictions in the relationship between polytechnics and working life. The question to be examined here is: How does the model of connectivity conform to the patterns of professional higher education? In order to get a multivalent picture of the relations between working life and polytechnics the theme is approached from the following perspectives. First, the relevance of paying attention to the model of connectivity on the level of higher education is discussed. The connective model and arguments for and against it on the level of higher education are briefly described. The demands set by the global economy for the innovative systems and capacities of the nation state are taken as the most serious argument in support of the importance of connectivity in higher education. The value of the model of connectivity is seen especially in the emphasis it places on the question of the quality of interaction in organising relations between working life and educational institutions: how to move on from adaptation to a more active and progressive approach both on the student and institutional levels. Second, the concepts of integration and transformation are specified. The differences between them are found to be important because they are related to genuine, long-standing questions regarding differences in learning at school and learning at work (see e.g. Lewis, 2005). They describe how the confluence of learning at work and learning at school, and how the confluence of theory and practice take place. They inherently anchor the discussion on either the individual or organisational level. Third, the framework of organising placements in the interface of school and work in the Finnish polytechnics is discussed from two points of view: first, the national development and, second, research results on the experiences of polytechnics, workplace supervisors and students. The latter includes results from both the national follow-up organised by the Ministry of Education and studies completed by Institute for Educational Research. Finally the connective model is discussed in relation to these results. The further exploration and elaboration of the model with an emphasis on actors and actor network is recommended.©Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.