We report research into the evolvement of a hybrid learning environment where education, companies and government successfully cooperate. This hybrid learning environment—one of the latest inventions in curriculum design—is special because it was neither intended nor planned by the parties involved. With some self-astonishment, the participants in this research experienced a growing acknowledgement of their emerging educational creation, aside from the experience of and appreciation for their cooperation and the increasing turnover. With a bricolage research approach within the scope of a rhizomatic perspective on becoming, a multivocal perspective on the evolvement of the learning environment was pursued. In emphasizing the historical evolvement of the learning environment, our findings challenge the tradition of drawing board design, accompanied by an appeal for re-appreciating professional craftsmanship. In addition, some reflections regarding the research are discussed.
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The role and ethics of professionals in business and economics have been questioned, especially after the financial crisis of 2008. Some suggest a reorientation using concepts such as craftsmanship. In this article, I will explore professional practices within the context of behavioural theory and business ethics. I suggest that scholars of behavioural theory need a strategy to deal with normative questions to meet their ambition of practical relevance. Evidence-based management (EBMgt), a recent behavioural approach, may assist business ethics scholars in understanding how professionals infer ‘evidence’ to make decisions. For a professional, ethical issues are an integral part of decision-making at critical moments. As reflective practitioners, they develop insights related to ethical concerns when collecting and assessing evidence within decision-making processes.
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The energy management systems industry in the built environment is currently an important topic. Buildings use about 40% of the total global energy worldwide. Therefore, the energy management system’s sector is one of the most influential sectors to realize changes and transformation of energy use. New data science technologies used in building energy management systems might not only bring many technical challenges, but also they raise significant educational challenges for professionals who work in the field of energy management systems. Learning and educational issues are mainly due to the transformation of professional practices and networks, emerging technologies, and a big shift in how people work, communicate, and share their knowledge across the professional and academic sectors. In this study, we have investigated three different companies active in the building services sector to identify the main motivation and barriers to knowledge adoption, transfer, and exchange between different professionals in the energy management sector and explore the technologies that have been used in this field using the boundary-crossing framework. The results of our study show the importance of understanding professional learning networks in the building services sector. Additionally, the role of learning culture, incentive structure, and technologies behind the educational system of each organization are explained. Boundary-crossing helps to analyze the barriers and challenges in the educational setting and how new educational technologies can be embedded. Based on our results, future studies with a bigger sample and deeper analysis of technologies are needed to have a better understanding of current educational problems.
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Wat is de beroepsidentiteit van sociaal werk, wat behoort zij te zijn? Sociaal werk wordt wel omschreven als een professie maar ook als een ambacht, vaak zonder duidelijk onderscheid tussen en wellicht zelfs door impliciete gelijkstelling van deze kwalificaties. Met behulp van de ideaaltypische benadering kan echter worden aangetoond dat deze twee typen beroepen niet alleen veel overeenkomsten delen maar ook op enkele punten fundamenteel van elkaar verschillen. Op basis van het werk van Freidson (2001) en Sennett (2008) kan worden aangetoond dat het ideaaltypische doel van professies het realiseren van een abstracte waarde (zoals rechtvaardigheid) is, terwijl ambachten gericht zijn op het manipuleren van concrete materialen (bijvoorbeeld steen). Bijgevolg zijn (enkel) professies beroepen met een morele identiteit. In alle zelfdefinities van sociaal werk is deze morele identiteit, deze humanitaire kern aanwezig (zie bv. IFSW, NVMW). Daarom moet sociaal werk worden beschouwd als een professie en niet als een ambacht. Dit is niet louter een academische discussie maar beïnvloedt bijvoorbeeld de positie van dit beroep in de samenleving, zoals aan de hand van de ministeriële richtlijnen betreffende Welzijn Nieuwe Stijl kan worden geïllustreerd.
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Building on Richard Sennett's recent work this books tries to clarify the ethical significance of craftsmanship. According to Sennett, 'learning to work well' is a deep source of personal meaning and of fruitful cooperation. Moreover provides the foundation of citizenship. Learning to master a craft is learning to be curious and patient, to focus on relationships and learn the skills of anticipation and revision, in a continual dialogue with material that resists 'quick fixes' and turns the craftsman 'outward'. In the contemporary search for practically relevant perspectives that point beyond the moral poverty of a market driven society, 'the ethics of craftsmanship' thus offers an intriguing and fruitful perspective, worth of in depth exploration.
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From November 2013 till January 2014 a minor ‘Smart Life Rhythms’ was taught at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. In the minor students used service design methods to develop solutions for improving life rhythms. Reflection on the minor produced the insight that building physical prototypes early on in the design process was key to success. Further discussions with colleagues and a literature review gave more arguments for the motto ‘Just build it’ – an encouragement to build simple physical models in the early stages of the service design process. Building these simple physical models is not just advocated by educators and in line with service design principles such as being iterative and user-centered. In his book ‘the Craftsman’ (Sennett, 2009) Richard Sennett provides us with more fundamental arguments regarding the value of ‘making things’. On top of the added value to the design process in itself, simple physical models are a tool for engaging both clients, users and students in the design process. So get out your glue gun and start building!
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There are changes in society and labour market demands made to TVET and in the TVET system itself. To deal with both types of challenges, the aim for TVET planning and development is to anticipate how employment will evolve and to determine how to give individuals a knowledge base that will enable them to adapt to the changing demands and benefit from the mobility. Major research areas connected to relevant problem areas in the TVET planning and development process can be constituted by analysis of labour market developments and changes in learning contents, new insights into the development of skills, competences and expertise, integration of learning places in school and workplace, professional development of VET teachers and trainers and VET and organisational development in organisations.
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Arts in Health, also known as Arts for Health, is an umbrella term used to describe the domain of using the arts to enhance our (mental) health and well-being. It involves a heterogeneous range of professionals who use the arts in various ways, with different goals and outcomes. The practices of these professionals can be placed on a continuum based on the variety of goals and outcomes, ranging from promoting social connection or well-being to treating (mental) health conditions. Recent discussions in the Netherlands have raised questions about the position of creative arts therapists on this continuum. This opinion paper addresses this issue by providing a brief overview of the development of the profession of creative arts therapists, the working areas of creative arts therapists and the growing evidence base of creative arts therapeutic interventions. The practices of creative arts therapists are positioned on the continuum, where the emphasis on and accountability for the clients’ (mental) health increases and evidence-informed use of the arts within a more clearly delineated and legally safeguarded professional framework are present. Knowing where the practices of creative arts therapists are placed can assist in identifying when to choose creative arts therapists, other professionals combining arts and healthcare, or a combination of professionals.
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The world is changing in many ways. Digital developments follow each other in quick succession and have an impact on many existing structures. The future may be uncertain, but we can still learn from what has happened in the past. We usually know what we don’t want, but few of us know yet what we do want. Still, this is something we can only discover for ourselves, I think. Who are we? To what extent are we individuals and to what extent are we part of a collective? Remarkably, in these questions we can also find parallels with the Middle Ages.
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Bachelor students of Hotel Management School Maastricht, part of Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, start their educational program with a semester of orientation on Hotel Operations in theory and practice. The teaching staff was curious about students’ perception of what they learn during their duty in the Teaching Hotel Château Bethlehem. Students were interviewed about the learning environment, the coaching and their learning outcomes. The interview findings gave insight in different unexpected and subconscious learning outcomes together with the conditions under which they occur during practice-based learning. Findings were presented to the teaching staff during a work conference. The entire team emphasised the value of the research method for fine-tuning students’ learning outcomes.
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