Our research aims to formulate design guidelines for stimulating teachers' professional development using video feedback in collaborative settings. The study investigates guidelines concerning video feedback in peer coaching settings and focuses on a setting with three roles (of trainee, coach and observer), (c) coach training, (d) ownership of learning goals and (e) focus on outcomes in classroom. A scheme was developed consisting of six coach training sessions and of peer reciprocal coaching in subgroups with video feedback of classroom performances. Within these subgroups three teachers took turns in different roles: as trainee, as coach and as observer of the coaching dialogue. The study explores the coach's roles that are beneficial for the learning process of their peers and seeks to understand how watching video records of own practice supports teachers to examine their own professional behaviour in new ways. Data for this study includes videotaped and transcribed subgroup dialogues and, for triangulation, data from learning reports, audio tapes and observational notes of the training sessions, questionnaires, and in-depth semi-structured interviews with all participants. Coaching in a setting with three well defined roles (trainee, coach, observant) proved valuable. The coach role was very important for the depth of the reflection process. Non-directive coaching skills created necessary safety and space for learning, but more directive coaching skills such as 'Continue to ask questions' were necessary to deepen the reflection process from more descriptive and perceptive reflections to more receptive, interactive and critical reflections. In the dialogues the participants reflect on practice, on context, on values, and on improvements. Working with (peer) observers of the coaching dialogs improved performance and forced the group to take their roles more seriously. Essential for the scheme to work is a high degree of equality between participants.
Lifelong learning is necessary for nurses and caregivers to provide good, person-centred care. To facilitate such learning and embed it into regular working processes, learning communities of practice are considered promising. However, there is little insight into how learning networks contribute to learning exactly and what factors of success can be found. The study is part of a ZonMw-funded research project ‘LeerSaam Noord’ in the Netherlands, which aims to strengthen the professionalization of the nursing workforce and promote person-centred care. We describe what learning in learning communities looks like in four different healthcare contexts during the start-up phase of the research project. A thematic analysis of eleven patient case-discussions in these learning communities took place. In addition, quantitative measurements on learning climate, reciprocity behavior, and perceptions of professional attitude and autonomy, were used to underpin findings. Reflective questioning and discussing professional dilemma's i.e. patient cases in which conflicting interests between the patient and the professional emerge, are of importance for successful learning.
MULTIFILE
To adequately deal with the challenges faced within residential care for older people, such as the increasing complexity of care and a call for more person-centred practices, it is important that health care providers learn from their work. This study investigates both the nature of learning, among staff and students working within care for older people, and how workplace learning can be promoted and researched. During a longitudinal study within a nursing home, participatory and democratic research methods were used to collaborate with stakeholders to improve the quality of care and to promote learning in the workplace. The rich descriptions of these processes show that workplace learning is a complex phenomenon. It arises continuously in reciprocal relationship with all those present through which both individuals and environment change and co-evolve enabling enlargement of the space for possible action. This complexity perspective on learning refines and expands conventional beliefs about workplace learning and has implications for advancing and researching learning. It explains that research on workplace learning is itself a form of learning that is aimed at promoting and accelerating learning. Such research requires dialogic and creative methods. This study illustrates that workplace learning has the potential to develop new shared values and ways of working, but that such processes and outcomes are difficult to control. It offers inspiration for educators, supervisors, managers and researchers as to promoting conditions that embrace complexity and provides insight into the role and position of self in such processes.
