We propose the topic of “CSCL at Work” which we advanced through workshops at ACM Group 2010, ACM Group 2012 and CSCL 2013. The resulting book raises an important set of issues and potential topics for research and practice but, like any agenda setting work, does not solve thorny or controversial issues. CSCL@Work provides one possible viewpoint for bridging informal learning and work. The purpose of our proposal is to share innovative approaches discovered to date, and gain input focused on solutions aimed for understanding, studying and designing Technology-enhanced learning at work. From 13 case studies, three main theses can be derived that characterize how and when learning at work takes places, A) Learning occurs in unexpected and unusual online learning places, including Social Media. B) Learning activities incorporate feedback from diverse sources, which are not available within traditional organizational boundaries. C) learning takes place across established boundaries. Theses issues inform the design of collaborative technologies, technology-enhanced learning (TEL) and sociotechnical learning practices. To make learning visible, we argue that individual and collaborative learning design must support the alignment of pedagogical, social and technological design. This alignment will increase the likelihood of both surface and deep learning at the workplace.
Any person who is part of a traditional or virtual organization must learn new skills
routinely. Goggins, Jahnke, & Wulf (2013) demonstrate that much of what a person
will try to learn for herself or for the purpose to fulfill the job in the modern
workplace cannot be found in a book or on the Internet. Information and knowledge are
jumbled together with social connection and experience. Often a person at the
workplace will need to acquire the acumen to apply skills, tools and approaches that were
invented very recently, and for which there is little if any documentation. In such
cases, a learner at the workplace will likely get in contact with a group of people –
formally or informally – and its quite likely the people who help the learner most will
not work in the same organization that the learner does. Research in the field of
Organizational Learning emerged in 1978
Copyright © 2013 for the individual papers by the papers' authors.
creased attention beginning in the 1990’s when the questions were focused on how to
create a culture and practices for sharing existing knowledge within a firm. In
addition to managing existing knowledge sharing, managing the creation of new
knowledge is important for firms today. But are they able to create new knowledge
when the answer to a problem is not available? What cultures of learning exist to
support this? Contemporary answers to these questions must recognize that learning is
an implicit, often invisible component of work. To build a bridge between learning
what is known and learning that creates new knowledge is of crucial importance for
both the computer supported collaborative learning community and the computer
supported collaborative work community
CSCL typically focuses on learning as a primary activity. By contrast,
Learning@Work is not the primary activity in an organization – reaching the objectives of
that organization are the goal. We suggest, however, that we must consider how
learning is affected by the needs of employees for timely access to information
needed to conduct everyday work. More significantly, the development of practice
knowledge and information not contained within the firm raises new challenges.
Learning in these cases is a secondary activity and work is the primary activity
We distinguish Learning@Work from prior research in CSCL, TEL, (e)CSCW
and knowledge management. Prior work in CSCL investigates the application of
computer support for learning in the context of traditional educational institutions.
This CSCL inquiry inspired new, more broadly applicable theories about how
knowledge is constructed by groups
Specifically, in order to frame different problems that support the development
of technologies for Learning@Work, main design issues and research questions are
1) How do firms make learning practices in work processes visible and how to recognize
such learning and establish a culture of learning at the workplace?
2) How to bridge formal, non-formal and informal learning activities?
3) How to design learning at work? (when work is the primary activity and learning is the
secondary activity)
4) How to design learning activities when an answer does exist (e.g., routines) and when the
answer is not known in the organization, or does not exist at all?
Related Work. Prior work related to CSCL@Work includes empirical research on
collaborative work practices
CSCL and CSCW research each make distinct and important contributions to the
construction of collaborative workplace learning, first identified by Billet (2002). One
research thread focused on this boundary-spanning field is developed by Yrjö
Engeström, who introduced “activity theory – expanding learning” – as a conceptual
frame for analyzing and redesigning work
Our work to date includes facilitation, discussion leadership and intellectual guidance for 3 workshops and an edited book focused on CSCL@Work. Our workshops were at ACM Group 2010, ACM Group 2012 and CSCL 2013. Our thinking grew from 8 original case studies in 2010 up to 13 case studies in 2012. These cases and our synthesis of thinking across the cases, is presented in Goggins, Jahnke, Wulf (2013). How learning at the workplace takes place is summarized in 3 key theses: a) Learning at work occurs in unexpected, unusual online learning places using Social Media b) Learning activities at work incorporate feedback and ‘feedforward’ from diverse sources to support individual and collaborative reflections, which are not available within traditional organizational boundaries c) Learning at work takes place across established boundaries The theses we present inform the design of collaborative technologies and sociotechnical learning practices in our ongoing work. To make learning visible, to support and recognize it, we argue that the design of individual and collaborative learning (coconstruction of knowledge) can be supported through a social, pedagogical and technological design.
We understand learning as “an active process of constructing rather than acquiring
knowledge, and instruction as a process of supporting that construction rather than
communicating knowledge”
We argue that the design of learning at the workplace needs to support both individual and group learning. Learning underlies a range of different forms of quality. Learning can take place on the “surface level” like remembering facts and understanding information to “deeper learning” which includes a critical thinking and a conceptual change (Kember, 1997). A deeper learning level leads to a member within an organization who does not only know the routines and becomes a ‘good’ member of a society but also can create new practices and innovations. For example, s/he questions the given understanding of routines.
This learning approach presents new insights about workplace learning, and also new challenges. Operationalizing this view of learning inspires a new set of questions about the behaviors, culture and infrastructure needed to support building a framework for TEL@Work: • What is the underlying concept of learning within organizations and does it relate to individual, collaborative and organizational learning? • What kinds of possibilities to enable learning in the workplace are available in the firm? • Do sociotechnical designers, researchers and workplace learners need to focus on a new balance of formal and informal learning? To what extent?
When designing learning at work the overall research question is how to design (develop, introduce, evaluate) it successfully and what elements can be designed (general model). But the central problem is what does “successful” mean, to what extent is a design successful or not? Jahnke, et al. (2010) describes one possible model. In her study of designing remote-controlled laboratories in mechanical engineering, they demonstrate a design model with three elements, which provide a set of opening factors for CSCL@Work inquiry. The model includes three basic elements and its interconnections (key factors), read figure 1.
Technical(
Social(
Pedagogical( Structural( (Coupling(
Quality( Concept(of( Success( Summary. The presented framework contributes to a foundation for discussing a design focused TEL@Work research agenda. It is a starting point. Future Learning@Work studies can use it in order to design learning at the workplace in manner that reflects both changing societal needs and emerging information and communication technologies for learning.