Keynote speakers
The Significance of Human Agency in Times of Disruption: Exploring the Characteristics of the Deliberate Professional
We live in times of relentless disruption. The COVID pandemic and the recent rapid advances of Artificial Intelligence have disrupted the way we teach, learn, assess, work and live. Disruptions are a formidable opportunity to stop ‘business as usual’, pause routine work and create new ways of working and learning. They also remind us that we live in the company of uncertainty and complexity (Bauman, 2012), and we are moving from one crisis to the next. We have given up on predictions and we need to learn to think about what is possible and how could things be otherwise.
Reflective Practice-based Learning (Helverskov Horn et al., 2020) and meaning making about experiences and theoretical ideas make us scholarly and professional. In disruptive times, where the way we used to learn, work and live no longer apply, it is not enough to reflect and respond to circumstances because that means that we are being changed. What is needed now is to emphasise active and purposeful becoming; something that emphasises a social, collaborative human agency that “is about changing how the world is changing us” (Stetsenko, 2017, p.225).
In light of the rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence, which surpass human capabilities in terms of information processing speed and volume, the cultivation of human intelligence becomes paramount within the RPBL framework. Unlike their artificial counterparts, humans possess an ethical and critical consciousness, the ability to exercise professional judgment, and the agency to effect meaningful change. It is within the concept of the deliberate professional that these human capacities converge—a professional who embodies thoughtfulness and decisiveness, self-awareness, a forward-thinking mindset, the capacity for action, and an unwavering commitment to assuming responsibility for the consequences of their actions (Trede & McEwen, 2016).
This presentation explores the four characteristics of the deliberate professional and the role of human agency within the curriculum, classroom and workplace to advance a future practice-based education that prepares everybody not only graduates for an uncertain, complex and connected world of work.
Biography
Franziska Trede is Professor in Higher Education and Professional Practice at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research program explores professional identity development, social justice education, professional responsibility, agency and educating the deliberate professional. She has over 120 publications including books, book chapters and journal papers. She has presented her work in Europe, New Zealand and Canada.
Educational Theory: A Laboratory for Expectations and Hope
In the talk, I will view educational theory as world-changing. As John Dewey once said, idealistic philosophers were right in attaching importance and power to ideas. Educational theories are influential because they leave tracks in educational practice in various ways. However, practitioners may not be aware of the influence of theoretical ideas on reflective practice. Metaphorically, educational theories are like furrows, tracks, paths and roads in the educational landscape. That is, theories change the educational landscape and might even change the world because they change our ways of understanding educational practice. In this sense, dealing with educational theories is a kind of laborious work. Reflective practice deals with educational theory in two ways: 1) As implemented in practice, leaving traces in practice and 2) As different from practice and, therefore, existing in reflective dialogue.
In the talk, I will discuss how educational theories are essential for upholding reflection in and on practice. Furthermore, I will emphasize the normative content of educational theories and their role as laboratories for expectations and hope.
Biography
Merete Wiberg is MA in philosophy and music and PhD in philosophy of education. She is associate professor at the Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University. Her research area is philosophy of education. She is particularly interested in educational theory, focusing on normativity and values in theory and practice. In 2022 she published the book Teoretisk Pædagogik. Et Laboratorium for forventninger og håb. (Educational Theory. A Laboratory for Expectations and Hope.).
Reflection and pathways of life long learning
Lifelong learning is seen as a concept that combines the individual with the collective learning communities, and as a process that incorporates both the individual as well as general learning methods. The perspective is turned toward Reflective Practice-based Learning (RPL) as a way of approaching this combination. Reflective Practice-based Learning is an experience-based and process-oriented learning platform, which is constituted by concepts such as meaning formation, transfer, wonder, identity formation and reflexivity (Dewey 1933; Wahlgren 2012 et al., Horn et al., 2020). These concepts contribute to the professionalism of educators and therefore becomes necessary to consider when creating a learning culture in which highly qualified students are educated and teachers participate in an ongoing learning environment. Within the field of education this culture aims to prepare future professionals to create and contribute to learning communities in which they can challenge knowledge and seek new knowledge - inside and outside the formal educational or organizational context.
Biography
Stine Bylin Bundgaard holds a Ph.D. in learning, networks and co-creation between education and professional practice, and is concerned with the theory-practice relationship in reflexive practice learning. Stine is the leader of the research group Reflection between education and professional practice at UCN, and through her research she has partly focused on expanding the reflexive potential in case studies and exploring the reflexive practice spaces created through practicum with students on exchange courses.