016016 Professional Practice and Changing Work

This subject is designed to address the nine key questions that inform this inquiry-based curriculum. Change in the workplace or the community has a significant effect on the role of the professional practitioner. Change also affects learning processes. Key factors that influence change are explored and strategies for managing change are identified and examined. In this subject participants discuss forms of professional development that enable creative and innovative approaches to learning in the workplace and in the community. Participants will engage collaboratively with specialists from different fields of vocational, workplace and community learning from both within and outside of the university. Topics addressed are drawn from the current economic, social, political and technological forces impacting on the workplace. The role of the professional practitioner as change agent, consultant, network manager and leader is also examined in detail. Contemporary approaches to learning in organisations and concepts such as 'the learning organisation' provide frameworks for analysing professional practice and changing work.