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This paper addresses how emotionally challenging experiences during work-based education may influence the professional becoming of student teachers and medical students. We conducted a qualitative analysis of eight focus group interviews with undergraduates from two universities in Sweden who studied to become either physicians or teachers, and interpreted their experiences through Wenger's theory of communities of practice. The findings show that students' ideal view of how to be caring in their aspiring professional role as physician or teacher collided with existing practices, which affected them emotionally. In particular, the students found it challenging when norms and practices differed from their values of professionalism and when the professional culture within practices reflected hardness (physicians) or resignation (teachers). Both medical students and student teachers experienced that professional decision making and legitimacy challenged them emotionally, however in different ways and for different reasons. This study makes visible both general and specific aspects of how students view their future role in the welfare sector and challenging dimensions of professional practice. The findings bring into focus the question of how professional education can support students' professional becoming in relation to their emotional challenges.

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Purpose: The professional development needs of university professional staff are an under-researched area. More data were needed to understand their needs to ensure that employers invest their resources appropriately. A conceptual framework is developed for the workplace learning of career development activities using concepts of professional learning communities, adult learning and non-formal learning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the success of a professional development network in meeting the needs of university professional staff after a re-structure. Design/methodology/approach: A case study of the development of a staff career network at an Australian university after a restructure is presented. An online survey was sent to 75 staff who had attended at least one professional development event. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Findings: This study has shown that a university professional staff career network has been a positive influence for its participants after an organisational restructure. The value of this network was to increase confidence and provide opportunities for self-improvement, career planning and networking. Originality/value: A conceptual model integrating the concepts of professional learning communities, adult learning and non-formal learning has resulted in a model of social non-formalised workplace learning that may be of use in other contexts to improve staff motivation, outside of more formal learning opportunities.

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Elaborating the relations amongst workers' learning, innovations and well-being is essential for achieving two important and dual goals in contemporary work life. The first is individuals' ongoing learning that underpins their employability and can respond to new challenges and emerging occupational and workplace requirements. The second comprises workers' remaking and transforming workplace practices, processes and outcomes (i.e., workplace innovations) in response to these challenges, and through them sustaining workplaces' productivity and viability. These dual processes of individuals' learning and remaking of practice co-occur and warrant understanding and supporting and promoting to exercise them optimally in achieving these dual goals. We aim to illuminate and elaborate these dual learning and innovations from the results of two studies of small to medium size Singaporean enterprises using interviews and observations. Framed by considerations from cultural psychology, work practice and well-being theorising, the dualities of workplace affordances (i.e., opportunities provided by workplaces) and individual engagement (i.e., how workers elect to engage and learn from these opportunities) are used to propose how workers' worklife learning and workplace innovations can arise reciprocally. In conclusion, sets of curriculum and pedagogic practices that can be exercised in work settings are advanced.

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Communities of practice (CoPs) are generally endorsed in higher education, but there are few examples of successful communities within the Australian higher education context. This paper articulates the experiences of members of a Faculty CoP as they share their stories about collegial support, fellowship, inspiration, problem-solving, and essential administrative backing. The stories reflect the response of a group of academics to the development of a CoP around learning and teaching within the business faculty of a small, regional Australian university with a diverse student cohort of domestic and international on-campus and external students. We argue that CoPs provide a number of key professional supports for academic staff: real communication and ongoing dialogue across institutional barriers; a sense of trust required to open up a safe place to share common challenges and enable social learning; support and professional development for course leaders; and a model of strategic thinking and strategic action in a changing institutional environment.

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[Continuing professional education] CPE as a key component to the success in the military is the focus of this chapter. With decreasing budgets and increasing importance for a force that operates efficiently and thinks critically, the cognitive tension among training, education, and learning comes to center stage, challenging the sustainability of CPE in the military.

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Writing groups for doctoral students are generally agreed to provide valuable learning spaces for Ph.D. candidates. Here an academic developer and the eight members of a writing group formed in a Discipline of Public Health provide an account of their experiences of collaborating in a multicultural, multidisciplinary thesis writing group. We consider the benefits of belonging to such a group for Ph.D. students who are operating in a research climate in which disciplinary boundaries are blurring and where an increasing number of doctoral projects are interdisciplinary in nature; in which both academic staff and students come from enormously diverse cultural and language backgrounds; and in which teamwork, networking and collaboration are prized but not always proactively facilitated. We argue that doctoral writing groups comprising students from diverse cultural and disciplinary backgrounds can be of significant value for postgraduates who wish to collaborate on their own academic development to improve their research writing and communication skills; at the same time, such collaborative work effectively builds an inclusive, dynamic research community.

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The boundaries between on-line and 'real-world' communities are rapidly deteriorating, particularly for the generation of young people whose lives are pervaded by social media. For this generation, social media exchanges are a primary means of communication, social engagement, information seeking, and possibly, a central component of their identity and community-building. Given these realities, postsecondary educators should begin to seriously explore the potential to intentionally and strategically harness the power of these revolutionary transformations in technology use to better serve the needs of students to enhance their success. Therefore, this review of books, academic journals, higher education news, research reports, individual blogs and other online media on the use of social media technology (SMT) in higher education provides a baseline sense of current uses nationally, providing a descriptive overview of the social media phenomenon. Additionally, the review clarifies how colleges and college students use SMT and also challenges assumptions in two areas: how institutions can best exploit social media's features and its impact on student outcomes. The review further provides a foundation to develop conceptual frameworks that would better capture the role and impact of SMT among colleges and college students, and community colleges in particular.

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Today, teaching and learning are increasingly taking place with the support of digital technology, a trend driven by the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic but also by the never-ending quest to create inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities. For quality and inclusive digital education, policymakers are called upon to create enabling conditions, while schools and teachers are expected to find solutions tailored to specific contexts, needs and goals. This policy brief aims to introduce and explain self-reflection practices and examples of EU-related tools to support the development of quality and inclusive digital education, highlighting relevant [European Training Foundation] ETF initiatives in partner countries.

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Traditionally, universities base their reputation on their ability to attract funding and carry out discipline-based research, often precluding education research. In recent times, there has been an increased emphasis on education, particularly in Australian universities, with additional funding becoming available to encourage efforts to improve learning and teaching, including education research. In this paper we describe the genesis of the Education Research Group of Adelaide (ERGA), an emergent ‘community of practice’ that provides opportunities and support for cross-discipline collaboration and communication on education research issues. ERGA’s activities have an emphasis on evidence-based, practical approaches to education, and are designed to encourage the development and dissemination of grass-roots innovation and research. We describe the factors that led to development of ERGA, and discuss the progress made to becoming a viable community of practice.

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Engagement in communities of practice has increasingly come to be seen as an important aspect of adult learning. Participation within such communities is thought to provide a dialogic space in which learning can take place. These ideas are increasingly being applied to the work of teachers, lecturers, and trainers. This reflective paper addresses a number of issues: firstly, it locates communities of practice within a discussion of situated cognition and ‘mode 2 knowledge’. This is followed by an engagement with Lave and Wenger’s notion of communities of practice and situated learning. There is an affinity between these ideas and those developed by David Hargreaves, particularly his discussion of on-line learning communities and ‘teacher tinkering’. In a number of respects these arguments are couched in overly optimistic and progressive terms. The concluding section seeks to raise a note of caution, considering the limits and possibilities of the previous arguments for the development of progressive and transformative educational practices, with the application of Gramscian ideas that call for the wider politicisation of practical education.

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