The spaces and places of teaching and learning are constantly changing. The traditional, fixed lecture that is bound in time and place has given way to more fluid opportunities for flexible learning anytime, anywhere. The ‘classroom-as-container’ with it’s focus on specific content delivery is being disrupted by new technologies with more mobile affordances. Where boundaries between formal, non-formal an informal learning begin to blur, content becomes shaped by context, culture and connections. In this changing landscape, there is a need for a different kind of curriculum and pedagogy that supports learners to become confident and competent in this fluid space.

This poster illustrates a model used within a postgraduate Specialist Teacher education programme   that accommodates this changing landscape of learning for continous professional development. The model focuses on developing ‘T’ shaped professionals who are better prepared for the wicked challenges of the 21st Century through networking both within and across their specialist disciplines. The stem of the T represents deep understanding within their specific content area, and the arms of the T link these understandings to other contexts and discipline areas. Whereas an ‘I’ professional develops expertise within  a particular specialised  area, ‘T’- shaped professionals are able to learn ‘with, from and about’ others from various specialist areas. This interprofessional orientation results in shared understandings and an ability to work more  effectively in interdisciplinary teams. Within the T-shaped model is a pedagogy that encorporates life-long, life-wide and life-deep learning. This is achieved through an inquire-communicate-curate-narrate approach that progresses from comprehension to evaluation.

At the inquiry level Specialist Teachers identify their own unique personalised learning goals, relevant for their particular context, which are mapped against professional competencies. They then communicate with each other, online and offline, synchronously and asynchronously,  about practice, in order to co-construct meaning both within specialist domain areas and interprofessionally across specialist areas, strengthening both the depth and breadth of the T-shaped professional. They then curate digital artefacts of evidence, resources and ‘knowledgeability’ to support their practice, individually and as a community of professional and interprofessional practice. Finally the Specialist Teachers engage in narrating their personalised professional philosophy of practice using online portfolios that can be continually updated after completion of the formal aspects of programme, ensuring ongoing lifelong and lifewide learning. Life-long learning foregrounds professional learning over time, life-wide learning acknowledges learning across contexts and life-deep learning ensures critical thinking and alignment of learning with professional and personal values.  

The objective of this T-shaped approach is to enable practitioners to focus on the personal, the professional and the interprofessional, and design their unique learning experience over time and place in authentic personal and cultural contexts. The research presented in this poster illustrates both the model and the evaluation of the model within a continuing professional development programme. 

Barr, H., Low, H., & Gray, R. (2013). introducing Interprofessional Education. CAIPE. Retrieved from http://caipe.org.uk/silo/files/introducing-interprofessional-education.pdf Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Learning in landscapes of practice: A framework. In E. Wenger, M. FentonO’Creevy, S. Hutchinson, & C. Kubiak (Eds.), Learning in landscapes of practice. Routledge. USA.