Authentic Professional Learning: Making a Difference Through Learning at Work

This book describes the experiences of professionals as they continue to learn at work. Although its focus is on the learning of health professionals, it draws on research about continuing learning from other "caring" professions such as education and social services. The author argues for a significant paradigm shift in this book, from the usual practice of providing programs to develop professionals, towards a better way of supporting professionals as they learn in their own authentic ways.The construct of "Authentic Professional Learning" developed in this book describes the lived experience of professionals continuing to learn in practice, whilst dealing with contemporary workplace dilemmas. Many of these dilemmas revolve around the need for professionals to demonstrate measurable efficacy and fiscal efficiency whilst wanting to make a difference to the lives of those they care for. Using vignettes of practice, professionals from community-based education and health settings describe authentic ways of being, practising and learning as professionals, drawing meaning from their work whilst accepting their professional responsibilities. Commonalities across diverse experiences of learning are described in terms of four inter-linked constituents (understanding, engagement, interconnection and openness) within a phenomenological conceptual framework that focuses on the meaning of experiences for those professionals.