During the early stages of the course I wanted to focus on workplace learning as I feel not enough research has been undertaken in this area. I see workplaces as dynamic and complex environments that you can view through various lenses to see layers of complexity not present in relatively homogeneous primary and tertiary educational settings. I’m also particularly interested in how employees learn within environments of workplace change. My previous experience working as a training manager for a telecommunications organization involved working with a large generation Y demographic. I was impressed with how flexible and adaptable the staff were in learning new large complex systems, and constant changes in technology, prices and plans.
What I learnt about myself during the unit was that I’m not too fond of publically documenting my inner thoughts through blogs. Content analysis of my blog entries show my working attempts at assignments, areas that I was working on, reviewed references , and reworked proposals. Reading between the lines of my blog entries reveal my initial misconceptions of the unit. In particular my assumption that the unit seamlessly integrated from my previous unit: Developing a Research Project, leading to an initial rush to finalise a research topic. This is seen through a prematurely optimistic blog heading such as “Research Question Finalised”.
My research focus remained within the retail telecommunications sector however it took me longer than expected to finalise my focus on one research question. My focus did evolved over time, initially quite general to more specific:
“Examine one telecommunications retail provider, examine its current E-Learning system and propose improvements to the system”
This general idea evolved to include staff motivation:
“Which E-Learning system features positively influence the motivation of retail telecommunications store staff to successfully complete their online courses?”
This idea evolved to include collaborative learning:
“Currently reviewing E-Learning, in particular, the experience of participants in collaborative E-Learning environments and whether design may influence their experience and motivation”.
While examining collaborative E-Learning I found an interesting area called "Spontaneous" Collaborative Learning.
“I’m considering examining: Measuring participant experience of spontaneous collaborative learning within a self-directed team.”
This is an interesting area because teachers and trainers may witness students spontaneously collaboratively learning however they might not ever encourage or create frameworks for it to exist. Researching spontaneous collaborative learning made me contemplate on a missed opportunity in spontaneously collaborating with my fellow peers during the course, something I will take ownership of in future courses. Unfortunately life got in the way of examining this topic to its fullest extent through my literature review assessment, however I was able to make more time for a better attempt at my design plan assessment.
Peter Goodyear mentioned during our initial class meeting that through his research he has been “punching out dents” in the field for the past 20 years. I’m beginning to realize the expanse and possibilities for research in the field and areas yet to be fully explored.
So where to from now? Very excited to be nearing the completion of my Masters, I’ll definitely spend the term break reading and thinking about possibilities for my final paper next year.
