Complete thesis - Murdoch University

7.2.1 Decoding the disciplineMajor ‘intellectual’ effort went into deciding on what content needed to be addressed by theproblems developed – the question became one of what did the students have to know to beeffective in further units? Although this is an issue in all PBL environments, it had addedsignificance in RE because it is foundational for the SE degree programme – many disciplinespecificconcepts are introduced here. The purpose of Cycle 2a was to address more carefullythe requirements of the discipline for formal education, in effect to decode it into educationalterminology.Aligning learning with practitioner needsThe first approach taken to adapting unit content was focussed on addressing elements identifiedby practitioners as being of prime importance, and at levels of Bloom’s taxonomy thatreflected the higher order learning required by the nature of RE.Industry is seen to require a broad perspective on RE from formal education. While thebase case of RE content knowledge assumed by practitioners is covered, in general terms, bymodels used in university units, industry requires a greater focus on ‘soft’ skills, organisationalknowledge and flexibility. The implications of this include initiative, ability to deal withcomplexity and ill-structure and organisational (self, task and information) skills (Armaregoand Minor, 2005).As discussed in Chapter3, Thomas et al (2002) suggest there is a widening gap between thedegree of flexibility and creativity needed to adapt to a changing world and the capacity todo so. These difficulties are attributed to:• structuring failure – failing to spend sufficient time in the early stages of design: problemfinding and problem formulation, and bring critical judgment into play too early. Inaddition, path-dependent behaviour is exhibited, implying an unwillingness to undo aprevious action even if that step is actually necessary for a solution (Thomas et al,1977)• unwillingness to apply implicit knowledge and• the appropriate level, type, and directionality of motivation on a problem.Although the Apprenticeship model had addressed some components of industry needs, elementsof an ‘incorrect’ learning environment were identified in the evaluation of that cycle.Patel et al (2000) argue that learners in an ill-fitting (and generally traditional) setting focuson skills that will yield higher grades as an immediate objective. With the relevance of284