Instructivism and Apprenticeship Education

It is without question that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on day-to-day life for apprentices and other adult learners in Canada. Like many children and adolescents, apprentices’ education journey had been placed on hiatus for an undetermined amount of time; additionally, apprentices in some industries may have faced job loss and lay-offs, such as those working in the service and other at-risk industries. Thankfully, as provinces relax pandemic restrictions, apprenticeship education is being allowed to resume later this month with the caveat that all content not requiring face-to-face education be delivered online.

Speaking from my own experience, the ability to proceed with education is a relief to both apprentices and faculty; however, online education is uncharted water for apprentices and teachers alike. In fact, only a handful of pilot projects testing the relationships between apprenticeship and online education have been conducted in Canada (Burkle, 2011; Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, 2019). Seeing as the online education experience is so new to many of us in apprenticeship education, I am offering my perspective on prevailing epistemologies relevant to industrial apprenticeship and online education. Beginning with instructivism, other epistemologies (constructivism, connectivism, computational, etc.) will be addressed in future blog posts.

I am starting my discussion of epistemologies with instructivism because I believe that this is the content delivery approach with which most apprentices and apprenticeship faculty are best familiar. Indeed, I imagine that most everyone is at least somewhat familiar with the “sage on the stage,” (Lehmann & Chamberlain, 2009, p.22) expression that often describes the instructivist perspective, where teachers teach, and students absorb knowledge – if they are paying any attention. To an instructivist, knowledge itself is akin to a possession: it may be shared, or constructed, but more appropriately, knowledge is to be given by an instructor and received by the student. In fact, instructivism is so common that, as Sfard (1998) points out, even the dictionary describes learning as the “act of gaining knowledge” (p.5).

Instructivism is popular in apprenticeship education for, what I believe, are unique but understandable reasons. To begin, as mentioned by Anderson and Dron (2014), apprenticeships are among the oldest forms of formal vocational training and it assumes a hierarchical relationship between master and student (p.38). When on-the-job, apprentices expect to be guided, instructed, and critiqued by more experienced tradespeople as they learn and practice job related skills. In the classroom and labs, it is a natural extension for a faculty member and experienced tradesperson to adopt an instructivist role when teaching.

Instructivist epistemologies are also unavoidable in apprenticeship education because traditional instructivist assessment methods are hardwired into the curriculum. Under the recommendations of various ministries, professional and academic colleges, unions, and employer stakeholders, trade curricula specify mark distribution either “Theory Testing,” or “Practical Application Testing” (see sample curriculum documents here). There are no alternatives except under the AODA. Tests, quizzes, and exams are a prominent instructivist evaluation tool (Lehmann & Chamberlain, 2009, p.22). While an apprenticeship cannot be completed without approval from an appropriately licenced tradesperson assessing an apprentice’s hands-on skill while working in industry, each apprenticeship course and level are based on a test. Even the conclusion of an entire apprenticeship rests on a single interprovincial exam.

It would be a true paradigm shift to transition from instructivist epistemologies in apprenticeship education. At all levels, apprenticeship stakeholders would have to change their perspectives before curricula is revised with a new epistemology in mind. However, an evolution of how apprentices learn and are taught may be required as online education becomes a reality for apprenticeship. As Lehmann and Chamberlain (2009) note, instructivism can be useful in an online environment for providing foundational knowledge to students, but a “fully instructivist online class is boring,” (p.22). Clearly, learner engagement and motivation are important in e-learning, and they are important factors in the constructivist epistemology.

Stay tuned!

Sources

Anderson, T. & Dron, J. (2014). Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media. Athabasca

University Press.

Burkle, M. (2011). Apprenticeship students learning online: opportunities and challenges for

Polytechnic institutions/El aprendizaje on-line: oportunidades y retos en instituciones

politecnicas.(DOSSIER)(Report). Comunicar, 19(37), 45–53.

https://doi.org/10.3916/C37-2011-02-04

Canadian Apprenticeship Forum-Forum canadien sur l'apprentissage (CAF-FCA). (2019).

Flexibility and Innovation in Apprenticeship Technical Training: project evaluation report.

Lehmann, K., & Chamberlin, L. (2009). Making the move to elearning: Putting your course

online. R&L Education.

Sfard, A. (1998). On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One.

Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4–13.