Creating spaces for engagement in meaningful activities

Abstract

AbstractAdults learn when they actively engage in meaningful activities. Meaningfulness is an extremely subjective factor, which depends on experiences, values, attitudes and much more. “The ways in which adults learn in and through the workplace are rooted in educational trajectories and their complex intertwining with social institutions (of labour market, workplace, community) and social roles (of employee, citizen, family member) at different stages of the life-course” (Kersh et al., 2011, 355). The interplay between work, studies and lifeworld is the focus of this study, conducted at the University College Copenhagen in 2020–2021. At the College, and in teacher training in particular, we are asking two important questions these days: How can we establish an engaging learning culture in our educational program? How can we create space for all students to find the relevant content to engage with? How can this be done when our students are so diverse according to age, life and work experiences, life situation and life interests? In this article, I analyse my own workplace learning and professional development during my first 2 years at University College, where I have been working on transforming my experience from the university to a new context – a professional teacher education program at University College.