The Practice Learning Model: conceptualizing teaching and learning in vocational education and training - in practice

Vocational Education and Training (VET) is characterised by a high degree of proximity to the practice
it qualifies for. The teaching of for example carpentry students is directed towards and based on the
practice of the trained carpenter. This contrasts with traditional upper secondary education where it is
not often the case that the teaching of for example physics or history is directed towards and based on
the professional practice of a physicist or historian. This article draws on concrete examples from
everyday life in VET and discusses the impact that the practical relevance of vocational education can
have both on the way teachers organise their teaching and on students' learning. The analysis seeks
to qualify the implicit notions of 'practice' in VET by taking as its starting point a 'Practice Learning Model
' that offers four different approaches to teaching, each of which - and in combination - have implications
for student learning