Pedagogic practices at workplaces are provided to support students’ vocational education. To contribute to the understanding of supporting workplace learning, the focus of this literature review is to operationalise how pedagogic practices play out in practice. An overview is provided of pedagogic practices applied at workplaces to support students’ vocational learning. Included studies provide descriptions of manifestations of pedagogic practices enabled by experienced colleagues, such as supervisors, in the context of students’ workplace learning. Three sets of relevant search terms were defined, including synonyms and related definitions of ‘pedagogic practices’, ‘supervisors’ and ‘workplace learning’. Forty-seven studies were selected, retrieved and processed qualitatively. Findings represent a comprehensive overview of fourteen categories of pedagogic practices. Three perspectives on supporting students are discussed: demonstrating vocational activities, stimulating vocational participation, and entrusting vocational activities.

Higher education institutions are challenged to educate students for an uncertain future. Adaptive expertise (AE) is needed to thrive in an uncertain future: the ability to respond successfully to altered situations and changing circumstances. Work-based learning (WBL) environments would allow students to develop AE. However, knowledge about how WBL contributes to AE development in higher education is scarce. This paper reports on a realist review to understand and explain how, why and in what circumstances WBL leads to AE development. Three narratives illustrate how working in challenging conditions, interacting with others and stimulating a willingness to learn were associated with AE development through WBL as a result of shifts in perspective and thinking. Five work-based learning elements for AE development were identified: integrative challenging contexts, reflective practice, interacting with others, guidance and learner characteristics. Future research should focus on how working in challenging situations, interactions with others and guidance interact to stimulate AE development in different types of WBL environments.

Supervisors are responsible to train students in healthcare placements. Although there is knowledge about workplace learning and supervision in general, little is known about supervisors' pedagogic strategies in specific healthcare placements. In this study, we identify how supervisors' reasoning and interrelated actions manifest in physiotherapy and nursing work settings. Following the stimulating recall approach, we conducted 16 interviews with supervisors at seven work settings. Using a theoretical framework of workplace supervision, we performed a deductive template analysis. Four configurations of pedagogic strategies reveal how supervision manifests in healthcare placements. The results provide unique insights into specific supervision moments, and elucidate the situatedness of the supervisors' strategies. The present study illustrates the variation in aims and focus of supervisors in placements. Supervisors' pedagogic strategies were found to be mainly based on (A) role modelling, (B) overall support, (C) trust, and (D) letting go. Further research is needed to investigate the interplay between supervisors and students in learning situations within work settings.

Both supervisors and students play an active role in facilitating workplace learning in healthcare placements. In workplace learning, affordances, referring to the opportunities for learning in the workplace, and agency, referring to the willingness and ability to engage with affordances, are central concepts. To fully utilize the potential of workplace learning, crucial is the extent to which supervisors and students interactively and intentionally engage with affordances for learning in placements. In current literature, the concepts of supervisor agency and student agency are studied individually, but limited understanding exists of how supervisors and students interactively manifest agency in workplace learning. This single case study characterizes agency in supervisors’ and students’ interacting strategies throughout a twenty-week placement. The study focuses on interacting strategies of two supervisors and one student in a revalidation centre, in the context of a student-physiotherapist’s bachelor program in Dutch University of Applied Sciences. Data were collected through observations and interviews. Three strategies of supervisors were identified to elucidate agency in workplace learning: (1) demonstration, (2) stimulated participation and (3) entrustment. Correspondingly, students used three interacting strategies: (1) learner stance, (2) negotiated participation and (3) independency. Agency in workplace learning is manifested as continuous alternations in these supervisors’ and students’ interacting strategies, highlighting the interactive nature of agency in workplace learning. The study contributes by providing insight into the real-life mechanisms of facilitating workplace learning, where interacting strategies of supervisors and students reveal the full learning potential of workplace learning.

There is a growing trend in which new professional roles complement traditional ones to bridge education, childcare, and social care. In the Netherlands, this is reflected in the introduction of the Pedagogical Educational Professional (PEP) as a boundary-crossing professional in pre-service education. In a mixed-methods study with a vignette-based survey (N = 422), followed by three focus group discussions (N = 14), we explored how staff from childcare and primary education, and Integrated Child Centers perceive this new professional. Findings show that perceptions of the PEP are highly context-dependent. Primary education professionals mainly recognized and valued the PEP as a pragmatic generalist providing flexible support, whereas childcare and integrated childcare professionals more strongly recognized boundary-crossing roles related to collaboration, continuity, innovation, and inclusion. These differences reflect challenges in developing knowledgeability through engagement, imagination, and alignment. Practically, supporting PEP integration requires creating “brave spaces” where professionals jointly negotiate roles, responsibilities, and expertise across organizational boundaries.

Hager (2019) proposed that ideas about the purpose and role of vocational education1 are shifting. Traditionally, vocational education aims to prepare students for a profession with standard knowle...