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A crucial change in many workplaces has come about due to the
advent of an overwhelming ICT presence. A phenomenon of the first
wave of computerisation of workplaces was the trend towards deskilling.
This is now increasingly accompanied, across all sectors of manufacturing
and service industries, by the need for upskilling, that is to
understand something of what lies behind the technology. This typically
involves making sense of the production process in ways that go
beyond the simple "numeracy" of traditional calculation
and estimation.
What is required is something new: we call them “techno-mathematical
literacies” – fusions of mathematical, ICT and workplace-specific
competencies that demand an ability to deal with models and to
take decisions based on the interpretation of abstract information.
The project will:
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identify, characterise and compare the “techno-mathematical
literacies” required by managers in at least three
different industrial and commercial sectors;
- iteratively design, evaluate and disseminate - in collaboration
with sector managers, professional bodies and college-based
trainers - a set of multimedia-based training modules to help time-served
employees acquire appropriate techno-mathematical literacies;
- evolve a set of measures for evaluating the learning outcomes of
the modules from the point of view both of individual and
group learning;
- contribute to the development of Activity Theory through the analysis
of actual workplace activities and epistemologies, and to
concretise the notion of boundary-crossing activity through design and evaluation
of the training modules;
- work with professional institutions, training organisations and
Sector Skills Councils to address issues concerning the forms
of qualification and accreditation that should be made available to
employees that will support progression for time-served employees,
and strengthen existing forms of work-based training.
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