TAEDES402 How Contextualisation Adds Meaning

What comes to your mind when you hear the word contextualisation? You may think about tailoring the information to suit specific needs which indicates flexibility.

From a Vocational Education and Training (VET) perspective, contextualisation relates to making the learning and assessment applicable to the learner’s context of work. What

93 comments

  • Melanie

    I agree with Keryn – “Contextualisation ensures relevance of training to a specific job but learning must also be broad enough that the outcomes are transferrable for future roles.”

  • Melanie

    Contextualisation is important for any learning, to be able to make the learning relevant, useful and interesting to the students. Agreed, there needs to be a demonstration of how the skills can be transferrable to varying contexts and industries.

  • Keryn Turner

    Contextualisation ensures relevance of training to a specific job but learning must also be broad enough that the outcomes are transferrable for future roles.

  • Contextualisation is very important as it means that students are learning what is relevant to them and their current job role but ensures that they have skills that are transferrable to other workplaces.

  • Contextualisation is an important as many different certain trades work in different aspects of the trade and if there is no flexibility students may not be able to apply what they learn in the classroom into their respective workplaces. It may result in vital information being omitted and making work life difficult.

  • I agree that the skills learned must be transferable so that they can be used in multiple workplaces. Employees do not stay in the same job the way they did in the past and employers want to know how new employees can benefit their organisation.

  • antoinette haber

    Contextualisation provides relevant information to the learner and helps to maintain engagement.

  • Contextualization is bringing the relevant skills and knowledge to learners that are useable in their current or future employment, while teaching in a broad enough manner to be relevant to a variety of employment situations.

  • Natasha

    Contextualization – to bring relevant skills and knowledge to a student that are useable in their current or future employment. Whilst teaching these competencies in a broad enough manner to be relevant to a variety of employment situations.

  • Jessica

    Contextualization adds relevancy to a learner’s individual education experience. It’s important to be able to adapt and change learning materials to best suit the learners, especially those with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. By ensuring the materials are relatable to the learner, they’ll be able to add meaning based on their own experiences, be more engaged, and more likely to enable their success in learning, understanding and applying the concepts.

  • Contextualization ensures that the learners are learning what they need and also that there is a way to make what they’re learning relatable to them. Assists with making learners more engaged in the learning and providing a an ability to relate with the materials being delivered.

  • Mitchell

    Contextualisation makes sure that what is being taught is relevant to the learner. This will help them get a better understanding of what is being taught. It helps the learner feel more engaged as well.

  • Contextualisation works well using simulated organisations. Scenarios allow the learner to understand the content in relation to their own job role, without diminishing the portability of the content.

  • Cassandra Jones

    Contextualization is a pivotal element to any learning environment as it provides the learner with relevance and applicability of the subject matter. Context is particularly important in adult learning as it can help to engage and stimulate learners. Providing real world context also allows learners to fully comprehend the usefulness and practicality of the information or skills being taught.

  • Alia Proietto

    Contextualisation adds relevance and meaning in training. It allows training and assessment to be changed and tailored to the work role or conditions, making it more meaningful to the participant.I think this is especially relevant to adult learners improving their skills for their job roles or professional development in a specific area.

  • Contextualization provides relevance to the learning environment by learners being able to construct meaning and understanding based on their own experience. This especially benefits adult learners keeping them engaged by providing a broader context where the material is not one dimensional and ideally improving performance.

  • Scott M

    Contextualisation adds relevence. By making the learning relevent to the environment in which the learned tasks will be performed means that the overall competence of the individual performance of the task will be improved. It will also make it easier to add the ‘why’ to the training. Learning tasks with an understanding of why things are done a certain way in a particular environment is superior to learning tasks in a parrot fashion. It is contextualisation that allows for this.

  • Contextualization is an important strategy used to make learning relevant and meaningful for the specific learners you are teaching. It enables them to be able to take on the information and make meaningful and practical sense of the information being passed on. Contextualization enables you to be able to change learning materials to be more fluid and appropriate to your learners which can be especially useful for mature learners that have a variety of backgrounds and interests.

  • Contextualisation is an important step in ensuring learning is relevant to the learning cohort you are delivering training to. This is even more relevant in adult learners, who may be disengaged from lessons that are not contextualised to their own individual circumstances. Although it is important to find the right balance, as many courses and units can be contextualised over many different industries.

  • Tamika Ellis

    Contextualisation is used to give meaning and relevance to a learner. It can also make the learning experience more engaging and dynamic which is very important in an adult learning/workplace learning environment. When the learner can put the information they are learning into context, it will give them a better understanding and appreciation of the content.

  • Contextualisation ensures the information being taught is relevant to the needs of the learner. The ability to contextualise the subject matter leads to learners developing the relevant skills and knowledge they need for their area of expertise. It also increases motivation and understanding as the learners are able to see the information in the context of the work they’re performing.

  • Adult learning must be made real and meaningful. If it’s useful and can actually help the learner with their job because it’s contextualised, the learner can see that’s it is worth the effort, you find yourself with engaged learners.

  • Contextualisation is what makes the learning relevant. For adult learners especially, making the learning and assessment applicable to the learner’s context of work is what will keep them engaged and motivated.

  • Philip Bancroft

    Particularly for adult learners, contextualisation of learning ensures that the subject is pertinent. In so doing, the learner should be stimulated by and enjoy the learning process. Moreover, this may encourage the learner to continue further on their learning journey.
    However, there must be a certain amount of caution applied to ensure the amount of contextualisation does not restrict the learning, or restrict its transferability.

  • Tahlia Oxenbridge

    I touched on this in my last assessment task. It is important that what we teach is transferable for the learner. The learner needs to be supported to use the skills or knowledge in different contexts. Contextualisation is good to build understanding but needs to be done carefully.

  • Contextualisation makes the learning relevant and practically applicable to the work environment of the learner. By making it more relevant the learner will be more engaged in the learning and will be better able to apply what they have learned in theory into the real-world environment of their current workplace and future workplaces.

  • Contextualisation is providing training and assessment in a way that learners are able to construct meaning based on their own experience. When training and assessment is modified so that it relates to the actual context of work, without it being too specific, learners are more engaged and more likely to succeed.

  • Charmaine

    Contextualisation is an effective teaching tool as it provides practical examples of situations that the learner will encounter; learners can gain confidence in their new skills in a real-world setting. Contextualisation in regards to training allows the learner to apply broad ideas and methods to more specific situations. It is a foundation on which the leaner can build their skills, then tailor and apply them to different scenarios as needed. For example, customer service skills learned in the context of retail can be applied to a business setting should the leaner move into a different industry. The main goal of contextualisation should be to provide practical skills that are specific to the learner’s current industry, yet not so restrictive that they cannot be applied in a more general sense.

  • Contextualisation allows people to visualise the information or skill that have been taught operating in the real world, by doing this we can ensure a broader understanding of the theory. By applying a broad context the learner can apply the skill in a number of situations, translating the base of the theory to be workable in an alternate scenario. Without contextualising information it becomes one dimensional to that specific instance and prevents the learner from being able to utilise the teaching to its fullest.

  • Lena Stewart

    One of the most effective ways to ground theoretical learning, and make learning more relevant, is to put the information into a practical context. Individuals are able to apply their knowledge directly to their work and their industry, and fully understand how this new knowledge or skill can be applied. It is important to keep contextualization relatively broad, however, to make sure that skills and knowledge can be transferred to new roles and other industries. This is key to both professional and personal development…the ability to learn new skills, apply them, and then move forward confidently into new situations.

  • Contextualisation is important in ensuring course material holds meaning and is relevant to each learner and their qualification. Skills and knowledge taught can often be applied to a variety of work environments but it’s contextualisation that will assist a learner in understanding how this knowledge can be directly applied to their own field of work.

  • Contextualisation of learning means incorporating peoples prior experiences into the relevant learning. This helps make the learning more concrete and by using previous experience give meaning to the new information. Incorporating the industry they work in to training can help the information be more engaging. However if you give the learner too much prior information it can also impact learning in a negative way. Giving the answer or provided too much information doesn’t help the learner to take on the new knowledge.

  • Darren Mumford

    I feel it is essential for learning to be relevant as this is how participants become engaged and inspired to fully participate. Providing contextualisation allows learners to make connections with personal experience and apply knowledge in practical tasks. I agree that this process must find a balance where we recognise specific skills relevant to the learner but maintain broader knowledge that allows participants to apply the learning in new environments, as they grow in a particular role. Carefully developed contextualisation will build upon the most relevant skills required by a learner, whilst also preparing them to apply the knowledge in new roles and demonstrate innovation.

  • Kylie Cross

    Contextualisation is what makes learning relevant, applicable and a great way to assist learners by having the information presented in a way that they feel has meaning based in their own experiences. I can understand the requirement not to be too specific but in some instances I can also see where the learning is required to be fairly narrow to the industry. In emergency services it is important that the learning is specific. The transferability of skills is more complex to cover, as the requirements of the job role require specific training.

  • traffic control course

    Contextualisation is putting language items into a meaningful and real context rather than being treated as isolated items of language for language manipulation practice only. Contextualising language tries to give real communicative value to the language that learners meet. Great to find Evolvetraining.ac.nz which has same kind of wonderful tips, if possible then visit.

  • Elizabeth Cooper

    From what I have learnt in this course, from previous courses and my own experiences, contextualisation is so important as it supports making the skills and knowledge learnt meaningful and relevant to the learner. However, we do live in a world where people move jobs quite readily and often change the industry in which they are working. So there has to be a balance in contextualising the information/skills learnt and making them transferrable to other work situatuions

  • While gaining qualifications with a broad scope of application is desirable to ensure adaptability; it is equally as important to provide training that is tailored to the individual to suit their specific needs. Contextualisation assists in providing this by offering a more custom-made approach. This in turn promotes a better understanding of content, a desire to learn & a positive drive to utilise newly learnt skills, whilst still allowing for the transference of knowledge into other arenas.

  • Kym McDonald

    Contextualisation ensures that the learner experiences relevant and suitable information that relates to their specific area, industry, role or work environment. This relevance makes the learning more engaging, and therefore, allows for a better understanding and increased interest in the learning, as it relates to them.

  • Contextualisation enhances learning and it allows the trainer to provide adequate and appropriate training to the learner. Contextualisation in all educational aspects is important as it allows people to relate the concept/idea to something relatable to the individual; therefore, allows better understanding, meaning, perspective and importance.

  • Contextualisation is an important part of industry and individual learning. It provides students the ability to comprehend the knowledge of their course by making it relevant to them, without it being too specific. If students are able to see a direct link between the skills they are learning and the work they are doing, it allows them to become more involved with the material. Contextualisation should aid them in understanding, but should not limit their ability to transfer the knowledge to a different work environment.

    • Sandy Welton

      Danae, this comment is spot-on. Contextualisation is often ignored, which is a shame because it enhances the learning. We know from Knowles’ Adult Learning Principles that adults are most receptive to learning when it has meaning for them. They wish to see how the learning applies to them and are much less likely to retain knowledge or work at developing skills whey they don’t see the relevance.

  • Eileen Rivera

    Contextualisation is an essential element of adult learning. As previously mentioned, if people know how newly acquired information can benefit them, they are more likely to retain it. It’s also true that contextualisation must be done in a manner that doesn’t limit the understanding of the underlying rationales. The principles being taught should be clear because they don’t change; contextualisation simply tailors the training delivery and relevance to fit the audience. If the core skills are ingrained correctly and the learner has a deep understanding of it, they will be equipped to apply it in a different work environment.

  • Eileen Rivera

    Contextualisation is an essential element of adult learning. As previously mentioned, if people know how newly acquired information can benefit them, they are more likely to retain it. It’s also true that contextualisation must be done in a manner that doesn’t limit the understanding of the underlying rationales. The principles being taught should be clear because they don’t change; contextualisation simply tailors the training delivery and relevance to fit the audience. If the core skills are ingrained correctly and the learner has a deep understanding of it, they will be equipped to apply it in a different work environment.

  • Jarrod Salton

    With contextualisation, the training material becomes much more relevant and meaningful to the learner. If the learner sees how the training directly aides them in their role, I feel they are much more engaged in the material and would achieve a deeper learning experience.

    Contextualisation in the adult learning environment is so important as learners want to be able to directly see how they can put what they are learning into action.

  • Jarrod Salton

    With contextualisation, the training material becomes much more relevant and meaningful to the learner. If the learner sees how the training directly aides them in their role, I feel they are much more engaged in the material and would achieve a deeper learning experience.

    Contextualisation in the adult learning environment is so important as learners want to be able to directly see how they can put what they are learning into action.

  • How would you use information from the candidate and/or workplace to identify contextualisation needs?

  • How would you use information from the candidate and/or workplace to identify contextualisation needs?

  • I think that contextualisation is important and makes the learning relevant to the audience.

    If an educator is able to contextualise the learning material, learners are able relate learning material to their prior knowledge.

  • I think that contextualisation is important and makes the learning relevant to the audience.

    If an educator is able to contextualise the learning material, learners are able relate learning material to their prior knowledge.

  • Helena Michels

    I believe that contextualisation is an important form of training. It allows the trainer to provide adequate and appropriate training to the learner.

  • Helena Michels

    I believe that contextualisation is an important form of training. It allows the trainer to provide adequate and appropriate training to the learner.

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