Exploring Practical Knowledge investigates professional practices from a hermeneutic perspective. The book presents, discusses and applies notions such as practical knowledge, practical wisdom, tacit knowledge, and normativity to the professional lifeworld. These contributions focus on both specific practices and more general questions concerning theories and investigations of practice. This volume comes as the result of a cooperation of three research centres: The two Centres for Practical Knowledge in Bodø, Norway and in Södertörn, Sweden, as well as the Research Group Value-Oriented Professionalisation at the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It offers empirical studies of professionals as well as discussing the underlying theories, approaches and methods of exploring practical knowledge – including the limits to any articulation of these aspects of professional action. In contrast to the objectivist paradigm that otherwise dominates professional studies, each chapter presents central perspectives and possibilities drawing from humanistic and interdisciplinary research traditions. The book explores professions in a style accessible to scholars and practitioners alike. It is interesting for those studying practices within these professions and for vocational studies in education, social work, health care, police work, journalism, etc.

Drawing from the discourse of practice-oriented teacher education, this book investigates the state of pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge in mainland China, providing insights into the reform of initial teacher education programmes for teacher educators. Conducting empirical studies at a university in Beijing, involving 400 pre-service teachers, the author investigates factors influencing pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge. Five innovative methodologies, namely concept mapping, visual metaphors, video analysis, epistemic network analysis, and formative interventions are employed to make pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge visible, helping to increase our theoretical understanding of practical knowledge and proposing practical guidelines for the reorganisation of initial teacher education. While the study is grounded in mainland China, the methodological thinking and theoretical discussions can inspire international scholars and teacher educators, and therefore contribute to the global reform of teacher education.

In Practical Knowledge in Teacher Education, expert contributors from across Asia and Europe explore and reflect upon the innovation and creativity in teacher education programs. Specific focus is given to the internships that provide students an opportunity for intensive, hands-on experience in schools. Different approaches to internship provide comprehensive information on a diversity of ways of organising and managing internship programmes within teacher education courses, and equip future teachers with real-world knowledge within a global context. This book focuses on approaches to internship in teacher education programmes in Europe and Asia. It explores the idea that a consideration of the rich variation in approaches and experience across Eurasia will foreground critical aspects of successful internship. Each chapter provides a different focus from Asian and European perspectives on aspects of the teacher education practicum or internship, and what can be learned from school placement. This book is an invaluable resource for all those involved in teacher education, educational policy and anyone who has a stake in ensuring effective teacher education for the 21st century. It offers a far reaching overview of the teacher internship phase across a number of countries, and contributes to identifying distinctive features of teacher education in European and Asian universities.

This book examines the relationship between cultural difference and practical knowledge and its implications for the study of humanities and the social sciences. It sketches a meta-theory of Western thought to grasp the conceptual distortions that result when a normatively structured theoretical way of understanding the world seeks to displace practical forms of understanding. The book draws on both Western thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Wittgenstein and Foucault and Indian thinkers such as Gandhi, Tagore and Balagangadhara to formulate a practical epistemology that delimits theoretical knowledge by regenerating experiential knowledge that was the hallmark of Indian intellectual traditions and provides the intellectual resources for rejecting normativity. By thus preparing the ground for a radical reconceptualization of the human sciences it seeks to overcome the loss of concepts and the violence generated by the grafting of ill–understood and experience-occluding normative conceptual structures on the fabric of practical life. Finally, the author offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality through the idea of a practitional matrix, which explains both why the West necessarily misunderstood or misdescribed India and how that misdescription enables us to theorize the West. Part of Critical Humanities across Cultures series, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, Indian studies and literature.

Practical Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) is a guide written by and for knowledge and information management practitioners. As well as offering an introduction to the field, it provides advice and expertise that can be applied to real-life workplace situations. It offers an antidote to hype and best practice you can actually use. Content covered includes: - introducing KIM to organizations - information management and governance - communities of practice, knowledge sharing and learning - knowledge bases, know-how and wikis - after-action reviews, project learning and legacy This book will be useful for existing knowledge and information practitioners as well as information professionals increasing their skills in the area. It offers insight for experienced professionals and a good introduction to students and professionals wanting to increase their knowledge.

Architect/designer Fumio Kajiwara and pattern language expert Takashi Iba bring to life 32 patterns crucial to creating and managing innovative projects. "Project Design Patterns" is a unique guide for producers, project managers, entrepreneurs, and anyone involved in managing complex projects. This book is a compilation of project design knowledge based on Fumio Kajiwara (architect/designer/chairman of UDS Ltd.) and his years of experience leading various renowned spatial design projects in Asia. His know-hows are outlined by Takashi Iba (Professor at Keio University) using the "pattern language" method, a way of organizing/sharing practical knowledge. This book is the first case in which the pattern language method, originally invented by architect Christopher Alexander, is used in the context of project design. Through this collaboration, "Project Design Patterns" provides approachable but profound hints that help demystify the difficulty of carrying out innovative projects.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the up-to-date, practical knowledge in highway engineering. It highlights the latest industry standards and policies, such as the best-value award algorithms in the selection of design-builders, the urban logistics guidelines for the efficiency of goods distribution, and the adoption of a uniform increased service load based on vehicle characteristics. The book explores also recent design and construction methods, such as building information modeling, the use of 3D printing, the performance evaluation of road pavements, and the risk matrices as environmental management tools. The latest techniques for traffic evaluation and road safety are also presented, such as the evaluation of loopholes, the optimization of fast lanes and lane-keeping systems, and the use of machine learning algorithms. This book helps readers maximize the effectiveness of different aspects of highway engineering. This professional book as a credible source and a valuable reference can be very applicable and useful for all professors, researchers, engineers, practicing professionals, trainee practitioners, students, and others interested in highway projects.

By developing an account of practical knowledge that situates Kant's ethics within his broader epistemology and rethinks numerous topics in his moral psychology and in his account of practical reason, this book promises to deepen and to reshape our understanding of Kantian ethics.

The International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning discusses what constitutes professionalism, examines the concepts and practices of professional and practice-based learning, including associated research traditions and educational provisions. It also explores professional learning in institutions of higher and vocational education as well the practice settings where professionals work and learn, focusing on both initial and ongoing development and how that learning is assessed. The Handbook features research from expert contributors in education, studies of the professions, and accounts of research methodologies from a range of informing disciplines. It is organized in two parts. The first part sets out conceptions of professionalism at work, how professions, work and learning can be understood, and examines the kinds of institutional practices organized for developing occupational capacities. The second part focuses on procedural issues associated with learning for and through professional practice, and how assessment of professional capacities might progress. The key premise of this Handbook is that during both initial and ongoing professional development, individual learning processes are influenced and shaped through their professional environment and practices. Moreover, in turn, the practice and processes of learning through practice are shaped by their development, all of which are required to be understood through a range of research orientations, methods and findings. This Handbook will appeal to academics working in fields of professional practice, including those who are concerned about developing these capacities in their students. In addition, students and research students will also find this Handbook a key reference resource to the field.

This book takes an in-depth look at how education and psychology relate to each other, and at the current state of this relationship. Through comprehensive analysis of the ideological, historical, social and professional contexts of this interaction, the author develops the theme that, despite basic differences in aims, the fields are interconnected.