Professional learning is widely treated as a problem of content (i.e. information) delivery. It's commonly built on an individualised theory of learning, where content is transferred from an "expert" to a "learner", in one format or another. The content is not always understood and used in practice by the learner as intended, and engagement can remain below par. When performance varies, it's usual to look for differences in ability, mindset, or motivation. When people struggle, more content is given, more training, more feedback - it becomes very easy to blame the learner, and the assumption is that improvement depends on fixing or enhancing them.
Instead of focusing on individual deficits, I believe it's much more useful to question how we can create environments that foster growth. Rather than running the risk of potentially isolating colleagues, we need to bring them into the fold. This is because professional learning is not primarily about acquiring information. It's about becoming a particular kind of practitioner within a particular form of practice. Professionals are formed through participation — through the work they are invited into, the practices they rehearse, the communities that recognise them, and the shared understandings of what counts as legitimate contribution.
Organisations transform when patterns of participation change, and participation changes when identities shift. This reframes the problem of professional development. So, the question shifts from:
“What content should we deliver?”
To:
“What forms of participation are we designing?”
We can say that professional learning and identity unfolds within "communities of practice". They determine what expertise looks like, what is valued, and who is becoming what. I seek to improve engagement and capability, so I look to build participation within communities of practice deliberately. This involves:
* Building pathways toward mastery, from peripheral to legitimate participation
* Making expertise visible and socially distributed
* Nurturing the conditions for growth within organisational frameworks
Professional learning, in this view, is not about leaving some behind and accelerating others. It's about structuring environments where people engage in meaningful co-participation. Co-participation that benefits all involved and the organisation alike.
This is not an argument against formal learning. It's an argument that learning is situated, relational, and identity-forming. This is not a minor refinement. It is a shift to collective design — from content delivery to the architecture of becoming at work.
Below is my "Identity-In-Practice Framework" that illustrates how my approach unfolds in practice:
The Identity-In-Practice Framework