Glossary

Glossary of terms Lifelong Learning in Music 

Action learning
Action learning involves a group of people working together of a certain period of time, focused on the work-based issues brought by each individual to the group. Typically, the process takes the form of a reflective conversation in which the practitioner, with the support of colleagues, draws on his or her experiences to understand the situation, attempt to frame the problem, suggest action, and then to re-interpret the situation in light of the consequences of action. Action learning can however be implemented on a greater scale within the organisation, involving groups sponsored by the organisation with group advisers as well as groups initiated by employees. Source: Tavistock Report, 'Review of Current Pedagogic Research and Practice in the Fields of Post-Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning. Source: Tavistock Report, 'Review of Current Pedagogic Research and Practice in the Fields of Post-Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning. The Tavistock Institute, February 2002.  
 
Animateur
A practicing artist, in any form, who uses her/his skills, talents and personality to enable others to compose, design, devise, create, perform or engage with works of arts of any kind. An animateur in the field of music is also known as music leader.
Source: Animarts (2003) 
 
Artistry
Artistry has two meanings: 1. intuitive knowing or intuitive theories-in-action; 2. reflection-in-action on intuitive knowing (e.g. designing, interpreting). When practitioners reflect-in-action, they describe their own intuitive understanding. When a practitioner displays artistry, his intuitive knowing is always richer in information than any description of it. Source: D. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner, 1983.
 
Assessment
The sum of methods and processes used to evaluate the attainments (knowledge, know-how, skills and competences) of an individual, and typically leading to certification. Source: Commission of the European Communities: 'Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning' (Brussels, 8 July 2005).

Collaborative assessment
A sharing of the self-assessment observations and comments with colleagues, mentors, co-workers and participants involved in the project. It helps students to develop transferable interpersonal skills and may help to save staff time.
Sources: Renshaw (2005), Zielhorst (2005, based on Brown, 1999)
 
Communities of practice
Term developed by Lave and Wenger. Essentially maintains that Learning is about participation in communities of practice; becoming engaged in socially organised activities and so about membership and construction of diverse social bonds with other participants. Acquiring competences and skills is almost secondary with respect to these processes of constructing new social identities and ways of thinking. Source: Tavistock Report, 'Review of Current Pedagogic Research and Practice in the Fields of Post-Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning (The Tavistock Institute, February 2002).  
 
Community work / creative workshops in music
Creative workshops, meaning laboratory environments in participatory arts: the improvisational nature of collaborative approaches in workshops can lead to people expressing themselves creatively, encouraging a team approach to music making, instilling a sense of ownership and responsibility both in the process and in the final product. Exhange of ideas and skills among the participants becomes an integral part of the process, deepening one's understanding of, and connection with, music. This collective exploration of approaches to improvisation gives people the feedom to interact and respond intuitively to what is going on around them. Source: Gregory, S. (2005). Creativity and Conservatoires: the agenda and the issues (p.282). In G. Odam and N. Bannan (ed.), The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Guildhall School of Music & Drama/Aldershot: Ashgate.
 
Competence
Competence includes: (A) A cognitive competence involving the use of theory and concepts, as well as informal tacit knowledge gained experientially. (B) Functional competence (skills or know-how), those things that a person should be able to do when they are functioning in a given area of work, learning or social activity. (C) Personal competence involving knowing how to conduct oneself in a specific situation. (D) Ethical competence involving the possession of certain personal and professional values. Source: Commission of the European Communities: 'Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning' (Brussels, 8 July 2005).
 
Contextualised
Specifically chosen, adjusted, designed or created for one particular learning group/situation (context) alone.
 
Continuing education and training
Education or training after initial education or entry into working life, aimed at helping individuals to:
- improve or update their knowledge or skills
- acquire new skills for a career move or retraining
- continue their personal professional development
Source: Commission of the European Communities: 'Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning' (Brussels, 8 July 2005)
 
Curriculum
A set of actions followed when setting up a training course: it includes defining training goals, content, methods (including assessment) and material, as well as arrangements for training teachers and trainers. Source: Commission of the European Communities: 'Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning' (Brussels, 8 July 2005). 
 
Dialogic reflexivity
Concept developed by Giddens (1994). He argues that the proliferation of social movements and self-help groups in recent years is directly related to the growth of the information society, and reflects in a heigthened self-reflexivity. Such movements have played a major role in retrieving power from 'experts' and in the lay retrieval of expertise, and are instrumental in the growth of informal learning. Source: Tavistock Report, 'Review of Current Pedagogic Research and Practice in the Fields of Post-Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning (The Tavistock Institute, February 2002). 
 
Employability
The relevance of knowledge, skills and competencies acquired through training to what the labour market/profession requires.
 
Experiential learning (learning by doing)
Based on Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle which underscores the importance of some kind of dialectical interaction between action and reflection and has been widely used in studies of informal learning. A more refined version, dealing with some of the more simplistic elements of Kolb's model, is found in the work of Boud, Cohen and Walker (1993) whose interest similarly is in experience as the foundation of, and the stimulus for, learning. Source: Tavistock Report, 'Review of Current Pedagogic Research and Practice in the Fields of Post-Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning (The Tavistock Institute, February 2002). 
 
Explicit knowledge
Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be expressed in words and can be consciously manipulated. It can be codified: described in terms of formulae, blueprints and rules.
Sources: Hendriks, Taatgen & Andringa (1997), Animarts (2003)
ce: Boekaerts & Simons (1995)
 
Explicit learning
Explicit, or intentional, learning means that the learning aims, results, tactics and achievements are specified beforehand. The learning process is selective, demands effort and makes use of strategic thinking. In short: the pupil is explicitly aware of what he/she will be learning.
Sources: Boekaerts & Simons (1995), Hendriks, Taatgen & Andringa (1997)
 
Formal education / Formal learning
When we surrender our autonomy and join a programme and accept its internally imposed discipline, we are immersed in formal education. Formal education takes place in schools and training institutions; formal learning occurs within an organized and structured context that is explicitly designated as learning and may lead to a formal recognition (diploma, certificate). It includes the hierarchically structured chronologically graded ‘education system’: primary school through university, including general and specialist (vocational) training.
Sources: Rogers (2004), Infed (www.infed.org) 
 
Generic skills
Put simply, generic skills are those that apply across a variety of jobs and life contexts. They include metacognition and metacognitive skills.
There is no definite list of generic skills since institutions and organisations each use their own listings. However, some common elements are visible: basic/fundamental skills (e.g. literacy, using numbers, using technology), people-related skills (communication, interpersonal skills, teamwork), conceptual/thinking skills (collecting and organising information, problem-solving, planning, organising, thinking innovatively, thinking creatively), personal skills and attributes (responsibility, resourcefulness, flexibility, time management), skills related to the business world (innovation, enterprise skills), and skills related to the community: civic or citizenship knowledge and skills.
Generic skills are also known by several other names including key skills, core skills, essential skills, key competencies, necessary skills, transferable skills, employability skills, life skills.
Source: NCVER (www.ncver.edu.au)
 
Globalization
The social, political and financial impact of the growth of trans-national economic and social entities on a global scale. 
 
Identity (professional)
Self identity is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her of his biography (Giddens: 'Modernity and Self-Identity' 1991). Mills (2006) addresses the professional identity of musicians. She speaks of a 'career identity' which she defines as a 'subjective identity', because the actual professional identity as felt by the musicians she interviewed did not match with the musician's use of their time or their soruce of income (the objective career). In this way the subjective career an be perceived as a career in terms of the musician's aspirations and thus the musician's professional identity. Mills calls musicians with a portfolio career encompassing performance and teaching 'performers-teachers', which she perceives as performers for whom instrumental teaching is integral to their professional identity. In researching professional identity and career Mills (2004 a) devises sensitivity, authenticity, recognisability, differentiation and extensibility (being able to be used for other groups). Sources: Mills, J. (2004). Working in music: becoming a performer-teacher. Music Education Research, Vol. 6, nr. 2. Mills, J. & Smith, J. (2006). Working in Music: Becoming Successful. In Gembris, H. (ed.) Musical Development from a Lifespan Perspective.
 
Implicit knowledge
Implicit, or tacit, knowledge is knowledge that can be applied in relevant situations but is intuitive and highly unconscious in nature, and cannot easily be expressed in words. It depends on intuition, values, ethos and motivation, and it is not easy to define or benchmark.
Compared to explicit knowledge, implicit knowledge is more intangible, less observable, more complex and more difficult to detach from the person who created it or from the context in which it is located.
Sources: Hendriks, Taatgen & Andringa (1997), Animarts (2003)
 
Implicit learning
Implicit, or incidental, learning is based on a passive and non-selective way of processing and storing information (in memory). Implicit learning results in intuitive knowledge that cannot easily be put in words. Implicit learning covers all forms of unintentional learning in which, as a consequence of repeated experience, an individual’s behaviour becomes adapted to the relevant characteristics of the situation without at any time being told to learn anything about this situation. In short, complex knowledge and skills are learned without the learning being explicitly aware of doing so. An example of implicit learning is the way children learn their mother tongue.
Sources: Hendriks, Taatgen & Andringa (1997), Vinter & Detable (2003)
 
Incidental learning
See: implicit learning. 
 
Inclusion (social)
Giving people the opportunity to access all that society offers, it is about helping people live fulfilling lives and to feel part of the community. 
 
Informal education / Informal learning
Informal education is the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources from his or her environment: family and neighbours, work and play, library and mass media. Informal learning may be both conscious and unconscious, and includes learning through interaction with others (peers, family, etc.) who are not acting as teachers in formal capacities. Informal learning contains unplanned learning activities and planned learning activities, but not formally recognised within the settings of education and training systems.
Sources: Infed (www.infed.org), Bjornavold (2002), Green (2002)
 
Intentional learning
See: explicit learning
 
Internationalization
Promotion of individuals, groups or products outside of the native country: emphasis on such promotion.
 
Knowledge
The facts, feelings or experiences known by a person or a group of people. Source: Commission of the European Communities: 'Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning' (Brussels, 8 July 2005)
 
Learning
Learning is a cumulative process where individuals gradually assimilate increasingly complex and abstract entities (concepts, categories and patterns of behaviour or models) and/or acquire skills and wider competences. This process takes place informally, for example through leisure activities and in informal learning settings which include the workplace. Source: Commission of the European Communities: 'Towards a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning' (Brussels, 8 July 2005). 
 
Legitimate peripheral participation
Term used by Lave and Wenger that transforms notions of 'learning by doing' and apprenticeship into a general theoretical perspective or what they call a new 'analytical viewpoint on learning' which they term legitimate peripheral participation. This generative social practice is the process by which a beginner, novice or 'newcomer' becomes an expert or 'old timer'. Source: Tavistock Report, 'Review of Current Pedagogic Research and Practice in the Fields of Post-Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning (The Tavistock Institute, February 2002). 
 
Lifelong Learning
The combination of processes throughout a lifetime whereby the whole person - body (genetic, physical and biological) and mind (knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, emotions, beliefs and senses) – experiences social situations, the perceived content of which is then transformed cognitively, emotively or practically (or through any combination) and integrated into the individual person’s biography resulting in a continually changing (or more experienced) person Source: P. Jarvis (2006), Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Human Learning.