New DOTS: Career Learning for the Contemporary …

1 Briefing New DOTS: Career Learning for the Contemporary World The DOTS analysis is a tool for reviewing and sharpening Learning aims for careers education and guidance: decision Learning (D);. opportunity awareness (O);. transition Learning (T);. self awareness (S). It remains viable and influential. But it now needs to be extended to take account of on-going change and parallel developments in Career theory. The National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling is a network organisation initiated and supported by CRAC.

2 This Briefing summarises new NICEC evidence-based It conducts applied research and development work related to guidance in educational institutions and in work and community theory, characterised as New DOTS. It sets out: settings. Its aim is to develop theory, inform policy and enhance practice through staff development, organisation development, how the DOTS analysis can be extended by curriculum development, consultancy and research. mapping, not only what people learn, but how and why they learn.

3 Learning processes essential to Learning -to-learn for life-long use;. The Careers Research and Advisory Centre is a registered educational charity and independent development agency Career Learning for a changing range of work roles;. founded in 1964. Its education and training programmes, how New DOTS can be used as an improved tool for publications and sponsored projects provide links between the worlds of education and employment. CRAC has designing and developing effective programmes. sponsored NICEC since 1975.

4 The Briefing is written by Bill Law, Senior Fellow of Sheraton House, Castle Park, Cambridge CB3 0AX. Tel: 01223-460277 Fax: 01223-311708 NICEC. Its publication has been funded by the Essex E-mail: Careers and Business Partnership. NEW DOTS: Career Learning FOR THE Contemporary WORLD. CAREERS WORK IN A CHANGING WORLD. Contemporary Career management must take account of global But both the information and the categories change: new patterns economic and technological change. But what people do about of working life are constantly being formed, and some of the change is begun in families and neigbourhoods, among emerging forms are too fluid for ready-made systems of acquaintances, and on the basis of changing values and media categorisation.

5 Furthermore, the whole process of thought is images. infused with feelings, often with their origins in early life, and . just as often expressed in peer and other social attachments. The dynamics are therefore changing both globally and locally. Government proposals for both Connexions and for Education This is not an argument for abandoning the systematic ordering for Citizenship acknowledge this, suggesting that: of thought; it is an argument for extending it. New DOTS does so, with ideas about Career as narrative as a story.

6 We must take account not only of the changing labour economy but of the strong and sometimes conflicting Stories are useful for thinking about Career , because they: pressures in a person's early life, and the feelings and set action in a social context;. social attachments which they engender. show the interdependence between roles;. We must see the learner in a social world, and set decisions and problems in that broader context, pointing point to the different roles that any person occupies;. in particular to the importance of values and identify the back-and-forth of influence between people.

7 Responsibilities. take account of point-of-view;. This has important implications for the future of careers infuse action and events with feelings;. education and guidance. explain past causes of present action ;. Late-20th-century careers education and guidance has been anticipate how present action leads to future effects. dominated by the ideas listed below on the left. The ideas on the Most importantly, they: right represent a broader and deeper understanding of how Career development occurs, and the help that needs to be offered.

8 Portray Learning acquired over time, early Learning preparing the ground for developed Learning . Stories frame, albeit in varying order, the questions we all ask of neutral information critical understanding Career : where? what? when? who? how? why? key transitions progressive Learning They can be told in shorter episodes or longer histories. They can also be told on a scale covering global and national events as formally contracted work breadth of working life well as local and personal ones. skills feelings The questions move from seeking information to seeking the kind of understanding which can explain past actions and individual choice social participation anticipate the effects of future actions.

9 The stages by which this occurs are set out in Career - Learning theory, and it is this which information about how things are accounts of how things change gives DOTS its new dimension. The consequences of all this for careers education and guidance are far-reaching. But that term is not broad enough nor inclusive The economy is reducing demand for muscle and increasing the enough to represent what we now need to do. This Briefing demand for thought. Education and training is, therefore, therefore uses the term careers work.

10 Increasingly aimed at improving our ability to think at work. But people need also to think about work, and this is what careers education and guidance is for. In this process, being able to link lists of opportunities to lists of skills and interests have been seen as important bases for choice. DOTS is good at categorising such lists. NEW DOTS: Career Learning FOR THE Contemporary WORLD. Career Learning . A Career move needs to be sustainable. Career - Learning theory class, race, gender, age and familiarity.