IPDA Hong Kong hosts webinar re-imagining learning in complex times

This webinar took place on Wednesday 26 May 2021 and presented the opportunity to:

• Meet colleagues from across sectors and geographical contexts with a shared interest in professional learning;
• Hear some stimulating ideas, possibilities, and challenges for re-imagining professional learning;
• Network and share perspectives with other colleagues interested in professional learning;
• Synthesise and add to the themes, ideas, and questions from the 2020 webinars; and
• Explore possibilities for future learning, networking, and sharing through IPDA and beyond.

Throughout 2020, IPDA Hong Kong led a series of webinars exploring themes related to professional learning across disciplines and sectors, and facilitated networking and collaboration between those who joined who share an interest in professional learning. The themes, ideas, and questions that arose from these webinars centered around the possibilities for reimagining what professional learning looks like, and the impact it could have across professions.

How professional learning is understood varies across professions, sectors, disciplines and geographical contexts. ‘Lifelong learning’, often used as an umbrella term for learning that takes place beyond compulsory education, and often encompassing ‘adult education’, and ‘continuous professional learning’ have long featured as being central to modern, and successful economies and societies (OECD, 2001). This has become even more important during times of health emergency and disruption.

From this, it has become even more important for professionals across sectors, fields, and disciplines to respond creatively, and exercise agility and adaptability. Central to this is both the professional and organisational capacity for learning. Reflecting on this, and the series of IPDA Hong Kong webinars in 2020, questions remain around the role of learning and education more broadly in enabling professionals, and communities to understand, navigate, and act within these increasingly complex contexts. In addition, questions arise around the forms, purposes, and possibilities of learning across sectors and professions.

Driving Questions

The questions driving the discussion and presentations in the webinar are:

• What is professional learning?
• How is learning understood across sectors, professions, disciplines, and geographical contexts?
• What is the purpose(s) of professional learning in our contemporary context?
• What are the drivers behind various forms of learning in societies?
• What influences effective professional learning?
• How do broader concerns of access, equity, power, internationalisation, and globalization influence our understanding and realisation of learning in all its forms?
• What sets the context for effective professional learning?
• What are the necessary conditions for such learning to be possible?

Panellists

Starting of the discussion will be presentations from a panel of experts from across Asia exploring some key thinking around professional learning in a range of contexts:

Programme

• 4:00-4:10pm (HK): Introduction and Welcome from IPDA Hong Kong with Paul Campbell (Chair, IPDA Hong Kong) and Mark Polsum (Vice Chair, IPDA Hong Kong)
• 4:10-4:50pm (HK): Panel Presentations (3 individuals representing policy, practice, and research from across Asia exploring the them ‘Re-imagining learning in complex times: possibilities for Hong Kong, South East Asia, and beyond’) (TBC)
• 4:40-5:10pm (HK): Breakout Discussions (facilitated by the IPDA HK Committee)
• 5:10-5:25pm (HK): Feedback (Facilitated by Paul Campbell)
• 5:25-5:30pm (HK): Plenary and Future Engagement with IPDA Hong Kong (Mark Polsum)