Apprenticeship or reflection: - how is knowledge development, as a part of a blended learning environment, affected by professional practitioners’ instruction of students?

This case-study investigates the implementation of blended learning in two undergraduate bachelor educations. The main focus is how blended learning affects the knowledge development in these educations. It is stressed, that knowledge development among students as well as in the professions are influenced by the periods of vocational training in internship in practice. The professional practitioners role as instructors of students seems to some extend to limit the students access to valuable forms of knowledge if apprenticeship is dismissed. So, the question raised in this paper, is how this causes implication for knowledge development in blended learning environments, and how it might have consequences for the development of the profession.
The research draws on a theoretical foundation of theories of practice and organizational theory of knowledge development. The methodology of the research uses a pragmatic approach of mixed method. The empirical data are derived from survey, document analysis, observation studies and focus group interviews of students, lectures, and practitioners. Data are collected in the first half year of the students’ education at a university college in Denmark in the years 2012-2013. The analysis and interpretations in this research make use of a pragmatic critical hermeneutical structure through the methodology of the tree folded mimesis as a hermeneutic arch. The interpretation is presented as narrative cases on behalf of the analysis of empirical data.
The results highlight, that different types of roles are important in the instructional affairs in practice. It is also illustrated, that the lack of acknowledging apprenticeship and thereby dismissing certain types of knowledge as e.g. tacit knowledge, will limit the knowledge development.