Writing for Professional Development

In their edited volume Writing for Professional Development, Giulia Ortoleva, Mireille Bétrancourt and Stephen Billett provide a range of contributions in which empirical research, instructional models and educational practice are used to explore and illuminate how the task and process of writing can be used as tools for professional development.

Throughout the volume, two main perspectives are considered: learning to write professionally and writing to learn the profession, both for initial occupational preparation and ongoing development within them. The contributions consider a range of fields of professional practice, across sectors of education, starting from the premises that the role of writing as evolved in all occupational domains, becoming a key activity in most workplaces.

Contributors are: Cecile M. Badenhorst, Elena Boldrini, Esther Breuer, Inês Cardoso, Alberto Cattaneo, Peter Czigler, Jessica Dehler, Pauline Glover, Terri Grant, Jean-Luc Gurtner, Jacqueline Hesson, Ashgar Iran-Nejad, Rhonda Joy, Ann Kelly, Merja Kurunsaari, Xumei Li, Laetitia Mauroux, Heather McLeod, Elisa Motta, Astrid Neumann, Julian Newman, Sigrid Newman, Sharon Penney, Luísa Alvares Pereira, Sarah Pickett, Iris Susana Pires Pereira, Anna Perréard Vité, Arja Piirainen, Elisa Redondi, Sabine Vanhulle, Ray Smith, Kirk P. H. Sullivan, Linda Sweet, Païvi Tynjälä, Dorothy Vaandering, Rebecca Woodard, and Gabrielle Young.

Giulia Ortoleva, Ph.D. (2015), University of Geneva, is a research assistant in the field of educational technologies in that university. Her thesis, as well as the articles she published, analyse the role of writing as a tool to support professional development in the vocational education context.

Mireille Bétrancourt, Ph.D. (1996), French Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, is full Professor at the school of Psychology and educational sciences, University of Geneva. Her research investigates how people learn with technology and how to design user-friendly and cognitively relevant learning environments.

Stephen Billett, PH. D (1996) Griffith University, is a full Professor of Adult and Vocational Education at Griffith University, Australia. Since 1992, he has researched learning through and for work and has published widely in fields of learning of occupations, workplace learning, work and conceptual accounts of learning for occupational purposes.