Wrap Up
NCVER Conference wrap up
Rating 4/5 for quality of speakers, 5/5 for organisation especially with juggling the program thanks to fog making so many people late on the first day.
Ideas to followup yet to be determined.
Mary Cusnahan
Mary Cusnahan
Moving beyond the Mayer Key Competencies
Based in Broadmeadows – challenged cohort, early school leavers, non-attenders, non-achievers, generational unemployment. Teaches cabinetry at Kangan Batman, apprentices and pre-apprenticeship programs, VCAL learners. Lower value trade as it is not a registered/ licenced trade. As such, cohort’s completion rate at school are declining, in competition with other trades. Starting to get more 15-16 year old with lower completion levels. Teachers were grumbling more, we’ll try but …
Mary was shocked by that as learners were taking the brave step of giving formal education another go. So we then have a responsibility to make that second chance work. Needed an acknowledgement that This Is Our Cohort. Looked at linking VCAL program to cabinet making. Got a group of 12 students together. Goal was for them to be in a better position to make informed choices about what to do next, and for them to get a piece of paper (meaningful). Set it up as a business model, had a structure with people acting in positions, Understanding that learning doesn’t have to be chalk and talk. Had business meetings, real customers, production schedules etc. Wanted to build learner’s self-esteem. Teachers were working on the shop floor, foreman was one of the learners. If foreman can’t sort it out, then foreman goes to the teacher for support. Maths etc built in to the program daily work – not separated out, eg time and motion studies, quality control, cost of materials and consumables eg sandpaper @ $1-2 a sheet. Work Placement component to VCAL/ pre apprenticeship programs: learner are coming back and telling what the workplaces are doing wrong 
So they truly know this stuff.
Masters research to look at what was actually happening. Could see employability skills / Mayer key competencies simply weren’t being talked about by practitioners. A lot of the literature was saying that the key competencies weren’t clear, nor was there systematic PD in the key competencies. Did interviews with teachers (good, keen, commited ones) and some simply didn’t know what they were or didn’t focus on them or thought they weren’t qualified to teach ‘this stuff’. This included teachers who had recently gone through the Cert IV on TAA. Even the Cert IV TAA teachers were even a bit sketchy in their knowledge of and teaching of the Mayer key competencies.
Believes there should be a national approach to PD about employability skills, they should be something that underpin units, rather than an add-on.
Also suggests that there should be continuing professional development to validate/ maintain currency in Cert IV in TAA.
Also to get work placement spots, we offers to send prevoc stdents out to workplace when apprentices come in to TAFE
Questionnaires for AQTF2007
AQTF 2007 Quality Indicatros Resource Package
ACER – Larry Foster
ACER were involved in the development of the quality indicators for AQTF2007 standards to support the outcomes focus.
It’s interesting sitting here listening to the development process being described (methinks) in too much detail, especially after the suggestion by Rob Simons from The Smith Family that educational research needs to be about tools not papers! I would also suggest that when an abstract states the talk will be about ways of using the tools, you should do so pretty promptly. We’re now nearly half way through the time. Impatience is a core feeling right at this minute. Maybe I needed a nice cup of tea?
Survey developed will be mandatory use. Part of this consideration includes the need for administration of the tool being cheaper (time, energy, expnse) than the myriad of current processes scattered across training providers.
Ok- he must have heard my typed complaints! 35 mins in we get the hear details about tools.
Linked paper, phone, CD and online formats.
Employer questionnaires 20 items, 5 Mins completion time
Learner Questionnaires 30-40 questions, 5-10 mins completion. Includes demographic and context questions.
Where paper based, data entry will be direct into data system that others go into.
Don’t people think about font size on ppts???? Especially on the examples of questions which is what we’re here for?
Deep breath in, slow breath out…
How will it be administered? Eg per year/ per unit/ for all employees/ per employee? From Larry’s response the choice will be down to the RTO how often it will be done. Not yet specified by DEWA if such specifications will be made.
Tool will be available from August for further consultation from which point RTOs can test and consult and adapt. Full pacakge will include questionnaires, collection software, technical support, code of practice, various resources for RTOs to administer and make use of the quality indicator data. This will be available from August on http://www.training.com.au Roadshow from October.
The Smith Family Keynote
Rob Simons – The Smith Family (http://www.thesmithfamily.com.au)
“Education and Training for social inclusion”
The ‘other’ Australia – lower rates of training and workforce participation in groups such as indigenous, early shool leavers, sole parent families, non-english speaking backgrounds. Aus has poor rate of converting sole parents to working parents.
Argument should be shifted in short term from labour demand from labour supply – increasing participation.
Long term – early childhood education, transform education and training systems, integrated approach to primary, secondary and tertiary.
Brain Caldwell – transformational leadership for education. Change that is significant, substantial and sustainable.
Too many learners only achieve minimum standards. Within the education systems the gaps in achievement actually widen between the advantaged and dis-advantaged students. They start apart and the gap gets wider.
Too fews people are work readý – check article by Heather Ridout in last weekend’s Australian – must hunt it out before it goes in the recycling
Needs of individuals, society
Facilitating transformation through the translation of education research into classroom practice.
Historically research has pointed out problems, done pilots that donzt tend to go anywhere.
Greatest opps for improving educational outcomes reside in teaching and learning processes. The system is constraining teacher practice, including innovation in use of flexible approaches and use of technology.
Proposes education research should be about creating tools and processes for use by teachers, not publication of scholarly papers – hear! hear!
The Smith Family (TSF) – both programs (what we do) and models (how we work in communities) across early years to lifelong learning. One key area looked at was the school to work transition. Surprisingly tafe and vet students had poor matches between educational plans and career requirements. More work in career planning needed.
2003 Barriers to Participation – digital, financial and comprehension literacies
Designing programs and strategies – need demonstraion of effective innovation.
Dr Amanda Torr
Dr Amanda Torr
Professional competence – a case study of NZ Pharmacy
A set of competency based assessment against standards for initial registration in mid 90s. Govt brought in legislation that required assurance of ongoing competence across all health professions. Context of ongoing competence assurance you are assuming they are current so needed a different process from initial registration standards. Need to account for the expert or master level of competence. Competency is more than the sum of it’s parts = metacompetency (slide5) Proposed five domains of competence:
- cognitive
- technical
- legal/ ethical
- organisational
- intra/interpersonal
(great diagrams of layering/overlap)
Strengths in one domain leads to specialsation, whereas those with strength across all leads to ‘experts’.
Developed series of statements that would be able to differentiate between not yet competent, competent and expert pharmarcists. This was developed into self-assessment tool. Also from testing found seven factors that discriminated between different levels of performance.
It would be interesting to talk with DELTA about these factors in relation to teachers undertaking qualifications.
CPD – take it further than developing knowledge, to integrate developing self also.
Q&A
What do the pharmacists think? They like it, moves away from pharmacology etc, like the idea of developing other parts of their behavior as well. It validates the importance of all domains.