I attended a session today about ways we engage with industry. Given this is currently a hot topic in VET (especially TAFEs) it seemed a well-timed discussion to have! I took some notes throughout the session and wanted to share them here…it’s left me with lots of questions as well as fueled some ideas.

Teacher engagement and professional development
One IT teacher noted that industry engagement connected teachers in effect to a ‘return to industry,’ informally speaking. Others added that it meant being highly flexible and showing a high degree of emotional intelligence. My question: what does this say about how we continue to professionally develop teachers both as industry professionals and as teachers?

Negotiating pathways for learning and assessment with and for the organisation or business is highly important. The recognition process is very much a part of this too. It means needing to define and then set up plans for students to be able to effectively collect evidence. My question: how often to we validate assessment processes (including evidence collecting) against industry expectations? What might this mean for flexible and holistic methods and strategies for assessment?

In addition, teachers in community development noted the need for holistic and flexible assessment approaches. The workplace is a powerful environment in which students engage. For example, community development students are likely to be immediately exposed to a complex array of client issues. Using flexible learning approaches to build on sociocultural elements (including social constructivist learning approaches) enables students to delve into ’self.’ Forming an identity for work and a profession is, for many, life changing. Teachers must be aware of the inherent work-self balance that students will encounter, and support this accordingly. My question: how do we continue to support and contain students’ learning in such a way so that students feel safe (i.e. safe to explore, push boundaries, experiment, develop experience)? What are we looking for in our teachers and in the workplace to help provide this supportive environment?

With many of the industry or partnership courses discussed, certainly a more holistic presentation and pathway to qualifications is expected. These provisions also need managerial support (both on the job and also within the training institute). One teacher said that in this type of environment experiential learning not teaching is the most effective approach – the teacher is a facilitator. Also, transformative learning approaches seem more overt, and the transference of learning is likely more immediate. Another teacher added that being able to team teach is a worthwhile approach, and helps develop your holistic model further. My question: how does our development of curricula provide the necessary frameworks to support not only holistic delivery of courses and subjects but also the fluid preparation for (and transition to) workplace delivery, engagement and assessment?

Getting started with an industry partnership
Also arising from the discussions were the following points about how these areas and teachers got into industry partnerships in the first place. These points outline some of the challenges and negotiations raised, and could well provide some ideas for starting out in developing industry partnerships:

• established partnership via existing (business, local and professional connections.
• opportunity to formalise any existing training in businesses.
• all levels of the business can get involved (great for ongoing marketing and provision of training).
• common qualifications like OHS can be achieved using the partnership approach – a good first ‘in’.
• ’slick’ packaging of courses and customising content and approaches for the organisation is required to present the ‘business of training’ and as suits the business environment.
• teachers as ‘case managers’ – the classroom model does not compute in the workplace!
• teachers are involved based on careful selection – emotional intelligence a highly regarded skill for these teachers.
• challenges faced in realigning teachers hours in an existing rigid (TAFE) framework.
• community events ideal first try with industry/community – good marketing position (on the ground) and can grow into other opportunities.

Challenges and, …exactly what IS work-based learning?
Some lingering points as the session wrapped up included the need to have some sort of control over part of the environment to help manage learning expectations. This reminded me of a chapter I’d read by Nicki Solomon about workplace learning and the notion of the worker/learner (see chapter 5: ‘Writing portfolios in work-based learning programs’, in Reconstructing the lifelong learner by Chappell et al., 2003). Solomon contends that the ‘worker/learner’ is in an ideal position to write their own curriculum where containers such as portfolios can “enable them to reconstitute their work knowledge, experiences and practices as learning” (p.78). The workplace itself is thus ‘primed’ as a learning site, so it’s not simply a workplace, it’s reconstituted as a site for learning, and in partnership, is validated as such by the educational institution. Further on, Solomon (2003, p. 78-9) says this about legitimising the workplace and work as learning:

While on the one hand the pedagogical practices acknowledge that work is a learning experience, on the other hand, they also reveal that it is only by reconstituting it as a learning experience in institutional terms that it can be counted. This is one of the ways the university legitimises work and work practices as a source of knowledge that qualifies for a degree.

……your thoughts?

So, I’m reflecting on how we can contain such learning sites in ways safe for students to explore, yet maintain such a space so that learning manifests creatively and dynamically (given learners are often contending the space as workers as well as learners).

Other points that lingered were about the learner-at-centre of these experiences with industry to date.

• students can be involved in planning.
• students often develop relationships amongst themselves and with employees (i.e. networking).
• helps students to dynamically engage with the world around them.
• students can’t help but learn appropriate communication sills.
• students need to negotiate ways to manage their work environments.

Overall a valuable 1 hour conversation! I hope there’s a chance to extend this discussion and to keep thinking about the (increasing) role industry plays in VET and the implications this holds for a future of learning.

References

Solomon, N. 2003. Writing portfolios in work-based learning programs: textually producing one-self. In C. Chappell, C. Rhodes, N. Solomon, M. Tennant and L. Yates (eds). Reconstructing the lifelong learner: Pedagogy and identity in individual, organisational and social change. London: Routledge. pp. 75-87.

technorati tags:workflows, work-based_learning, industry_engagement, worker-learner, portfolios, experiential_learning, workplace

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