Tag Archives: trades

How can vocational teachers from Vietnam improve their teaching practice?

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One of the ways is to come to New Zealand…! Yesterday I was very lucky to spend some time with a group of vocational teachers from Hanoi in Vietnam.

They are in New Zealand for a three-month study tour with Massey University in Auckland learning how to improve their teaching practice.

We spent the afternoon talking about some of the work we’ve done here in Aotearoa New Zealand working with vocational teachers, trades tutors and others working in foundation learning.

This included discussion about some of the similarities and differences between vocational teaching here and in Vietnam (there are lots of similarities).

We also talked about:

  • How the work is structured including relevant government agencies such as the NZQA and TEC.
  • Approaches and concepts from Te Ao Māori that we use including whanaungatanga, ako and tuakana-teina.
  • Professional development needs covering adult literacy and numeracy in the context of trades and vocational training.
  • Ways to continue to encourage tutors and other practitioners to keep learning and improving such as via frameworks of professional standards.

It was a great afternoon and I enjoyed meeting the group. Thank you Laura for organising. All the best to everyone for the rest of your time in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Talking about NZ’s embedded literacy and numeracy approach with Indonesian vocational teachers at AUT

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Recently, I had the tremendous privilege and pleasure of spending a day at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) talking about literacy and numeracy with a group of vocational teachers and tutors from Indonesia.

The group was large. The image above shows half of the team and I need to paste in a second photo below so you can see the other half. Here we go…

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My sincere thanks to Dr Adrian Schoone at AUT for inviting me to join these teachers for a day in their busy schedule. Adrian also deserves credit for the two photos above.

These vocational teachers and other support staff were here on a two-week study tour in October looking at how we teach trades and vocational education in Aotearoa New Zealand.

And as part of our introductions and whakawhanaungatana (getting to know each other), I asked them all to place themselves on a giant map I had projected on the wall.

As you can see below, they came from all over Indonesia – from the West to the East.

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For my part, it was a brief and hopefully fun introduction to literacy, numeracy and the embedded approach that we’ve developed here over the last 10 years.

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We had a play with some of the online tools that we have in New Zealand for literacy and numeracy as well. Luckily, AUT had a computer lab big enough to house us all for an hour or so.

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My students for the day were friendly, engaged and worked hard to transcend some of the language barriers between us.

One of the most interesting things for me was realising how integral approaches from Te Ao Māori are now to any discussion I want to have about this work.

Concepts like ako and tuakana-teina seemed to really resonate with the group and their own cultures.

In fact, some had questions about how they could incorporate aspects of their own indigenous ways of knowing and being into their teaching practice.

Just on that note, according to Wikipedia:

  • there are over 300 ethnic groups speaking more than 700 living languages across the vast Indonesian archipelago.

So these weren’t questions I felt could readily answer, but hopefully, they will open a door to further positive discussion back home.

This, in turn, should feed into the work these excellent teachers are doing to invigorate and reinvigorate vocational education in Indonesia.

Overall, it was an excellent day,  I loved spending time with this group and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

To my new friends and colleagues:

  • Assalam ‘alaikum. I wish you all the best with your work in Indonesia and hope our paths cross again at some stage.

 

 

Nearly 80,000 words later…! All collections for the NZCALNE (Voc) are now live on Pathways Awarua.

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If you follow my blog, you’ll know that over the last eight months I have only posted content relating to the new NZCALNE (Voc).

Well… we’re done. I finished the writing a few months back, but I’m very happy to report that all seven collections including all the new and revised content are now live on Pathways Awarua.

If you’re already registered, you’ll automatically have access to all of the new content. If you’re not, you can enrol as a new tertiary educator.

This has been a mammoth writing project with something close to 77,000 words of new and updated content.

I kinda feel like I’ve said everything I want to say about the NZCALNE (Voc). My sincere thanks to the awesome team at Pathways Awarua.

What’s next…? Probably, more of the same, but I’m open to ideas. Let me know.

Cheers, Graeme

 

Teach better now – Where’s the new content for Assessment 7 of the NZCALNE (Voc)?

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Kia ora and welcome to Collection 7

If you’re reading this then you are up to Assessment 7 in the new and improved NZCALNE (Voc).

That means you are up to the final assessment task in the programme…! This next part is about assessing learner progress, reviewing your teaching and working out the next steps.

As always, you can find this content on Graeme’s blog first. It will be live on Pathways Awarua shortly.

If you do stop by Graeme’s Blog, please comment. Let us know what’s useful and what’s not. Our model is a dynamic one and we’re always tinkering with programme content and assessment tasks where we can. You can help us continue to improve the experience.

There are four sections in Collection 7:

  • 7.1 Just do it: Progress assessment
  • 7.2 What does it mean?
  • 7.3 Collecting some final information
  • 7.4 Reviewing your teaching and next steps

If you find that you already know what you’re doing for a particular part of this collection, then feel free to skip ahead to the next relevant section.

Or start with the assessment template and dip into this material as you need to. Email us if you don’t already have the template and checklist.

Otherwise, work your way through as usual. Here are the links you need to different parts of this collection.

Follow the links below

Here’s the overview for the final collection.

7.1 Just do it: Progress assessment

7.2 What does it mean?

7.3 Collecting some final information

7.4 Reviewing your teaching and next steps

If you’re stuck, please get in touch with us by email here: assess@alec.ac.nz or by texting or calling Graeme on 0800-ALEC-1-2.

AFTER: What are the reflection and review questions?

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You’ll find the reflection and review questions to finish off this part of the programme below. Your answers are your own evaluation of what you’ve done and how effective it was.

  • You can download the questions here in a form that you can print out and write on if you want to take notes. Otherwise, don’t forget that the template is in Assessment module 7.

THE TEACHING SESSIONS OVERALL

What went really well for you?

  • The best thing was …
  • One thing that surprised me was …

What would you do differently?

  • Something I’d do differently if I was doing this all over again, is …
  • Also, …

How do you feel you managed the delivery of embedded literacy and numeracy?

  • I think that …

What was it like collaborating with the learners on different things?

  • For the learning plans, I thought that …
  • Another thing was …

What about any collaboration with your supervisor? Any comments there?

  • One thing …

Any comments on your learners’ evaluation of the sessions?

  • They said that …

MOVING FORWARD

Are there any key changes or improvements that you will make to your teaching?

  • One change that I’m considering is…
  • I know I need to …

What kind of goals do you think you need to set for your learners from here?

  • Learner A needs to …
  • Learner B needs to …

What are the implications for you now for designing literacy and numeracy teaching and learning?

  • One implication is that …
  • Another thing is …

AFTER: How do I review my teaching and reflect on the next steps?

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It’s time for some R&R. For us, that means to review and reflection.

This is the last thing. You have to think about what you’ve done in this programme and reflect on different parts of it. You don’t need to be doing advanced academic qualifications or read a lot of research to be a reflective teacher.

Reflective teaching is simply the process where you think about your teaching practice and analyse how you did. The idea is to look at where you can improve or change what you’re doing to get better learning outcomes.

If you’re like most of the people who do work in foundation education, you are probably reflecting on what you do all the time. In this next part, we want to make this process visible. Once it’s visible you can use it as evidence to finish off the NZCALNE (Voc).

Here’s what we’re going to ask you to do:

Review your teaching

This includes your reflections and thoughts on:

  • What went well.
  • What you’d you do differently.
  • How you managed the delivery
  • Any collaboration with learners and supervisor
  • Any comments on the learners’ evaluation
  • Anything unexpected.

Reflect on what you need to do moving forward

This includes your reflections and thoughts on:

  • Any key changes and improvements you might make.
  • What kind of goals you might set for these learners from here.
  • What the implications are now for designing your teaching and learning.

All we need to do this then is a set of questions for you to think about and answer. These questions are in the final section of your template for Assessment 7. We’ve also given you sentence starters as well to get you going. You can ignore these if you want.

If you know what you’re doing, you can just write up your reflections in the assessment template now. If you need some time to think about them, the questions are listed next.

AFTER: Can you remind me what evaluation evidence I need to supply for the NZCALNE (Voc)?

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Let’s pause for a moment and take stock of what you should be collecting as evaluation evidence for Assessment 7 of the NZCALNE (Voc).

You still have to do your own final review, but by now you should have collected two kinds of evaluation evidence.

One lot of evidence is from your learner and takes the form of learner evaluations. The other is comments from your supervisor. There’s a separate checklist for this as discussed.

Here’s it is again below. This checklist is also in the template for Assessment 7:

Checklist of Information supplied as supporting evidence

Learner evaluations

  • These should be scanned or supplied digitally in some way.
  • You should have evaluations for at least two learners.

Supervisor comments

  • These should also be scanned or supplied digitally. We have a template for this as well. You can find it in the Assessment 7 module.

Coming up next is the last piece of work. This is your own final review and a place to reflect on what went well, what you’d you do differently and how you managed the delivery.

AFTER: Why do I have to involve my boss in the evaluation?

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Collaborating with your boss or supervisor to review your teaching delivery is one of the requirements of the NZCALNE (Voc). It’s also good teaching practice. We can’t sign off on the whole qualification unless we have some evidence of this.

For our purposes, a supervisor may include any of the following:

  • Your direct manager or programme leader.
  • A colleague that is acting as study support person.
  • Someone in management that has already acted as a verifier for another part of this training and qualification.

What does this evidence need to include?

We need evidence that you and your supervisor have reviewed the teaching and facilitation in the following areas:

  • Your strengths.
  • Any potential improvements for future delivery.
  • Any comments on how this informs planning for your professional development

This review should be a collaboration and conversation. It could include teaching observation evidence, but it doesn’t have to.

What do I have to ask my supervisor to do?

If you’re about to finish off your NZCALNE (Voc), you need to include some feedback from your supervisor. It’s one of the requirements.

The easiest way to involve your supervisor or boss is simple to ask for a few minutes of their time. Hopefully, they already know how you’re doing and where you’re up to. They may have already verified your portfolio evidence for other parts of the course. However, when you get a chance, you need to:

  • Bring them up to date with the latest on your embedded literacy and numeracy project work
  • Discuss the results of your learners’ work, assessments and evaluations.

Then as evidence for this programme, your supervisor will need to summarise their responses in the Supervisor Comments template. You can find the full template in the assessment module for Collection 7.

For now, here is a list of the questions that your supervisor will need to respond to. We’ve provided prompts and sentence starters for your supervisor to use as well, but they can ignore them if they want to. Download the full template in the assessment section for this Collection.

Supervisor review questions and prompts

1. When did you collaborate on this review?

Our conversation took place on…

2. What are their strengths?

One strength is…

Another strength…

3. What are some potential improvements for future delivery?

One possible improvement could be…

Another potential improvement relates to…

4. How does any of this inform planning for the candidate’s professional development?

In terms of future professional development…

 

AFTER: What does a learner evaluation survey look like?

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Below you’ll find a generic evaluation survey that you may be able to adapt for your own purposes.

There are two pages. One has questions based around a 5-point rating scale. It looks like this:

The other has open questions like we discussed earlier and looks like this:

You can adapt or modify one or both pages depending on what you need for your context.

Remember: for obvious reasons, if it’s your class you probably need to get a different trainer, tutor, staff member, or another independent person to carry out this kind of evaluation for you. And don’t forget to adapt the questions to the level of your learners.

 

AFTER: Should I get help to administer the evaluation to my learners?

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There are lots of things to think about before you go ahead and do the evaluation with your learners. Here are a few questions that you need to ponder:

  • Is their level of literacy going to impact on their ability to do the evaluation?
  • Do they need a translator?
  • Does anyone need a reader-writer?
  • Would this work better as a group evaluation?
  • Can we use pictures instead of words for any of this?

Depending on the level of your learners, you may need someone to do the evaluation with them. If your learners are refugees or migrants with very little spoken or written English you may need to involve a translator. Or someone with dyslexia type issues may need a reader-writer.

Also, if the evaluation happens verbally, you need to think through whether a group approach is going to help the process or cause some learners to keep their thoughts to themselves.

If you’re going to stick with a written format, you might be able to usual some visual prompts instead of words. For example, some ESOL tutors and others use thumbs up-thumbs down type images rather than using words like “agree” or “disagree” in a rating scale.

1. Circle the best answer for you

Smiley, sad faces or emoticons also work in the same way.

1. Circle the best answer for you