NZ Government framework for AI - Public Service guidelines

The NZ Government has launched its public service AI framework. It is part of the overall NZ Government work on establishing guidelines for its National AI Strategy. The public service guidelines draw on the OECD AI principles of:

- inclusive, sustainable development

- human centred values

- transparency and explainability

- safety and security 

- accountability.

The NZ framework layers in the important concepts of the nation's biculturism. Commentary on this aspect along with the ways the principles above require much more work internationally provide material for critical reflection. Guidelines and frameworks may set the scene but it is how they are supported, adopted and persistently worked on to actually make a difference which is the important ongoing effect.

Developing curriculum for deep thinking - book overview

In this 'age of AI ascendence'  more than anytime perhaps in human history, the importance of how we learn knowledge and what is required to learn it, is more important than ever.

This Open Access Springer brief - Developing curriculum for deep learning:The knowledge revival has chapters written by authors from Europe (T, Surma, C. Vanhees, M, Wils, J, Nijlunsing, N. Crato, D, Muijs, D. Wiliam, P. A. Kirschner) Australia (J. Hattie) and New Zealand. (E. Rata).

Although the chapters have the school context at the forefront, the many concepts introduced and discussed has relevance across the all educational sectors. The books main premise is that it is important to ensure curriculum is 'knowledge-rich'. In doing, the attainment of knowledge helps to drive the learning (acquisition and practice) of crucial cognitive or thinking skills. 

There are five chapters.

After a short introductory chapter the following chapters discuss:

- How knowledge matters

- knowledge and the curriulum

Then two chapter - concluding remarks and an executive summary close the book.

Therefore the book is a short treatise (less than 100 pages) presenting the argument for the importance of ensuring that knowledge is made visible across the curriculum, and the need for content richness, coherence across the curriculum, and clarity of purpose for learning knowledge. 

Future of work report 2025 - World Economic Forum

 This year's future of work report from the World Economic Forum, provides some good information as the world of work moves into the AI age. Summaries are provided for many countries by Aotearoa New Zealand is not included.

The forces contributing to the shifts are summarised as:

- increased digital access and advances across technologies (AI, information processing, robotics and automation, energy generation, storage and distribution), all influence the ways work is carried out and how work is structured.

- cost of living and other economic impacts of inflation, economic slowdown etc. will affect job creation.

- climate change mitigation leads to the need for new skills and generates new types of work and occupations.

- demographic shifts including worldwide aging of the workforce and increasing numbers of older people, living longer puts strain on economies.

-geoeconomics and geopolitical tensions make for an unpredictable future.

Jobs predicted to grow in volume include farmworkers, delivery drivers, construction workers, sales people and food processing workers, Care economy jobs in nursing, social work, counselling etc. also to grow significantly. Technology related roles including one related to data management and green energy transition roles also set to grow.

In contrast, clerical and secretarial work is set to decline along with jobs in the postal service, banks and data entry roles.

There is a great need to ensure that analytical thinking as a core skill is attained. Other skills include workers being resilient, flexible and agile. Understanding AI and big data are also important to leverage off the potential of these technologies. 

All in, a good overview  and reference source on the current state of work and what may come in the near future.

Gen AI strategies for Australian higher education - emerging practice

 The Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TESQA) published a practice toolkit for Gen AI in November 2023. 

The guide covers three dimensions of tertiary education - Process, People and Practice. Each dimension is introduced and the implications of Gen AI are detailed, discussed and evaluated. Examples from Australian tertiary institutions are provided to provide case studies. These provide good templates from which individual institutional processes, policies and procedures can be contextualised and synthesised. 

All in a good resource to mine for relevant concepts as Gen AI takes hold across the tertiary landscape. 

Plans for 2025

 It looks like another busy year coming up.

Details of what post Te Pūkenga looks like will help clarify what is likely to occur at an organisational level and some of these may affect the composition of my current work team, our lines of management, and our objectives. Whatever happens, there is still a great deal of work to do!

Firstly, we have many programmes in review. In Aotearoa, all programmes of study are reviewed every five years. The responsibility for these, devolved to Te Pūkenga 2 years ago, but only a small number of programmes were 'unified'. Hence, we now have a substantial backlog of programmes, several over 3 years beyond their review timelines, to work on and have presented to NZQA by July. Therefore, my  educational development team (down to 5 from 8) are fully occupied with working through all the programme reviews.

Secondly, AI is not going away. Capability and professional development for our teaching colleagues, has been patchy, as lines of responsibility for who does what, have been unclear since Te Pūkenga disestablishment was announced late in 2023. Te Pūkenga was at the beginning of bringing together a consolidated approach to capability and development but this all came to a halt and individual institutions have been working on financial stability, maintaining quality etc. before looking at capability.

Thirdly, I am now about half way through scoping another group of scholarship of teaching and learning projects for this year. The focus will be on integrating AI into programmes with strong practice-based learning as currently, AI has text/writing focus. Multimodality of AI is not as common as integrating AI through text. Also, it is important to have AI available in practice-based learning environments - i.e. workshops, training kitchens / salons / studios etc. plus the need to have customised / bespoke or 'wall-garden' AI tools as the generalised AI (e.g. ChatGPT, CoPilot) often do not use specialised occupational vocabulary, with information drawn on being very North American-centric.

Therefore, it looks like there is quite a bit to do, making it difficult to even think about retiring for the moment!!

2024 review

 A rather busy year, filled with leading an interesting project - supporting foundation/bridging learners using AI -, a flurry of work in curriculum/learning design as all of this returns back to us post Te Pūkenga disestablishment, and participation in a range of relevant and important professional development opportunities.

As I write this, there is no greater detail on what happens to the various polytechnics and industry training organisations (ITOs) post Te Pūkenga disestablishment, apart from the brief details from the consultation information provided in September. The government's budget going into the next few years provide some inkling of what may happen to the Workforce Development Councils (WDCs) and Centres for Vocational Education Excellence (CoVEs). WDCs funding ends 2026 but they will likely continue due to their essential role as standards setting bodies. However, their actual roles going into the future are unclear. The CoVeEs for construction ((ConCOVE) and FF CoVE (food and fibre) will likely cease to exist beyond 2025. Both the CoVEs have funded a range of important vocational education and training research projects and it is a shame that they will not be continuing on to act on the recommendations and findings.

AI has been prominent across the year. At my institute, we have run a number of department focused and institute-wide research tools or teaching and learning AI integration workshops. Our staff capability runs the usual gamut from utter rejection of AI to having several with high levels of understanding and application towards using AI to support research or teaching/learning. 

VET like all other education context, must make key decisions about the role of AI and how it should be/ or can be leveraged to support teaching and learning. The 'holy grail' of education, personalised learning for every learner' is availed if AI is used carefully to augment and support learning - see this summary, one of many models, that shift teaching and learning from 'factory - one-size fits all' to individualised mastery learning for each learner.

Hence, another busy year but looking forward to next year, when hopefully, we begin to have productive conversations in shifting the current way teaching and learning occurs, towards a more learner and learning-centred model.

ACDEVEG - day 2 notes

 The day begins with reflections on the last ten years of ACDEVEG conferences with Darryl South and Erica Smith. Shared the conference themes across the decade and data on number of presentations, panels etc. An overview of each conference then presented. A summary of similar conferences before the 2015 ACDEVEG from the 1990s. Convassed the participants for ideas for themes and venues for future conferences. 

A panel session chaired by Annette Foley follows. The panelists are John Tucker (CE of TAFE QLD), Angela Dean (AEU Federation TAFE secretary), Evelyne Goodwin (Manager Policy and Projects for Community Colleges Australia) and Andrew Shea (Director, ITECA). The panel works through a series of topical questions. First question is on the importance of teachers /trainers in VET, followed by the challenges posed to TAFE teachers to meet inclusive/equity directions, what is done to promote the career of VET teachers and the knowledge/skills required of VET educators. Questions then opened to the floor with robust conversation undertaken!

After morning tea, presentations collated into 2 streams commence.

I attend the following:

'Diploma of VET at William Angliss Institute: Four ways to make a difference' with Melissa Jennings. Reported on the projects used to support teachers to complete the Diploma. Projects included project-based learning, then application of training and assessment practice; professional practice, and instructional designer to work on resources for teaching (f2f and online). All the projects require portfolios and demonstration/observation. Porfolios include professional development plan, trainer and assessor competency evidence, annotated bibliography, sample learning activities, supervised teaching practice, peer partnership, training log, elearning strategy and session plans. Projects go for 12 to 18 months. The process helps develop cognitive and technical competencies with contemporary teaching and learning processes. 21st century skills rubric used to map their competencies attained. 

Shared challenges around the the progress of these projects. May be better next time to run projects consecutively rather than concurrently. Workshop ensued to work through personas and their experiences on a project.

'what makes VET teachers want to stay in the job?' with Erica Smith, Darryl South and Annette Foley. Overviewed the context and background which was presented at last year's conference. There is almost no literature on VET teacher retention, so this project seeks to develop a robust evidence base to inform policies going forward. In the presention covered the motivations for entry and factors affecting decisions to remain. Received 146 valid responses to a survey with 47 questions. 

Most respondents over 50, slightly more females, 1/3 new, 1/3 5-9 years and 1/2 over ten years in teaching. 2/3 employed full time. 73+ % have diploma qualification or higher. Routes in teaching included 28% directly into full-time, 20% started part-time. 

58.6% identified as VET teacher, 3.4% to discipline and 37.9% as both. Mostly committed to staying and teaching. if likely to leave, 2/3 said they would return to industry and 1/3 to a difference industry. Those who identified as VET teacher less likely to leave. 

Participants value seeing learners develop, enjoy engaging learners and making a difference. Factors encouraging people to leave include workload, dissatification with management, too much compliance, poor workplace culture, pay, on-going change. 

Pay mentioned but not actually a major issue. Conditions of work more important, with management and compliance seen to be major challenges. Recommendations on balancing compliance and to help increase status of VET teachers. From the data, more likely to leave if they identify with occupation,, have another position outside of teaching, under 30, males, regional areas and those who have been managers before. 

Shared future work including on how to attract people to the VET workforce, providing better early career support and reducing administration and compliance.

The conference continues but I leave to catch a train to the airport :) All in, good presentations on issues which are similar to NZ.