Open Polytechnic staff development day on 6th December

open polytechnic

In Wellington on Tuesday for the Open Polytechnic staff professional development day.

To begin, a traditional Powhiri opened the day, followed by welcome by CE and housekeeping matters from Mark Nicols.

Here for the day to present (twice) and workshop on topic of 'building reflective practitioners in trades at CPIT " providing overview of past, present and future projects, with grounding on frameworks used and reasons for tutors to engage with research.

Managed to also attend a couple of other presentations.

Firstly with Professor Sir Mason Durie on marae encounters as models of interaction relevant to educational success.
3 pathways - engagement, enlightenment and empowerment.
whakapiri, whakamarama, whakamana
Used the marae encounter as a way to explain how education can form relationships between institution and others (students, stakeholders),
increase awareness and understanding and strengthen identity, resolve and purpose.

engagement - negotiating relationships - distinctiveness, defined pathway, connections, reasons for coming together.

enlightenment - awareness and understanding, exchange of thoughts, ideas, aspirations impacts on spirit, mind, body and whanau.
in education should be cultural, intellectual insights, social cohesion and healthy lifestyles.
ways of thinking - centrifugal or centripetal.

empowerment - identity, resolve and purpose - mutual knowledge, respect and connections with the land - endorsement of dignity, identity, confidence and capability.

outcomes of successful tertiary ed include collegial, career,personal, cultural and academic.

secondly with Dr. Stephanie Doyle (Victoria University) on 'stretching the distance: the transfer of learning and distance education'. Went through a few approaches to define "learning transfer" including 'bopeed' analogy - i.e. ignore or leave transfer trusting it will occur 'naturally' (black sheep), transfer need to be nurtured and carefully facilitated (good shepherd). Can also be envisaged as 'transferring learning from course etc. to future' or transfer of existing skills/knowledge into learning context/course.

Learning focused on 'passing an exam' may cause students to learn how to pass an exam but not be able to use the 'learning' in a workplace - where problems are typically ill-structured and mult-dimensional.

transfer more effective if existing learning and present context brought into the learning environment. Making use of the lived experiences of learners.
important findings include - applying learning to real problems and situations linked to deep learning, application generated confidence and clarity, some course work assisted with making sense of past experiences, opportunities to reflect on learning likely to nurture dispositions and habits conducive to transfer.

Also networking with several Open Polytechnic staff. This is the FIRST staff development day OP has held for quite a few years, so a good initiative to get staff to come together, share practice and establish institutional cohesion.

posting this week's posts via ipad only - so will evaluate next week, how things went.