AVETRA Day two

 Notes taken on the second day of the AVETRA conference, held at the University of Technology, Sydney.

The day started with a 'panel' on the theme - the past is a foreign country, or is it/ The curious journey of Kangan discourses over 50 years. Dr. Kaye Schofield responds to Don Zoellner. A good overview of the history of TAFE since the Kangan report in 1974. This report provided the blueprint for the formation of TAFEs in Australia.

There have been many challenges, changes, innovations but also setbacks, years when VET was continuously restructured, deconstructed, re- constructed!,  found status and supported by some governments and other times when they were neglected. NZ could learn from this history, to not politicise education and to hold on to the principle that education, is a public good. Especially to not use education as a political football, but for each government in power, to work collaboratively, for the long term betterment  of the country. The presentation covered how Kangan should be read now, half a century later. What core principles and propositions have stood the test of time? and where are the continuities and discontinuities? 

Presentations across 3 streams then begin.

Before lunch, 3 presentations.

First up, Dr. John Howse from Toi Ohomai, Tauranga, Aotearoa. He presents on an aspect of his PhD thesis with ' exploring the symbiosis and tensions between vocational practices and the aspirations for VET in Aotearoa NZ. John was awarded the AVETRA conference abstract :)  Covered the practice-theoretical approach to VET research. Thpractice study was to challenge VET vocational practice. Used practice architeture architecturetheory helped cover helped how learning could be understood better as patterened, embodied, networked and emergent as 'sayings, doings and relatings'. Ethnographic context was bee keeping in the workplace, and campus-based learning. Hive work and seasonal colony management were selected for focus. Bee keeping required an affective dimension of care, something that is difficult to capture in assessments. Practice was then compared to graduate outcomes in current apiary qualfications. Emphasis in the qualifications on production and no mention of the affective dimension, the community of practice and localised context of beekeeper work. Challenges to the relevance of how VET qualifications are constituted, cycles of reform in VET, the shifting of beekeeping into commercialised production, sustainable, beekeeping practices and been keeping as a way of life. Opportunities could be in changed qualifications, reimagined graduate profiles, micro-credentials, a mixture of work and block courses. Contributions of this study to the continual review of qualifications. 

Then, Associate Professor Melanie Williams and Angela Tsimiklis from William Angliss share their work on 'evaluating collaborative challenge-based learning: teaching for the future. Introduced CCBL as a 11 step process with both students and tutors working in teams CCBL needs to be mapped back to the training packages. detailed a pilot in Cert IV patisserie where a challenge takes place across a term and evaluated at the end of each cycle. Evaluation was to understand teachers experiences. Determine how it may improve student learning and adjust to allow for self-managing teams. CCBL requiries teachers and students to compile weekly reflections. Data collected and analysed through mini research cycles to allow for adjustments to the process as the CCBL process continued through the year. After the first term, all were excited but also frustrated and confused as students needed to be self-directed. Teachers observed high levels of student engagement and focus, more advanced technical skills covered, time constraints led to shortcuts, coordination was ad-hoc, it was challenging to align session planst to actual class happenings. In term 2, master classes extracted and taught traditionally for first 4 weeks. Challenges and teamwork delayed until week 5 and reduction from 2 to 1 teacher per room. Student valued a slower pace but excessie repetition led to boredom and decreased motivation, complaints of inconsistent teacher instructions, students awareness of 21 cnetury skill development grew through the use of self-assessment rubric. Teachers felt classes ran more smoothly, one teacher in a room was management, students had improved confidence, critical thinking, multi-tasking, teamwork, produce multiple products. It seems that the extraction of master classes from challenges resulted in bybrid model, teachers view it as an improvement, but hybrid runs cunter to CCBL. Maybe CCBL is too low for Cert IV. teacher collaboration still important. Teachers enthusiastic, students less so. Students developed greater technical proficiency. Cert IV may be problematic for CCBL. Two more terms to be evaluated. 

Third up, Anthony Allan and Associate Professor Steven Hodge present on 'understanding complexities of user acceptance and considering the influence on digital evidence collection in VET'. Rationale for the project was the need for frequent job change, micro credential opportunities and the influence of new technologies that can help capture evidence of learning. Observation of practice, eportfolios, digital badges all possible. Participants were trainers, managing leaders, expert leaders and system leaders. Drew on the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1986) on percieved usefuness, percieved ease of use and attitudes towards use. In tVET, modification of TAM ot C- contextualised, TAM and E (extension). (CTAME). Went through the findings as they were connected to CTAME. Acceptance of technology changes over time - usually becoming more positive. Therefore acceptance is a complex concept, identifying specific types of acceptance could enable future research to shift from aiming to determine use, to aiming to determine the effective of use. \

After lunch, there are two presentations. Starting with Professor Erica Smith on 'a new and different look at women's participation in the apprenticeship system in Australia. Started with 3 vignettes to illustrate that the thinking on gender and VET has not moved along very much :( Then summarised the history of apprenticeship. Over 60 plus years, most reports on did not involved few females writing them and many did not include the female aspect. Trade apprenticeships (maingly male) much higher than non-trade apprenticeships (mainly female occupations in health, retail, cleaning etc). In general, women then to be in traineeships/shorter training times. Suggested the need to increase women's participation in traditional apprenticeships. WAVE has been doing important work to ensure women are not discriminated against in occupations which are non-traditional for women. Men going into women dominated work, probable need similar support. With skill shortages, there have been encouragement to 'conscript' women to help alleviate the shortage. After WW2, women returned to domestic duties when the men returned. So there are deep seated perspectives on what are womens' jobs or men's jobs. The social construction of skill (Smith & Teicher, 2017) means that jobs that have professional or industrial power, gain formal training and qualificaiton structures. Women work in care, customer skills etc. considered not really skilled and are generally low skill and low wage. another concept is to view people (the unemployed, women gig workers) as 'the reserve army of labour (used by Marx but likely Engels). Therefore important to avoid tokenism, include the female voice, value jobs that women do and provide pathways that are as good as those for men.

Followed on by Teressa Schmidt, Tracy Flenady, Dr. Julie Bradshaw, Shweta Singh and Rachelle Cole on their work 'progress, benefits and barriers: supporting scholarly activity and development of VET teachers in a regional university. Began with the challenges and rationale. Important to apply scholarship to supporting VET teacher 'currency' the usual tools to recognise this, did not exist in the reporting structures! The changed labour market, technological innovation, global responses, future pandemics etc. need the curriculum to be updated. 19 participants in cummunity services, health and nursing, all female most 50-59 and most have taught 5-9 years. Pilot involved particpants assembled into teams to undertake a literature review. Workshops monthly to undertake the review across 12 months. By the mid-point, 8 participants left, and engagement was low. Workload increased due to enrolments doubling. Learning did take place. Summarised the barriers and suggested solutions. There is a desire. Barriers included organisational and personal. To succeed, additional support in the form of allocated time for scholarly activity, mentorship, and recognition of the scholarly activity.

The conference closes and is followed by afternoon tea and final networking. Steven Hodge closes the conference beginning with thanking the sponsors, Skills Insight and the NCVER. Then reviewed the learnings from the conference. Landis Barrett-Pugh then officially closed the conference with plans to meet next year in April in Melbourne.