Learn Tech Asia - Interview with Dr. Soon Joo Gog -

 Caught up with various postings on LinkedIn last week and found the link to an interview with Dr. Soon Joo Gog, Chief Futurist, Skills Officer and Research Officer at SkillsFuture in Singapore. I first met up with Soon Joo when she was Director of the Institute of Adult Learning and since then, have kept in touch and met up off and on when I have been in the region.

She has always provided a pragmatic but scholarly perspective, on the impact of the 4th Industrial revolution/Industry 4.0, on work and learning.

In this video on an interview conducted by Learn Tech Asia, she shares her learning on 'purposeful learning'. The site archives the whole interview, but also excerpts on 'how does technology help learning', 'how can skills gaps be avoided', 'how adult education institutions change' and 'can upskilling and reskilling fix unemployment'. A good overview and summary of how one country, deals with the challenges within the constrains and opportunities of their social, economic and political affordances.

The Learn Tech Asia site itself is also a useful resource on Asian innovation in the learning technologies area. For example, LMSs like zilearn,  developed to be sympathetic to the needs of Asian institutes of learning and learners. The CEO of Kydon group who developed zilearn, provides an opinion piece on the top 10 skills for tomorrow's jobs. 

Kick off presentation #6 - Arun Pradhan on learning

Sue McBain, team lead for the educational development team introduced Arun Pradhan.

Used a feedback mechanism – thumbs up and thumbs down to provide feedback on the presentation. Used menti.com to present an interactive session.

Began with rate the importance of – to find out what topic is on top.

Introduced a reality check with regards to change. Covid being one challenge of many.

Trends include continued impact of digital and pervasive data; rise of personalised customer experience, refocus on human connection and underlying needs, rise of agility and drive to innovate, reinvent & disrupt,  FAST.

Proposed the overriding questions as ‘how do we survive the robot apocalypse’!

Moved on to discussion the educators’ dilemma. What are the most important skills moving forward. Robots are better are info recall and recording, algorithms / calculations, rule based problem solving, rote/repetitive tasks, physically demanding work.

Humans better had learning to learn and unlearn, empathy, problem solving and critical thinking, collaboration and communication and digital fluency/data intelligence.

Used T shaped skills as the visual – broad soft and cross-functional expertise and deep expertise. Siloed expert has deep expertise and superficial generalist have (or need to have) the broad soft skills. However, T-shaped people have both.

Compared careers in the past (front loading and then predictable career) and now/future (optional front loading and then continuous learning to have adaptive work.

Suggested education as modular solutions, credentialing and industry partnerships, micro-learning in the workflow, position to ‘value add’, flexible and adaptive curriculum and focus on learning how to learn.

Discussed briefly the many myths about learning and introduced alternative – classic, millennial/right=brained/existentialist/ gangnam style learners – which again are myths. Debunked learning styles and the need to be more critical about how learning is understood.

Encouraged the need to understand how to help learning by unlocking blocks to behaviour. Attributes and dispositions are a key rather than skills and knowledge.

Proposed knowledge as being facts and info and mental approaches (assumptions, generalisations and concepts). Interleaved study across several topics and spaced study (study, test, test, test) more effective.

Recommends the minimisation of cognitive load (less content) augment facts and info, used spaced retrieval if facts and info require memorisation and use concepts and mental models (infographics, stories, metaphors).

Therefore, learn less facts but learn more mental models. Important to construct a ‘latticework of mental models’ (Charles Munger) or an expanded cognitive toolkit.  Provided a list of mental models including pareto principle, sunk cost, opportunity costs, ockams razor, A/B testing, return on failure, confirmation bias, scientific method, deliberate practice, Feynman technique, habit forming, EAST nurdge, inversion, circle of competence etc.

Skills development based on deliberate practice (Ericsson) the way to go. Not just 10,000 hours of doing but the ability to act on feedback and to constantly improve. 

Mindset and motivation requires helping learners finding out -what is in it for me  and the need to foster a growth mindset (Dweck).

Environments to support continuous learning also required.

Promoted the application of design thinking for learning design – starting with empathy, define, ideate, prototype, test and refine.

Shared how blended experiences can be designed through engaging the learner, priming with information, applying, connecting, reflecting and embedding. Advocated blended whould be about asynchronous vs synchronous, collaborative vs independent and formal vs experiential.

Good overview of the state of the play on learning from a corporate point of view with a synthesis of many of the current concepts on learning brought together and applied to the challenges of the future of learning. 

Reimagining university assessment in a digital world - book overview

 Browsed through this ebook from the Ara library over the last week or so. Bearman, M. Dawson, P. Ajjawi, R. Tai. J. & Boud. D. (2020). Re-imagining university assessment in a digital world. Springer. 10.1007/978-3-030-41956-1

The eidtors are based at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), Deakin University,  Melbourne, Australia. 

Notes are brief as I have access to this book through Ara library and able to look up content when required :) 

After an introductory chapter by the editors, there are 19 chapters sectioned into 3 parts. The introductory chapter provides a brief rational and overviews of the chapters. 

A second introduction with New directions for assessment in a digital world by M. Bearment, D. Boud and R; Ajjawi. Here, the chapter uses a ‘programmatic portfolio’ to example how technology can shift assessment beyond the usual. Included is a call to include co-construction of assessments into HE; assessments should be one avenue to help provide graduates with the digital skills required in the workforce; and the inclusion of social media profiles and digital profiles of students into assessments so that they are useful beyond under graduate studies.

Part 2 – The changing role of assessment in the digital world

Digitally mediated assessment in HE: ethical and social impacts M. Bearment, P. Dawson and J. Tai.

This chapter sets out the many social, ethical and pedagogical implications of conducting assessments in the digital world. The themes covered include ethical issues, feedback, AI and influences of digital practices and portrayals.

Cognitive off-loading and assessment with P. Dawson introduces the concept of cognitive offloading into notes, calculaors, spell checkers etc. and their effect on the underpinning expectations of assessments. Some ideas on how to incorporate cognitive offloading are suggested including issues of transparency, programmatic assessment, evaluative judgement and authentic assessment.

Preparing university assessment for a world with AI: Tasks for human intelligence with M; Bearman and R. Luckin. Overviews the uses of AI in assessment. Idenitifies the things humans do well – personal epistemology and evaluative judgement as key. Uses critical appraisal assessment as a means to focus on human aspects. 

Repositioning assessment-as portrayal: What can we learning from celebrity and persona studies? With R. Ajjawi, D. Boud and D. Marshall,. Introduces the interesting concept of applying authentic industry or discipline norms to assessments in the form of persona studies.

Towards technology enhanced dialogic feedback by E. Pitt and N. Winstone. Updates on the aspect of technology-enhanced feedback via video, audio and screencast. Uses Carless’s old vs new paradigm to unpack the advantages and pitfalls.

Catering for diversity in the digital age: reconsidering equity in assessment practices by L. R. Harris and J. Dargusch. An overview of the challenges of digital equity with regards to assessments. 

Assessments as and of digital practice: building productive digital literacies by M. O’Donnell. Argues for the use of assessments not only as a means to judge learners’ work but also to scaffold, develop and assess the digital skills integrated into the assessment.

Part 3 the role of big data in re-imaging assessment

Augmenting assessment with learning analytics by S. Knight. Introduces learning analytics and how this can transform the way assessments are developed and implemented and assessment practices. Suggesions are provided to improve how LA may be instrumental in supporting better assessment processes.

Are assessment practices well aligned over time? A big data exploration with J. Rogaten, D. Clow, C. Edwards, M. Gaved and B. Rienties. Uses big data to look at 20 years of assessments across 2 studies to find out if student assessments/grades were well aligned with the qualifications. Recommendations are derived to improve the longitudinal alignment of grading trajectories by ensuing consistemt grading policies are followed.

The bi-directional effect between data and assessments in the digital age by A. Pardo and P. Reimann. Digital tech affects assessments and feedback. Data collected important to be translated to yield actions and design aspects to further positive effects on student experiences.

Standards for developing assessments of learning using process data by S. Milligan. Provides background on shift from just testing knowledge to incorporation of ‘soft’ skills and competencies important to graduate attainment of graduate outcomes.

Part 4 practical exemplars

Re-imaging peer assessment in self-paced online learning environments with L. Corrin and A. Bakharia. Example of self-paced online learning environment which is flexible, customisable and scalble peer assessment and feedback.

The future of self and peer assessment: are technology or people in the key? By J. Tai and C. Adachi. Theoretical frameworks provided along with how digital could provide for better pedagogical goals and best practice self and peers assessment. 

Using technology to enable a shift from marks to outcomes-based assessments by A. Cain, L, Tubino and S. Krishnan. Introduces the web application ‘Doubtfire’ to allow for a task-orientated portfolio-based approach to assessment to scaffold and evidence different standards of achievement. 

Challenges with designing online assessment to support student task understanding with T. Apps, K. Beckmand and S. Bennett. Cases study of open-ended online assessment.

 Re-iimagining assessment through play: a case study of metarubric With Y. J. Kim and L. Rosenheck. Uses MetaRubric, a playful assessment design tool which creates rubrics for teachers and students and allows them to learn about assessments.

Sharing achievement through digital credentials: are universities ready for the transparency afforded by a digital world? With T. J. de St Jorre. Discusses the topic and the advantages/disadvantages of digital credentials.

Part 5 conclusion

Concluding comments: reimagining university assessment in a digital world by P. Dawson and M. Bearman, draws the book to a close, reiterating the need to not just replace current assessment practices with a layer of digital support, but to actually examine the actual purposes of assessments and to envisage how digital technologies may be useful in transforming assessment practices.

 

 

 

 

Plans for 2020 - a new decade to look forward to

Its back to ‘normal’ after 4 months on study leave and the annual Xmas / New Year break. 

2020 promises to be an interesting year, with all of the NZ ITPs being brought together into one entity from the 1stof April. Details of the general workings of the new institute are still hazy but one certainty is that there will be changes, all with major and minor consequences on my work into the foreseeable future.

For the moment, I will pick up ‘new’ projects as they begin to accumulate on our work register. The projects I handed across to my colleagues when I embarked on study leave last year, are now either complete or progressing well. Therefore, best to make a fresh start with programme development and other support projects.

I have submitted an abstract for the annual AVETRA conference,to be held in Melbourne at the end of April. No other conferences planned for the moment accept for the end of year Talking Teaching conference convened by the Ako Aotearoa Academy.

There are now articles to be honed for submission to various journals and networking across the ITP sector to gauge the likelihood for joint research projects in the VET space. The plan will be to scope up a worthy approach and direction for submission in the 2021 year. By then, some of the details with regards to my educational development work and possibilities for VET research will be better known.

ADKAR organisational change model - overview and reflection

Last week, attended a workshop on the ADKAR change model. This was created by Jeff Hiatt from Prosci.com. The site has free guides to the process and  a list of resources and articles.

ADKAR stands for the steps in change 'management' which are Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. People will not necessarily cycle through these step by step and there is often a loop around Desire, Knowledge and Ability which helps people come to grips with change and shift their Desire (motivation) towards new processes and systems.I could not actually find the difinitive study / research informing the creation of the model. However, it seems to be relatively well known in organisational management as it comes up in reviews of change model reviews - see below for some reviews.

There is also a book, written in 2006 by Hiatt with most of the first chapter available on Google Books. Also a youtube video explaining the key points.

There are actually many models about. For example K. N. Tang has published a Springer Brief comparing 4 models - ADKAR, Lewin's three stages change model, Kotter 8 step change model and Jick's 10 step change model. Lewin's, Kotter's and Jick's seem to be slightly more recent and seem to have recent studies anchoring their models.

An article by - Rosenbaum, D., More, E., & Steane, P. (2018) 31(2),Journal of Organisational Change Management, 286-303, has a literature review of 14 models!! 

Another more humanistic model is Glasser's choice theory - Here is a recent article -

“digital tools will never take the place of a good teacher”:understanding teachers’ resistance to using technology through Glasser’s Choice theory. Wilson A., Fuhrman, O. and Turner, K. in the International Journal of Learning Technology, 14(1). Glasser's theory has origins in psychology and seems to be used in the schools sector. 

ADKAR is very much an organisationally directed / focused approach, taking an 'the organisation knows best' type assumption. Tools like ADKAR provide the organisation with a shared language for managers to better understand and work on the challenges inherent in change management. The process seems 'common sense' and is relatively easy to understand. As with all management, it is how the model is applied which is important. 

I am not sure how well ADKAR fits into an educational management environment. Time will tell as to how useful and efficacioius application of ADKAR to organisational change is within the NZ ITP context. We are already experiencing a large volume of continual change and this is set to only increase as the outcomes of ROVE  (which is still being worked through) become operationalised. 

Modern professional learners’ toolkit

Jane Hart's 'Modern Professional Learners' Toolkit, is worth a look. The list is distilled from her yearly list of top 100 tools and provides a good resource for all learners to check through.

Tools include web browsers, web resources, news and curation tools, web courses, social networking tools, blogging, productivity tools and apps and communication and collaboration tools.

Personal information system include evernote, onenote and pebblepad. So will need to check out pebblepad capabilities for this options.

As always, it pays to review the tools one uses, to see if there are other more effective / efficient ones to shift across to.

My list includes:
Browser - Chrome - as gmail account follows one from device to device.
web sources - Google Scholar - not mentioned but my go to page to begin a search for any papers relevant to my research
news and curation - Feedly and google alerts - will need to check out Nuzzel and Pocket.
webcourse platform - Ara as access to Lynda.com, but I also use Cousera
social networks - the usual, linkedin for professional use, facebook for personal / family, Researchgate for researchers
Personal information system - I actually use this blog
Productivity tools - google docs
Office suite - microsoft
communication and collaboration - onedrive for work, gmail for personal, Zoom for work, Skype for personal
Devices - work - Surface 3 tablet and Nokia Windows phone, home - Ipad mini.

Main thing is to find a tool that fits into what you need to do for work / personal, but also evaluate as technology progresses to keep up with the play. Tools and apps are now so much more intuitive to use but many people do not use all the tool/apps capabilities as few will read the instructions. Something I need to improve on as well.

Skilling for tomorrow - overview from Australian context

Anne Payton from the NCVER has provided a good overview, within an Australian context, pertinent to vocational education in NZ. The key points are well-summarised. The report was launched at the recent 'No-Frills' VET research conference held in Hobart. 

Within the Australia context, the effects of technology, social and demographic changes and these factors contributions to economic and labour market changes are discussed.

Future skills are extrapolated. Some of the findings are very pertinent to NZ although OZ is much larger and has a different economic base.

Some pertinent items of interest from citations –

Foundation of Young Australians  have produced an interesting report - 2016 on the new work mindset. 

The report proposes 7 ‘job families’ or clusters obtained through analysis of 2.7 million job advertisements – the generators (retail, sales, hospitality, entertainment), artisans (construction, maintenance, technical customer service), carers, informers (information, education or business services), coordinators (repetitive admin and behind the scenes process or service), designers (includes STEM), technologist. In a way, similar to work in NZ on vocational pathways. 

Carers, informers and technologists considered to be growth clusters.

If one trains for ONE job, one also attains skills relevant to 13 other jobs. In some jobs, switching to another job may only require retraining in one skill to obtain one of 44 jobs.

Another pertinent report is from Canada - another Commonwealth country with similar social, historical roots to Australia and NZ. The report on future proofing – preparing young Canadians for the future of work – 2017 The report has similarities to the Australian report above but also summarises the technological disruptions in to the near future.

Majority of the 42% of jobs impacted on by automation are currently done by people with lower income and less education. Although only 5% of jobs are fully automatable, 50% of jobs have a percentage of automatable tasks. Therefore, perhaps jobs are NOT eliminated but changed considerably. Increasingly, part-time, contract per project (gig economy) type work are ascendant.

Therefore, preparation for work includes the need to equip graduates with a broad range of technical and soft skills – digital literacy, entrepreneurship, social intelligence.

Most telling inforgraphic on page 15 – when asked ‘are Canada’s youth adequately prepared for the workforce?’ educational providers = 84% Yes whilst Youth only concur it at 44% and employers at 34%!!

Proposes the need for all sectors – public, private and non-profit – to work together. In particular to develop work-integrated learning models which are applicable across all sectors; explore digital literacy programmes for youth; identity and address potential barriers to youth entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship; provide timely labour market data, career planning and mentorship support to youth; enable lifelong learning and rapid, job-specific upskilling and training; and develop data strategy to build a stronger evidence base for policy and programme solutions.

A world without work??

Recently, an interesting article via a link on the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) news page caught my eye.

The article, discusses how technology is finally going to impact on work. The use of technology will see more work done by humans, be replaced by computers, robots and/or machines. Although the article discusses implications from a North American perspective, the various works quoted from economists are gleaned from beyond the US of A.

The article makes for some sobering but also uplifting reading. I suppose it depends on where you are at with regards to work. What sort of work are you currently engaged in? Is it enjoyable or a daily drudgery? Is it going to be affected by the imminent technological advances?

The three scenarios (consumption, communal creativity and contingency) of what the world without work may look like provide for some food for thought. Each and perhaps all the three scenarios are feasible. 

As always, it is how society accepts the future role of work that matters. If one is raised to be ‘work-focused’ and see work as a way to ‘provide for oneself and one’s family’ the cessation of work will be traumatic. Work identity is often the pre-eminent identity we have. When we meet someone, one of the first things we ask is ‘what do you do? Meaning what is your occupation.

What happens in a society where work becomes a subset of one’s life? For some, a balanced lifestyle will be within reach. For others, the life of a precariat may not be something they had planned for.

As vocational educators, we need to be always cognisant of what is going on in the world of work. Preparing learners for a world which is in a state of flux and where working life will involve a need to 'shift gears' as the need for certain occupations wax and wane. 

21st century learning - what is it?

I am preparing for a couple of workshops, framed around the use of technology to enhance learning. The first to ‘learning advisers’, the other to teachers across the NZ tertiary sector. In general, I take a neutral stance, introduce ideas, provide opportunities for some hands-on computer-based try outs and then consolidate the concepts of collaborative learning, student engagement and ubiquitous computing. Also important to discuss the ways in which educators critically think through the reasons for integrating technology into their teaching and how technology may be useful for enhancing student learning through collaborative activities and projects.


Have provided several on Web 2.0 over the last couple of years, so time to do a refresh and update to Web 3.0. A video on 21st century teaching was introduced to me by Kirstin Dofs, our learning centre manager. I will use parts of this to show the changes education has to undergo in order for students to learn 21st century skills.Also some of the ideas summarised an animation of Sir Ken Robinson's ideas on the need for educational reform but with proviso's as discussed by George Siemen in a recent blog arguing that trying to meet current needs just means we continually 'chase our tails'.

To add to above is a recent Becta report from Derek Wenmouth's blog which I skimmed over the weekend. The report finds (through a study of teacher's logs) ICT makes possible new forms of classroom practice AND creates the possibility of a wide range of learning practices. So change is possible, given educators who are willing to put in the time to become familiar with technology and be savvy enough to make the most of ICT in enhancing student learning.

A couple of months ago, I worked through Mark Threadwell's book which summarises some of the above and provides ideas for improving teaching and learning using ICT. His website has a good list of books and resources to start teachers up on adopting use of technology as ONE form of learning engagement.

Other resources previewed in the last couple of months, which I have considered via Greg's blog, a Dunedin school principal are 3 youtube videos – difference between 20th & 21st century teachers. One from John Seely Brown on 21st century learners,  David Willingham on – learning styles don’t exist and Greg Wilby on the importance of theory based practice.

So lot's of ideas to build the presentation on Web 3.0 and 21st century learning. Will need to sift through them and maintain a strong thread so that the overall argument is maintained - educators need to make an effort in order to help enhance student engagement, using technology to assist may be one option.

21st century skills

As a follow up to last week’s blog, the article from Dean Shareski commenting on Stephen Downes caused me to reflect more deeply on my work with students compiling their eportfolios on social networking sites.

Dean was writing about the 1 minute videos that were being produced to apply for the best job in the world and Stephen was commenting on how very few young people ten years ago would have the skills to produce the videos and yet, now, it is a skill that is crucial in the best job in the world scenario. How many of the young people who produced these videos learnt how to do them at school? As an example, my son is an adept video producer. In the last couple of years at school & at university, he produced a slew of videos with his friends – some of which garnered prizes at the annual university ‘ed woods video’ awards. How did he learn how to video? Well there was one 5 day ‘holiday’ course when he was 15 & the rest has been via doing, sharing ideas & skills with friends etc. From this, he then went on to become actor, director, producer, video editor, camera person, sound recorder, sound remixer etc.

Following on to working with my students on their eportfolio, the latest tutorial this week was for me to check on their progress (good work by most) but the main questions from students was not on how to use the technology but on what constitutes a good eportfolio. So the students, after one short introductory session & a couple of weeks to play with the concept have grasped the usefulness of eportfolios & now want to make the most of their opportunity to gather, collate and showcase their work.

What of tutors & educators? Ray Tolley reports on the ongoing work in encouraging educators to adopt new technology. He writes:- “Mal Lee in an e-mail reminded me of Clay Shirky's book, 'Here Comes Everybody'. In reply I quoted back at him one of Shirky's many conclusions: ‘Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies– it happens when society adopts new behaviours.’ Until schools (and for that matter all learning institutions) begin to adopt new behaviours in terms of Teaching & Learning styles and until teachers begin to demand the technologies that will support this new thinking we will never experience revolution. “
I have introduced the concept of eportfolios to a few tutors on Diploma in Adult Education courses working on individualised learning projects. So far, no takers!! They prefer to stick with a traditional paper based report. However, I will work on this. If tutors themselves experience the excitement, creativity and sense of freedom tempered by responsibility that students using social networking sites for eportfolios are experiencing then they will be more open to the idea of introducing eportfolios to their own students.