Case studies - AI - special issue of International Journal of Designs for Learning,

 The International Journal of Designs for Learning published a special issue on Gen AI in learning design at the end of 2025.

There are 30 articles, including 6 'short-form design cases.

There are 8 case studies followed by a special section with 16 articles on learning design for Gen AI.

An editorial by the special edition editors, opens the issue. Articles and themes across the issue are summarised

-Gen AI as a facilitation tool for learning workflow

- Gen AI as a site for AI literacy and critical thinking

- Gen AI as a creative and material partner

- Gen AI, ethics and the work of 'holding the line'

- Designing with Gen AI in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Of note for learning design in the VET  context are the articles:

- G. Fares' article Ch(AI)r: Advancing furniture design through AI craftsmanship - using poetic prompts to generate images using Midjourney and DALL-E. The images are then used as starting points for students' engagement with materials to create a chair.

-  Capturing elusive technology: designing a course on Ai for learning and development practitioners by Da Silva - the learning design of an asynchronous online course for learning desigers.

-  J. Yu and H. Rho on 'just seeing can be deceiving: Gen AI - supported design case for critical visual literacy -  uses AI as a 'cognitive partner' to intentionally create misleading versions of students' data visualisation to encourage and learn critiqueing skills.

-  R. M. Quintana, C. Quintana and M. McCurry on 'unpacking design of an online course series - Gen AI as a learning design partner - presents and discusses the opportunities and applications of Gen AI for supporting and enhancing learning design activities

- Implementing AI course assistances: a rapid design case from concept to full rollout at Los Angeles Pacific University by G. Henshaw and M. Wilday. Used AI as a Socratic partner to support greater student engagement, critical thinking and motivation. Involved faculty as co-designers. 

-  Davis. J. Utilization of ChatGPT to create materials of flipped classroom. - Use to revise pre-class resources and found that develop that it as effective in saving resource development time, improvement in student outcomes noted and quiz questions did not have as many mistakes. 

- Brinkman, E. - redesigning an introduction to writing assignment in the age of AI - emphasised the use of AI as a writing collaborator. Worksheets, scaffolds for learning and prompts are shared in the article. 

- Designing for AI literacy: a modular, Gen AI integrated course interdisciplinary graduate students in education by N. King and J. Yan. - describes the development of a graduate seminar to explore what Ai is and how to use it. 

Many of the articles provide good examples for educators as to how to incorporate AI into courses/programmes. Projects drew on disciplinary and constructivist pedagogies, with AI used to support rather than replace learning. Overall, a good resource to show how AI integration needs to be founded on Ai literacies, good understanding of pedagogy and the learning contexts, and the reflective practice required to utilise technology to enhance learning. 

Handbook of AI at work - book overview

This book is edited by M. Garcia-Murillo, I. MacInnes and A. Renda. It is published by ElgarONline at the beginning of 2024. 

The book has 18 chapters, organised into 3 parts. An introduction by the editors provides a good overview of AI, its historical development and its implications to human labour. 

The first part has 4 chapters on the theme of 'conceptualising the human with the machine'. The main discussion in this section is on the interrelationships and interactions between humans and machine with a strong message about the importance of aligning machine potential and human values.

The second part has 10 chapters, each providing a case study or a specialised application of AI into work. Industries include agriculture, manufacturing, construction and civil engineering, home-based care of the aged, professional learning, entrepreneurial finance, creative industries, judicial systems, national security and governance and policy making.

The last section has 3 chapters discussing ' the labour implications of AI at work'. 

All in, a good overview of how AI impacts on work, the 'guardrails' that need to be in place to ensure ethical integration of AI into work, and examples of the reach of AI across industries.

Ulearn2020 - Keynote #4 - Professor Peter O'Connor - achievement doesn't matter

Professor Peter O’Connor is the final keynote for the Ulearn 2020 conference. He speaks on "Achievement doesn’t matter – education is to preserve democracy and build communities"

Began with a demonstration of how creativity may be expressed. Proposed that the present creativity   stifles and kills creativity. Cited Sir Ken Robinsons call for a shift in education to nurture creativity but not one single educational system has adopted his call. Also called for a re-definition of success. Success is not how much you take but how much you give – as derived from his story about his dad, who died early, but gave much. Success people find ways to share what they have gained.

The true criteria of success - how we do as a nation, and as a planet. It is not passing exams but of education as a national treasure (as per John Dewey). Democracy is under threat with the resurgence of neo-nationalistic politics drawing people. Dewey believed democracy was “made by our hands” and the importance of the arts in ‘training the imagination”. There is a need to imagine the future, before we can move towards it.

Richness is not material, but richness in appreciating and participating in music, poetry, dance – something his father helped nurture and support. The neo-liberal directive to prepare learners for the future is fraught when education should be about imagining the future.

Shared story of his mentor, Dorothy Hignetts? She did not ask if children were taught drama in NZ schools but whether children understood what mattered to them and that they mattered to others. It is not that they matter because they achieved but that they mattered for who they are.

Used an example with his work with Selina Tusitala Marsh onher book ‘mophead’. How the book was used to assist students to learn about concepts of culture through dramatizing the book. The students extended their learning to encompass their understandings of racism and how the activity had helped them unpack their biases.

If we are to reimagine schooling and education, it is important to return to the core purposes. The Arts are important as it nurtures the imagination. Loosing the Arts through the curriculum is a great tragedy. The real danger is the lost of ways to nurture the imagination.

All four keynotes have revolved around the themes of change and how this can be enacted. The call is to use the current circumstances as a catalyst to change the ways education /school is structured and organised, including the need to become more equitable, look after the learners (and teachers) and to redefine ‘success’.

Creativity - a human skillset

Creativity does not get much attention in vocational education. Competency based outcomes often discount the input of creativity as the need to quantify aspects of aethestics or 'taste' is difficult. Many trade occupations require learners to attain creativity in their practice. The most obvious being chefs, hairdressers, florist and joiners.

I came across this article via my Google Scholar alerts this morning. The duality of a pastry chef discusses the need for pastry chefs to be both creative and also technically strong in the knowledge of baking sciences and the manual skills required to work with a range of organic materials (i.e chocolate, sugar). The article uses interviews (through the research method of portraiture) to try to understand how top pastry chefs create desserts and showpieces. The participants were all members of the Malaysian pastry chef team. This year, the Malaysian team won the Coupe de Monde, the world pastry competitions.

The article is published in a new journal from the Events and Tourism Institute at Indiana University. The Institute's research area have a strong slant towards events and tourism management.

Talking Teaching 2018 - Ako Aotearoa Academy symposium - DAY 1 morning

This year, the Ako Aotearoa Academy symposium  - Talking Teaching 2018 - is held at the University of Canterbury. There is a larger than usual gathering due to the event being held in a larger city and an influx of a number of Australian Learning and Teaching fellows.

https://altf.org/

Yesterday, was an academy only day. The various workshops and discussions centred around the role and impact of the academy and its members on quality teaching and learning. The day concluded with dinner with the Australian Learning and Teaching fellows.

Today and into tomorrow, the main symposium carries through.

The event begins with a mihi whakatau (traditional Maori welcome). Professor Charles Fleischmann who is on the conference committee provides us with the safety and housekeeping briefing. Following on there are welcomes from Professor Catherine Moran, Assistant Vice-Chancellor of the university and Professor Marc Wilson, president for the Ako Aotearoa Academy of Tertiary Teaching Excellence.

The keynote address is presented by Professor Juliet Gerrard, academy member and recently appointed as the Prime Minister’s ChiefScience Advisor, She presents on ’beyond the tyranny of content – reframing our teaching using inclusive practices and critical thinking as essential foundations for learners in the 21^st century’. Covered the parameters of her new role; the context of a teacher; and the connection between the two. Her current role is to be a trusted, accessible bridge between scientists, society and government. Needs to provide advice on a useful timescale which is rigorous, inclusive, transparent and accessible (from Nature, June 2018 – four principles to make evidence synthesis more useful for policy). Objectives include shifting society to be excited by science; had advice that is distilled from a diversity of thought and approach; earn trust; be proactive; accessible and view science knowledge and approaches to increase opportunities. Summarised her journey as a teacher to shift from content-based to application in a context. From her portfolio, distilled learning as being a ‘coach’, coaxing students out of their comfort zone, and creating a room in which questioning is encouraged. Used demonstrations to engage students and then made use of situated / contextualised learning. Facilitated an interactive Q & A session to work through the main challenges in learning. The challenges were how to create learning environments that support students to constructively challenge everything (using creative thinking); and Inclusive learning.

Parallel presentations then being. There are 6 streams.

I select the ‘technology’ stream, which actually focusses on digital learning and assesments.

First up, Associate Professor Cheryl Brown and Niki Davis from University of Canterbury with – engaging students in blended learning – UC student perspectives. Presented work for the team which also included Valerie Sotardi and William Eulatth Vidal. Began with the difficulty of defining engagement. Although there is a lot of literature and engagement is on a wide spectrum. Resolved to investigate the students’ perspectives. On-line engagement even more difficult to track. Two items are presence and performance. For online – learning analytics are visible but can be misleading. Clicking on a reading etc. does not mean they will have read the paper! What about the invisible. Provided distance student’s viewpoints. Flexibility makes synchronous attendance onerous, especially if presence requirements are required (attendance, forum participation etc.). What is not visible is the reflective learning; peer communications through social media; physical meetings amongst some students; etc. How to bridge the gap between pedagogical design and students’ learning needs and strategies. Suggested ensuring there is space for students to interact with their peers; undertake their individual learning; and work out what works for them from a range of suggested ‘pathways’ from which they can select and be guided through.

Then, Associate Professor Selene Mize from University of Otago with her experiences with computer-based examining. Presented preliminary findings. Ran through reasons for adopting computer-based examining – learner preference; sustainability; occupational health and safety around ‘hand fatigue’; and unreadable writing. Essay based exams are inauthentic as lawyers will never discuss ‘quotations’ in writing at work. Covered potential advantages and disadvantages. Summarised some of the studies around computer-based exams including the aspect whereby written examinations seem to score lightly better than word processed scripts. Detailed the staff and student surveys – law, anatomy, surveying, info science, tourism, political science. Low numbers of students opted in! Presented responses on perceived advantages and challenges of writing vs typing.

Next up, Associate Professor Jo Coldwell-Neilson from DeakinUniversity with ‘digital literacy – a driver for curriculum transformation’. Context is ophthalmology – which is a ‘self-contained’ programme with all courses being compulsory. Defined digital literacy in this context. For example – the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers (Gilster, 1997) –which needs to be updated for the current and future needs. Shared work defining digital skills expectations – digital muggle 9none), citizen user to find info, communicate and purchase), worker (complex platforms) and maker (programmer). There is work from UK JISC (6 elements – ict proficiency, digital creation, problem solving, communication and collaboration, learning and development and info data and media literacies – building an identity and welbeing), Belshaw’s 8 Cs (cultural creative, constructive etc.) and Beetham and Sharpe’s pyramid (I have, I cam I do, I am). Another model from Ireland – www.allaboardhe.com

To assess digital literacy, needs to be in context, can be assessed if integrated well – where it is taught, applied and assessed. Need to match what is required – explicitly assessed when it is an implicit requirement but not ‘taught’ e.g. use video to communicate.

Followed on by Renee Stringer - hospitality lecturer from Otago Polytechnic on ‘assessing assessment – challenging the system by giving students agency to assess themselves’. A focus not only on competencies but to help them become better learners beyond the Level 3 food and beverage students. over 50% move on to further study but have had little experience with tertiary education. Introduced the need to shift students from a standards based system to taking ownership of their learning and assessment. Needed to encourage students to engage with the marking criteria and to develop learning to learning skills. Authentic assessment (practical) was followed by a reflective process to evaluate their performance. Based on Mason Durie's 3 Ws or Es. Whakapiri / engagement, whakamarama / enlightenment to achieve whakamana / empowerment. When through each part of the model. Whakapiri / engagement involves setting up boundaries, be flexible and student accommodating and be in a safe and supportive environment. Whakamarama / enlightment focuses on providing information that meets students' needs by working with the whole person - physical, mental, spiritual etc. This then provides for whakamana / empowerment to be achieved along with participation within society, the Maori worldview, enjoy positive relationships and become self-managing. Discussed challenges including time required to negotiate grades with students and written reflections being less rich than f2f interactions with tutor. 

NCVER no frills and NZ VET research forum 2018

Day 2 morning

In Sydney for the combined conferences of the National Centre for Vocational Education and Training Research (NCVER) with the New Zealand VET research forum, convened by the Industry Training Federation. 

Welcome reception last night started off the conference, good to catch up with many familiar researchers in Vocational education.

Conference opens with welcome from Dr. Mette Creaser, interim Managing Director of NCVER and Michael Ross, Principal advisor for the NZ Industry Training Federation. Michael provided participants with overview of the NZ industry training context. Provided summaries of the three key reviews and supporting shifts in accompanying systems to meet the needs of the future. Check report from info metrics on megatrends in work and education.

Short address from Genevieve Knight, acting national manager research at NCVER on the Skills for the future report. A short presentation to summarise key points. Main employment in Australia and New Zealand now in services sectors, health, professional, scientific and technical, education and training and construction. Quick shift in Technology requires rapid and agile vocational training systems with continuous and lifelong learning delivery and support. VET systems required to play a key role in ensuring people attain, maintain and continue learning to keep up with the requirements for the need of future work.

First keynote from Lene Tanggaard, Professor at department of communication and psychology at Aalborg University in Denmark, on creativity in VET. Brought together crafts, vocational education and training and creativity. Extended on the premise of the epistemology of the hand and the need to recognise its contribution. Creativity argued as a key, difficult to replicate without human input, skill. Not only for artists, designers or academics but found high levels in VET apprentices. Need to treasure VET for how it contributes to a practical and pragmatic way of igniting and expressing creativity. Imagination is a foundation for creativity- see 2018 Tanggaard and Brinkmann. PISA test will now include creativity as a component. There is a correlation with personal growth, academic and job success (Long and Plucker, 2014). Creativity is essential for all (Csikszentmihalyi) but entails actual work (Vera John-Steiner, 1997) - a notebook of the mind. Creativity builds on the ability to see clearer and to rediscover what we know but seem to have forgotten. Creativity is about mastery, craft and recycling, not just brainstorming and post-it notes. It is more about business as usual than not. Creativity needs the ability to synthesis (combination of opportunities), analytical sense (what and why is this good?) and practical intelligence (ideas do not sell themselves! There is a need to tinker to make it work). The eyes of the skin and the thinking hand by Juhani Pallasmaa, a Finnish architect. The poet, the sculptor or architect worked with the entire body, not primarily through intellect, theory or acquired professional qualifications. In fact a lot of what we have learned must be unlearned to be useful. Summarised latest study on how inventiveness and innovation takes place. A model of creative learning in VET has three interconnected circles with resistance, immersion and experiments and ‘fooling around’. Therefore need to build expertise within a field and VET plays an important role in providing the skills base for creativity. 

Five streams in concurrent sessions running on themes of practitioner, employability and foundation skills, skills, International and rural and remote.

 Begin with Emma McLaughlin’s (Wellington Institute of Technology) presentation on ‘working around the words’ tutor strategies and the tutor voice in vocational education. This is an output from the Ako Aotearoa funded national project ‘the language of the trades’ which used linguistic Research methodology to explore the complexities of learning the skills, social mores and practice in the trades. Summarised purpose, findings and recommendations from the project. Purpose was to describe the language, texts and visual features in carpentry, Automotive , fabrication and electrical. Trade vocabulary was as challenging as academic. Embedding language is through tutor talk, diagrams were used extensively and learning was through doing. Interviews with tutors and learners in carpentry used in the presentation. Tutors use the language, use different synonyms, deliberately use the terms, elicited correct terms and learning was embedded in the work of building a house. Shared underpinning literature on situated learning and the complexities of trades language. In practice, tutors used strategies to assist including, modelling, eliciting, reinforcing, clarifying etc. recommended using a strengthens based approach - doing well, share and try. Introduced resources on Ako website, working around words and building a working vocabulary. Shared the model and the resources - teaching strategies, videos, glossaries, posters etc. 

Then with Louise King from Charles Darwin University, on factors influencing international teachers enactment of Australian VET curricula. Presented on a subset of her PhD study. What are the contextual factors that influence teachers enactment of the Australian curriculum. Used phenomenological approach and  3 in-depth interviews with 13 teachers. Experienced teachers in Australia but not as long overseas. Reported on themes around information (generally insufficient), resources (often insufficient to maintain curricula fidelity), materials (teaching materials not always available), institutional arrangements (generally inadequate) and student readiness (goals and interest, language proficiency, prior knowledge and abilities and learning styles and preferences). Dissonance experienced and no preparation provided to support them through the challenges posed. 

Food Heroes - Channel New Asia series

Came across this series while I was in Singapore in November. I have been dipping in and out of it across the break from work. Here are notes taken of each episode - each around 25 minutes long.

All the featured chefs are young, in their early to mid thirties. They come from disparate backgrounds but all have an innate respect for food. All attended some form of culinary training before embarking on journeyman experiences, mostly in well-rated, influential restaurants, often through unpaid internships but strategically selected – the best restaurants. Archive of the series also available via toggle.

Janice Wong – 

A graduate but with a love of food and an innovative pastry chef / owner of 2AM Dessert Bar. Her innovation is anchored by perseverance. Has clear ideas on how to provide food with experience. Food is not just to be eaten but to invoke memories and add to individuals’ collection of sense of place. Provides ingredients, in the form of jars of coloured chocolate, sauces etc. to customers to make their own versions. Completed work experience in France before embarking on her own entrepreneurial journey.

Jason Tan - chef at the  CornerHouse 

Jason comes from humble roots and is still living in HDB (public housing in Singapore) apartment with his parents.He is inspired by nature and the restaurant is aptly situated in the Singapore botanical gardens. A Singaporean who helms a top flight French restaurant – there is no Frenchman running a Chinese restaurant in France.  He is praised by food critics for technique, precision and innovative use of local ingredients. Allowing ingredients to shine through careful cooking technique, appropriate to each ingredient and various combinations to feature and highlight natural the flavours. Shared how he learnt the exacting attitude required to produce excellent and consistent food. Work experience in Franc with this article detailing some of his training

Hashida ‘Hatch’ Kenjiro – helms Hashida Sushi in Singapore.

 Hatch epitomises the Japanese tradition of sushi chef training by his father – stealing knowledge by observation. Started at 12 cleaning tables after school. Only at 14 was he allowed to assist in the kitchen. He still follows traditional processes as learnt from his father but his presentation is modern and often inspired by modern art. He takes procurement of ingredients seriously. All fish is air-flown from Tokyo and he visits the suppliers often to maintain person to person relationships.
Another overview plus video of sushi making from ieatishootipost.

Julien Royer – head chef at Odette, a fine dining French restaurant 

Julien grew up in a family of farmers where his grandmother, Odette was his first cookery teacher. His philosophy is of using simple food as the best ingredients and then continuing with minimal cooking and modernistic plating. Keeps taste pure rather than masking natural favours. Uses smell and sound to enhance the dining experience. Not just to push boundarie and innovate for the sake of innovation, but to stick to the basics and do them well. Offers a vegetarian tasting menu J Stresses the importance of educating the palate for young chefs. Uses a collaborative style for training emphasising co-creation of dishes.

Loh Pik Peng

 A hotelier and restauranteur with 20 hotels/restaurants inSingapore and a trendsetter and also in Sydney, Shanghai and London. He specialises in identifying the x factor in chefs so that each restaurant is subsequently successful. An innovative, creative and technically well versed cook may not actually make a good chef. Running a restaurant also includes the business side of things.

Began with Ember as his hotel needed a restaurant. Then webt on to open a whole series - Restaurant Andre, Majestic restaurant, The Study, Cheek by Jowl, contributing to revival of heritage areas around Singapore.

He is from a family of foodies – father, grandfather and studied law before beginning the unlisted collection.

First hotel / restaurant in late 1990s and early 2000s, a challenging time due to financial recession. Learnt by doing and distilled factors that would contribute to successful restaurants. See this article for his ideas on entrepreneurship in hospitality.

Focuses on quality food accompanied with quality service, ambience / atmosphere and attention to details.Mentors promising chefs to helm his restaurants. Currently employs 170 chefs / cooks. Programme profiled 3 of his chefs, a multinational group with an Australian, Sri Lankan, Singaporean but is now working to support and groom local chefs. Especially the ones who are keen to  work with locally sourced ingredients and provide a distinct Singaporean interpretation to fine-dining.

Han Li Guang, 

As one of the most experimental chefs in Singapore and the flag-bearer for emerging Modern Singapore cuisine, Han Li Guang reinvents well-loved local dishes into something never encountered before. Think chicken rice without chicken and rice, and chilli crab ice-cream. 

Article for more background information found here.

Han is a banker turned chef with little formal cooking background. He completed his apprenticship to a fine dining restaurant when he first started out. He had to learn basic skills rapidly but sought to stay true to his food philosophies. Reads voraciously to expand his horizons and obtain learning on techiques.

Han brings ingredients together to make familiar Singaporean dishes with a twist. Experimental cuisine reinterpreting the food Han loves to eat but to push the boundaries to define and elevate flavours and come up with something unexpected. Articulate in explaining how his cuisine has developed and his reflections on how he goes about innovating. See this article for more. For example, how to present Hainanese chicken rice and make it a culinary taste adventure. So the dish honours the ingredients and presents a surprise take on something which is familiar to Singaporeans. As he is working with iconic Singaporean dishes, the challenge is made greater. R and D is intensive and time consuming. His goal is to create something unique to his personality but retaining the integrity of his philosophies on cooking. Advocates for the need of young potential cooks to not only learn Western cuisine but to be also train in how local food is produced.

Malcom Lee – Candlenut specialising in Peranakan gastronomy – 

The food of my childhood. Ieatishootipost video with American ambassador being introduced to Peranakan cuisine. 

Malcolm odernised the ‘fusion’ of Malay and Chinese cuisines. He honours the integrity of hallmark Peranakan dishes but presents innovatively. Traces the development of his journey towards paying attention and respect to traditional dishes, based on the recipes of his mother. Moved Peranakan food up a notch from its home cooked food foundation towards fine dining expectations. He originaly refined the classic dishes to satisfy his own vision / palate expectations of the dish by creating either a better version or a modern version. The episode also covered the challenges of introducing diners to new interpretations of familiar and beloved favourites. While studying towards his undergraduate degree, he interned at several fine dining restaurants in Europe, strengthening his resolve to become a chef. After graduating, he studied at cooking school in Singapore. Peranakan cooking has always been based on the cooking of the family, the traditional dishes cooked by grandmothers. Malcolm’s goal is to stay true to the roots of Peranakan cooking but to also modernise and extend the cuisine.

Innovation includes the use of ingredients traditionally used in savoury dished in sweet desserts. An example being their signature dish, buah kelauk ice cream. The bauk keluak has a distinct flavour and traditionally cooked with chicken, giving the dish a very dark black colour and a distinctive bitter end note. Using the buah kelauk in ice cream extended the nuttiness and chestnut like texture into a smooth, ice cream.

Persistence and adherence to his foundational philosophies pay off with the attainment of one Michelin star in 2016. What began as a passion, evolved into an obsession. Eventually, the business stress caused him to re-evaluate his priorities and to seek better work-life balance.

Andre Chiang – restaurant Andre

Andre helms the third-placed restaurant in Asia and 32 in the world and a restaurant on the list of top 10 restaurants in the world worth a plane ride. Andre is renown for creating degustation menu with 8 courses. His food is innovative, visually attractive and adventurous in taste and texture. Based on octo philosophy, the eight essentials of dishes. Meals are to be an experience, with the 8 dishes spaced across 3 hours and matched with appropriate wine, service techniques and accompanying serving theatherics. An example, seared meat, served with heated stones and covered with a range of herbs and spices in a closed container. The dish is enhanced with the aromas, textures and ‘surprise’ elements.

Menu elements change each day. The lunch menu is a ‘menu in process’ based on what is available at the market each morning. His mother was a chef in Taiwan and some of this legacy, the importance of food and eating, is reflected in his cooking. Moved to the South of France at 15 and trained in a 3 star Michelin restaurant. He had to train his palate towards what was expected in a French kitchen.

He is able now to blend eastern and western philosophies of cooking, bringing elements of the best of each culture into his current repertoire. Provided example of how he worked with foie gras to create a unique product to lighten the dish but acceptable to the French palate. Always seeks to retain the natural flavours of the food but adds sufficient elements to enhance and improve the natural ingredient. It is a daily collaborative effort to maximise the ingredients available to create the best interpretation, worthy of service to his customers.

The series is beautifully filmed. A must see by anyone interested in how cooking evolves with its strong links to socio-cultural connections.The food videography is done well so best to view each episode after you have eaten :) 

Indications there will be more episodes to come in series two.

AVETRA 2013 day 1 afternoon

After lunch, the keynote is with Colleen Hayward on ‘training and work from an indigenous perspective'. Colleen presented on the many complex challenges in indigenous education and some of the initiatives designed to address them. Both the education and employment environments have been complex, multi-layered and difficult to navigate for indigenous people. In comparison to the broader Australian demographic, indigenous peoples are more likely to be poorer, less educated, under-employed and have poorer physical and health. Of importance is the younger demographical population, hence the need to work at engagement with education to lead to better life outcomes. Some goals to 'close the gap' include ensuring indigenous pre-schoolers receive pre-school opportunities, school completion moving closer to the main population norm etc. Government can legislate but the work still requires whole community focus.
need to understand that causes are multifarious and one challenge impacts on another, exacerbating the challenge. An example is how poor housing leads to poor health in indigenous students. Continuous poor health may lead to continual hearing infections, impacting on students' learning at school. Poor attendance caused by poor health then makes it difficult to catch up.
Strategies to meet the challenges also need to be innovative and recognize the many impacts. For instance, providing tutorial assistance at tertiary level, along with opportunities for supported 'cadetship' leads to support during study both academically and financially. Cadetships also may lead to later employment.

Again, I stay in the VET practice stream – with Christine Liveris from Central Institute of Technology, Perth presenting on ‘practical strategies to facilitate self-regulated learning in vocational education and training business students'. based on an MPhil study of 8 students in a business programme suggests students engaged in a writing activity have little 'recursive activity'. a set of practical strategies to improve students' self-regulation used to improve teaching and learning. Self regulation has many definitions, including goal setting, time management, learning strategies, self evaluation, self attributes, seeking help or information and self motivational beliefs including self-efficacy and intrinsic task interest.  Good students often have self-regulatory characteristics. Phenomenological study to find out students perception of their own self-regulation - students wrote a short report two weeks before interviews carried out. Relationship between ways feedback is used to self-regulated learning. Cognitive strategies used included knowledge of task, positive self-efficacy statements, elaboration strategies (note taking, paraphrasing, summarizing and creating analogies) and some assessment tasks encourage surface rather than deep learning. good writers use recursive problem solving so metacognitive strategies of planning and evaluation are present. Therefore students need to be encouraged to interpret tasks in terms of existing knowledge and self-beliefs; set proximal goals, have authentic writing skills, have models for self regulatory skills, be in environment that supports  self-efficacy. Feedback, both internal and external, is a prime determiner of self-regulatory processes. Use feedback strategies that give learners a more central and active role in the feedback process.

Next up, Kenneth Meyer from CSU, Wagga with ‘ improving imagination skills in order to assist abstractive learning'. positive interventions used to improve students' learning of difficult abstract concepts - physics concepts applicable to electrical trades. Electrical physics is non-sensory therefore difficult to 'experience' with lots of jargon, algebra, abstraction and symbols. Understanding involves creation of idiosyncratic mental model. Improving imagination, mental modeling, abstraction abilities leads to improvement in learning electrical physics. A side effect is improvement in individual motivation. Participatory action research over three semesters with one cohort of students. Strategies included playing imagination and strategy games. Analysed narrative data through activity and tension field (Illeris) learning theories. Findings include that learning electrical physics requires the building of mental models, imagination assist with complexies of abstraction, creating space to problem solve in new ways, imagination illuminates new ways of knowing.

After afternoon tea, I move across to the ‘Teachers and PD’ stream to attend Teresa O’Brien’s (C.Y. O'Connor Institute) presentation ‘ technology pedagogy and content knowledge in action: perspectives of Vocational and training teachers from a regional western Australian institute’. reports on parts of a PhD project, using a mixed method approach, to find out VET teachers' epistemic beliefs about the use of technology to support teaching. Great need to use technology in sparsely populated areas of NW Australia, a key being the capability of TAFE tutors. Study uses a social constructivist perspective positing that technology can provide social, cognitive and emotional support to enable communication and connectivity between learners. technology skills become another requirement of VET teachers who already have to maintain currency in industry expertise and demonstrate teaching expertise. TPACK framework represents knowledge constructed from intersection of technology, pedagogy and content (Koehler & Mishra, 2008). Intersections indicates technology integration. Study added the extra influence of teachers' epistemic beliefs to ensure that TPACK integration occurs. Teacher's beliefs found to be content transmission based. Therefore a mismatch between TPACK framework principles and teachers' beliefs. Need to have PD for teachers that covers all components of TPACK framework.

Last presentation of the day also in the same stream – Melanie William’s (timeFUTURE) presentation on ‘engaging in mixed sector scholarly practice’. Examines the scholarship of teaching and learning (Boyer, 1990) in one Victorian public mixed sector institution in an effort to find out what contributes to 'quality scholarship'. The functions of scholarship include discovery, integration, teaching and application. In Australian context, regulatory requires scholarship but there is no clear definition. Transplanting university understandings to VET problematic. engagement in applied research is one method. Definition of engagement by Boyer (1990, 1996) involves scholarly service; dynamic interaction between theory and practice; tied directly to scholars' professional field; applies and contributes to human knowledge; applied to avoid irrelevance and be useful. Rice (2002) challenged by suggesting that engagement had to involve pedagogy, be community based and collaborative. Method was to commission 3 narratives on scholarly engagement accompanied by reflective commentary. Analysed using grounded theory and emergent themes compared and contrasted. How is scholarly engagement practiced? what makes it distinctive? Three narratives include winery, cookery book development and professional textbook (open source software as topic) writing. All 3 cases involved elements of discovery, integration and/or teaching as well as engagement. Distinctive aspects included the research financed and justified through teaching; scholarship conducted outside professional environment; some funding through crowdsourcing, self publishing on the internet and internet/social media used to make scholarship accessible to the public. Peer review key mechanism for ensuring quality but understood differently from universities. dialogue and collaboration occurred, work was rooted in the literature. Findings include Boyer's framework more useful as analytical than categorical mechanism; scholarly engagement in these cases highly innovative; democratization of the knowledge production process; consideration given to what constitutes quality scholarly practice; and consists of systematic processes of inquiry coupled with scholarly work.

AVETRA AGM followed by conference dinner makes for a long by eventful day.

Passion and Creativity

One of the books I took across with me to Melbourne a month or so ago was Howard Gardner’s new book, Five Minds for the Future. I started reading it on the plane and by the time I got to the second page , I found that it mirrored the same thoughts I had put together for the CPIT Spring graduation keynote held at the end of September.

In my speech, I spoke about the importance of passion. Passion has been a defining factor in my research with young apprentices who have fallen into the trade and are now all working hard to become bakers. I advised all the graduates to work at:-

• gaining and maintaining passion for their content area,
• maintaining a passion for life-long learning,
• staying passionate about people,
• fostering a passion for their profession and
• most importantly, work on sustaining a passion for goodness.

The five minds Gardner required to enhance creativity are

• the ability to be expert in a discipline,
• to have a wide spectrum of knowledge in order to synthesise other fields of knowledge with ones own discipline,
• to be able to create new forms of knowledge, innovate new ways to do things,
• be respectful of others and
• to behave ethically.

The above has triggered some thoughts on whether the students I teach are actually being prepared for the future.

• Are we igniting passion sufficiently for them to move on to gain enough motivation to work at becoming expert in their discipline (Gardner reckons it takes ten years for an individual to work up to true expert hood)?
• Do we model that we, as teachers and tradespersons, have an abiding love for life long learning?
• Do we show students how our expert knowledge, spiced with extra learning from our hobbies, leisure, research activities etc. allows us to synthesise and create new products, concepts, ways to do things?
• Do we treat students with respect regardless of their innate abilities, attitudes or social, cultural or religious values?
• Do we work within our societies ethical codes?

All of us can perhaps reply YES to all the above, but to what degree does the above permeate our teaching practice? Can we say that we are able to ignite passion in every student that we have the pleasure to teach? Have we the time to be all things to everyone? How does technology help?

So many questions, and any answers? In my context, it’s the ability to reflect, to have the things that we should be passionate about, always at the forefront of how we teach, develop learning resources and live our lives.