The Tipping Point?
 
In 2015, tertiary education faces a tipping point. The familiar challenges faced by education systems — a finite budget, changing skills demands, youth unemployment – are being compounded by the fundamental shift in the way information is disseminated and knowledge produced; and the emergence of a global jobs market and an international education industry. As the system evolves, we are seeing experimentation with new approaches to undergraduate programs, the rise of the MOOCs (massive open online courses) and new institutional arrangements across the higher education—vocational education divide. These present opportunities and challenges to VET educators. The opportunities include harnessing their professional expertise to shape advanced education programs that appeal to more applied learners and to employers; the challenges are in meeting the demands of the new environment, including for scholarly practice. This paper will explore these challenges and opportunities, which provide the context for the AVETRA/TDA Educator Hub initiative.
 
Francesca Beddie, Professional Associate, Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics, University of Canberra
 
 
If only I had the time…!  VET educators’ engagement in research

Berwyn Clayton

Victoria University

Abstract

Regardless of industry sector, years of experience or where delivery occurs, VET educators invariably contemplate what impacts their teaching has on the behaviour of learners as they strive to acquire critical knowledge and skills for work. Whilst such reflective activity has the potential to inform better practice, too often fleeting thoughts about better ways of working are not acted upon and are lost in the busyness that overwhelms most practitioners’ working lives. What might happen if time and space were made available explicitly to for VET educators to deliberate, analyse, act on and evaluate innovative teaching strategies?  How might active and ongoing engagement in research make a difference to the quality of teaching and learning? Would the new knowledge gained in small-scale projects have the capacity to extend and enrich the common stock of professional knowledge as Elliot (1985) suggests? This paper will provide a brief overview of recent literature on the value of practitioner research and highlight a number of examples which demonstrate improved outcomes for both VET learners and those who teach them.

Berwyn Clayton – Professor Emeritus at Victoria University.

If only I had the time…!  VET educators’ engagement in research

Berwyn Clayton

Victoria University

Abstract

Regardless of industry sector, years of experience or where delivery occurs, VET educators invariably contemplate what impacts their teaching has on the behaviour of learners as they strive to acquire critical knowledge and skills for work. Whilst such reflective activity has the potential to inform better practice, too often fleeting thoughts about better ways of working are not acted upon and are lost in the busyness that overwhelms most practitioners’ working lives. What might happen if time and space were made available explicitly to for VET educators to deliberate, analyse, act on and evaluate innovative teaching strategies?  How might active and ongoing engagement in research make a difference to the quality of teaching and learning? Would the new knowledge gained in small-scale projects have the capacity to extend and enrich the common stock of professional knowledge as Elliot (1985) suggests? This paper will provide a brief overview of recent literature on the value of practitioner research and highlight a number of examples which demonstrate improved outcomes for both VET learners and those who teach them.

Berwyn Clayton – Professor Emeritus at Victoria University.