Third Meeting of PUPS

OUR COMMUNITY
Our third meeting took place with representatives from Fairfield Council, Centre Directors from both council and community based and of course representatives from TAFE. The meeting focused on a debrief from the Mid term forum and there was lost of interest in projects and ways forward for our project. As a group we decided that we would move forward to the next stages of the project. The two anticipated outcomes are:
2. Facilitate the application of research to identify strategies to generate innovative teaching to support student's studying part time.
3. Provide VET staff with new knowledge about workplace methodologies; including informal learning and self directed learning located in the workplace.
We decided that we would research current models including Sutherland Shire Council, Marrickville Council and a link to Cooloola Sunshine TAFE (which came from the mid term forum) The National Early Childhood Association meeting is being held in Queensland in September and many of the group participants will be in Queensland so we will investigate the possibility of meeting up together.
Learning pathways were discussed and we decided at the next meeting we will look at the available online materials including ANTA Toolbox and NSW Learningware.
At this meeting we discussed questions we would ask when participants went on visits and this was a great exercise to really establish what we need for the model we will develop.
So we will conduct our visits and then meet up for our next meeting at Fairfield council. So off to do some visits...

National Mid-term Forum for Applying Information and Research 2005 projects

The mid- term forum was provided by Reframing the Future to provide an opportunity to discuss and share experiences with other information and research projects. It was held at the Hilton in Melbourne.

It was an important opportunity not be missed as it provided projects to share and compare experiences and to reflect the development of new approaches and strategies for knowledge management. What was of interest was the wide variety of projects that are participating in 2005.
An overview of the projects include:
University of Ballarat which looked at Language, Literacy and Numeracy in the range of vocational training programs. A really interesting overview of incorporating across a wide range of areas.

RMIT's project also was about LL&N and is developing a staff development handbook on how to intergrate LNN within VET delivery. The presentation saw the group being able to see first hand what the handbook was all about.

Jennifer from Challenger TAFE provided a most interesting account of her work on innovation. The model that was presented was most impressive and would seem a great framework for capturing, supporting and sustaining innovation.
Cooloola Sunshine Institute of TAFE (how wonderful to be able to work in Sunshine!!)
A great overview of their successes on developing a sustainable "Market Responsiveness Model" Can't wait to see the final overview of this project as I think it will be extremely useful for all TAFE Colleges.
Goulburn Ovens Murray Regional Council of ACE provided a wonderful presentation including a mini digital story. Most impressive. This project is researching rural men;s participation in formal VET training and investigating practical strategies for engaging men.

Further to this project is Southern Western Port Regional Council of ACE Victoria's project which looks at learning needs of a range of groups including Kooris, CALD learners and men over 45. Rosie, is an experienced digital story teller I look forward to viewing this group's digital stories.
IAG LTD NSW provided an interesting view of the vision of ERTOF: Enterprise Registered Training Organisation Forum who's purpose is to share practices, advocate on behalf of industry, influence policy decisions impacting on industry and establish and maintain the value of VET within industry.

Robyn from Central Northern Adelaide Health Services to bring together S.A, stakeholders in health and VET. As Robyn said "bring them all to the table at once". The focus is to review and understand the new paradigms of workplace based learning and training responses to ongoing competency requirements in organisations.
It was great to hear from Gordon Institute of TAFE and about their project which is all about enpowerment and encouragement of staff to interact and apply models and research in relation to key aspects of the National training scheme and put this knowledge into practice. This project has had now forums that have attracted large numbers of participation and has produced some great newsletters.
TCFUA (mmm can't remember what it stands for my apologies) but a most interesting project about workers moving out of the Textile Industry when factories have closed. The project is about partnerships between the union, companies and TAFE in retraining retrenched workers. The project has managed to access funding and is currently working with at least 3 TAFE colleges.
Liz Renshaw from SWSI TAFE NSW is working on a project of employability skills for learners. This is looking at ways to apply research information to developing a model of working across Faculties at the local area. In other words to create a seamless transition for students.
My presentation was unique in that I misread (or perhaps only skimmed) the email about the forum and produced a power point. At this stage of the project we have increased the group to include Fairfield council and we are looking at ways to develop a model of workbased learning, training and assessment in Children's Services. Most of the research has been completed and now I am inspired by the other projects to now take on some more activities. Very inspired for our next meeting.

If I have misrepresented any of the projects please forgive me was certainly an important forum that should always be considered as lost of information was shared and great to see what is happening in the other projects.

Our Second Meeting

We had our second meeting on Wednesday 10th August at Miller College. We welcomed our new members from Fairfield Council. This was Jess the Branch head Children's Services.

Two Directors from Child care centres in the area also came alon and are now apart of our PUPS team. (Mmm, that's right forgot to talk about whether they had puppys I will put it on the agenda for next time.)


Thankfully Bernadette our facilitator kept us on track and it was agreed by the team to meet the project outcomes the team will develop:

• an annotated bibliography,
• a model of work based delivery taking into account part time students’ needs
• a digital story and the blog
• strong partnerships

Bernadette suggested that the group should brainstorm key words for the project as follows to hel0p with the research:

• Skills Ecosystem – suggested reading
• Part time students
• Flexibility
• Work/Life balance
• Expectations – TAFE Learner – do they match
• Ability/expectations
• Barriers to achievement eg. ESL, RPL
• Support systems
• Individualisation
• Practicum
• Motivation
• Completion
• Incentives
• Work based learning CF Institution based
• Employer incentives – intrinsic and barriers
• Content currency and relative to work context

So lots of reading to do....

We also spent some time looking over the blog and making sure everyone was aware of how ot log on. Our next meeting will be held at Liverpool Catholic Club on Wednesday
7 September 2005 commencing at 6.30 pm.

Fairfield Council Comes On Board!

By the way these are my girls Coco and Maxie!

Now the news........

Over the past weeks negotitations have been held with Branch Heads from Fairfield Council to become a part of PUPS. It is an opportune time for all as PUPS meets current priorities for looking at identifying skills and ways to encourage upskilling of staff

This lead to being able to promote the project to a Children Services Directors meeting which was most positive. I hope to have more members join PUPS.

Hope everyone is busy researching and look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting!

What's happening this month?

This month PUPS is looking at the first objective of the project:

1. Identify and evaluate sources of VET research to provide insights about part time student's needs and expectations.

Members are asked to identify and evaluate VET research that is relevant to part time student's needs and expectations. This could include ideas such as examples of work based delivery, flexibility, time management and access to resources to mention a few examples to get you thinking.

On the right hand side of our BlOG are some suggestions to begin your research. A good start is to begin with the National Centre for Vocational Reseach. If you could upload interesting sites by replying to this posting it will be a great opportunity to share your research with others of the group.

The outcome of this is to identify your focus area for the project. This might include students working and studying part time, NESB students, gender focus or personal development of students. If you could include your interest for a focus area you might find a research buddy for the project.

Good Luck and Have Fun.

Project Overview

This project will bring together key stakeholders from Children's Services to explore research findings around workplace learning, enabling stakeholders to use research in building delivery models.

Outcomes of the project include:

1. Identify and evaluate sources of VET research to provide insights about part time student's needs and expectations.
2. Facilitate the application of research to identify strategies to generate innovative teaching to support student's studying part time.
3. Provide VET staff with new knowledge about workplace learning methodologies; including informal learning and self directed learning located in the workplace.

The project aims to encourage a strong partnership between stakeholders in VET, Local Council Sponsors and Industry.

Getting Started

This is our first meeting to scope and discuss the project. We decided on PUPS as our name because we found a common thread in the group was that we have small puppies.

We have planned to have a meeting where the puppies will all come along!