Pathways To The Future
Over the last twelve months or so, the team at Graccon Learning Solutions have been busy completing some very comprehensive learning designs to support the Victorian Government’s Head Start programme. Head Start is an apprenticeship and traineeship pathway that allows school students to work while completing vocational training and a senior secondary qualification. Our work contributes to a wide suite of reforms that reflect recommendations made by the Future Skills for Victoria independent review (Macklin, 2020).
One recommendation of this review was for the government, industries, communities and education and training providers to work together to develop new apprenticeship and traineeship pathways for secondary students. Therefore, to complete this work, we collaborated with subject matter experts, education providers and assessment experts to research, design and develop units of learning that could be delivered via an online or blended approach.
For this project, we researched, designed and developed units of learning designed to build student capacity to use ICT, for example:
3D modelling
Designing and building web pages
Creating visual design components
Connecting internal hardware components
Maintaining and repairing ICT equipment and software
Social media and online tools for business
Providing ICT customer service
Our goal was to design quality online resources, mapped against units of competency, suitable for blended learning models that combine online and work-integrated learning. What do these ‘quality’ resources look like? Here are a few design points that we considered to be important for this project. The immediate target group was senior secondary students.
Build context
Incorporate storytelling and meaningful case studies
Speak directly to the students not the curriculum
Provide real world problems to solve
Provide opportunities for learners to share their thoughts and wonderings
Encourage student to learn with the world not just learn about it.
To be more concrete, these quality resources were designed to help students build their proficiency in using ICT while also nurturing employability skills such as communication skills, troubleshooting, collaboration and design. This approach recognises the growing importance of digital literacies while also supporting and amplifying transferable skills. The increasing use of digital technologies at work is raising the demand for new skills, and ICT skills and capabilities are important for the whole workforce and not just those engaged in specialist ICT roles (AIGroup, 2018).
This is a tricky space to design for as it’s a space of tension between compliance and innovation. Our designs remain committed to quality, but hopefully, they also break away from an overly prescriptive approach to ‘training’ that narrows teaching and learning to a tightly defined set of competencies. In our view, good learning design doesn’t just focus on acquiring skills and knowledge but also supports students in participating in the learning process.
NOTE: For this project, we worked with a small consortium of Victorian businesses who also developed units that focussed on emerging technologies such as robotics, 3D printing, cyber-security and the IOT. These online units were for incorporating into two new Certificate III qualifications; a Certificate III in Emerging Technologies and a Certificate III in Enabling Technologies. These new learning resources, to be delivered by TAFEs, RTOs and Government schools and employers across Victoria, are designed to allow students to explore industry career options, prepare for further education and training, or gain employment.
References
Ai Group. (2018). Developing the workforce for a digital future: Addressing critical issues and planning for action. Retrieved from https://cdn.aigroup.com.au/Reports/2018/Developing_the_workforce_for_a_digital_future.pdf
Macklin, J. (2020). Future Skills for Victoria, Driving collaboration and innovation in post-secondary education and training, Victorian Government, Melbourne. Retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/macklinreview-finalreport.pdf
