NTLT 2013 - Peter Coolbear - Supporting the success of priority learners – translating policy aspiration to enhancement of practice
1. Supporting the success of priority learners – translating
policy aspiration to enhancement of practice
Peter Coolbear
2. What I plan to talk about
• What are the policy settings? – How are they changing expectations
on tertiary teachers?
• Where are the EPIs taking us? / What are the expectations of self-
assessment and EER?
• Argue that the response lies as much with teaching teams and
organisations as with individual practice and how this might be
effected within TEOs
• Some projects that excite us.
October 2013
3. October 2013
Ako Aotearoa’s working assumptions
• We work within a system that allows
great teaching and learning to happen
• We do not do enough to share good
practice
• We work within a system that allows the
mediocre (or worse)
• We work in a system that is highly
fragmented
• The NZ research base in tertiary
education is quite weak and has limited
impact on practice
Shared by government?
-
4. Its about increased accountability for
outcomes and value for money ....
• Publication of Educational
Performance Indicators
• New quality enhancement processes
based on self-assessment and
external evaluation and review
• Targeted review of qualifications and
a new model for the tertiary
qualifications framework
• Specific governance expectations
• Capped funding (= decisions about
value for money)
• Contribution to Better Public Services
Results Targets
5. Better Public Services: Boosting skills
and employment: Results area 5
October 2013
85% of 18-year-olds
will have achieved
NCEA Level 2 or an
equivalent
qualification in 2017
6. • Text
October 2013
Better Public Services: Boosting skills
and employment: Results area 6
55% of 25 to
34-year-olds
will have a
qualification
at Level 4 or
above in 2017
7. TEC - parity of success by 2015
• Investment plan commitments for completion rates for
Māori and Pasifika
October 2013
Data for Pasifika in full-time study
9. What are the EPIs beginning to tell us?
• Course completion rates ceiling is around 80-85%
– Good, inclusive teaching practice
– Maximising appropriateness of choice
– Data and enrolment process tidying
• Qualification completion rate
– How does the quality of teaching impact on qualifications
completion ??
October 2013
10. Perverse incentives created by EPIs
• Reduced academic standards
• Exclusionary recruitment strategies
October 2013
11. What does all this mean for teachers in tertiary
institutions?
• Maximising your individual performance as an educator
is no longer enough
• The overall performance of the teaching team on the
programme (and your contribution to it) needs to be the
focus
• For many practitioners (and most TEOs) this is a
significant cultural change
October 2013
12. What does this mean?
• Many teaching teams need:
– better management
– better support
– to take more responsibility for student success on their
programmes
• To do this they need better information
• Aren’t these the kind of questions being asked by SA & EER?
October 2013
13. A traffic light model of programme academic health
October 2013
Outstanding
High performing
Some concerns
High risk
14. What are the measures on which academic health
ratings might be based?
Principles
• As learner focussed as possible
• As outcome focussed as possible
• Transparent
• Fair
October 2013
15. What are the measures on which academic health
ratings might be based?
1. Programme meets all accreditation/registration requirements
2. Course / qualifications completion – institution sets threshold
3. Parity of achievement – institutional targets (applied above
threshold participation levels)
4. Academic standards met (>x% compliance with moderation
requirements / measures of academic challenge)
5. Student evaluations – meet or exceed institutional thresholds
6. Graduate students find relevant work / progress to further
study
7. EFTS targets met without need for discretionary entry
8. Equity pathways for access available
9. Community / iwi development is supported
October 2013
16. How do measures translate into a single rating?
October 2013
All criteria met
Meets criteria 1 and 2 but fails to meet one or two of
other criteria
Fails to meet 1 or 2 OR three or more of the other
criteria
Rates green + exemplar innovation and practice shared
OR rates green + priority programme for institution
17. How does this translate into action for further
improvement?
October 2013
Innovation plan + risk management plan
Improvement plan + risk management plan
Programme review
Innovation plan + risk management plan
18. Adding the time dimension
• Value of three year perspective
• Value in updating and generating action through the year
October 2013
19. Who is it for?
• Teaching Team – on-going monitoring, self-evaluation
and improvement
• Management – oversight of remedial action and
awareness of good practice
• Academic Board – patterns; advice from Boards of
Studies
• Council – advice through Academic Board
October 2013
20. Implications for individual practitioners
• Sharing good practice
• Discussing practice improvement
• Testing out innovative ideas
• Peer review
• Peer mentoring
• Better and more timely information
October 2013
22. Enhancing large class teaching
October 2013
Using understanding of
cognitive psychology to
maximise the effectiveness of
large class teaching
Whole of department
approaches
23. Effective use of student evaluations
October 2013
Getting past compliance
to use evaluation data in
meaningful and
constructive ways for
practitioners and
learners
24. Enhancing success for Māori learners in workplace
settings
October 2013
32,000 Māori engaged
in workplace learning
Te Ako Tikitike
25. Success for Pasifika
October 2013
Learning relationships
based on mutual respect
and explicit institutional
commitment
26. Adult refugee learners with limited literacy: needs
and effective responses
October 2013
Retiring Race Relations Commissioner,
Joris de Bres and Wellington Central
MP, Grant Robertson launched the
report at an English Language Partners
event in Welllington in September 2012
John Benseman, Critical Insight and English
Language Partners
28. Informing implementation of policy:
Foundation programmes and the mandatory review
of qualifications
• Purposeful
• Individual
and of
• Value
October 2013
Level 1 and Level 2
Graduate Profile Project
29. Some challenges for the future
• We all need to have more ready answers to “how well is this
working?”
• We can’t stand still: changes in learner expectations and
opportunities provided by new technologies.
• There will be measures: the debate has to get beyond the
validity of measures to the sufficiency of measures and their
effectiveness at stimulating change
• Policy makers like neat packages – how does this square with
meeting a diversity of individual learner needs?
October 2013
30. October 2013
Access to high quality tertiary education is
a fundamental human right ….
but
education needs to be fun too!
One final thought ….
