Supporting the success of priority learners – translating policy aspiration to enhancement of practice

Peter Coolbear

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

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?

-

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

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

• 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

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

October 2013

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

Perverse incentives created by EPIs

• Reduced academic standards

• Exclusionary recruitment strategies

October 2013

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

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

A traffic light model of programme academic health

October 2013

Outstanding

High performing

Some concerns

High risk

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

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

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

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

Adding the time dimension

• Value of three year perspective

• Value in updating and generating action through the year

October 2013

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

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

Practice improvement and innovation

• Exciting projects

October 2013

Enhancing large class teaching

October 2013

Using understanding of cognitive psychology to maximise the effectiveness of large class teaching

Whole of department approaches

Effective use of student evaluations

October 2013

Getting past compliance to use evaluation data in meaningful and constructive ways for practitioners and learners

Enhancing success for Māori learners in workplace settings

October 2013

32,000 Māori engaged in workplace learning

Te Ako Tikitike

Success for Pasifika

October 2013

Learning relationships based on mutual respect and explicit institutional commitment

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

Pulling themes together

October 2013

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

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

October 2013

Access to high quality tertiary education is a fundamental human right ….

but

education needs to be fun too!

One final thought ….

October 2013

www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz