“Fixing” the Skills Problem

Recently I spoke with Professor Leesa Wheelahan ahead of her keynote speech at ALS’ 2012 Symposium next week. Leesa says that governments around the world are concerned with skill – skill development, skill shortages and skills mismatches. But fixing the "skills problem" isn’t a simple matter of fixing training, she argues. She shares some tips:

Encouraging adults to come back to learning
The first thing is to ensure we don’t put a big label on them that says they are deficient. The second thing is that sometimes getting them involved in any sort of learning, doesn’t matter what it is, is the best way to go. I used to work in the adult and community education sector and managed a community centre. We had all sorts of classes, including art and craft classes. What we found is that women would use this class as their first tentative step out of the home and back into learning or work. But first we had to win their trust. At the end of the semester they would come and have a chat and tell us that they had trouble reading the instructions for the craft class. That’s when we’d find a literacy class for them, and it usually worked out really well. This is because they’d learnt that learning can been joyable, and for many this was a big revelation because they had an awful time at school.

Keeping your industry currency
Industry currency is about being active in your industry, being part of the professional body, going to industry conferences (or even organising industry conferences), keeping up with research that has an impact on your industry, and talking to employers. Industry currency is about knowing what’s coming up in your industry, and not just what is happening now.

The complexity of VET education
I did a big project on teaching in vocational education and training a few years ago, and we found out that it’s a lot more complex than in schools or in universities. This is because there is much more diversity among students and in the learning environments. VET teachers have to meet the needs of disadvantaged students and those in the community withoutfoundation skills. They must also meet the needs of those who are already skilled to gain higher level or different skills to support an innovative and flexible economy, young people entering the workforce, older people who want to stay in the workforce, and those already in work and those who are not. They teach in big and small workplaces, in big and small institutions, in prisons, community centres, and in public and private providers. Arguably, this is more challenging than teaching in schools or universities.

To hear more from Leesa and other distinguished experts on the latest developments impacting workforce development, adult learning and skills training, do join us at the ALS 2012 symposium - 5 and 6 July at Resorts World Sentosa!

Thinking Out of the Box to Productivity

Recently I asked two friends what comes to mind when they see the word “Productivity”.
It was funny how both responded: Bee?

Productivity has been a buzzword in Singapore since the 1970s. Yet, many Singaporeans just think of it as yet another “government” campaign.  It’s amazing that many still remember Teamy the Bee, the campaign’s official mascot, even though Teamy retired in 1999!  

So it was most refreshing to meet Johnny Sung, Professor at UK’s University of Leicester and the Head of the Centre for Skills, Performance and Productivity research at IAL. An ardent fan of Singapore’s development, Johnny’s association with our productivity drive goes back to the 1990s. When he first visited Singapore then, he was wowed.

“Singapore was so different from anything I had ever seen. I learnt quickly that there is a model called the developmental state, where human resource development is guided by a much bigger national plan. I had never seen anything like that in the west.

“Since then, I’ve continued teaching here. I had discussions with the National Productivity Board, and built on these relationships with its successors the Productivity and Standards Board, and later on, Spring Singapore and the Workforce Development Agency. By the time I was invited by IAL to be a researcher here, I had written two books and numerous journal articles about Singapore.”

One of Johnny’s latest research projects looks at the differential roles of skills in productivity improvement in some of Singapore’s strategic key industries, such as the hotel sector, manufacturing and infocomm. In the hotel sector, one interesting case study shows how a boutique hotel has turned conventional approaches to productivity on its head.

1. The General Manager believes in overstaffing - he has more staff than are absolutely necessary at any one point in time to ensure that customers are never waiting.


2. The hotel deliberately recruits unqualified staff and trains them in the hotel’s unique culture. It does not seek to recruit ‘experienced’ staff from other hotels.


3. Staff are highly trained in single tasks (instead of multi-tasking), so they are able to develop exceptional levels of expertise.

In essence, the hotel in question is practising a form of 'high performance working' that seeks greater innovation and discretionary effort through mutual gains. This in turn leads to 'unique experience'. This high value approach allows the hotel to charge a premium for their rooms and still maintain high occupancy.
For more insights and research findings on productivity, don’t miss Prof. Johnny Sung’s presentation at the 2012 ALS! Meantime, feel free to check out Johnny’s research on Skills Utilisation in Singapore.  

7 Things That Make Us Better Learners

As a follow up to Dr. Peter Rushbrook’s post on keynote speaker Stephen Billet, I was curious to find out Prof. Billett’s insights on what makes some adults learn better than others.

I asked the Professor what helps adult learners succeed at work.
Here are 7 things he zoomed in on:

1. Being respected
   Through being treated with respect and involved in workplace decision-making, adult learners are likely to be both more fully engaged in their work activities and learning for their work, and are motivated to do both.


2. Given opportunities
   Opportunities for adults to utilise and extend their capacities through work activities generate rich learning and strong commitment to contribute to the workplace.


3. Peer guidance and support
   As work requirements change, adults need support and guidance to learn new skills. The best way to show such support is in ways that are respectful of the learner. For instance, older workers in Singapore have said they prefer to learn through processes that permit them to share what they know and also learn from others in reciprocal sharing, not being positioned as students and being taught by others.


4. When work becomes a vocation
   When workers come to identify with their occupation, it becomes a vocation, a calling, rather than a job. They become motivated in not only being good at what they do but also actively engage in learning more about it. This happens when we find meaning and value in our work.


5. Commitment to learning
   It’s very rare to find a worker who doesn’t want to be competent in their workplace and effective at work. Most people want to do a good job, and to be utilised effectively. By providing opportunities that bring out the best in individuals, the workplace benefits too.


6. Active learning
   The best learning takes place through observation, listening and practice, rather than through formal training courses. Such everyday learning is active and on-going as workers engage in work activities and interactions. These provide a strong base for continuing education and training (CET) arrangements.


7. Engaging in new challenges
   Tackling new tasks and challenges opens the door to new skills and knowledge. The claim that older workers are not adept with new technologies is largely untrue! The irony is that restricting older workers’ access to new technologies may well make such claims correct! So, having expectations for individuals to engage in new tasks can be central to their learning. 

Enjoy this post? Do tune in for more tips and insights from our symposium speakers in the weeks ahead!

Professor Stephen Billet and team produce landmark paper on CET provision

Professor Stephen Billet, a keynote speaker at July's IALS12, recently published (December 2011) a 'landmark paper' on the future of Australian higher education, including adult and vocational provision. Titled 'Change, work and learning: aligning continuing education and training' the paper also has relevance to the Singaporean Continuing Education and Training (CET) system. Professor Billet, along with the team that produced the paper, asks the question, 'What models and practices of continuing tertiary education and training can best meet workplace demands and sustain Australia workers' ongoing occupational competence and employability across their working lives?' Given that seventy per cent of learners enrolled in courses in Australian CET providers are also in full-time or part-time employment, the team questions current forms of higher education, adult and vocational education provision which historically have been organised around the idea of full-time student attendance. In a system that largely provides for entry-level learners, the team proposes a radical rethink of the dominant institutionally-based model of learning. Instead, it suggests that in addition to the accepted model, CET provision might also include a wholly practice-based, or workplace-centred, learning model, or at least a hybrid that includes elements of both. These forms of learning would, it is argued, provide for more authentic workplace knowledge acquisition and sustainable skills transfer.


The proposed models, if enacted, would force a wide-reaching review of existing Australian CET provision. With its well-established higher education systems that include advanced forms of workplace learning and assessment, credit transfer, recognition of prior learning and recognition of current competency, Australia is well-placed to respond to the Billet team's challenge. Singapore, however, with its more recently established CET sector heavily dominated by institutionally based learning and assessment models, would require a radical rethink of current forms of practice. A change, however, may be warranted as a means to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of adult education provision. Like Australia, the sector consists largely of non-entry level learners located in workplaces. As the Billet team suggests: 'The concern here is to identify how best the tertiary education and training system; that is, vocational education and training (VET), adult and community education (ACE), higher education, learning in the workplace can sustain Australian workers' employability across their longer working lives and maximise their contribution to the settings in which they work, and, collectively, to the nation's productivity.' The questions, then, are: Do the Billet team's models have relevance to Singapore? If so, how may they be applied? And, what changes would need to be made to prepare for implementation?


I have supplied links below to the paper and a recent interview with Professor Billet on the paper's main ideas. Of course, questions could also be asked of Professor Billet at ALS12.


For the Billet et. al paper: http://www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2484.html
For the Billet interview: http://transmoder.com/2012/04/23/continuing-education-models-interview-with-dr-stephen-billett/

Keynote Speaker Associate Professor Leesa Wheelahan

Keen to hear thoughts on vocational education training (VET)?

If so, come down to the symposium and hear another speaker, Leesa Wheelahan.  She is an Associate Professor from the LH Martin Institute, University of Melbourne who likes to rethink the skills in vocational education training (VET).

Wheelahan strongly believes this can be done by moving away from competencies to capabilities because a capabilities approach emphasises building underlying capacity so students can realize a number of different outcomes.

Innovative workplaces of today and tomorrow are characterised by high levels of discretionary learning, and VET needs to support the development of autonomous workers who can exercise judgment.

The capabilities approach also emphasises the social mediated nature of skill.

Capabilities are not just individual attributes; rather they require educational, social, economic and

workplace arrangements that facilitate the realisation of capabilities.

So come on down to the symposium and hear them out and take away some key learning points. With those in hand, you can continue to take meaningful action to address the needs in your organization or institution.

Drop us a comment if you have thoughts to share on the above.

Keynote Speaker Professor Diana Laurillard

Teaching as a design science? Really? Who would have thought of that?

Well, Professor Diana Laurillard who is the Chair of Learning and Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab would have you know teaching is NOW a design science.

Being an avid observer of how teaching has evolved through the years, she says that teaching is still not yet treated (and let’s not even talk about respect!!) as a design profession. Like other design professionals – architects, engineers, programmers – teachers have to work out creative and evidence-based ways of improving what they do.

Throw in the rapid advances in the Internet, digital and mobile technologies. All these means that the learning community and educators today have unprecedented opportunities and tools to create web content, access games, learning and entertainment, network with their peers, and advance their quality of life.

Today more media-rich and media-centric content is available. Technology has the POTENTIAL to make the act/art/science of teaching RICHER and more ENGAGING for learners.

She says that we need technology to achieve the education reform we dream of. But it has to be done through the teaching community. An essential part of the open education movement will be “open teaching.” Learning-design tools and environments that enable them to develop new ways of teaching and learning afforded by digital technologies will help to achieve high quality teaching on a larger scale and harness it to a higher cause.

The key mission in teaching and learning is this: old ways may NOT be the best ways. Change is good and necessary.  The teaching profession does not have much of a choice; students expect technology to be used in the classroom, in learning. In fact, technology is the perquisite to learning and it can be used to gain and maintain attention.

Today’s (and tomorrow’s) student learners are more comfortable and confident with technology – she ways and we must CAPITALIZE on this. We must find ways to use, integrate, adapt, adopt technology, effectively, efficiently and instructionally. The academic profession must develop the capability to learn collaboratively and how to smartly exploit technology while simultaneously exploring and developing the pedagogies for the 21^st century!

So come on down to the symposium and hear them out and take away some key learning points. With those in hand, you can continue to take meaningful action to address the needs in your organization or institution.

Drop us a comment if you have thoughts to share on the above.

Keynote Speaker Professor Alan Felstead

Often the most powerful learning takes place through participation in everyday activities: by doing, we learn.

Such a truism – but often blithely ignored.

As such, I subscribe to Professor Alan Felstead’s* pioneering research work on the new frontiers of learning and work in times of crisis. This includes mapping and explaining patterns of skill development. He also looks at the changing quality and nature of work and explores the limits and opportunities for workplace learning.

His area of focus is spot-on. He investigates how work and learning are collaborative forces for good. The work environment has largely changed in the 20^th century. To succeed in this brave new world, we must be able to participate in a growing array of knowledge flows in order to rapidly refresh our knowledge stocks.

What is remarkable in his papers is his argument that the “learning as acquisition” and “learning as participation” metaphors nicely captures the importance of social relationships and mutual support in enhancing individual performance at work. The significance of good job design also helps to promote and facilitate learning at work.

 Felstead also champions the notion that learning is not something that only happens when we plan it; it is not restricted to the classroom. Nor is it a ‘one-off’ event that will, in isolation, transform an individual or workplace’s productivity.

Through the Working as Learning Framework (WALF), his view is that learning is a silver bullet to be fired when things are going badly in the workplace is passé .

To Felstead, learning is truly an integral part of the work process. The wider context of the productive systems and processes that shape the workplace as either an expansive or restrictive learning environment needs to be diligently considered.

The future is where it is at.  Good learning needs to be there as well.

So come on down to the symposium and hear them out and take away some key learning points. With those in hand, you can continue to take meaningful action to address the needs in your organization or institution.

Drop us a comment if you have thoughts to share on the above.

Keynote Speaker Professor Diana Laurillard

In a recent paper (2011) titled 'Evaluating learning designs through the formal representation of pedagogical patterns' (with Dejan Ljubojevic), Professor Laurillard argues for revisiting models of support for teachers embarking on learning design projects that include digital tools and resources. Her joint paper suggests that a generic model for technology in teaching practice is required focusing on basic pedagogy and student learning. This may be derived from a review of the extant pedagogic literature and a range of practice-based learning design projects. The challenge is to combine the two as learning theory tends to be too generic and learning designs too specific. Professor Laurillard's paper suggests that Conversational Framework theory provides such a bridge through systematically defining pedagogy and underpinning the interpretation of learning design and the outcomes it intends to promote while supporting on-the-ground learning design development.

For valuable insights into the relationship between advances in information technology and their connections with curriculum and courseware development, please come along to ALS12 where Professor Laurillard will explore a range of ideas related to the topic. Further information on the concepts outlined may be found on the Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE) project website – www.ldse.org.uk.

Keynote Speaker Professor Jörgen Sandberg

One of the keynote speakers at Adult Learning Symposium 2012 is Professor Jörgen Sandberg, Chair of Management and Organisation at the University of Queensland's Business School. Professor Sandberg's current research includes challenging conventionally understood conceptions of competency.

Rather than define competence as a descriptor or attribute of a job profile or as an outcome of a programme of study, Sandberg argues that it is best understood through worker perceptions of workplace practice and their contribution to enhancing workplace performance. His research suggests that self-assessed performance, though varied within and between work groups, nevertheless represents a more authentic way of capturing efficiencies in work output. 

In research published in a recent Harvard Business Review article he concludes that 'corporations need to shift the focus of their recruitment and training programs from flawed attribute checklists toward identifying and, if necessary, changing people's understanding of what jobs entail.'

Professor Sandberg's ideas are located clearly within two of ALS2012's three themes: 'Enabling learning in the workplace', and 'Innovating practices'. If you would like to hear Professor Sandberg speak, I invite you to take advantage of the ALS2012 Early Bird Special, available on this website. In the meantime, please post a comment on his ideas.

Welcome to the blog of Adult Learning Symposium 2012

Welcome to the Adult Learning Symposium 2012 (ALS2012) blog.

My name is Peter Rushbrook and I will be the blog moderator before, during and after ALS2012.
I am a Senior Research Fellow at IAL and have a strong interest in the issues raised by this year's ALS2012 theme of 'New Frontiers in Learning and Work'.

Over the next few months I will explore the theme in greater detail and invite comments from my fellow bloggers. Of course, if you find the discussions interesting and would like to know more, I encourage you to register for ALS2012.

Remember, if you register now you are eligible for the ALS2012 Early Bird Special.
For details see the IAL website.

Happy blogging!