VET & TAFE
Over time , accomplished teachers are often focusing and learn more explicitly in different areas .
How can the workplace support teachers ’ learning ? Arrangements in the workplace can make it easier or harder for teachers to learn . In my book I ’ ve identified some questions that people can use to survey the extent to which their workplace already supports teacher learning , and the questions help the development of changes that could be made to better support teacher learning . These questions can be asked at the individual teaching team or the whole of organisation level .
A workplace where teachers have access to mentors is a really good start , and mentors can form a really solid basis for a strong workplace learning culture .
They can also be in a position to change the workplace so that it better supports workplace learning .
How do workplaces restrain teachers ’ learning and how does this affect teachers ? The things that constrain teacher learning can actually be the other side of the coin to those that enable teacher learning . Not having access to other teachers is one of the big ones .
In my research I ’ ve found that casual teachers were mostly separated from permanent teachers in some way . Often they ’ re in another part of the staff room , or in one extreme example the casual teachers were put in an office 10 minutes ’ walk away from the offices of the permanent teachers .
For new casual teachers , the use of VET language can be an issue . One of the casual teachers in another research project I was involved in hadn ’ t yet grasped VET language , such as what training packages were , or what a competency is . In the first few months , people explained it to her and so on , and then assumed she knew , but she didn ’ t and was too embarrassed to say . As a result , she made some really big mistakes that impacted on the students .
Teacher employment arrangements is a big one . Casual teachers have less access to professional development and also less access to learning in the workplace . There ’ s been a lot of research to show that .
Not having access to good teaching resources is another one , or not knowing how to use the resources that are available . I found that if a casual teacher was given resources and didn ’ t know how to use them , they just made up their own and often they weren ’ t appropriate .
The resources that new teachers are provided with will influence the resources that they developed going forward . So there ’ s a double whammy : they start off without good resources and that teaches them to develop poor resources in future .
Another one is the teacher having a heavy workload and also the workload of those that they work with . If teachers have a heavy workload themselves , they ’ re often not in a position to give extra time to their own learning and they ’ re just getting by .
If the workload of the people around them is really heavy , they often feel that they can ’ t ask for support or advice from people around them .
What can teachers themselves do to improve their learning ? I look at how-to strategies for organisations to set up workplaces that support teacher learning , and mentoring is an important part of that . In a way , mentoring serves a solid linchpin for teaching teams and also for individuals .
There ’ s a range of ways that individuals can support their own learning and , depending on where they are in the organisation , set up arrangements for supporting the learning of others . So an accomplished teacher can actually support their own learning through mentoring someone else or through being mentored , through focusing on a particular area and getting mentors in relation to that .
There ’ s novice teachers , there ’ s experienced teachers and there ’ s accomplished teachers . I do make a distinction between experienced and accomplished because some people can work at a job for many years and have a lot of experience , but actually not develop that accomplishment .
I ’ ve tried to work on looking at ways to develop that accomplishment and to support the development of that accomplishment . Individuals have many , many different ways that they can support their own learning . Working collaboratively with others and being part of networks and communities of practise is another important way that they can do that .
A workplace where teachers have access to mentors is a really good start .
Are vocational teachers unique when compared to other educators ? In some ways they ’ re really unique and in other ways there ’ s a lot of similarities . They are unique in that VET teachers come to their teaching work with considerable experience and expertise in the industry .
Within VET , teachers are unique as well . For instance , a sport and fitness teacher , what they do in the training that they provide is likely to be quite different to , say , what a business admin teacher does and different again , to what an air conditioning and refrigeration teacher does .
The horticulture teacher in one of my research projects did a lot of their teaching in glass houses and in gardens , walking around and having discussions with students . A sport and fitness teacher in the same project did a lot of his teaching in the gym . One of the things he had to learn was how to run an aerobics class for customers while also teaching the students how to run an aerobics class .
There ’ s real uniqueness within different teaching areas and quite a uniqueness separated from other educators , but at the same time , there ’ s similarities . They have a real focus on supporting student learning and how best to do that .
Do you think we need more VET teachers ? I believe we need to work to ensure that the VET teachers we have are well supported . There ’ s a danger in areas of high casualisation in that teachers are not supported in their learning , and as a result choose not to keep working as teachers . This can become a downward spiral because when there ’ s ongoing turnover , the permanent teachers begin protecting themselves by not providing as much support and advice , because that teacher ’ s not going to be there next year . That can make the issue worse .
We need to better support the teachers that we do have , because people come into teaching almost entirely , VET teaching in particular , as a passion to support their industry , to give back to their industry , to work with new people in the industry .
We don ’ t want to lose that . We need to keep supporting them so that they stay . ■
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