Teaching the teachers
Expert says teachers ’ learning is ‘ critical ’ in the VET sector .
Susanne Francisco interviewed by Emilie Lauer
In a rapidly changing society , ongoing learning is important for vocational training teachers ; one way for them to keep learning is through the workplace .
In her new book , Supporting the Workplace Learning of Vocational and Further Education Teachers : Mentoring and
Beyond , author Susanne Francisco reveals that the arrangements in the workplace can either enable teacher learning or constrain it .
“ Rapid changes are happening in industry , in the workplace that students are going into and just ongoing changes in general , are areas that VET teachers need to be across ,” Francisco told Campus Review .
According to Francisco , casual teachers are the one that are the most impacted by the workplace when it comes to teachers ’ learning .
“ Lack of teachers ’ learning can lead to big mistakes that affect students .”
To tell us more about teacher learning and about the VET sector in general Francisco , Senior Lecturer in Adult and Vocational Education Charles Sturt University , joined Campus Review .
CR : Your book focuses on teachers ’ learning in the workplace . How do you explore this ? SF : It is critical for all sectors that there ’ s ongoing learning throughout people ’ s careers . We ’ re living in a time where that ’ s just critical . My book looks at strategies and approaches in the workplace that have been successful in other workplaces that support teacher learning .
Having access to mentors is a really good start . Mentors can form the basis of a really strong workplace learning culture , and they ’ re also in a position to make changes to a workplace .
In my research , some of the trade teaching areas did this really well . Some had a half-hour break for all teachers to stop for morning tea every day . They ’ d chat about personal things , professional things , what ’ s happening in the football over the weekend and how have you managed with students who need more support .
Their ongoing chat in that relaxed environment can be really useful in supporting teacher learning . Access to welldeveloped resources for teaching , working together with colleagues to develop new resources are another powerful way to support teacher learning .
There ’ s a lot of workplaces that are set up to stop teacher learning , and that was one of the shocks of one of my research projects .
Why is it important for vocational teachers to keep learning throughout their careers ? It ’ s critical that everyone keeps learning throughout their career . It ’ s particularly important for VET teachers because they ’ re teaching the next generation in their industry and in the community . Part of what they teach is the need for their students to have ongoing learning as well .
The pandemic ’ s a good example of an outside influence that required teachers to learn new ways of doing things and to learn it quickly . But within VET , rapid change in industries , rapid change in the workplaces that students are going into and the ongoing changes that VET teachers need to be across , it ’ s just critical that they keep learning .
To what extent does learning impact a teacher ’ s career ? Teachers in different areas need to do different things , as we are talking about the horticulture teacher , the air conditioner and refrigeration teacher , the business admin teacher , and so on .
We call it all teaching and we call it all assessment , but what they need to learn to teach and to assess is different in each of those areas . Teachers need to learn what they need to do in that environment at the beginning , then over time they need to learn how to take it further , how to focus more explicitly on particular student needs , for example .
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