Recognition Champions - having a go!
When staff in the Community Services, Health, Tourism and Recreation Faculty (CSHT&R) at TAFE NSW - Western Institute decide to do a “project”, they harness their energy and start to make things happen! This is evidenced by their decision to streamline RPL assessment.
“The faculty decided it wanted to streamline the assessment of Recognition for teaching staff and provide a better customer service to prospective students in all of the teaching programs within the faculty. It wanted to produce a series of recognition tools that are easy to understand and use from both the teacher and student perspective.” – Andrew Crowley
So when the initial concept of the “Recognition Champions: Engaging Educators in the Recognition Process” project was proposed by Kate Baxter, (Director of Educational Delivery – CSHT&R) and her staff in Western Institute in February, 2007, it didn’t take them much time to start planning and organising ways of getting the job done!
The project was coordinated by the two Faculty Educational Leaders - Andrew Crowley (Community Services, Health and Recreation) and Helen Tinney (Tourism & Hospitality, Hair and Beauty). Andrew and Helen supported the staff in the project and worked with them to produce Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) assessment tools for the most popular courses in the delivery areas. This project was submitted for judging at the TAFE NSW Quality Awards in November 2007.
The key themes of the project were:
- The focus needs to be on the candidate, not the process
- Highlighting the importance of the candidate’s job role
- Use of a “professional conversation” to maintain dialogue between the assessor and the candidate
- The availability of tools increases uptake of recognition for staff and students
- Meeting AQTF Documentation requirements
- Champions to mentor two staff each in order to share the expertise amongst faculty staff
- Share learning and tools across Institute and beyond.
“The importance of a “Professional Conversation” between the candidate and their assessor is critical and needs to be a central and ongoing part of the recognition process.” – Helen Tinney
Staff Involved in the Recognition Project
- Andrew Crowley (Educational Leader - CSHT&R), Helen Tinney (Educational Leader, CSHT&R)
- Jacquie Ashleigh (Teacher, Community Services)
- Charlie Cross (Head Teacher, Health & Recreation)
- Eleven (11) other teaching staff representing all the delivery areas within the Faculty.
How did they get started?
- Faculty staff identified the need for consistent recognition assessment tools for popular courses within each of the faculty delivery areas
- Funding possibilities were identified for the project
- Expressions of Interests were called from all faculty delivery areas so that staff could provide input relating to their vocational expertise
- Those involved decided to proceed in either “work teams” or “program area teams”
- An action plan was created and deadlines set
- Additional project update meetings were held in June and August, 2007
A guest speaker was used at the start of the project to expand teachers’ understanding of the rationale behind recognition and its benefits. Trish Jamieson from the Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council spent a day with the project team and provided a “big picture” approach to recognition assessment.
How was the project resourced?
Staff contribution for the recognition project was largely covered by using full-time teacher incidental time. Quality Improvement funding of $3500 met part of the project’s costs. All other costs were borne by the Faculty.
The amount of time allocated by team members to the project was significant and critical to the success of the project. This commitment from the staff demonstrated their desire to see this recognition project completed and share its benefits with other staff and students.
What Recognition Assessment Tools were produced?
Recognition Assessment tools were produced for a range of popular course offerings in each delivery area. Each “tool” comes as a folder containing the following information:
- “Are you ready for Recognition” documents, to be completed by the candidate before the assessor meets with them
- Details of the Units of Competency for the particular AQF qualification
- Recognition Checklist for applicant to “self assess” their level of competency
- Recognition Kit
- Candidate evaluation document for the recognition process
Recognition tools were developed in each of the CSHT&R Faculty program areas – Hospitality (Catering and Supervision), Children’s Services, Community Services, Hairdressing, Beauty, Nursing (Aged Care Work and Lifestyle & Leisure) and Fitness.
Conducting a “pilot group”
As part of another project the opportunity arose in mid 2007 for the Faculty to pilot the recognition model and tool format with a group of welfare workers employed by the Family Support Service in several towns across central and far western NSW. This group, which included four Indigenous workers, completed their Diploma of Community Welfare Work in December 2007. They gave valuable feedback about the model and the structure of the recognition tools. All the workers were employed by the same agency and because of the similarities in their job roles, they worked with their recognition assessors as a group.
Details of this additional recognition Project – “Welfare Diploma – Fast Track in Industry” and the project referred to in this paper are available on the Learning Powerhouse website
What challenges and obstacles did the the team encounter?
Challenges:
- Geographical constraints e.g. for staff to travel from Lithgow to Dubbo is three a hour drive
- The amount of recognition resources in the marketplace and finding the best “fit”
- Project participation in addition to regular duties was a significant challenge
- Meeting growth in demand for recognition services without adequate tools
Obstacles:
- The candidates in the pilot program highlighted the need for agency and community support to consider and gather their recognition evidence.
- The different learning styles of the pilot group candidates, including the Indigenous workers, highlighted the need for the assessors to plan carefully and treat all candidates as individuals even though they had similar job roles
- Staff need to make the time to do the core business of recognition
- Understanding and interpreting the mountains of recognition material that is available.
Overcoming the challenges
Team members overcame these challenges and obstacles by working together and utilising their shared expertise. They overcame the distance issues using telephone and video conferencing. The use of a guest speaker at the commencement of the program followed by a day of team planning led to the development of a structured plan of action. This plan was reviewed at subsequent gatherings of the full team. Significant to the success of the project was the way the team broke into their program groups and maintained their focus on the tasks the full group had agreed were important.
Who is suited to do recognition assessment?
The Community Services, health, Tourism and Recreation team believe that any teacher with appropriate qualifications and experience is suited to conduct recognition assessment.
Teaching skills, knowledge and attitudes required:
- Understanding of the recognition process
- Knowledge of the units of competency in the qualification
- Psychological adjustment, to ensure that the candidate (customer) is first and that TAFE is there to help them achieve their recognition goals or devise a plan to do so (skills gap delivery)
- Facilitation skills, to assist candidates through the recognition process.
“This project has turned Recognition around by looking at it from the perspective of a candidate’s job role and the assessor fitting the units of competency into that, rather than the onus being on the candidate to fit the units into what they do.” – Jacquie Ashleigh
The Recognition tools created by the “Recognition Champions: Engaging Educators in the Recognition Process” Project can benefit TAFE NSW by:-
- Providing a quicker and more customer focused service to industry in recognising existing industry competencies
- Being able to meet the needs of a greater number of participants in a given time.
- Given that appropriate evidence is available, being able to provide qualifications to existing industry workers with little or no attendance at TAFE
- Identifying the need for any gap training of competencies that the participant may be missing for the qualification
- Allowing a better industry understanding of what recognition services TAFE can provide and how recognition works
- Allowing community members to have their previous skills and life experiences recognised through this process
- Creating more jobs and work opportunities and career development pathways in the region as staff gain qualifications and verification of what they do in their job – this can increase industry development and ongoing industry training needs
- Offering more flexible ways of education and qualifications
There is much to be said about the old Australian “having a go” method of working out problems and using teamwork to share the workload and get the job done.
This is what the staff of the Community Services, Health, Tourism & Recreation Faculty at TAFE NSW, Western Institute have done. This project has set out to produce a range of recognition tools, train one teacher in their use who can then mentor two others who can mentor two others again until all staff are trained to understand the recognition process within the Faculty and Institute. The project grew from an identified need and relied largely on the energy and commitment of staff resulting in the development of a variety of recognition tools. The project team have gained much from each others expertise, their shared workload and the results of their efforts.
This type of attitude typifies the approach to business of TAFE NSW, Western Institute which was named both the NSW and Australian Large Training Provider of the Year in 2007.
The next step in this project is to finalise all the recognition tools early in 2008 and begin using them with candidates from industry. Further feedback from candidates will inform any additional changes to the tools and enable improvement to the consistency and relevance of recognition assessment across the Institute.
Where can the recognition assessment tools be accessed?
Copies are not available for general distribution at present but the sample copies of the products presented at the Quality Awards were comprehensive and well produced. The “pilot group” and subsequent candidates in early 2008 will provide additional information for any further modifications. It is envisaged final products will be available as early as term 2, 2008. Copies of the recognition tools will be able to be purchased through Printwest at TAFE NSW, Western Institute, Orange Campus.
For further information Contact: Andrew Crowley at andrew.crowley@det.nsw.edu.au