This is the first time I've added to the community. I've been very actively engaged in my project but putting off doing this aspect because it's new to me. I think it's called 'sticking with what you know' in the pressure to get things underway! A common feature of a change process I imagine! Well now I'm into it! Last week I went to Townsville and caught up with Julie Woodlock who is working on a Pathways to Leaning project with indigenous young people on Palm Island. Engagement is a key issue for them. I thought as a starter, I'd share my journal entries of this visit as I reflected on the island and the methods Julie was using for the engagement. Here they are.
7 Sept 2004
I’m in Townsville and have just spent a very interesting morning on Palm Island with 2002 FLL Julie Woodlock, who is involved in implementing a ‘Pathways to Learning’ Project with this community. Julie kindly picked me up and then it was off to the airport for a 15 minute flight across beautiful seas in a noisy small aircraft that looked like it may have come out of the 1950s – like me really!
We touched down and were met by Charlie, who drove the TAFE crew to the campus, which is in the same street as the prison and the police station. It’s a small group of transportables maybe 2-3 with an outside seating area under palms.
On the way there I got to talk to Russell who heads up the Horticulture group. They are using project based approaches to handle the practical components of their course and have been working on ‘the farm’, clearing the area around the airport, and generally don’t have much problem sourcing projects through their networks with the local people.
Julie later took me out to have a look at the farm where Russell was working with a group of young lads, soil testing and evaluating the effect of the fertilisers on the acidity of the soil. They were growing tomatoes, potatoes, capsicums amongst other things and they were waiting for new seedlings to arrive. We met Paddy, an elder, who worked with the farm group.
The history of the island?
The indigenous people were bought here following a cyclone in 1914 and came from many clans. It was part of the policy of the time that sought to assimilate indigenous people and basically just put them out of sight and out of mind. There was order due to the managing groups – church and state - but no self determination, which has contributed to the welfare dependency and cultural void now experienced by these people generations on. Times and policies have changed but the skills required for self determination take time to develop. The island has also been used as a penal settlement which has not helped and it has the types of social and economic problems challenging other indigenous groups that have been through similar dislocation and assimilation experiences.
Enter the Learning Pathways Project which comes under a broader initiative called the Treading New Territories Project. It’s based on a Victorian Curriculum (OTTE) and delivers at Certificate 1, 2 or 3 level. “There are 5 core modules that are aligned with the Certificate in General Education for Adult (CGEA levels 1-3) and various industry training packages. Pathways modules can also provide credits towards the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL)” Learning Pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples p 1.
The 5 core modules are:
- Where are you going?
- What’s the story?
- Talk up , listen up
- So what’s happening?
- What’s your number?
Managed individual pathway plans
Participants’ learning is tied to MIPPS – managed individual pathway plans which clearly state further education, training, employment and mentor links during and post Pathways participation. It provides the opportunity to identify the right support and learning options for each person. Central to this is the idea of identifying key supports/ advocates/ mentors who will support the individual to achieve their goals. This could be a relative (not usually parents) a friend, community person, student support officer, employment officer, health worker etc – anyone who has the person’s interests at heart and can provide the information and assistance that can help them achieve their goals.
It’s a holistic delivery model taking into account all areas of a person’s life when supporting their learning and employment goals. It’s about teaching in ways that acknowledge connections between different content areas.” p1
The Julie Wheel
Julie Woodlock has developed a fascinating wheel to map the holistic plan for a module suite for the learners - I think she should copyright it. I’ll call it the Julie Wheel. It’s a very simple and useful way of showing how the various units are clustered and how the learning outcomes are related to the tasks. Learners can fill in each task as they go and colour each learning outcome as it’s assessed and so get a visual picture of how they are progressing. What’s more, it’s a design that allows you to clearly see and talk about the interplay between various course components and there is the potential to add in layers.
Community Advocates and Learning Partners (CALP)
Each managed individual pathway plan (MIPP) is supported by a group called the Community Advocates and Learning Partners (CALP). These are important groups and quite a lot of effort is put into developing them. They are key supporters of the program and represent the community partners. They will be the ones that will enable the links and partnerships. They are consulted re the program and given orientation re their roles.
Who is the community?
It refers to traditional owners, people who have lived on country and identify with it. Community is people who have contributed at the local level.
In Victoria (where the Pathways program originated) , Local Aboriginal Educational Consultative Groups (LAECGs) represent local Koorie Communities in all education and training matters. They are the primary source of advice re education and training at the local level & first point of contact for those wanting to implement a Pathways program. These are a good idea and I can see would be the solid support for these partnerships. They advise on who should be in the CALP. There are special protocols required from Coorong Tongala providers – presented in the manual. (Coorong Tongala is the name of the original Certificate.)
These steps could be a good resource to assist other community based projects wanting to establish partnerships because they identify how to get the engagement and commitment to support the programs. There are 12 principles for Pathways delivery.
How is it going?
Very challenging. The CALP has fallen away with the recent changes in the council. There is a new council but they are struggling with gaining the skills they need to function and with a restricted budget.
A lot was put into the setting up of the CALP but at first there were not many students so these people have lost the momentum. The CALP is not really driving the project at the moment and Julie is attempting to revive this.
Attendance is a problem too. I can see how the lack of response can be demoralising for staff putting a lot into the program. It takes as very patient approach and a willingness ‘to go with the flow’. The reality of cost effectiveness rears its head and there is concern about whether the program is going to be viable. They need the CALP members to actively assist in encouraging attendance. If young people have been adrift for a long time it’s hard for them to exert that self discipline to get themselves along. That’s why the supports are vital.
I had the opportunity to look at some of the online program that Julie has written for this course. The Institute has its I-Learn site and staff can create the material into the web platform easily – doesn’t have to be in html.
She really has done a wonderful job. It’s easy to follow and based on key information to orientate the learner and then sets of simple easy to follow tasks.
I looked at the orientation units and “Where are you going?”
There were simple things to do around identifying their support people, thinking about where they’d like to be in 5 years time, investigating role models, resources, creating their log book and portfolio. Downloading some of the paper work they needed, printing it off and putting this in the portfolio. All these tasks were building their participation and also getting them to use the site and the technology. She’d crated small achievable steps with a concrete product.
I think these units would also be useful to other youth projects eg the Learn to Earn groups in SA. Suggested Julie put the course modules on AE Sharenet. Individual modules could be adapted to suit other courses. She wants to wait until next year when the trialling ahs been completed.
The Pedagogy
It’s situated learning and Julie uses what she calls the NELE model – new explicit learning teaching for everyone, based on multi-literacies approaches. It’s incorporating action learning, experiential learning, discovery learning.
Now let’s explain some terms.
Situated learning – it’s learning in the person’s context, be that community or work. It’s attaching the learning to what people are doing or what they want to do so that it is coming from their perspective, using and extending their language and conceptual frameworks through experience and reflection. (In this respect it’s a constructivist approach.)
In her paper Black with none Julie uses the term metalanguages. (Find this article linked to Julie’s page at http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/leaders/fl_leaders/leader_profile.php?key=15 ) This is the language developed to bridge between the new concepts and the person’s existing mental frameworks and language. On reflection, I realised that I’d been using this constantly in my dialogues with Julie – trying to understand what she was saying and the terms she was using that I did not understand by trying to apply my own words to test my understanding. Through this dialoguing I got to understand what she was meaning and she was able to reword some of what she was saying to help me. This is actually what she means by negotiating meaning.
We used this process to negotiate understanding of the terms ‘reflexive’, critical framing, transformed practice, the wheel, the role of academics in advancing knowledge.
NELE - New Explicit Learning/teaching for Everyone
See details in Woodlock, Julie Black with none at http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/leaders/fl_leaders/leader_profile.php?key=15 )
It’s a four part process
Situated practice – the learning comes out of situations in the learner’s environment or situations that are confronting them. That way they are real and relevant and there is language about them that the person already knows or can develop, working from a secure known base.
Overt instruction – “this is the explicit component of learning/teaching. It’s about pulling apart the skills that need to be learnt so that the learner has a clear understanding of all the information involved in the learning task at hand. The amount of overt instruction involved will depend on the backgrounds of the learners and their previous experiences. It is different from a more direct approach to teaching because it also brings out the learners’ interpretations of the task and blends ‘their speak’ and the ‘industry speak’ into a new dialect. It is this joint dialect or metalanguage that, through negotiation, becomes the tools for learning and articulating the ‘what’ and ‘how’, as the teacher scaffolds the learning task and draws on the important features and experiences of the learners’ understandings” pg 8
“The learner generates new learning through the new joint dialect.”
Both learner and teacher are learning and teaching as they become involved in this process of meaning making, each trying to understand each other’s viewpoint or interpretation of the topic.
Critical framing
This is providing an opportunity for the learner to review their learning, reflect and practise. It positions the learner in their context with awareness of the new skills and /or knowledge they’ve gained. There may be opportunities for self assessment, for practice, and finally for application in ways that are meaningful for them eg how can you use this?
Woodlock refers to this as the redesigning stage.
Transformed practice
“This is the true application stage.” This is putting the learning into practice in a new situation or context.
My comments
When I now review this, I can see it fits within the 4Mat model. Situated practice would fit well within Quadrant one – which is the WHY? quadrant but essentially engages the learner from their perspective. Overt instruction fits within Quadrant two – the WHAT? quadrant Critical framing fits within Quadrant three – the HOW? quadrant – practising and applying Transformed practice fits within Quadrant four – the WHAT IF? quadrant.
8/9/04
Went out again to Palm with Julie – this time for the full day. When we arrived, Russell and his crew of horticulture students were hard at work making garden beds on the slope they had cleared on the edge of the runway. The words WELCOME TO PALM had been clearly dug out and they were now in the process of digging either side of these markings to make sizable beds – for plantings of marigolds. Julie gave them the thumbs up and the guys were obviously pleased with what they were doing.
However, it was hot work and when we saw Russell at lunch time, he confessed that the message had been shortened to just ‘WELCOME’, because digging ‘TO PALM’ was going to take just too much extra effort! So when we went home there it was loud and clear – WELCOME – 2 foot wide beds all ready for marigold seeds that will produce a colourful greeting to visitors in a few months time. At the same time the guys are developing their competencies, clearing weeds, using chemicals and testing the ph of the soil.
We arrived at the TAFE campus, had a chat with KB ( one of the locals) and Julie set up for the sessions.
I’d brought my digital camera and a card reader so that I could ( if wanted) work with one of the new participants and show how we could take shots and transfer them into ppt. I took some shots of Julie and Murray that we could use as examples and the 3 of us had to do some smart problem solving using Murray’s computer to work out how to download and also how to rotate the shots with the software available to us - which of course we did!! Then I loaded one into powerpoint as an example . So we were all ready but alas no students. It was disappointing after all the effort Julie’d put in and particularly as the new recruit the day before had been so keen to start. So, her question was, “What’s happened between yesterday and today?”
I was lucky however, because it meant that we could do a lot of talking. We discussed the NELE process again in the context of Julie’s article Black with one which I had read and had some questions marked to follow up with her. It was good because we were in fact doing the exact thing she was writing about – ie negotiating the meaning. I was trying to understand what she was meaning by putting it into my words. She was responding by adjusting her words to grasp how I was seeing it and through the dialoguing we both understood each other.
Then we had a look at one of the online units – Where are you goin’? This is really great work! What Julie has done is create a very user friendly online site that young people can go through and gradually orientate themselves to the program and using the computer. The tasks are small, interesting and addressed to the LOs of the course. They are also building computer skills gradually – working the mouse and the site, clicking to download a document, printing it off, starting to compiling their portfolios.
The questions are also getting the person to think about what they want to do, how they can get some ideas about what’s possible and who can be their supports /advocates – because this is a very important part of the program. Undertaking change needs support and so they must identify who these support people are going to be. This program could be useful for the Learn to Earn group – it’s actually using the key competencies and could be a great way to get this going and build the relationship with the mentor or case manager.
We also went for a walk to the local shop and then to the beach area – this gave me some insights into life in the community, health issues, some of the conflicts happening and the social disadvantage experienced on the island. We met Erica one of the local councillors and a member of the CALP.
Other things discussed:
Their distributed learning model in which Julie supports tutors who’ve just got their Cert 4 in workplace training and assessment to deliver the program. Her Teacher to Tutor template that supports this. The ‘Julie Wheel’ How further study does help progress your thinking and gives you the language to discuss the concepts. Then it was time to go…Saw a whale on the flight back!
Julie and I went to a movie that evening and I had tea at her lovely ‘home on stilts’ with a bottle of wine and a long chat. Besides both being keen on painting, we found both our fathers had been Rats of Tobruk and served in New Guinea during WW2! They may even have met!! It was a nice relaxing end to a long day. Then it was home to pack as I had a 6.30am flight to Cairns in the morning.
