The Problematic Issue of ‘Quality Teaching and Learning’ in VET

The notion of a ‘good teacher’ is an accepted one in the schools sector (Robertson, Reference Robertson2008). Theorists from Pestalozzi to Dewey and Bruner have inspired holistic, constructivist, social, student-centred and experiential approaches to pedagogy. A consensus about what constitutes good teaching is not so evident in the VET sector.

Part of the problem is an issue of language. The term quality teaching and learning is often appropriated by policy and research discourses that are really about matters exterior to the experience of pedagogy; for example, compliance, managerial and organisational issues (Mitchell, Chappell, Bateman, & Roy, Reference Mitchell, Chappell, Bateman and Roy2006). While these issues impact on the ability of the practitioner to teach effectively, they do not describe what quality pedagogy looks like in the teaching/learning space.

Further, discourse on quality teaching and learning in VET, rather than describing good practice, has tended to focus on specifying the barriers and challenges (Department of Education and Training, 2004), acknowledging the need for new skills in teaching, learning and assessment (Mitchell et al., Reference Mitchell, Chappell, Bateman and Roy2006), and calling for more research and definition (Wheelahan, Reference Wheelahan and Moodie2010).

Towards a Quality VET Pedagogy

Since its inception, VET pedagogy has been characterised by a relatively uncritical response to industry demands for skilled labour. Focusing on fuelling productivity, efficiency and economic growth through skills training, unintended environmental and social consequences have largely been ignored (Anderson, Reference Anderson, Fien, Maclean and Park2009; Arenas & Londono, Reference Arenas, Londono, Stevenson, Brody, Dillon and Wals2013). Gradually, this instrumentalist approach to skills and knowledge transfer has become problematic as the VET landscape has become more complex (Darwin, Reference Darwin2007).

Chappell (Reference Chappell2004) and Smith and Blake (Reference Smith and Blake2005) observed changes in VET teaching and learning, towards a more learner-centred, work-centred and attribute-focused pedagogy. They noted a focus on developing and transforming people, with teachers using multiple pedagogical strategies to serve the needs of learners and contexts. Describing what good teaching would look like in this changing VET context, Smith and Blake (Reference Smith and Blake2005) saw teachers as facilitators of learning, with the learner playing an active role in construction of knowledge. Eight characteristics of facilitative teaching were noted: an emphasis on the workplace as a meaningful learning context; interactive approaches to cognitive and performative aspects of learning; work-ready learning outcomes; learner collaboration in determining learning and assessment processes; learners as co-producers of knowledge; recognition of prior learning; flexible teaching strategies for different learning styles; and social interaction as integral to the learning process.

Further, Gamble (Reference Gamble2013) argues that contemporary vocational pedagogy involves much more than the classic definition of ‘learning by doing’. She refers to the need for conceptual knowledge and higher order thinking skills, and notes an increased focus on situated and social learning, as well as constructivist and experiential modes of learning. Corbel (Reference Corbel2013) emphasises the importance of transformative learning alongside the more procedural and compliance-oriented, competency-based training more usually associated with vocational education. These observations by researchers over a 10-year period point to a shift towards transformative, learner-centred, constructivist and socially critical learning modes.

How Can EfS Support Quality VET Pedagogy?

There is a significant role for EfS in VET in Australia. The increasing recognition of environmental values in our society and the changing nature of work have necessitated a shift in the way that we think and act in learning and in life (Goldney, Murphy, Fien, & Kent Reference Goldney, Murphy, Fien and Kent2007, p. 36).

Within international concern for environmental sustainability, education has been seen as critical to changing the way individuals, the economy, and society function. Globally, and in particular under the aegis of the United Nations, an approach to pedagogy has been developed to support learning-based change towards sustainability. Emerging in particular from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit's Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992), and later promulgated through the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) 2005–2014, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), or Education for Sustainability (EfS) as it is known in Australia, provides the pedagogical platform for sustainability education.

Australia's federal response to global policy initiatives was, for VET, described in a variety of action plans and green skills agreements. Core to the initiatives were EfS principles that were proposed for the Australian Government's Living Sustainably Action Plan (Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2009). These principles are:

• • transformation and change — the skills and capacity to plan and manage change;

• • lifelong learning and education for all — all learning spaces and all people;

• • systems thinking — finding connections between the environment, economy and society;

• • envisioning a better future — developing a shared vision of sustainability;

• • critical thinking and reflection — rethinking our values and beliefs;

• • participation — both in the pedagogical process and in community action;

• • partnerships for change — across community, industry, institutions and individuals.

The Industry Skills Councils, which are responsible for VET training for their respective industry areas, were mandated to embed sustainability across all training packages. To facilitate the integration of sustainability, VET curriculum writers and teachers were upskilled through professional development VET courses in EfS. For example, 1,000 national scholarships to undertake the Sustainable Practice Skill Set (two diploma level units of competency) and 150 national scholarships to undertake the Vocational Graduate Certificate in Education and Training for Sustainability were provided to VET educators over 2012–2014. Both qualifications provided VET educators with the skills and knowledge to embed EfS approaches into teaching and learning. This Australian experience of applying EfS to competency-based vocational training has provided a creative response to perceived tensions between competency-based education and more transformative modes.

Embodying transformative, constructivist, and social approaches to learning, EfS aims to develop higher order thinking modes such as reflective, critical, relational, whole-of-systems, or ecological thinking. Learning activities invite students to examine experiences, beliefs, values and worldviews, and engage in change towards ecological sustainability. Tilbury and Cooke (Reference Tilbury and Cooke2005) argue that EfS pedagogy provides:

Table 1, adapted from Sterling (Reference Sterling2012), illustrates key differences between traditional and EfS pedagogical approaches.

Table 1:

Education for Sustainability Pedagogical Approaches

Note: Adapted from Sterling (Reference Sterling2012).

Addressing the implications of EfS for quality higher education teaching in the United Kingdom, Sterling (Reference Sterling2012) quotes the Policy Studies Institute:

Similarly on a global stage, Wals (Reference Wals2012) notes the emergence of EfS as a means to rethink education in general: ‘In some parts of the world ESD is causing a co-evolution of pedagogy and has arguably become a catalyst for educational change and innovation’ (p. 84).

EfS as Quality VET Pedagogy: From Productivism to Ecologism

EfS gives VET the opportunity to knock a traditional relic on the head: the tendency to follow uncritically in the footsteps of industrial productivism (Anderson, Reference Anderson2003). Arenas and Londono (Reference Arenas, Londono, Stevenson, Brody, Dillon and Wals2013) theorise a new VET discourse emerging with an emphasis on citizenship and responsibility for the future, and what Anderson (Reference Anderson, Fien, Maclean and Park2009) calls a shift from productivism to ecologism. Ecologism posits that the non-human world is worthy of moral consideration, and therefore should be taken into account in social, economic and political systems (Baxter, Reference Baxter1999). Ecologism in VET would therefore suggest a more critically reflective and systems thinking approach. Problematising the tensions between a competency-based VET system and transformative pedagogy (Hodge, Reference Hodge2011) is perhaps a logical part of this shift.

Linked to a traditionally uncritical response to perceived industry demands is VET's historical silence on issues of economic, environmental and social injustice, including ‘dull and degrading work’ (Arenas & Londono Reference Arenas, Londono, Stevenson, Brody, Dillon and Wals2013, p. 167). UNESCO and ILO (2002) argued for a new, more critical VET discourse marked by greater democratisation, more critical approaches to social, political and environmental impacts of innovation, and empowerment for people to contribute to environmental sustainability in their lives. Noting the need to teach higher level thinking skills and change skills as part of quality education, Wals (Reference Wals2012) refers to the classical question: ‘Is education about social reproduction or about enabling social transformation?’ (p. 22). The UNESCO/ILO recommendation argues firmly for the latter proposition.

Earlier work by Goldney et al. (Reference Goldney, Murphy, Fien and Kent2007) pointed out that industry itself was now expecting ‘a more rounded worker with higher level skills’, with a call for ‘soft’ or generic skills, and a preparedness to embrace change (p. 15). Industry and enterprise are increasingly looking to the future: they want change-ready, critical and creative thinkers — they want more than social reproduction.

In his UNDESD report, Wals (Reference Wals2012) names the following attributes of quality EfS teaching: learning-based change, integrative, problem-based, exploratory forms, critical, creative, multi-stakeholder, visionary leadership, participation, social networking, and lifelong learning. These are attributes that synergise elegantly with contemporary conceptions of VET pedagogy.

Implementing EfS in Australia: A National Professional Development Program

Swinburne University of Technology was funded by the Australian Government to implement national capacity building of VET educators as part of the government's 2009 national Green Skills Implementation Plan. Adopting the EfS principles from the Living Sustainably Action Plan for Education for Sustainability framework, Swinburne developed in 2010 the Vocational Graduate Certificate in Education and Training for Sustainability (VGC EfS).Footnote ¹ This program provided an Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) Level 8 qualification for educators from VET and other sectors seeking to embed sustainability in their workplaces, through training packages, curriculum, teaching and assessment, infrastructure, policy, and processes.

Delivered over 2012–2014, in excess of 80 VET practitioners in five state-based cohorts completed the VGC EfS program.Footnote ² The course was delivered using a blended learning approach, with face-to-face intensive workshops, participatory online webinars, and work-based application, ending with a national EfS conference. The program's specific aims were to develop high quality teaching and learning practice, and to facilitate change towards more sustainable practices in VET institutions through infusion of EfS pedagogy. Aimed initially at the VET sector, the program is applicable for educators from early childhood education through to higher education.

Evaluation Study of 80 VGC EfS Graduates

The VGC EfS Evaluation Study involved a mixed methods survey-based evaluation capturing participant self-perceptions on various measures related to changed or improved teaching and learning practice (Pritchard, Reference Pritchard2014). All 80 participants were requested to complete a baseline online survey at the commencement of the program. They were then requested to complete a more comprehensive survey six months after program completion. Eight face-to-face or telephone interviews provided richer data on individual experiences. The questions focused on program impacts at four levels: personal change, growth and transformation; changes to teaching and learning practice; sustainability-related changes at organisational levels; and finally, sustainability-related changes within industry (see Table 2).

Table 2:

Evaluation Questions

Of specific interest to the authors is whether this qualitative research study on teacher self-perceptions of improved quality teaching and learning supports the proposition that EfS is an enabler for quality VET pedagogy in general.

Findings

The 47 participants (58% of the total program participants) who responded to the survey strongly supported the proposition that EfS is an enabler of quality teaching and learning in general, with positive outcomes for VET practitioners, their learners, and training institutions.

Sixty-three percent of respondents reported increased personal confidence, improved teaching quality, more engaged learners, and increased ability to support other staff. Ninety percent of participants experienced personal change, growth, and transformation through their involvement in the program; while 90.5% of program participants adapted and improved their teaching and learning practice to incorporate EfS tools and principles. Take-up of newly acquired EfS pedagogical models and skills to enhance training delivery across disciplines was 70.2%; 68.7% of respondents indicated maintained or increasing use of EfS principles and tools after the program, indicating sustained longitudinal change in teaching practice.

Participants reported that the adoption of EfS principles and tools had:

• • improved the quality of their teaching;

• • contributed to a positive impact on student learning outcomes;

• • initiated more problem-based project work and interaction with the ‘real world’;

• • developed higher level systems thinking skills in learners;

• • developed critical thinking analysis among learners, applied to their industries;

• • stimulated ongoing mentoring and professional development initiatives;

• • initiated creation of communities of practice at local, state and national levels;

• • inspired ongoing sustainability projects within training organisations, from small-scale ‘greening’ interventions to strategy and policy development at executive management level (Pritchard, Reference Pritchard2014).

Examples of reported changes included integration of EfS into teaching practice, greater community engagement, stronger professional networks, connecting with people holding different worldviews, more sustainable lifestyle choices, empowerment, and social action.

There was minimal evidence to support the notion that the program had resulted in broader systemic change within training organisations. However, participants acknowledged that organisational change would take much longer than 3–6 months to achieve. Some of the changes noted at the organisational level included increased ‘green office’ activities, the writing of new sustainability policies, and the delivery of professional development to staff on the topic of sustainability.

Participants identified barriers preventing the use of EfS skills in the workplace, such as lack of management support, high staff turnover, economic uncertainty, and retrenchment across the VET sector. The program also achieved some unexpected positive outcomes, such as the development of collaborative change projects between public and private sector VET providers and the community.

Another unexpected outcome of the VGC EfS was the empowerment provided by exploring underpinning pedagogical theory. Faraday et al. (Reference Faraday, Overton and Cooper2011) noted the inability of surveyed UK vocational education teachers to identify underpinning theoretical pedagogical models. Yet theory gives a conceptual architecture and a language with which to describe, understand and reflect on practice, and with which to engage in dialogue with peers. Although not captured in the Evaluation Study survey questions, accompanying anecdotal feedback indicated the powerful effect of having a shared language of theory and practice.

Implications of the Findings

Findings from the VGC EfS Program Evaluation indicate a correlative relationship between the adoption of EfS and enhancement of quality teaching and learning in VET. Enrichment of teaching practice and learning outcomes is attributed to take-up of EfS, from the perspective of participants. The findings of this Evaluation Study, in supporting the proposition of EfS as an enabler of quality VET pedagogy, suggest a range of possibilities for further research. These include: case study research into EfS theory and practice in the VET sector; detailed, comparative analysis of EfS and quality pedagogy in general; EfS as VET professional development; and investigation of linkages between emerging industry demands and emerging VET pedagogy.

EfS provides both theoretical underpinnings and practical tools and methodologies for quality VET teaching and learning across disciplines and industries, with implications for the ongoing professional development of VET practitioners. The inclusion of the Training and Education (TAE) Sustainability Skillset (TAESUS501A and TAESUS502A) as a Level 2 practitioner developmental opportunity in the recent IBSA VET Capability Framework is encouraging in this respect (Innovation & Business Skills Australia, 2014), and supports our recommendation of EfS as professional development for VET teachers.