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P		 Appendix 1: Scenario—the Fledgling Advanced Flying Company
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Preamle

The Fledgling Advanced Flying Company scenario document provided a qualitative analysis of the tertiary education environment in which Aboriginal students, learning developers and social and cultural support staff within the AEC perceived they were positioned, prior to the development of the initiatives addressed in this EIP project.

The scenario was constructed by interviewing all members of the AEC to determine their perceptions of the environment in which they worked. It was used as part of a process to focus directions for change. The perceptions recorded were not necessarily facts, however, they represented views of Aboriginal education within the University in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

It was important to utilise perceptions in the change process because acknowledgment of perceptions validates the experiences of individuals, which in turn provides a basis for groups to begin to consider and to generate new directions for work. The key was its placement within a workshop process that facilitated a vision. Without this process for future directions, relationships with the wider University community and the Aboriginal community would have remained stuck in old models of operation.

Effectively the workshop triggered the development of the Communities of Special Interest and Pipeline concepts that are at the heart of this EIP project. For this reason, it is included in the report.

The workshop process, within which the scenario was incorporated, was developed over a period of years through the Project Director’s work with Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and the north west of Western Australia. Following the conduct of the process, the TAFE Counselling Service requested the Project Director to utilise this process to facilitate a series of workshops contributing to shaping the future direction of their service in the context of restructuring. A detailed presentation and analysis of the process is presented in Gluck (1990b). The work with TAFE Counsellors led to a series of relationships that contributed to the social capital that underpinned the TAFE component of the Nursing pipeline.

Scenario: The Fledgling Advanced Flying Company

Background

The Fledgling Advanced Flying Company (The Company) was established to help potential fliers from an underprivileged background fly at advanced levels.

The ability to fly at advanced levels is perceived as essential to get on in the world. People who cannot fly at advanced levels are regarded as second rate and do not gain access to resource potential.

Flying institutes teach and test people from all sections of society to fly at advanced levels. People who are certified to fly at advanced levels can go to highly paid and resource rich areas. Their lives are potentially rich and considered full. Some may even go on to the heady, powerful position of creating policy. [Nobody quite knows what that means but it is highly paid and said to be extremely powerful. Possibly they may even advise a Minister of the government!].

The potential markets that the Company wishes to recruit fledglings from and then assist through the Advanced Flying Institute are not clearly defined.

The potential markets that the Company can approach have not been rigorously thought through. There is a popular term called ‘the community’ from which clients are to be recruited.

Nobody in the Company knows precisely:

A myth exists which says the Company is to service the needs of the local geographic district. This myth creates tension among the members of the Company and between the Company and the community.

An abundance of ideas exist within the Company on the Community idea, which will allow a significant return for effort.

The Company has gained special admission for some clients to the Institute. This has resulted in a large increase in the number of clients for the company to assist through the Institute—in addition to those recruited through the Institute’s normal procedures.

The Company’s special admissions and testing procedures are regarded as top of the line by many other competing companies and their institutions.

The Company is not sure that the special admissions and assessment procedures are as crash hot as they thought because of the intense amount of work that is required to assist the clients through the institution. The drop out rate is significant and the Company’s return [successful completions without trauma to the recruit or the life of the Company] for effort invested is questionable.

Potential clients the Company wishes to recruit and assist are often not aware that:

At the outset the Advanced Flying Institute:

Matters of dignity were never considered.

The Company has been operating for six years. By some miracle or unknown power it has survived and there have been some successes, or runs on the board; fledglings have been certified, are flying at advanced levels and are employed in activities that are self determined and directed.

The cost to the fledgling community has been intense. Many have entered the institution and ‘failed’ or become confused.

Funds for Existence

Funds for the Company have been obtained through action of the ‘Angry’ division of the Community on the Government.

Institutes were given funds to establish Companies and to make access to Advanced Flying ‘easier’, reforms were also promised IN PRINCIPLE. Fledglings are aware this means a promise to do nothing.

The Institute promised a lot, took the money and has given little.

Our Company does not have:

Faculties from the Institute have independently obtained funds for Fledgling research and programs. The Company has not been informed directly and it is clear that the funds may have been diverted elsewhere.

Government is frustrated. It has put up a series of planning strategies which will force Institutes ‘to perform’ or get no more money.

If the institutes do not perform the Company and its clients will cease to exist.

The Company has spent a lot of time letting people in the Institute know that it exists:

This has led to a large number of requests for guest lectures by the Company. It has given the Company a high visibility to some students and faculty staff. Many staff in the Company are pissed off with the demand for lectures and this activity has become known as RENT A FLEDGLING.

Recruitment drives, Community talks, Community liaison and education, film making, Kulture promotion, recruit welfare and performance recruit hand-holding are just some of the tasks being undertaken.

The Company has become the flagship for fledgling fliers.

It is a ship which has a very confused course; a course that does not line up with the requirements of the government. It is definitely not clear what the staff of the Company want.

The Company has received a letter from the Government which boils down to:

– law of flight
– education of flight
– healthy flight
– engineering flight.

These courses are aimed at getting access for fledglings to areas of resource and life that are highly protected and are preventing them from being able to make decisions and meaningfully participate in the development of their own direction.

The Government has had the cheek to suggest that access and completion of these specialised courses will result in self managed and self determined flight.

Dissidents within the Company and an ex senior Policy adviser to the revolving minister’s position FOR FLEDGLING AFFAIRS and PRIME MINISTERS has suggested that the proposed policy will result in the production of advanced fliers for coconut industries.

Is the proposed policy blatantly assimilationist?

The Company has suggested that the policy could allow for self directed and managed flight if faculties in the institutions are forced into the position of having to propose courses that have direct use and relevance to fledglings such as Landing Rights, Land Management, Health, Business and many others.

Crash Rate

Assessment courses for special admission which were designed by education experts show that recruits are most capable of completing courses.

Poor completion rate for effort may result from course structures, teaching methods and most of all, the irrelevance of the greater part of course content and re-direction of help to fledgling life and style of living.

Direct Entry Preparation Courses

Should faculties carry the responsibility for direct pre-entry courses?

Setting the Agenda

The possibility exists under the new government proposals for the Company to directly enter into the business of what and how the faculties do business. The Company is in a unique position to determine:

There has never been a better chance for the Company to set the training agenda.

Staff are: confused, wondering what to do, frustrated and aware that the Company will disappear and be gobbled up by the Institute unless it comes up with a future plan of action, which, under extreme pressure will mean that they just keeping doing what they have been doing.

WARNING: Notice has been given on timing for Agenda Establishment

The government has announced that it intends to have planning for Fledglings become part of the general Institution planning and budgetary process within 3 years. [This proposal is aimed at restructuring the costs to government. It has very little to do with the reorientation of the Institutions to meeting the needs of Fledglings. The company has a very real memory of what happens to Fledgling considerations when they are left to faculties and the Institution.

The time available for the Company to set the agenda is extremely short. Unless the Company firmly establishes a place in the agenda in the next year, we can kiss hopes of a better deal for Fledglings. GOODBYE.

Current Management

Management consists of :

Staffing

Company staffing consists of:

The Daily Scene

The usual impromptu staff meeting and staff wanting to get on with their tasks.

A Crisis:

The funding body is coming in June or July and they want to see the Company’s future action plan. It is not clear what they want.

The head rooster is extremely worried. Lines of concern are on his crest.

Nobody has time to look at the Company direction.
Counsellor is over worked and stressed out because of false recruitment demands, not being able to say ‘no’ or ‘that is your responsibility’. There is no clear picture or definition of what the Company expects from the recruits or the counsellor.

Liaison is not happening—too many demands and no clear direction.

Administrative Assistant—gets it from all sides - confronted with rooster requirements, everyone’s complaints from the as yet undefined Community, staff bitch sessions commonly known as tea break discussions.

Proposed Solution—Setting the Agenda

The head rooster puts the Idea, ‘Let’s do some long term strategic planning with a live in workshop’. Staff are not only enthusiastic but looking forward to review where they have been and plan where they are going!

The Company is critically aware of the intent of government restructuring to produce more of the same and to render recruits powerless to effect change for self directed and managed flying at advanced levels.

We will be looking at reorientation rather than restructuring.

 

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P		 Appendix 2: Students’ Issues with their Learning Environment
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This appendix provides evidence of communication between the Project Director, the Dean of the Faculty and Chair of the enquiry on students concerns with their learning environment in the ‘problem subject area’ presented in Chapter 5. All identifying features have been removed in order to preserve the anonymity of all concerned.

 

Dean, Head of Enquiry, ******,

Thank you for the opportunity to address some teaching and learning issues in [subject xxxx].

I agreed with [the Head of the Enquiry] to prepare material for the meeting on Monday, to provide a focus for discussion and possible direction based on work we have undertaken with other areas. The following material has been prepared and is presented to facilitate collaborative focus and direction:

1    Collection and classification of students’ comments on the teaching and learning in ... subject

Summary comment

They are talking to us as though we have already graduated

Knowledge Base

Teaching Technique

Teaching and Learning Awareness

Inconsistencies and Ambiguities

Relevance and Significance

Student summary comment

They are talking to us as though we have already graduated.

2    Themes Drawn from Students’ Comments that could Provide a Basis for Addressing Student Learning and Teaching Needs

Disempowerment of lecturers and learners in communication process by restrictive teaching practices.

Absence of dialogue which could support development of understanding.

Enhancement of lecturers’ communication potential through identification of relevance and usefulness of information to key issues for students.

Provision of a framework and processes for:

Revealing the whole picture in the context of the student/learner and future [professional practitioner]. ‘I feel I am being kept in the dark.’

Meaning and direction are not accessible and not concrete.

An understanding of the teaching/learning process being used by lecturers would help both lecturers and students achieve their aims.

Explicit statement of the theoretical basis of the teaching process so that it is open and able to be questioned.

A framework for determining the significance of information so students have criteria to organise and make sense of information.

Provision of a framework for focussing and organising information of learning.

A process for making meaning of what is presented in lectures and relating it to real life in real life language, needs to be made explicit and ‘doable’.

Detailed learning objectives of each lesson and necessary reading should be available to students prior to going into the lecture or tutorial.

Detail of what students need to focus on and learn when going into lectures and tutorials and doing prescribed reading.

A basis for a teaching and learning process so that we can be introduced to the discourse and be able to deconstruct the language.

A process for making meaning of what is presented in lectures and relating it to real life in real life language.

Connection between theories and themes.

Far fewer lectures that swamp us with information; more tutorials which are used as a basis for professional practice.

Linking tutorials, lectures, meaning and real life.

Providing space and opportunity and invitation to students to bring their real life experiences to the information. This may well be much more information than the text books and could provide a richer learning environment.

3    Possible Direction for Change

In other areas we have developed a relationship with lecturers which has radically changed student learning, performance and teaching.

These involve:

Student statement

We recognise there are 300 of us in lectures. [...] This is used to justify the way they are teaching us!

A possible format for restructuring the lecture for teaching the large group which would enhance students learning and take account of the students’ comments:

Before the lecture:

– what they understand about the material read at that point;
– how they relate what they read to their personal experiences; and
– how and when this will be useful to them when they practice.

At the beginning of the lecture:

– what they understand about the material read at that point;
– how they relate what they read to their personal experiences;
– how and when this will be useful to them when they practice; and
– repeat in fours.

Then ask for volunteers to:

Linking Lectures and Tutorials

Tutorials could then be used to explore questions raised by students to enhance understanding and to explore what else they need to know. Students could group themselves in fours:

Tutorials also could provide an environment for concrete learning. For example ...

This would build a resource which articulates development of students’ personal theory of learning. It would also provide an environment in which students would learn what is important to them because they will all work or desire to work with different [clientele]. It will also recognise and utilise the fact that students each bring different personal histories and therefore have different patterns of significance.

4    Implications of Collaboration for Quality Teaching and Benefits for Teaching and Learning

The lecture tutorial format would provide a structure in which students could question and relate theories to their own experience and develop patterns of significance. It would also enable students to take responsibility for their learning.

Russell Gluck
Project Director, EIP
Aboriginal Education Centre

 

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P		 Appendix 3: Joint Faculty/AEC Learning Research Proposal
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This appendix provides details of the joint Faculty/AEC learning research proposal that was generated with another collegiate group from within the Faculty with the ‘problem subject’. Details of comments on the problem subject are provided in Appendix 2.

While the proposal received University priority funding nomination to CAUT, the project was not funded. The importance of this proposal is that it shows the shift that had taken place in relationships between the AEC and the Faculty. It provides ample demonstration of the power of research to provide a context for aligning the needs of student, and teacher roles and bring about relationships that can alter the system of relationships that contribute to quality teaching environments. It also demonstrates the creation of cooperative and collaborative space. For example, the EIP Project Director was able to initiate a process with the Dean and another collegiate group in the Faculty with the problem subject to design a project which would:

coordinate and deploy teaching teams essential to the redefinition of support and success of Aboriginal students. This will occur by shifting support from uncoordinated cultural and social activity and remediation seeing the learner in the deficit model, to support derived through three integrated processes:

[i] development of a student centred curriculum;

[ii] development of students’ specific literacy skills and discourses to facilitate and enhance student understanding of the learning context;

[iii] development of culturally based, peer support and learning development groups [including tutorial processes] that fit within the curriculum process and support the student in academic development.

The project aims to institute a coordination process within the faculty that:

The proposal incorporates a management mechanism to bring teaching and learning development together within the total support process by:

– acknowledging Indigenous students’ literacy that works in their own context and build on these known skills;
– addressing the position that Indigenous students have had few experiences with the language and study skills used in University contexts;
– emphasis on the acquisition and control of the discourse of various university disciplines; and
– focus on Indigenous students’ learning processes and help them to move from assisted literacy competence to independent competence and then most essentially, collaborative literacy competence, thus developing self-directed learning strategies.

The project intended to bridge the understandings about learning of two cultures by:

– abilities and skills necessary to; question, clarify, predict, anticipate, draw hypotheses, self test, reflect, make connections, organise, and gain access to resources;
– positive attitudes towards learning that involve; risk taking, searching for meaning when directions are unclear, accepting short term lack of clarity and direction in order to seek additional information, accept intellectual unrest as part of the learning process;
– processes of collaborative learning, team learning, sharing, interacting and cooperating for mutual benefit and building a positive independent learning environment;
– processes of making meaning from demonstrations through construction of analogies and use of metaphors that link to one’s own experience, going from the known to the unknown;

Students and staff are to be engaged in a spiral of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, with each of these activities being systematically and self-critically implemented and interrelated.

The method will involve- collaborative discussion, debriefing, member checking, reflection, planning, and the sharing and refining of both data gathering techniques and data analysis. Collaboration will involve participants in weekly peer support in learning contexts, paired or group debriefing with lecturers. Collaborative support, a sense of working as a team and joint ownership of outcomes will be central components of the method. Meeting to share, providing opportunities for reflection on the achievements and direction will be essential.

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P		 Appendix 4: Excerpt from TAFE Handbook 1997—Aboriginal Community Education, Health
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Qualification: Certificate II

Course No: 4347

[The course gives participants] skills in communicating [their] needs in health situations, delivering first aid, planning and preparing meals suited to [their] lifestyles, understanding alcohol and other drug issues and developing preventative and educational health programs.

The course is practically oriented with an emphasis on community involvement, field trips, practical application of skills, workshops and guest lecturers from Aboriginal health services.

The course does not train health workers but gives [participants ]knowledge and skills which [they] can use in their homes and communities.

Subjects/Modules:

Core:

Elective: subjects [undertaken by participants in the pre-vocational course in the Illawarra are]:

(TAFE NSW Handbook 1997, p. 47)

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