May update

Met with Phil last week to plan next steps in our action research. I had already met with Richard and he is happy with the draft plan. Phil is going to contact the Mentors to gauge levels of commitment. I need to create an online survey as part of this process. Phil is going to make himself available for drop-in sessions next Friday morning - hopefully that will work better than trying to schedule a meeting for everyone which is always challenging.

Next week I will be in Melbourne for the Reframing the Future Change Agency forum. I need to put together a brief presentation for that, giving an overview of my project with SkillsTech.

I was supposed to meet with the regional institutes PD network earlier this week but the meeting has been postponed, apparently until Monday but I will be in Melbourne then. So we'll see what happens.

Jason and I met with Jo last week to talk about the revenue stream concept for TROPIC and the costings Jason had done. Still need to clarify a few issues there.

action research, skillstech and reframingthefuture

Action Research

We had the action research start-up workshop last week - very productive (and exhausting). In this project, TNQT, WBIT and SQIT Leaders will each plan and implement action research projects in our respective institutes. We will also link together with leadership from Jo Balatti, to review progress and compare findings.

At the workshop we achieved a number of things:

• clarification of TROPIC's purpose, principles and elements
• a shared understanding of what action research is and how it works
• some agreed measures and benchmarks for ensuring the continued quality of TROPIC
• resolution of some identified issues, based on learnings from the TROPIC experience to date
• agreed tasks and timeframes for the central action research team
• a preliminary draft action research plan for SQIT and TNQT (due to exceptional circumstances WBIT Leaders were not able to attend both days and their plan will be forthcoming)

Documents pertaining to the above dot points will be available in the wiki and we will be regularly publishing updates there on the action research, to share with all interested parties.

SkillsTech

On Tuesday I visited SkillsTech with Peter and Angela. We met with Mary Campbell, Sue Forsayth, Pam Blowers and Tracey Hart. It was agreed that we will train a group of Mentors in June, drawing some of these from a pool of retired teachers or those transitioning to retirement. This will solve the problem of time allocation for doing observations and engaging in mentoring activities. These teachers will add to the small pool already created by the training conducted in February (Simon, John, John and Farid).

Then in August we will implement the one day training currently in development. When that's done, those teachers will have a team of Mentors to call on.

Reframing the Future

I was successful in my application for a Change Agent project with Reframing the Future. This will be about my work with SkillsTech and I believe will also help me develop some skills that I can definitely apply in other realms. Exciting times ahead!

growth, marketing and action research

A lot has happened in the last month or so.

We are about to embark on an action research project that will be led by Jo Balatti and will involve the TROPIC Leaders from TNQT, WBIT and SQIT. Our first meeting is scheduled for the end of next week. The main aims of the project are to enhance the effectiveness of TROPIC in the 3 institutes, and to build the Leadership team's skills in organisational change, evaluation and action research.

Week after next Peter and I are meeting with SkillsTech management to plan implementation of TROPIC there. We should know by the end of the month if we are successful with our Reframing the Future proposals - but I guess we will proceed regardless. They are talking about training 140 teachers this year!

Last week I attended the regional institutes directors forum in Mackay with Jo Pyne. I gave a presentation about TROPIC and asked for discussion about some possible models Jason had drafted, for commercialisation. We agreed that I will link in with the regional institutes PD network chaired by John Elich. The overall aim being (as I understand it) revenue for TNQT in the short to medium term and long-term buy-in from the regional institutes with a goal of building capacity to implement TROPIC across the Queensland VET system. Peter's area will continue to support continuous improvement of the program through the action research project and formalisation of the training program.

Angela has been working on a framework for the program which 'chunks' the training and provides more capacity for current or future Leaders to conduct the training. We're not looking at accreditation but possibly at recognition. What I'd like to see is different levels of benchmarks set for network members, Mentors and Leaders/Facilitators.

Phil and I have had some discussions about promoting more TROPIC activity within TNQT. We have scheduled a lunch meeting next Monday and Phil has invited Mentors to observe his teaching sessions with the School Tech students the following day.

And linking all these elements together, Jason has drafted a strategic plan. Next step is to get together with Jo to discuss before presenting it to other stakeholders.

I'll try to remember to update more frequently.

flooding!

Some photos of the flood in Cairns, around my suburb of Machans Beach - the top ones are of the grounds of the sports club - sports don't usually include boating, either in a traditional dinghy or a fridge! The 'road closed' is the access lane at the back of our house - it normally is closed (but the local kids usually ignore the no motorcycles sign). The girls are playing on the school oval, and the car and trailer are further down my street, closer to the Barron River.

Our access road is still closed as of lunchtime Thursday but the rain has stopped and the river levels are falling. Still no milk or bread at the local shop but things could have been a lot worse! and should be back to normal tomorrow.

TROPIC 2008

TROPIC activities so far this year:

• Phil and Mike ran an innovative micro-skills session for about 50 staff members at the TNQT Learning & Skilling Day
• After much planning and preparation and some uncertainty about who was going to attend, Phil and David and Bob and I ran a TROPIC training workshop in Brisbane last week.
  
• Many thanks to Deb for the massive job of coordinating venue and catering not to mention travel and accommodation for me and the Leaders - this with many last-minute changes and much waiting for information, and all happening just prior to the VET Teaching conference!!
• We had participants from Skills Tech, TNQT, WBIT and SQIT and also Angela from DETA's Research & Strategy Branch.
• The training went well and I'm looking forward to doing some work with Skills Tech and also closer to home with Daniela and Claire.
• Phil and I are also going to get some more activity happening with all the TNQT Mentors.
• This coming week I will be presenting at Ve-Mentoring, thanks to an invitation from Simon.
• Both Simon and Tracie are bringing some expertise and interest in online environments to our network, and Mike has vast experience in videoconferencing.
  

another november update

On Monday I presented at Reframing the Future New Ways of Working in VET forum. Not a huge audience but people did seem pretty interested. I was approached by Paul who is one of the Teach Your Trade graduates. He said that cohort would be very interested in TROPIC as they feel they need the support and also are undertaking the Diploma TAA and networking is a requirement for that.
BRIT has expressed interest in TROPIC and I've also had an invitation to present at VeMentoring in March.
Met by teleconference with the Leaders yesterday and things are moving along with some activity in each institute.
David is presenting at Home Grown Innovations in VET in Brisbane on December 4th. He came up with the idea of including some video testimonials in the presentation and we agreed it would be good to build up a bank of these.
I did an observation with MF last week.
Leaders and I are meeting again in a fortnight and will discuss who's facilitating what at the training session in February.
In the meantime we're planning some more for the Learning & Skilling Day presentation.

November update

Phil and Jen are now TNQT Leaders. They've come up with some great ideas, like getting Michael involved in a role play presentation of the micro-skills at the Learning & Skilling Day in January.

Our main focus now is on recruiting and getting ready for the training in February.

One of the activities we did at the mini-conference was a network mapping exercise. Each individual mapped the relationships they need to maintain, strengthen or establish to promote TROPIC activity.

A couple of weeks ago I gave a brief presentation at the OctoberVET forum in Brisbane. It was basically a repeat of the AVETRA presentation - the evaluation of TROPIC. Two people from SkillsTech approached me and said they want to do the training, and Denise from Wide Bay said they would like to send someone from Gympie. At our Leaders' teleconference last week David said someone has already approached him. So we're basically going to use word of mouth to promote.

Next week I'm giving a presentation at the Reframing the Future forum in Brisbane.

mini-conference

The mini-conference went extremely well I thought. First of all the Leaders (Bob, Gillian and David S) met with me on the Wednesday and we did some productive planning around our next training session - confirmed as February 25-27.

Then the mini-conference on the Thursday and Friday. About 20 TROPIC Mentors attended. We had a session from Laurie Kelly with loads of useful stuff for teaching and learning - understanding learning styles, left brain - right brain, global learners, teaching to multiple intelligences, change of state, brain gym. Then Jeannie gave us a great session on understanding anxiety which ended with hands down the best relaxation session I've ever had. Later on conference dinner with John Moodie talking about leadership. Friday morning Mark Davidson gave us a session on tips and trends which I think really reinforced understanding of the teaching strategies on the observation sheets for everyone. And before lunch we managed to pack in a network mapping session. I have posted some photos on flickr. (Just opened an account so I hope I've linked to it correctly).

October update

Well time got away from me and I never even posted in September. It was a busy month which for me ended with a brief and wonderful holiday at Wallaby Creek with my family - shots above of son Isaac at the magnificent waterfall and me and kids at the lighthouse on top of Grassy Hill in Cooktown.

It hasn't all been fun and play for me though - we do now have a policy document and a set of criteria for Mentors and Leaders in TROPIC (many thanks to Neva for her support in putting those together, and to Deb F as well). These documents can be viewed in the wiki.

We decided not to run a training session in November but to leave it until January - still need to confirm dates. Will be meeting up with the Leaders on October 10th (next week!) to plan this - followed by the TROPIC mini-conference which is going to be a great event. Deb F in particular has put in a mammoth effort organising it. Laurie Kelly and two of his compatriots will be running workshops and Mark Davidson is also going to do his 'tips and trends' presentation. I'm going to run a session on the TROPIC network, following on from an activity we did at the Reframing the Future workshop in Sydney a couple of weeks ago - which leads me to putting in one more photo, from the mini-holiday I built around attending that workshop:

August update

Got together with the Leaders and Peter and Deb last week and we worked through a lot of stuff. Now that the program is expanding we need to formalise some things, like criteria for Mentors and Leaders and an application process. I need to draft a policy.

We agreed that the next training will be in Brisbane November 7-9 and we will recruit participants from the existing institutes as well as approaching BRIT and CQIT (fill in the big gap on the map).

We need to revise the training somewhat as it will be all 4 of us this time without Neva and so we are going to plan via VC, tele and email as well as meeting F2F on October 10th, just prior to the TROPIC mini-conference.

July update

All 3 training sessions have now happened - Cairns, Wide Bay and Toowoomba. Went very well I feel and we now have the flow working and the integration of the different components. I've learned heaps, especially about coaching and mentoring, and the dynamics of working with different groups and different facilitators.

Lots to think about now in terms of the next steps at operational and strategic levels and keeping strong communication going with all stakeholders. Also need to progress the Reframing the Future side of things - as well as the rest of my job at TNQT!! Fun times ahead.

Getting ready for training

Had a good meeting week before last with Gillian, Bob, David and David and I think we're pretty well set now for the training. We had a session with Neva and we're well on track for integrating the coaching and mentoring framework.

Norie is giving me a hand to put together a visual display about "the story of TROPIC" which we can put on the wall during the training, so that participants can see where it's come from and where it's going.

Now have about 11 participants for the training in Cairns. Things are looking good.

May update

Attended the Reframing the Future forum in Sydney May 18 and stayed on for the weekend - unbelievably beautiful weather, even went for a swim at Bondi.

The forum was good - lots of good contacts, interesting projects and deep thinking about networks. Now I just need to integrate that thinking and the focus on the RTF project, with what we already have underway with TROPIC.

Have tried the new observation sheets (amended by Michael in TAFE Tasmania) with a video and then with Sarah-Jane's class and Colleen's chat session. The sheets work well, a big improvement I think but a few minor changes needed.

This afternoon I'm off to Brisbane to meet up with Bob, Gillian, David and David to plan the training and discuss a few other things including the RTF action plan. A lot of discussion to fit into a tight timeframe. Then tomorrow we have our workshop with Neva.

micro-skills

Mary and Sarah-Jane ran a micro-skills session on Monday afternoon. About 12 teachers participated and all seemed to get a lot out of it. I liked the 'high five' idea (I'll pinch that one) - thumb representing 'be positive', then fingers: 'no blame' (one finger pointing at you means 3 fingers pointing back at me), 'don't be rude', 'commitment' and 'look after the little fella'. Similar to the one Phil from Outdoor Rec showed me but a slightly different slant, and drawing it up on the board was useful.

Getting each person in the group to give a brief description and demo of each skill worked well, then role plays were a lot of fun. Lots of good useful discussion too.

The other thing I wanted to mention was an article I read in the Weekend Australian, about the potentially negative effects of praise. The gist of it was, praising kids for being 'smart' has been shown to negatively affect their learning because they then tend to not make the effort when things get difficult. They can become 'addicted' to praise and reluctant to make mistakes. On the other hand, praising kids for effort or for specific things they do has been shown to positively affect their learning. Relates strongly to Descriptive Encouraging and shows we should do lots of it - works for adults too!

Today I gave a presentation based on the one I gave at AVETRA. Five people showed up, which is not too bad. Good chance to update a few interested people on what has been happening.

April update

Things seem to be moving pretty quickly now. Had a Leaders teleconference yesterday where we firmed up a few things:

• next Leaders teleconference May 10th at 4:30 - we will be communicating by email in the meantime
• Leaders workshop May 31-June 1 (meet on Thursday in Brisbane at time and venue tbc; all day with Neva at OLI on Friday)
• training sessions: TNQT June 25-27; WBIT July 4-6; SQIT July 9-11 - we talked about the value of the other Leaders coming to Cairns to assist/observe/evaluate the training
• videos - a good cross-section of sessions available (I do still need to line something up in Cairns - maybe Mary?)

AVETRA conference

The AVETRA conference was great - international perspectives on VET, some interesting presentations on professional development, organisational capability, VET history, amongst other things - and being in fascinating Footscray. Vietnamese restaurants, Filipino grocery stores, African cafes - so many different languages, so many people, Africans nearly 7 feet tall, Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian, people milling around shopping, eating, talking.

The presentation at the conference went well - only about 6 people there but they were interested. I have posted the paper on the wiki.

Met Susanne from CIT who gave a presentation on their comprehensive evaluation of a mentoring program they ran there. She kindly offered to send me their documentation and bits and pieces - will be very useful.

the importance of learning slowly

This link courtesy of Stephen Downes' OLDaily: http://brandon-hall.com/garywoodill/?p=14 - it's a review of a book by a German psychiatrist about how "the brain is based on vector algebra rather than numerical computations". I'm not sure my own neural pathways are up to understanding it fully but I like the sound of it. Worth a read.

March workshop

We had a very productive couple of days in Brisbane at the end of last month. I'll post the minutes in the wiki (which I'm going to tidy up when I get a chance). The main outcomes:

• a clearer shared understanding of our aims - these are outlined in some powerpoint slides Peter put together with help from Carmen and Deb - which I will also post on the wiki
• agreement to build a more explicit focus on coaching and mentoring
• some valuable training from Neva in coaching and mentoring skills
• plans for consolidation across the 3 institutes before further expansion
• dates for training sessions in each of the 3 institutes, with a target of 10 additional TROPIC Mentors in each (June 25-27 in Cairns; July 4-6 in Hervey Bay -tbc- and July 9-11 in Toowoomba)
• plans for a 'teaching and learning conference' in October
• TROPIC Leaders to teleconference fortnightly - Neva will join us to provide high level coaching to us, and the 5 of us will meet face-to-face in late May to plan the training sessions

Tasmania sent me their amended versions of the observation sheets and microskills which I will also post on the wiki and ask members to comment by May 18.

This week I am going to the AVETRA conference in Melbourne where I will give a presentation about the TROPIC evaluation.

establishing expectations

Just ran a micro-skills session with the new TAA group. It was fun - started with the ball game icebreaker I learned from Kim and it went well.

I love the way nearly every discussion leads to some new learning. While we were talking about 'establishing expectations', Linda gave an example of how deliberately changing her attitude towards and perceptions of a co-worker (in other words her expectations), greatly changed her relationship with that worker for the better. I had never thought of that aspect of establishing expectations before, and it's an important point - it's about seeing the potential in every student and expecting the best of them. It's about managing our own expectations, not just managing our students.

TROPIC in Tasmania

The TROPIC training session in Launceston was an interesting and challenging experience. The biggest learning for me: always consult thoroughly before running a workshop, and never assume anything! The assumption I made was that all of the participants would be teachers - instead there was a mix of senior managers, counsellors, learning support and teachers. A great mix in terms of initiating a program like TROPIC and moving it forward. But a big challenge in terms of running the sessions, especially when I wasn't expecting it. I'm hopeful though that the time spent was worthwhile and that some positive effects will come from it. I will certainly be interested to see what develops there.

Some other learnings and reflections, in random order:

• TAFE Tasmania is very different from TAFE Queensland - it's more compact and cohesive as a system, and there appear to be some great initiatives around teaching and learning, which I'd like to find out more about.
• The role plays for observation and feedback worked well - will definitely make use of them again, and time it so the "teachers" have time to plan ahead.
• Timing is still an issue - feedback indicated some participants felt aspects were rushed, while others felt the time taken was too long. Having better videos will help (and suitable technology for viewing!)
• Need a graphic representation of the micro-skills as hierarchical (ie make it very clear up front that give choice, follow through are done as a last resort).
• Some food for thought in terms of our goals and aims - there was a lot of discussion about how to ensure positive change occurs as a result of the observation and feedback process. I guess the way Mark Davidson has approached this in schools, is to work towards everyone in the school having awareness of the strategies and the language used to describe them (even the dreaded 'cueing with parallel acknowledgment'!). That is where the data collection comes in - within a school, or across similar schools, you can see patterns and track changes over time, and that can be quite powerful in terms of bringing about change.

I look forward to meeting with the Queensland cohort at the end of this month to talk through these and other learnings and their implications for us. It will be great to catch up with everyone again, and we've got a lot of planning to do.

Other than that - it was great to have the opportunity to visit Launceston. A very pretty town with a great variety of restaurants and cafes, and the beautiful Cataract Gorge right on the edge of the CBD.