Teaching and Training Vocational Learners

Steve Ingle, Vicky Duckworth

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781446297469
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Adult Education

If you are teaching or training to teach vocational learners across the further education and skills sector or in the workplace, this is your essential guide. Teaching and Training Vocational Learners is a focused text written to support those who are working with vocational learners, taking into account the specific needs of this group. It provides practical advice and guidance to help you to shape your approach to teaching, learning and assessment. It has comprehensive coverage of the learning you need to prepare you to teach. Throughout, the authors offer a range of exciting and practical examples to help you to expand your ?vocational teaching toolkit?. Included are lesson plans, assessment grids, assignment briefs, ideas to engage employers, help on marking vocational evidence, planning trips and visits and much more.

1 WHAT IS VOCATIONAL EDUCATION?

In this chapter you will learn about:

• the complex nature of vocational education and training;

• the similarities and differences between general ‘academic’ and vocational qualifications;

• the range of vocational qualifications and contexts across the further education and training sector;

• ideas for developing a vocational pedagogy or andragogy for effective teaching and training of vocational adults and young people.

Professional Standards

Standard 10: Reflect on, develop and maintain own skills and practice in learning and development – KU15 How research can help to update practice

Standard 13: Evaluate and improve learning and development provision – KU3 How to research and keep up to date with quality requirements relevant to learning and development

Introduction

Vocation, profession or trade?

When first entering the world of ‘vocational education’, the specific terminology and sheer range of qualifications can be very confusing and daunting for the beginning practitioner or tutor. This chapter explores the changing view of vocational education or, as it is sometimes known, vocational education and training (VET). It also outlines how this view translates to the range of qualifications delivered and assessed by practitioners across the country, whether in further education or sixth-form colleges, adult and community learning venues, with offenders in prison environments or in the large workplace learning sector.

By developing an understanding of the debates around vocational education, you will be better placed to develop and design vocational courses, programmes and assessments that meet the needs and interests of your learners, in school, colleges and in the workplace.

Activity

What does the term ‘vocational education’ mean to you? Consider your own educational background and the different routes that have brought you towards becoming an educator of others. Make a list of the terms.

When considering the term ‘vocational education’, you may have come up with a list of terms such as:

• technical and hands-on;

• occupationally focused;

• practical and applied learning;

• skills development for the real world of work;

• work-related and work-based competence.

So what is vocational education? Tummons (2007: 3) highlights how the language around vocational education has shifted and is sometimes unclear.

Historically, some occupations have been classed as professions and others as vocations. The word vocation derives from the Latin word, vocare, which means ‘to call’. Originally, professions were seen as being distinct from vocations, and from other occupations.

Today, we often talk of the teaching, medical and legal professions, but could these not also be considered as vocations, where practitioners have some sense of calling to do the role? In her review of vocational education in England, Professor Alison Wolf (2011) also identified how in the absence of a formal definition, the term ‘vocational’ is not clearly defined by the education community. Vocational education, and its associated range of qualifications, serves many different purposes and many different learners, from high-level courses geared toward very specific occupations to more general, work-related or pre-vocational programmes, often offered at the lower levels.

In a report on excellent adult vocational teaching and learning, the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (CAVTL, 2013) recognises the tricky and fluid nature of defining the term ‘vocational’ and its distinction from ‘professional’ and traditionally ‘academic’ education. They identify how vocational education and training has traditionally been associated with the development of skills for the craft and trade industries, such as catering, plumbing, joinery and hairdressing at around an intermediate level. Professional education could be more closely associated with medicine, law and accountancy at a higher level and there are, of course, other occupational areas which appear to sit somewhere in between, such as business, engineering and information technology.

CAVTL identifies that any vocational teaching and learning programme must be characterised by two defining factors:

1. a ‘clear line of sight to work’ – to enable learners to see why they are learning what they are learning for the real world of work;

2. a ‘two-way street’ collaboration – between training providers and employers.

Reflection point

Consider the subject that you teach. Do you view your subject as vocational, academic, general or professional?

Do you think the level at which you teach your subject has an impact on whether it is vocational or not?

The Edge Foundation is an independent education charity dedicated to raising the status of technical, practical and vocational learning. The Foundation offers a definition of vocational education where learning is demonstrated through the application of knowledge in a practical context. This places an emphasis on ‘learning by doing’, where clear links are made between theory and practice, as opposed to the more theoretical and abstract learning seen in non-vocational or more ‘academic’ education.

Extension Activity

The Edge Foundation (www.edge.co.uk)

The Edge Foundation is an independent education charity dedicated to raising the status of technical, practical and vocational learning. Edge believes that all young people should have the opportunity to achieve their potential. This potential can be achieved through a number of different paths, whether by following a predominantly academic or a ‘learning by doing’ vocational route. Vocational skills are seen as crucial in equipping the UK’s future workforce to be successful in a modern, global economy.

Edge believes that the current system places a disproportionate value on academic education and this needs to change. Its campaigning, networking and research is aimed at creating a more equal status for technical, practical and vocational education, which should be an integral part of education in order to meet the demands of the UK economy.

Investigate the role of Edge and the resources that may be useful to you in your role as a vocational educator.

Education or training?

When considering the debate around vocational education, the role of training is also a key area of focus. When does education become training, or vice-versa? Training is often seen as preparing learners to have the procedural knowledge, or ‘know-how’, in order to be competent in a particular skill or procedure. This specific knowledge is often seen as ‘technical’, another common term often used to describe vocational programmes.

Education is sometimes viewed as developing an understanding of more theoretical or abstract concepts, often referred to as declarative or propositional knowledge, or the ‘knowing-of’. Of course, many vocational programmes seek to develop both declarative and procedural knowledge, so that learners don’t just know how to perform a task or function but the reasons why, and crucially, the consequences of getting it wrong.

Activity

Consider your own subject and the different types of knowledge that your own teaching is designed to develop. Is it mainly procedural, for example how to wire a plug or change a tyre, or propositional, such as a theory of child development or the impact of contraindications in beauty therapy?

Now consider the ways that might be the most effective in developing your learning knowledge of both procedural and propositional knowledge. Would you use different methods and activities? Would you assess the different types of knowledge in different ways?

We will explore these issues further in subsequent chapters.

Academic or vocational?

In today’s teaching and learning landscape, both in schools and throughout the FE and Skills sector, a clear distinction is often made between the ‘academic’ and the ‘vocational’ curriculum, although in reality, there are many academic aspects in many vocational programmes. General qualifications, such as GCSEs and A levels, are often viewed as an academic curriculum, preparing learners to have an understanding of facts, figures, theories and concepts – propositional knowledge.

The role of the vocational curriculum, and the many associated qualifications such as BTECs, OCR Nationals, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and Vocationally Related Qualification (VRQs), is seen by many as a way to develop learners’ procedural knowledge, the practical skills required to carry out many manual and skilled roles.

In the UK, general ‘academic’ qualifications are often seen as more demanding and challenging and therefore a curriculum more suited to the most able and gifted learners. However, many vocational qualifications include rigorous and challenging academic and theoretical concepts, alongside the development of highly technical, practical skills. De...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1   What is vocational education?
• 2   The changing landscape
• 3   Engaging and motivating vocational learners
• 4   Employer engagement
• 5   Planning your approach
• 6   Experiential and applied learning
• 7   Vocational assessment
• 8   Observing vocational learning
• 9   The practitioner voice
• Appendix 1: Example of a vocational scheme of work
• Appendix 2: Assessment plan template
• Appendix 3: IRIS reflection template
• Index