Talk:Indigenous Development Action Program

Flexible study, assessment and levels of engagement

Susan and I happened to catch each other in the staff room and had an impromptu but more in-depth conversation around ideas for this project. I thought them worth noting here.

1. What if we endeavoured to create flexible modes of engagement in the study? With open entry and exit points, and a wide range of assessment options that are largely student generated content (therefore indirect mentoring)?
2. Project-based subjects that can be started and completed at any time, with projects designed to help people to be immediately effective or productive, while at the same time lifting their standards and generating the evidence needed for formal assessment and folio of work for job seeking.
3. For example, if we created a specialisation subject around "the business of public health", where business literally meant sole practitioner, or not-for-profit, then the project for assessment is the creation of a business plan that is suitable for attracting investment (NIESS), or an organisational constitution that satisfies registration as a not-for-profit.
4. Elements of this specialisation subject could/should exist in other introductory subjects, so that they help strengthen progression pathways or valuable exit points, or to become useful if or when the specialisation subject is approached.
5. The obvious challenge in the above would be how we attract and retain people into these flexible pathways. Distinct attributes of confidence and motivation would be needed, as well as a clarity of purpose in the subjects themselves (never at the expense of intellectual development).
6. This idea of a flexible, always open pathway would probably best suit a small set of mature age people, probably practitioners, or school students needing an alternative and applied curriculum with the support of a school counsellor or community group.
7. Community Health is a Wikiversity page we are using to imagine a flexible curriculum of applied study and developmental research. There's already an idea of the breadth and depth of what might be possibly developed.
8. Essentially, the consistency between these subjects are that the assignments are immediately useful to practice, and satisfy assessment requirements, and see that students generate content for future students. That teaching and tuition is offered to assist the completion of the assignments, but is not compulsory. That the activities are also designed to assist the completion of assignments, but they don't require attendance or adherence to a 12 week schedule.
9. What if every subject was broad spectrum in its accessibility? What I mean is they can be studied by school kids, professionals and post doctoral level students at the same time. This means the assignments are many to choose from at different levels, and the content and activities are varied in level.
10. This doesn't mean one level of study is isolated from another. I'm sure a post doc candidate appreciates simple content on things they don't understand, just as a school kid might try to chew on academic content far outside their league - if only to try and get a sense. The point is we widen the paths possible, as well as the exit points and safety nets.
11. Speaking of broad paths and safety nets: Don't people need the option to apply themselves at whatever level they want to or can at a time - given circumstances quickly change for people. Is it necessary to commit to an unknown in an educational setting? Are the consequences if over committed to costly for people? Aren't we about 'safe places'?
12. If attendance to learning activities is not overly necessary, does this broadens the path of who can participate and by how much? If they just need to get their assignment done, at a time that suites them, optionally aided by the right supports, is physical attendance to the university campus (with all its embedded confrontations for many) necessary?
13. Are due dates necessary if the successful production of an assignment is our measure, and we are able to assess them as they come in rather than all at once (as if that results in a true and accurate assessment!)?
14. What if someone starts an assignment at a certain level, then life happens or they think they can't succeed at that level, the safety net is that the subject is designed and has options at other levels.

I think we can design and develop a curriculum along these lines, within the time we have, and satisfy the HEPPP criteria, as well as our own.

Bookmarks and notes from some of my work

Obviously I don't expect people to read through all these, but if just some of them were useful for shaping some of our initial ideas, then it was worth me listing these.

1. Recommendations to La Trobe Uni in its considerations of open education practices
2. I've found blockages in the university sector
3. Radical ideas
4. Open assessment
5. Groomed for money
6. Lack of empathy
7. OERU vs Pearsons vs OEU
8. Adult and Community Education - CIT Solutions style
9. Where does it end?
10. A summary of Chet Bowers, The false promises of constructivist theories of learning: a global and ecological critique
11. Lucrative teaching?
12. Networked learning explanation made easy by Dave Cormier
13. A crisis for institutions, opportunities for teachers
14. Student as Producer: A Pedgogy for the Avant-Garde
15. Higher Education in Australia: What we pay
16. Academic capitalism
17. Reviewing steps towards a change proposal
18. The role of marketing in educational development
19. On the system that manages learning
20. Everything you need to teach and learn online Part 1: Independence
21. Educause catches the anti LMS thread, causes me to look back
22. On connectivism
23. Measuring open education
24. A Framework for thinking about Educational Development
25. About to develop another model for open access education
26. What is Flexible Learning
27. Flexible Learning in New Zealand Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
28. Out from Under the Umbrellas and What Would it be Like to be the Rain
29. Learning should be free, its an education that can cost

Leighblackall (discuss • contribs) 04:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Resources & comments by SC

1. Article on online teaching/learning component, http://ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet16/mcloughlin.html
2. Check VACCHO as an org that we can attach the Community Health certificate/diploma to as they train community health workers. Rick has contact with them.

By Casey