Maintaining industry and pedagogical currency in VET: practitioners’ voices

ABSTRACT

An effective vocational education and training (VET) workforce that manages the learning of adults for the vocational demands of the twenty-first century requires teachers and trainers with current industry and pedagogical expertise. Research has found that approaches to maintaining industry currency and extending pedagogical expertise for VET practitioners are ad hoc and vary in effectiveness. This research focused on one large VET institutional site at which 26 VET teachers were interviewed on their perceptions of continuing professional development (CPD) and the processes and practices that were deployed to maintain their industry and pedagogical expertise. The results indicated varying perceptions on the ways in which industry currency and pedagogical expertise were maintained and developed. The results illuminate CPD practice in a government VET provider, and underscore the expressed need for a consistent, grounded and nuanced approach to CPD for VET practitioners to shore up their important role in maintaining adult, lifelong and transformative learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational education and training
• continuing professional development
• VET practitioners
• industry expertise
• pedagogical expertise
• TAFE

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. LVTs are teachers who, because of their experience, qualifications and expertise, are appointed to leadership roles under the Technical and Further Education Teacher’s Award. These teachers take on extra leadership responsibilities such as team leadership, mentoring, industry liaison work and programming.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Tyler

Dr Mark Tyler is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Studies, Mt Gravatt Campus of Griffith University. He is Program Director of the Professional Vocational and Continuing Team and Program Convenor of the Master of Training and Development.  Mark’s professional career originated in the human services field and progressed to the vocational and adult education field where he deployed his workplace, programmatic and curriculum knowledge at University of Queensland and the University of Southern Queensland. His expertise is in the area of adult and vocational education. His research interests are related to workplace learning, teacher identity, critical spirit (the dispositions of critical thinkers), workplace mentoring, and collaborative capacity building.

Darryl Dymock

Dr Darryl Dymock is a highly experienced researcher, teacher, author and editor. He is a former Editor of the international Journal of Workplace Learning, and has taught and researched extensively in the field of Adult and Vocational Education. Among his career appointments are Senior Lecturer, University of New England, Associate Professor, Flinders University and University of South Australia, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Lifelong Learning and Development, Government of South Australia.In recent years Dr Dymock has been a Senior Researcher at Griffith University and was Manager of a three-year national research project into Continuing Education and Training, funded through the National Centre for Vocational Education and Research (NCVER).  Darryl Dymock continues to teach in the university’s postgraduate program in Training and Development, including off-shore in Singapore, and to actively engage in research and to publish in the field of Adult and Vocational Education and related areas.