Selena ChanOutput 2009 – CPIT research week

September 2009

Why do this project?

Participants’ profiles

Initial findings

Aspects of identity and boundary crossing

Where to from here

Some recommendations

CAT review at CPIT

Ako Aotearoa Southern hub funding required a wider perspective to be taken

Involvement of South Island Educational Developers group

Trades tutors a focus

New trades tutors (starting full-time in 2007)

13 male tutors from 5 Polytechnics teaching in 8 trades

Age range 27 to 63 – average 40 years

Over ½ left school with minimal qualifications but all have at least trade certificate

All held positions of responsibility before beginning teaching

Motivators for entry into teaching

Concepts of teaching in an ITP as compared to training in the workplace

Identity formation as trades teachers - concentrating on this one for this presentation which also includes aspects of the 2 points above

Suggestions for the improvement of teacher training courses at ITPs

Support for new tutors not always available

Concepts of craftsmanship (Ainley, 1995) versus scholarship of teaching & learning (Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin & Prosser, 2000)

Identity formation - Erickson & Marcia (ASHE-ERIC, 2002) but applying the work of Vygotsky (Penuel & Wertsch, 1995)

Communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) – engagement, imagination & alignment with community, practice, meaning & identity

Learning as becoming (Hodkinson, Biesta & James, 2008)

Boundary crossing concepts (Jones, 2007; Manathunga, 2007)

Identification as a trades personArana: I think I am both because I can’t be one

without the other really. And I need to maintain my integrity in having student respect by still being an electrician. So as far as work goes, I am a tutor but I still need that recognition as electrician. The thing is they still need to wire a house say, they still need someone to instruct them how to wire up a house. I got to still be a sparky.

Arapeta: I love cookingI live for cooking but I must admit I enjoy as much the mentoring side. Yeah, that’s right, its something I love, its easy to do, it’s a hobby for me. Cooking is not a job.

Rawiri: I am not so focused on being a teacher, I don’t want to be a teacher, still want to be chef that happens to teach. So I don’t want to be a tutor or a teacher that just happens to teach cooking. So I don’t know if that fits into the mould but seventeen years of being locked away in a kitchen, cooking, I don’t want to lose that. To my students that what I am, I am a chef that happens to be standing in front of this class teaching them about what I love. And I don’t wanna to lose that.

Moving towards becoming a teacher

Hemi: It was good. It was actually quite scary and this is going to sound stupid. But that is when I realised teaching is another trade. The job is teaching it just happens to be painting. That I suppose is obvious but all the things around how people learning, that was brilliant.

Maaka: I consider myself as a more a teacher than I do builder. Ah, it would have been. It was fairly early in the piece, because I started realising these things fit me.

There is a change in how students are perceived as compared to apprentices being trained in the workplace.

Maaka: That’s a curly question. I think now, I find I have more responsibility and whereas before you could say they were work colleagues, equals and even though they are. And now I see that I have quite a lot of influence on the young fellas. They look up to you a lot more. With that tutor role, you have to be careful what you say, how you respond to them. Yeah, a lot more responsibility.

And for Hemi, a change in focus for his teaching from his trade to the literacy skills of his students.

Hemi: Encouraging them to write. Which is an exercise [tutor Hemi defers to] does where he gives them a notebook which we disguise as actually a journal and everyday, they writing something that they have learnt, or something they have found hard or… we avoid feelings and things like that.

And also encouraging them to get out in front of a board early on. So just making it, without them being aware, they are standing in front of a whole class, drawing on the board or writing something on the board. Making it safe and comfortable about that.

 

Does this generalise to the wider ITP sector?

What of work overseas?

What does this study tell us about our professional/vocational identities?

Communities of practice (internal, external) important

Using the ‘apprenticeship’ model to provide mentorship

Induction systems need to be more effective

Role models important

Contact: Selena Chan email:- chans@cpit.ac.nz

Blogging at:- http://mportfolios.blogspot.com