Prize Draw & Close

Making Digital Compliance a Way of Life

Session Overview Coming Soon!

Under the Hood: Driving compliance from document to action

This session will introduce Fortress Learning’s Monthly Compliance Strategy and showcase how RTO's can frame their compliance activities over a 12 month period to not only conform with the Standards for RTO's (2015) but to also create a whole-of-organisation approach to the application of compliance through the everyday roles we perform. 

Participants will be taken on a visual journey through the Strategy as it addresses the 5 stages of ASQA’s new audit model, and will take away some clearly defined strategies that they can apply within their own RTOs.

Understanding How Gen Z Are Making Career Decisions

Almost half of all Australian high school students have no idea what they want to do when they finish year 12, yet most transition into some form of further education and/or training - what is happening and how are youth making their decisions? 

We, at Year13, are firm believers that young people should be exposed to a vast array of career and study options early in their high school years, rather than during the final months when the stress of exams evoke a higher sense of urgency. The intention of this presentation is to provide a comprehensive picture of the transitional period for young Australians and the stages of their decision-making process. 

Using Year13's 2019 research data, this presentation will take you through the facts.

Five Critical Aspects of your TAS

When was the last time you updated your TAS? Was it only updated due to an ASQA audit?   

Ensuring that your TAS truly reflects how you conduct your training and assessment is crucial for your organisation; it sets the standard for education for your RTO, your trainers and your clients. It is like a business plan for your training that should be updated at least annually, to truly reflect the training that you deliver.   Your trainers and assessors are crucial to the writing of a TAS, but most trainers have never even seen one, which puts your RTO at risk of not delivering your training and assessment consistently and/or your trainers not understanding what your organisation’s goals are.   

In this session we will cover the importance of the TAS, and how to write an effective TAS that is more than just an audit document.   The 5 critical aspects that we will cover are:  

1. Conducting effective industry consultation   
2. Who are your students and how will you meet their needs?   
3. Demonstrating that your trainers have sufficient skills and knowledge   
4. Delivery and assessment methodology   
5. Ensuring that your delivery and assessment plan maps your trainers’ and students’ journey

Leveraging Cognitive Biases to Enhance Learner Engagement and Satisfaction

Combining the fields of psychology and economics, the ground-breaking field of behavioural economics is providing insights into how cognitive biases influence how we think, our motivation and decision making.   Traditional thinking held that human decision-making was considered and conscious. 

We like to believe that we act rationally and when we are presented with a choice, we think through all the options and make the best decision. Nice idea, but this turns out to not be the case. Using empirical research, traditional decision-making theory has been turned upside down with study after study revealing that people are not as conscious and rational with their decisions as once thought.   From serious life decisions, like whether you choose to be an organ donor or how you choose your partner, right through to decisions about how you evaluate a training session or perceive the value of a learning event, all are strongly influenced by a range of cognitive biases. 

Thankfully these insights can be used by trainers and designers to enhance engagement, motivation and student satisfaction.   In this session, Instructional Designer and Facilitator, Tony Kirton, shows how we can lever cognitive biases to enhance our students’ motivation, engagement and even influence how satisfied they are with a learning event.  

During this interactive session, you’ll learn how to:   

• frame your learning objectives in a way that increases a person’s motivation to act.   
• communicate the ‘what’s in it for me’ in a way that actually influences your students’ perception of value.   
• influence a person’s satisfaction ratings of your instructional event by strategically selecting when to deliver certain content.   
• inspire your students to take risks as they implement new learning.   

Aimed at facilitators and instructional designers, you will find this session fun, interactive and engaging with practical ideas you can apply immediately.

Let's Talk About Administration

Afternoon Tea & Networking

Putting L.I.F.E. Back Into Your e-learning

In this dynamic session, Damian will share a variety of e-learning principles and practices aimed at helping you to breathe life back into your e-learning. 

Centred around the acronym L.I.F.E., the session will: 

• Explore methods to engage (L)earning, acknowledging that e-learning is different from classroom learning and requires its own approaches to build learner confidence, create participation, and generate fun; 
• Highlight key (I)nstructional Design principles and pitfalls to consider when designing an e-learning pathway;  
• Discuss how to integrate (F)eedback touch points to create relevant and meaningful exchanges that ultimately create critical opportunities to support, guide and encourage e-learners; and  
• Identify useful methods of (E)valuation, to ensure that there are mechanisms in place to truly check how things are going, and to create a conduit for growth and improvement

Over-simplification of the Concept of Competency, Raising and Shattering Expectations

Training is an enabler of competency, but without supervised workplace practice, real competency is elusive. 

The VET system through a lack of support with suitable workplace practice, often fails to meet expectations of learners, employers, industry and government. Industry consultations across a range of sectors employing around a million workers in total, demonstrate concern that the VET system struggles to meet expectations (often unrealistic) to produce proficient, work-ready people, and to support lifelong learning. 

Industries challenge the concept that assessment of a person after completing training produces what industry would view as a competent outcome. Work practice and the feedback that real work provides, are seen to produce competency over time. Apprenticeships, with their built-in work experience, are seen as effective at producing competent workers. Increasingly, to be assured of competency, industries are developing enterprise-based training and credentialing based on real-life work outcomes. They have also been seeking higher entry requirements for qualifications based on experience, to ensure advanced qualifications cannot be gained by inexperienced people, i.e. people holding qualifications, but not yet workplace competent. 

Based on industry consultations, the reality of competence outcomes are: 

1. Workplace Safe to Practice: The level of competence attained through training only; where a learner completes and has been assessed as competent. 
2. Workplace Competency: The level of competence obtained through training supported by workplace-based practice; where the learner is supervised and tested in real situations 
3. Mastery: The level of competence proven by performance in uncertain, changing and advanced environments. 

The current VET system appears to force RTOs to certify learners as ‘competent’ when they are ‘Workplace Safe to Practice’; falling short of expectations from a range of stakeholders. This presentation proposes more nuanced approaches to competency assessment and certification.

Disability Awareness eTraining: Enhancing your VET practice

Recent research and consultations indicate that students with disability continue to have limited educational outcomes at tertiary levels. Correspondingly, VET practitioners have not always had positive experiences in supporting people with disability to succeed, coupled with limited capacity-building opportunities. 

In 2017-2018 the Australian Industry and Skills Committee (AISC) commissioned The Inclusion of People with Disability in VET Cross Sector Project, resulting in the introduction of nationally accredited units of competency focusing on participation and responding to individuals with disability. Project participants also identified the need for, and benefit in, producing an introductory professional development resource for VET Sector staff, to raise awareness about the rights and support requirements of people with disability. 

While VET Practitioners have training in meeting individual needs, there is minimal education about how to effectively respond to the needs of students with disability and how to empower them to achieve positive education outcomes. Additionally, with the advent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), it is anticipated that there will be an increase in people with disability accessing further education, particularly in the VET Sector. 

This session aims to involve VET Practitioners in building further understanding about how to effectively engage and empower learners with disability, ensuring students are well informed, supported, and successfully provided with adjustments within VET settings. We will showcase and promote the new VET Disability Awareness eTraining Resource, which introduces the intent and requirements of the Disability Standards for Education (DSE), the impact on teaching in terms of obligations and responsibilities, strategies to address them, approaches to inherent requirements and reasonable adjustments, as well as developing accessible delivery and assessment tools. 

The session will provide participants with key considerations and practices, how to engage with the resource, and how it can be used to build capabilities in teams and enhance VET practice.

Persuasive Presentations for Trainers and Assessors

We have all heard that students are distracted, disengaged and have the attention span of a goldfish!   

Is this true? If so, what can we do?   

In this session Sharon will share selling tips that will help you sell your message and increase retention.   You will learn:   

• Why persuasion and influence are crucial for trainers   
• Cialdini’s 6 elements of persuasion and how to weave them into workshops   
• 5 simple steps to ‘sell’ your message   
• How stories can make you more influential  
• How persuasive techniques can increase attention and move people to action

Effective Industry Engagement: Test your understanding

This highly interactive session will revisit a range of information surrounding effective industry engagement strategies along with compliance requirements. There will be a session agenda, but the focus of each topic will depend on the collective knowledge of the group! This collective knowledge will be measured using online quiz tools so bring along your electronic device and connect to the WiFi to take part. Participants will be encouraged to join in the conversation exploring a range of areas related to industry engagement including, but not limited to:

• Requirements of the Standards for RTOs 2015
• Strategies for engagement
• Evidence requirements

Let's Talk About RPL and Validation

Your feedback has helped shape this concept!  Delegates of past events have identified they would love the opportunity to attend a less structured session that allows them to network with others and requested  a space to talk to others, to ask for hints and tips.

As an attendee YOU get to help shape this session! 

This NOT a:

• Pure Q & A/Panel session
• Formal PD session
• A platform for airing grievances  

This IS an opportunity for: 

• Positive discussions 
• Sharing ideas, thoughts, concerns with like-minded practitioners
• Participating  in a facilitated networking opportunity to help inspire your innovative thoughts, or activation plans around RPL and Validation
• Making positive connections with others
• Idea generation

Lunch & Networking

What to Consider when Selecting an LMS

Selecting a Learning Management System can be difficult; vendors will have their biases so it can be difficult to get straight answers.

It can be even more difficult coming up with the right questions. You don’t know what you don’t know, so it’s difficult to distinguish if you’ve thought of all the problems facing your organisation as you plan for online or blended delivery. 

In this session, Scott Huntley will provide you with the technical advice you’re looking for when selecting your LMS. He’ll outline a strategy to get you online with your courses, or determine if you’re delivering in the best manner. Scott will draw upon his experience as a Web Design teacher, a Learning Designer and eLearning Consultant to help you know what you have, what you need, and the path from here to there. 

Come with all your Learning Management System, Student Management System and Content Management System questions, and Scott will share his knowledge with you!

Preparing for Re-Registration Audits

Re-registration can be quite complex and is a daunting process for any RTO. VET regulators generally conduct an audit for RTOs just prior to their re-registration. 

These audits provide vital information to the regulator which determines if the organisation will successfully be re-registered as an RTO.    Preparing for a re-registration audit is vital to ensure the RTO is able to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate how they have maintained and will continue to maintain, compliance with the Standards.   

This session will explore how to prepare for re-registration and get the most out of the regulator audits. You’ll learn how to conduct an internal audit, prepare rectifications plans, and implement continuous improvement measures to ensure you continue to provide quality training and assessment services.

Digital Transformation from a Systems Perspective (Caterpillar to Digital Butterfly)

Struggling with rising costs and want to introduce more automation? In the modern Business Ecosystem, organisations are impacted by a variety of systems outside their control. As Cloud and SaaS technology because more commonplace, organisations can feel increasing pressure to take up multiple vendors: LMS, SMS, Mail Clients, CRM. And, multiple acronyms can make it difficult to govern and implement changes across systems. 

For RTO management, compliance and administration, this often means trying wrangle increasingly complex reporting systems, changing State and Federal requirements, and multiple software packages while meeting compliance and quality standards on an ever-reducing budget.   

This session provides you with techniques aimed at getting the best results out of your digital transformation projects and tools to help you manage your vendor relationships. Specifically tailored to RTO environments and the student journey, we will unpack the top five Best Practice Business Processes from Business Analysis theory, and give tips for ongoing control of your processes while responding to change in a digital world.  

We use theatre sports to show your processes as a living, evolving part of your RTO; move to case studies to discuss the impact of internal and external change; then demonstrate how effective, ongoing process governance, methods and practices can be applied on a project and organisational level as you progress through your digital transformation - giving you freedom and control of your process, even as you move to newer business models and systems.

Connecting the Dots: Facilitating learners’ success

There is more to be gained in transferring your knowledge, skills, attitude and attributes to others. You have your Cert IV TAE, you have your class list… What now? 

You play a crucial role in your participants’ study outcomes and readiness to meet the needs of industry. ‘The Australian’ last year reported that 27.7 per cent of students at non-university institutions failed to complete their course. RTOs assume that every learner can navigate study expectations alone. 

Are trainers able to help improve this statistic? Yes! This session will help new trainers (and refresh the experienced) in planning to educate and connecting adult learners’ needs of: work-ready success; contributing productively to the competitiveness of their employer; enhancement of their social, emotional, cognitive and physical development; emerging as leaders of tomorrow.   

The session will provide class facilitation tips, quotes, testimonies, websites and proven innovative strategies to support your learners’ vocational education through a variety of learning activities. You will be empowered to become the trainer you needed. More importantly, this session will support you in becoming the trainer your learners need as you educate and inspire.

Designing Assessments to Capture Workplace Performance

This session will provide a practical approach for designing and benchmarking assessments to utilise authentic workplace evidence and task performance to meet a qualification's performance criteria. 

Key components include a critical look at evidence gathering techniques to make life simpler for the workplace supervisor and the assessor to document evidence of competencies. 

Practical examples will be explored of real-life documents and evidence gathering tools that can reduce the need for laborious third-party reports or workbook style question and answers. Examples will be discussed utilising units of competency from some of the most commonly delivered training packages. 

Participants are encouraged to bring tricky units of competency with them for discussion on the day!

Let's Talk About HR Requirements

Your feedback has helped shape this concept!  Delegates of past events have identified they would love the opportunity to attend a less structured session that allows them to network with others and requested  a space to talk to others, to ask for hints and tips.

As an attendee YOU get to help shape this session! 

This NOT a:

• Pure Q & A/Panel session
• Formal PD session
• A platform for airing grievances  

This IS an opportunity for: 

• Positive discussions 
• Sharing ideas, thoughts, concerns with like-minded practitioners
• Participating  in a facilitated networking opportunity to help inspire your innovative thoughts, or activation plans around HR Requirements 
• Making positive connections with others
• Idea generation

Online Learning Content with H5P

Looking for something different for your online content that isn’t ‘Click Next’ or ‘Download PDF’? Do you want some easy to use tools for creating simple drag and drop, memory game and other interactive activities utilising the power of graphics and video, without needing to understand code or complex software? The answer may be in H5P, a free-to-access tool for the creation of rich HTML5 content which is then published on your learning platform.

This session will explore the capabilities of H5P, including the content types available, and demonstrate how simple it is to create a range of activities to engage learners of all ages. Demonstrations will be provided of the following content types:

• Course presentations (incorporating video and graphics)
• Branching scenario (choose your own adventure taking students on learning pathways)
• Interactive video
• Games including drag and drop, fill in the blanks, memory cards, flashcards
• Image hotspots
• Document creation tool

Want to enrich your own learning? Bring along your own device and explore the content demonstrations simultaneously.

The Future of Micro-learning & Credentialing

This will be a panel session that explores the future of Micro-Learning & Credentialing in VET. Session overview coming soon. 

Achieve Profitability & Compliance through Thought Leadership in Creative Design

c2cglobal’s 2019 presentation will focus on achieving profitability and compliance through Thought Leadership Creative Design. 

With workplace trends moving towards a more collaborative space, what is the education sector doing to prepare students for the real-life work scenario? 

Chris Green, CEO and Founder of c2cglobal, will explore the different facets of the built environment and how it can impact on student engagement, compliance and profitability. 

In this session, discuss how creative design can not only maximise student capacity, but how individual institutes can reflect their values through clever design and finishes.

From Average to Great: The steps to becoming a powerful and impactful trainer in the 21st century

This session is specifically for those trainers and RTO managers who are looking for real-world techniques and street-wise skills that can be applied in the training room; off- or on-line, to make content come alive and meet the needs of the 21st Century learner.   

In the presentation you will learn how to fully engage an audience, help them optimise retention of information, and also help staff and colleagues to do the same. 'Death by PowerPoint' has killed too many students and it is time to learn: the fundamental skills to get students hungry to learn, and what it takes to leave a long, lasting positive impression.   

The session will cover: 

• The top 3 mistakes of average trainers 
• The top 10 qualities of effective trainers
• The keys to accelerating the uptake of information by your students
• The 3 check points and ultimate criteria for any great training session
•  How to create raving fans of your RTO and your courses through tweaks in your delivery styles and focus points.  

Essentially, this session will equip any trainer regardless of experience level with the art and science of group management and how to engage any audience powerfully in the learning process. It will also show how to make PD and ongoing trainer improvement a daily practice.

Continued Professional Development

Session Overview Coming Soon!

Let's Talk About Competency Based Assessment

Your feedback has helped shape this concept!  Delegates of past events have identified they would love the opportunity to attend a less structured session that allows them to network with others and requested  a space to talk to others, to ask for hints and tips.

As an attendee YOU get to help shape this session! 

This NOT a:

• Pure Q & A/Panel session
• Formal PD session
• A platform for airing grievances  

This IS an opportunity for: 

• Positive discussions 
• Sharing ideas, thoughts, concerns with like-minded practitioners
• Participating  in a facilitated networking opportunity to help inspire your innovative thoughts, or activation plans around Competency Based Assessment
• Making positive connections with others
• Idea generation

Morning Tea & Networking

Motivational Speaker

Australian VET Alumni hosted by the Australian Training Awards and WorldSkills Australia

Session Overview Coming Soon!

Day 2 Welcome Address by Velg Training

Catch Up Over Coffee

Welcome Function

'I'm an Auditor- Ask Me Anything'

Session Overview Coming Soon!

The Secret of Timing and Purpose in Making your RTO Compliant, Happy and Profitable

Most RTOs spend the majority of their time explaining to staff who needs to do what and how, but the research shows that why and how actually have a more positive and profitable impact. 

This session explores the secrets of why and when and gives practical tips which can be implemented in your RTO which will lead to a more efficient, happier and productive team.   

Key themes and questions the session will explore include:  

The Science behind Perfect Timing  

• When is the worst time to fire, performance manage or have an important meeting with a client?
• How do you schedule project deadlines to get the most from your team?
• How can you use timing to increase positive student and client feedback?
• How can you optimise your day to be the most productive? 

Purpose Based Leadership  

• How can you use purpose to double sales and productivity?
• Why is purpose linked to retention, employee satisfaction and client loyalty?
• Understanding the finite and the infinite game and why you are playing the wrong one!  

As a participant in this session, you should expect to actively participate in activities through the hands-on session and will come away with a few practical tips, tools and templates to support you and your organisation.

It’s Your Move

Are you feeling frustrated, confused and overwhelmed because: 

• Turnover’s great but profit and cashflow isn’t?
•  Your time is spent troubleshooting, putting out fires and managing staff?
• Compliance is the thorn in your side?

RESULT: You’re doing lots and getting nowhere. Why? Because compliance and change are driving you and your RTO instead of you being in the driver’s seat.

In this straight talking and interactive presentation, you will discover: 

• Top 5 frustrations of RTO Managers
• 9 common mistakes when managing your RTO
• 3 strategies to build your Business, People and Systems (BPS) Roadmap for success 

This session is for any RTO Managers (regardless of how long you’ve been in VET) who want help running a simple profitable RTO business that’s not driven by compliance (but is still compliant).

Show Me the Way: Mapping the importance of mapping

Mapping of assessments is a hidden gem when it comes to compliance.

Although not actually mandated as a requirement of the Standards, accurate mapping underpins the direction your RTO is taking with regards to its assessments, and is a must-have for when it comes to navigating assessments against unit requirements.   

Suitable as a stand-alone opportunity or as a neat follow on from Michelle’s ‘Must-Do’ Master Class on the 11th, this NVC session will show you how to create a mapping document your RTO will treasure. 

It will reveal mapping’s importance to your RTO’s Assessment and Quality Systems, and will mark the spot for successful validation outcomes.   Session attendees will be invited to bring an example of their own assessment and mapping documents for random selection and review.

Jedi Memory and Great Training - Engage the Learner and the Learning Sticks

This highly practical session will rekindle both your passion for teaching and your student’s desire to learn. Recapture your enthusiasm with techniques which will ensure your delivery is motivating, attention-grabbing and enjoyable, both for you and your students. 

The Experience of Learning is more than just ‘consumption’ of information. It is about innovation, action and the experience of excellent education. For real learning and transfer of skills to take place, there must be a connection created within the learners’ brains. 

Your role is to become a benevolent Manipulator in making this magic happen! Learning is about connecting brain cells. We need to look at what we are offering students in our training delivery. 

Do we:

• stimulate their brain’s curiosity?  
• touch their hearts?
• shift their headspace and thinking?  
• equip them with hands-on skills?   
• move their feet into action?   

This Presentation will both challenge you, and have you experience what this information means for you and your learning and delivery design. Be prepared to have fun and to shift mental mindsets. It will not be a ‘talk-fest’, but an experience where magic will happen, and practical skills will be learned. It might even improve your memory!

Innovating and Activitating: How we built the most adopted Accredited Course ever!

In 2015, Social Media College founders Jonathon & Daniele Tanner nationally accredited 10118NAT Diploma of Social Media Marketing. 

Since then, they’ve successfully licensed the course to more than 25 leading TAFEs and RTOs across Australia, making it the most widely adopted Accredited Course ever - to more than double the number of RTOs, than the next largest Accredited Course. 

In this session, Jonathon, SMC’s CEO, explains why the Accredited Course has resonated so strongly with RTOs, how SMC's unique business model works, and why the Diploma of Social Media Marketing represents true innovation and activation in the VET sector. 

He also shares the highs and lows they’ve experienced, and where accredited courses need to go, to promote continued expansion and investment in VET.

Afternoon Tea & Networking

Passionate Life: Master the art of achieving your biggest goals

In this keynote presentation, Keith will share with your people the three simple steps to achieving some of your biggest goals. Customised to your business, the ideas will relate directly to the industry your people work in every day, and focus on real world goal achievement strategies that work.

Keith will explore how individuals can gain clarity around both their professional and personal lives, and how this will enhance their confidence in their career.

PASSION
• Explore why it is critical to define what you are passionate about, and the importance of actively pursuing your passion.
• Discover the 6 emotional mindsets to achieving goals and how to tap into your full potential to accomplish them, in life and in your career.
• Learn the process of how to create your list of 100 goals that you want to achieve in your lifetime.

PLANS
• Identify the 4 key areas you need to set goals in and how to remain focused on what really counts for you.
• Prioritise your key personal and professional goals for the next 12 months.
• Clarify the #1 goal you want to achieve using a simple 8 step process.

PROGRESS
• Determine how to become the living example of the best version of you, not the second best version of someone else.
• Understand what you need to start doing and stop doing in your life or role, to achieve your goals.
• Define what actions you need to complete in the next 1-7-15-30 days in order to beat procrastination once and for all.

Lunch & Networking

Australian Skills Quality Authority Presentation

Session Overview Coming Soon!

How do You Innovate in a Regulatory Environment?

Can you be innovative AND be regulatory-compliant? Or is the regulatory burden always going to stunt innovation?  Answers: 1=Yes. 2=No.    

This presentation gives practical, real and proven tools and tips for both innovation and regulatory compliance. In order to achieve both, a sharp focus is needed on what the purpose is of an education provider.     Delegates will walk away with a fresh understanding of what innovation actually means - how to be a leader in your chosen industry/industries, and what places you in a position of leadership. Plus a practical and inspiring roadmap for dealing with an ever-increasing world of regulatory requirements.     

Deepening their understanding of both of these seemingly incompatible realms, delegates will learn how to approach their organisation's operations in a way that unashamedly puts them in the position of industry leader. The sector has enormous potential and the industries it serves are vital to the Australian economy and societal wellbeing. Providers who are ready to step into innovation and true leadership, while satisfying all regulatory requirements, are greatly needed, especially in the current time.   

This presentation gives much to the ready and willing tertiary provider leader who knows that there could be so much more to tertiary education, but just needs help in how to realise that potential in full. There are providers who have deliberately led the way in their industries - learn about how it can be done, and take it all back to your organisation, to start to make a real difference in your industry.

Designing Compliant Simulations in Assessment Tools

Registered Training Organisations are under increasing scrutiny by ASQA. Clause 1.8 (assessment complies with the training package and is conducted using the principles of assessment and the rules of evidence), continues to be a focus of their concern. 

The National Regulator comments that a majority of RTOs’ assessment tools are providing limited assessment of candidate skills because:

• simulations don’t cover performance criteria
• there is improper (or no) implementation of knowledge and performance evidence, and foundation skills
• assessment conditions (e.g. organisational policies and procedures) are not used in the assessment   

The failure of assessment tools is not surprising because most are written for a training room and not the workplace. However, in competency-based assessment, when an individual is deemed competent, this means they can perform that task in the workplace. In other words, they are job ready. 

This creates a problem, as a unit of competence will more than likely include actions such as:

• consult stakeholders… 
• implement plan….   
• monitor business activities….   
• use organisational policies and procedures…   

These actions where you consult, implement, monitor, use etc. are not easy to replicate in a training room environment! For example, how do you monitor the success of your operational plan in the training room? 

Yet, creating a simulation to mirror the real world, though a challenge, is essential if you want to achieve compliance.   In this session, attendees will be shown how they can create a workplace within your assessment tool that will address the principles of assessment and rules of evidence, using difficult units that Mark has come across. 

You are invited to table your most challenging unit and allow Mark to provide examples that will satisfy the most discerning auditor!

Strategies for Engagement: Students with additional needs

As a result of improved access to training programs for students with additional learning and support needs, the role of the VET trainer has changed significantly. Not just about reasonable adjustment, trainers need to understand the differences in brain function, and implement strategies that support and engage. 

This session will explore the specific learning and support needs of students with autism, learning disabilities, anxiety and other mental health difficulties, and how trainers can adjust their teaching to be more inclusive of these different learning needs. 

Participants will gain a better understanding of how the brain is impacted for students with additional needs and how to implement practical strategies that can assist and lead to successful outcomes.

Tips to Activate Your Compliance

Session Overview Coming Soon!

Australian Skills Quality Authority Presentation

Session Overview Coming Soon!

Beyond Excellence

If excellence is expected, what are you doing in your organisation to move beyond excellence? 

This session will examine the factors that successful organisations use to consistently rise above the rest and will identify the three critical components that Training organisations must have to deliver truly outstanding results and value to all those they serve. 

The presentation will encourage attendees to transcend the current climate of compliance and look at quality and service through a new lens. It will also highlight some of the emerging learning trends that training organisations need to be aware of to enable them to build capacity and offer the kinds of choices required by students and industry.

Cashflow and Financial Viability in the Current RTO Environment

Cashflow in RTOs has gone from pretty good to pretty bad, with cashflow becoming a major issue for many providers. Cashflow outcomes are influenced by numerous financial factors and understanding and managing these factors is critical for financial viability. 

This session will discuss funding, profitability, invoice timing, invoice collection, and payments, and how they can be managed proactively. Substantial investments like an RTO demand monitoring and regular financial review to provide stakeholders with peace of mind and a reliable platform on which to make decisions about the RTO and their investment.

Enhancing Academic Outcomes for all Students Using Digital Tools

It is a challenge to successfully create learning environments that accommodate, foster and challenge ALL learners, regardless of the barriers that currently exist for them around the literacy demands of vocational education. How do we embrace and enhance economic and social inclusion for our students on course completion? 

This session will explore practical strategies using digital tools to ensure that all students, regardless of the barriers that currently exist for them around the literacy demands of vocational education, are actively engaged in their own learning. Ensuring that students are not reliant on institutional support, but actively personalising and owning their own learning. Taking students who need additional support, including those who enter studies from the Adult Migrant English Program and from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, well beyond functional literacy will be explored as well as how sound technology integration strategies can significantly enhance student retention and course completion rates.

Dynamic Thinking Tools for Engaging Meetings and Training Sessions

Sometimes, when you are asked to run a team meeting on strategic planning/marketing/decision-making, and you look for creative thought, it would be useful to have some simple ideas and activities to get the group started so they can quickly understand and assess the problem, evaluate the solutions, and come up with creative ways to move forward. It can mean the difference between a band-aid solution or innovative growth!   

Bring a list of issues or problems you experience when conducting training or meetings!

These skills and tools will also invigorate your training sessions and engage all involved.   All these thinking skills and thinking tools are taken from Eric’s best-selling book, Reflections on Classroom Thinking Strategies (11th edition, with over 35,000 copies sold).   Attendees will receive the Thinking Skills Framework where action words or verbs (the thinking skills) are linked to appropriate templates or graphic organisers (the thinking tools).   

In this session, participants will experience skills, techniques and tools to:  

• involve everyone in the discussion
• get the introverts contributing
• excite the team about the possibilities
• make staff and other meetings more effective
• save everyone's time and patience
• improve co-operation among staff members
• discover techniques to ensure each person will be heard (not just the vocal few)
• improve the level of discussion, debate and decision-making through use of action words/verbs and thinking tools
• promote the conditions for objectivity and harness the energy that can arise from conflicting viewpoints
• get groups to focus on possibility thinking rather than negative blocks
• foster the "thinking" mind-set
• make work and everyday situations become so much easier
• create "higher-order" thinking 
• produce better results, products, effects and conclusions

Leveraging Your Team's Strengths for Enhanced Performance

Did you know that people’s strengths are different to what they're good at? It's true! And it's the key to unlocking and activating the potential within your teams.

People often equate their strengths with what they are good at: their competencies. But there is a distinct difference between the two.Think of a time where you did a task that you were really good at, but didn't really enjoy. That's the difference between competencies and strengths!  

Our strengths are what motivate us. They are what give us the energy to perform at our best. And because they provide energy, they also enable us to overcome problems and challenges. Just as we have strengths, we have non-strengths, or the things that suck our energy dry. Non-strengths can also have a huge impact on performance.

Identifying strengths can be tricky because of our tendency to equate strengths with competence! In this session, we will take a fascinating look at the Strengths-Based Leadership Theory approach so that we can identify, harness and really embrace our strengths, and the strengths of our team. 

We’ll take a boat ride on the Strengths Ship to understand the mechanics of strengths and non-strengths and explore a simple tool you can use to identify your strengths and the strengths of your team. 

Morning Tea & Networking

Housekeeping

NCVER: Transforming our understanding of the Australian VET system, Simon Walker, Managing Director, NCVER

NCVER is expanding its data analytics and research capabilities to enable a more sophisticated understanding of the VET system. 

As part of this development, NCVER is exploring the use of contemporary data science techniques, complemented by field research from surveys, qualitative interviews, and case studies to derive deeper insights into the nature of the Australian VET system. 

Key areas to be covered include: the nature of the publicly and privately financed VET markets, the role and function of training providers, skill sets, and related research into how businesses and individuals access, and participate in, vocational education. 

Simon Walker will introduce the strategy and achievements so far, and elaborate on the framework for NCVER's 2019/20 statistics and research agenda.

ASQA Update, Mr Mark Paterson AO, Chief Commissioner and CEO, ASQA

Senator the Hon. Michaelia Cash, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business (Invited)

Official Opening - Velg Training

Welcome to Country

Registration