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Focus Week

Velg Training and Skills Education are proud to be working together to offer practitioners in the VET Sector a quality, specialised PD Program in March 2023.

Introducing our Focus Week: Student Support

Focus Weeks are a dedicated week of learning opportunities (one webinar per day) specifically designed to increase the knowledge and skills of VET practitioners in targeted topics.

Showcasing five content-rich, 60-minute webinars over five days, each webinar is focused on a different aspect of Student Support, with each of the 5 topics aimed at complementing and increasing existing practice.

Learn from some of Skills Education's most highly regarded presenters as they share their knowledge and valuable content via webinar.

Attend one, some, or all! The choice is yours.

This Focus Week has been informed by two key inputs:

1. Your Feedback! When asked about preferred topics for 2023, attendees have said:

  • Helping struggling students - Create a series on this particular topic

  • Ways to encourage or impose better time management on students

  • More strategies to assist struggling students

  • Tips to engage trainees and those learners who are sent to study from Centrelink, specific examples that can be used by non-experienced T/As

  • Motivating adult learners

  • Techniques to incorporate recognition of past learning

  • Dealing with students with learning disabilities

  • Methods to try/use on learners online and in the classroom

  • More on maintaining interaction with participants whose motivation and commitment is generally low

2. The Sector’s Focus on the importance of Student Support, health and well-being services

  • ASQA's 2022 Spotlight on Student Support series highilghted best-practice and compliant student support strategies.

  • The goal is to make sure that the help learners get to do training is right for them by figuring out what learners can do and what help they need, and then giving them the right kind of training help.

  • The Draft Standards for RTOs (currently still in consultation phase) also propose having a refined focus on student support. This focus on support recognises that flexibility is important to best help learners, and suggests taking positive steps that meet the needs of each learner, such as: making reasonable adjustments for learners with disabilities; and adapting practises or giving them help to deal with any personal circumstances that might get in the way of their progress.

Click on the title of each webinar title to find out more!

Date

Webinar & Presenter

Overview

Monday, 20 March 2023
10.30 am - 11.30am (AEST)
Members: $55.00 (incl. GST)
Non-Members: $65.00 (incl. GST)

Supporting Learners with Recognition for Existing Skills
Presenter: Wendy Cato

We all know RTOs should offer recognition for any existing skills and knowledge to potential RPL candidates. But not every assessor reports feeling confident about supporting candidates in this process. In fact, many potential candidates report feeling so overwhelmed with the RPL process that they believe it’s “just easier to do the course."

So, what can RTOs and assessors do to better engage with potential candidates and support them to navigate an RPL pathway?

This session is aimed at providing information for RTOs and assessors to identify where and how persons with existing skills and knowledge can be guided through a recognition process. It will also explore some of the key touch points in current RPL processes that cause the potential candidate the most angst, before going on to identify strategies that can result in a fairer experience for candidates.
Tuesday, 21 March 2023
10.30 am - 11.30am (AEST)
Members: $55.00 (incl. GST)
Non-Members: $65.00 (incl. GST)

Simple Learning Strategies to Engage and Support Students with Disability
Presenter: Darlene McLennan

REGISTER NOW
Students come into the learning environment from a range of backgrounds and with varying abilities and needs. And training organisations and their staff have certain responsibilities to ensure everyone has the opportunity to access and participate in the learning.

Join this session with Darlene to hear about ways to:

  • Make your organisation more inclusive
  • Understand your legislative responsibility under the Disability Standards for Education
  • Identify and implement inclusive teaching strategies to support students with disability
  • Access the range of resources that support disability inclusion and different disability types

At the end of this session Darlene will also give a sneak preview into the newly developed ADCET resources specifically for students with disability in VET.
Wednesday, 22 March 2023
10.30 am - 11.30am (AEST)
Members: $55.00 (incl. GST)
Non-Members: $65.00 (incl. GST)

Key Principles for Student Success and Engagement in an Online Environment
Presenter: Allison Miller

Most of us have been training online for the last couple of years – some even longer. But as the world becomes accustomed to ‘Zoom calls’ and ‘MS Teams’ does this automatically mean best-practice principles of online orientation and engagement are being applied in our delivery of online training and assessment?

Care must be taken from the get-go to ensure no student is left behind. This session shows how to do it!

Explore:
  • Ways to orient students to the online environment - even when you're not there
  • What 'presence' is and why it's important
  • Impact of digital skills/literacy levels on students' ability to navigate online systems - and how you can help
  • Simple techniques you can use to support student confidence online
Thursday, 23 March 2023
10.30 am - 11.30am (AEST)
Members: $55.00 (incl. GST)
Non-Members: $65.00 (incl. GST)

Adults as Students: Top tips to keep them supported and on track
Presenter: Mick Gwyther

There are many reasons adults return to formal learning. For example, to work toward a new job, to upskill, or because it’s a workplace direction.

Trouble is, being adults, they've already got busy lives with work, family commitments and other responsibilities, and study is just another thing to fit into a day. They may also have expectations about the learning environment that don't match reality. They might be out of practice with formal approaches to teaching and learning. And, perhaps not everyone has the technology or skills to participate in modern training and assessment.

Sometimes you might even get adults in your classroom that don't want to be there but have to be. As a trainer, how do you deal with this reluctance and other challenges and turn it into something positive?
Friday, 24 March 2023
10.30 am - 11.30am (AEST)
Members: $55.00 (incl. GST)
Non-Members: $65.00 (incl. GST)

Leverage Adult Learning Principles to Support and Facilitate Learning
Presenter: Michelle Charlton

Adult learners bring increased complexity to the classroom – they have distinct expectations from, and motivations for, any learning they undertake, and they bring their life experiences and current circumstances to the learning arena. As trainers and assessors in VET, when we teach adults, we deal with these principles every day.

What’s interesting is that learning trends are moving away from teacher-led instruction to student-centred and social learning – some of the very same principles that underpin adult learning theory and relate to the andragogical model.

In this session, explore how to leverage these principles in your own practice to understand, encourage and engage your adult learners. Also, take a look at how digital teaching tools can support this kind of collaborative development of skills and knowledge.


All webinar times are shown in AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time)

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