3.2 Conclusion and suggestions

and attributes, indicate an approach that favours lists of tasks and procedures. It is the relationship between the different elements listed in the performance standards, and also the underpinning knowledge, that is missing.

Perhaps this is best illustrated through noting what is not there. Notably, for a diploma-level course. nowhere is there mention of a critical consideration, analysis and/or evaluation of particular tools or approaches. It is this more abstract thinking and understanding of principles, rather than lists of specific approaches, that enables innovative, creative curriculum design that supports learning and assessment for the changing nature of work. Such approaches are likely to develop the DACE graduate’s capability to make informed decisions about appropriate assessment tools and to provide a rationale for the selection of these tools, which is important when engaging in negation with stakeholders such as employers.

3.2 Conclusion and suggestions

ACTA and DACE are critical to the CET sector as they lay the foundations for the work that practitioners do. There are exciting possibilities for hard, critical discussions to explore what these practitioners need to enact SkillsFuture and to be responsive to the changing nature of work. The following specific changes are suggested for curriculum designers, programme developers and managers:

a. Develop a broader, holistic understanding of competence.

b. Ensure the new understanding addresses the integratedness of technical or vocational capabilities and ways of knowing.

c. Replace examples with those that strongly illustrate the complexity of work.

d. Give examples and stories of actual contextualisation.

e. Create opportunities to discuss and uncover how authentic, holistic, integrated learning and assessment can be conceptualised and implemented.

f. Provide principles of assessment plans rather than a step-by-step how to.

g. When using role play, provide scenarios, not scripts.

h. Ensure consistent understanding of learning and assessment, e.g. that learning is not just individual but social, not just a change in behaviour but involves the emotional and embodied (in being and becoming), cognition and context of the learning.

i. Include examples of collaborative “partnerships” or run separate courses or CPD sessions on developing, managing and maintaining partnerships, which are a key feature of workplace-based learning and assessment (Boud, 2000).

j. Develop capacity for critique and questioning.

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