Annotated Bibliography

Title: PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT

in Vocational Education & Training: A Set of Resources

The authors of the overview and think pieces are:

  • Suzy McKenna
  • Dr. Anne Jones
  • Andrea Bateman
  • Dr. Russell Docking
  • Dr. John Mitchell

Nov 2006

ISBN: 186 506 8810

URL:

This booklet is a compilation of several think pieces. The purpose of the booklet was to create a set of resources on the topic of ‘professional judgment. In targeting professional judgment the authors were responding to a 2004 High Level Review of Training Packages which stated that “the current compliance framework of the AQTF is a necessary but not a sufficient means of ensuring good quality teaching, learning and assessment”. The reports within the booklet represent an attempt to go beyond the ‘compliance focus’ towards the new challenge of ‘capacity building’. The authors saw this specific challenge as developing ‘high order professional expertise’.

Key Themes:

  • The need to achieve a balance between compliance and creativity;
  • The development of ‘professional judgment skills’ though ‘professional conversations with colleagues.

Some Interesting Quotes:

  • “What I found …was that VET educators were out there wading warily but skilfully through the swamp of professional practice. Assessment judgments are not always simple. It is clear that individual educators and teams make judgments within a personal and an historical context and that a range of problems need to be solved during the assessment process.
  • “ … assessment judgments are characterised by preparedness, collegiality, working to rules, seriousness of purpose, dealing with predicaments, obligations and pragmatism”.

Dr Anne Jones “VET Professionals Making Good Judgments”

  • Assessment … should be integrated to provide critical information and feedback to trainers and learners”.
  • “Opportunities for sharing knowledge and building skills were seen as critical to the (assessment) process and informants referred to networks, mentoring, professional development and action learning”.
  • “Consensus moderation provides an avenue for professional development and for shared understanding of benchmarks”.
  • “ … professional practice … includes participation in extensive professional dialogue, critical self-reflection and the capacity to critique own and other peers’ practices”.

Andrea Bateman “Professional Judgment & Assessment

  • Many report that they are crippled by the paper-work required to address the minutiae of the standards and by the need to put in place policies and procedures that are not relevant to their scale and scope of operations. Is this really necessary? Should compliance … really require such contortions?
  • “In … (some) circumstances the auditor is no better placed than the RTO in judging compliance, but is well placed to observe whether judgment has been superficial or well thought through”.

Dr. Russell Docking

“… practitioners need to exercise multiple judgments in order to function effectively in the complex environment of VET. Practitioners need to make judgments about:

  • How to customise training;
  • How to meet needs of learners with different learning styles;
  • How to satisfy individual learners needs for support;
  • How to satisfy the needs of workplace learners and industry clients”.

Dr John Mitchell “Professional Judgment in Teaching & Learning”

5 Annotated Brief - PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT in Vocational Education

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