July 23, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode, Derrin Kent, Founder of The Development Manager (TDM) in the UK, talks about how his company supports degree apprentices on their learning journey with portfolios. He details the difference between a degree and an apprenticeships and how together they are very complementary. He points out the importance of the portfolio and the reflection process.
Connect with Derrin on LinkedIn
Resources
- Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE)
- Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted)
- Bloom's taxonomy
- Derrin's episode on Skills Bootcamps
- SmartEvidence and SmartEvidence version 2
- TDM's degree apprenticeships
- TDM's Skills Bootcamps
Click through to the episode notes on the website for the transcript.
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.
Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
(00:28):
My guest today is Derrin Kentfrom The Development Manager in
the UK. He's back to share howhe uses portfolios with
apprentices this time andspecifically with degree
apprentices. Welcome back,Derrin.
Derrin Kent (00:42):
Oh lovely to be speaking to you again, Kristina.
Hello.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:45):
Nice having you back on the podcast, Derrin.
Last time we talked about theSkills Bootcamps and how you use
portfolios with people who arelooking for a new job
opportunity. However, you'veactually been using portfolios
much, much longer than that inyour degree apprenticeships and
also regular apprenticeships.
Since degree apprenticeships maynot be something that is widely
(01:06):
known outside of the UK, can youplease give us an overview of
what they are and what theirdifference is to a university
degree and an apprenticeship?
Derrin Kent (01:17):
Yeah, good question. It's an apprenticeship
with a university degree in it.
With degree apprenticeships, ifyou're going to make one word a
capital word between 'degree'and 'apprenticeship', I think
the capital word should be'apprenticeship', not 'degree'.
And I think it's often perceivedwrongly by a lot of even in
Britain, some universityorganizations think it's capital
letters 'degree' with smallletters 'apprenticeship',
(01:39):
whereas I would say actually,it's an apprenticeship
experience.
Let's think about what thedifference is between these two
things. So apprenticeships havebeen over a long, long, long,
long, long, long time. I don'tknow when they first started,
but I suspect that when theywere building Stonehenge, those
stone miners were probably doingsomething broadly similar to an
(02:00):
apprenticeship, which is gettingpeople who were new to the trade
to learn the skills from themasters.
In Tudor times in Britain, youhad guilds, which had slightly
sort of misogynistic language,but you would have the
apprentice, then the journeyman,then the craftsman, and the
master craftsman. Women can alsodo these things - they could
then, but they certainly cannowadays. But you've got this
(02:20):
idea of this growth of thecraftsman. Does that make sense?
That happens in mentoring andunder supervision. And so what
you want to do is to set up alearning programme.
Apprenticeships are very muchinterested in work-based
learning. It's not just awork-based doing process. It's a
work-based learning process. Butthe structuring of that learning
is in response to what theemployer means to happen, and
(02:42):
what in the employment contextneeds to happen. Then you want
an educational provision thatbroadens that experience and
deepens it and accelerate infact, so it makes learning
faster, broader, deeper, better.
But it's all in response to whatthat employer organisation is
desperately needing.
Then you look at the idea of thedegree, relatively old concept
(03:04):
and going on for quite a longtime. But as big institutional
degrees, they take off inmassive scale, when I was taking
them, they were about 8% of theBritish population taking them.
They got more and more popularfor 18 to 21-year olds. But it's
the idea of putting people in toan institution. They're getting
access to beautiful,knowledgeable experts who are in
(03:27):
their field and the learner isin the institution, and what
they're doing is they'relearning what that expert
researcher and that expertprofessor is excited about. That
expert professor is reallystrong at this and sets some
tasks and learning activitieswhere they learn what the
professor is excited about.
So you can see that concept ofthe institutional programmes got
(03:48):
all that benefit of getting thataccess to that amazing expertise
from the professor is then setalongside the apprenticeship
experience where it's all aboutlearning what's relevant in the
workplace. Those two traditionswhich are both equally as
beautiful flash into what'scalled a degree apprenticeship.
So back to what I'm saying atthe beginning, I think what we
(04:09):
need to do is to make ourteaching and our lecturing
subservient to theapprenticeship experience in
that workplace and then reactappropriately and responsibly to
whatever the workplace needs interms of the determination of
what the most appropriatecontent coverage is, and that
becomes a bit of a challengesometimes.
What they've done in Britain,which is quite useful, is an
(04:31):
Institute for Apprenticeshipsand Technical Education have set
up a standard. So there's astandard of knowledge and a
standard of skills and astandard of behaviours. That
helps us to give a kind ofstandardisation to what does get
covered, but the problem is ifthe organisation's professors
get too excited and startteaching what they think is
relevant, it starts to jar andclash with what the employer
(04:55):
organisation needs.
It's bringing together of twobeautiful traditions, and it
really is. What's exciting hereis things from the university
tradition that have always beenreally, really useful are being
brought into the apprenticeshipdelivery experience to improve
it. So an example is the notionof a seminar and a seminar
(05:15):
paper. Somebody goes away andstudies something and comes back
in a seminar group and a groupof learners together basically
engage in seminar together. Thebig notion of lecture of content
coverage. Now, obviously, wedon't want to bring everybody
necessarily synchronously all atthe same time together. We can
record that video lecture andthen bring people in a
consolidation experiencetogether.
(05:37):
The way I explain it is this,when you're delivering an
institutional degree, you havethe luxury of people's time and
the problem of real worldexperience. But when you're
delivering an apprenticeship,you have the luxury of real
world experience, but theproblem of people's time. We're
now with StaffordshireUniversity, but when we first
(05:57):
started, we were with theUniversity of Wolverhampton.
We've had over 40 people comethrough, they've all passed,
only one has got a 2-2. All ofthe others have got first class
honours.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:08):
What's a 2-2?
Derrin Kent (06:09):
It's a second class honours in the second degree. So
only one has got this sort ofthird tier of grade. Everybody
else have got either a firstclass honours or a 2-1. Now, if
you think about it, thatshouldn't be a surprise because
the apprentices when compared totheir institutional colleagues
are producing a thesis, which isvery, very real.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:30):
Mhh.
Derrin Kent (06:30):
So instead of saying, 'Oh, this is what I
would do if I was doing thissoftware development projects in
the real world or this networkengineering projects in the real
world,' what they're doinginstead is saying, 'This is what
I've done, have a look at this,this is what happened. This is
how this manifested.' And so theassessors if you like when
they're looking at their work,are just going 'Yeah, that's
absolutely fantastic,' andthey're given them the very top
(06:52):
grades because it's very realand very contextualised.
So the challenge to theprofessor is to give that
excitement of the excitementwithout making it selfishly on
their own terms. So they cangive that flexibility, that
exploration, that collaboration,that intellectual experience by
making it responsive to what'sneeded at work. It's not just
(07:14):
data entry jobs, Kristina, it'sreally quite challenging,
stretchy, digitallytransformative projects that
these guys are delivering intheir workplaces in a very real
way. But instead of being anabstraction of theoretical
exploration, it's real andtangible. The challenge for the
professor is to make it deeplyenriching as well as real and
(07:34):
tangible as a learningexperience.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:37):
They are really nicely complementary...
Derrin Kent (07:39):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:39):
... because the students learn skills in the
degree that helped them in theapprenticeship like how to
think, how to research becauseof course a company also does
not want to be stagnant. Theyalso need people to think, to
innovate, to do a lot ofresearch, a lot of times. That's
where the degree part can comein. In other parts of the world,
(08:01):
while they might not really bethe degree apprenticeships, we
do see an uptake ofwork-integrated learning
activities that are now beingpromoted at the university level
so that students do get thatreal world experience and know
what to expect, get exposure tothe job market, and know better
how they can market themselves,what that job would be for them.
(08:24):
So yes, it's coming more andmore, just in a different way as
well.
Derrin Kent (08:28):
Exactly that. We're at an exciting point in Britain,
where the institutionaluniversity tradition, if you
like, I've got books in myoffice from decades ago talking
about work-based learning from auniversity level perspective. So
it's not a new thing. But Isuppose it becoming a heavily
funded educational programme inthe country is putting a lot of
(08:50):
questions through to the twosectors. The skill sector and
the university sector are nowmeeting up in conversation and
challenging each other.
What universities are not verygood at versus what we've been
good at as an apprenticeshipsector is the notion of the
individual learning plan (ILP).
So the individual learning plan,and this is very much what we
do, so as an apprenticeshipprogramme deliverer what we do
(09:11):
is we coach, we don't teach. Wedon't train, we coach.
Obviously, teaching and trainingare contributory towards the
process. I'm not saying theydon't happen, they do, but our
primary goal is to do what wecall the tripartite, three
party, highly individualised andpersonalised learning plan for
that unique employee in thatunique employment context in
(09:33):
relation to the knowledge andskills and behavioural
requirements of the degreeapprenticeship standard.
So it becomes a constantnegotiation as to what we're
going to do next? In theprocess, you're looking at
what's coming up at work, andyou just go right what can I
learn in consequence of thetasks that come up at work
that's relevant to the standard?
And then sometimes you'relooking at the standard, and
(09:55):
you're saying, what are we goingto do at work that's relevant to
the learning that I need? You'vegot this constant negotiation
around how we're going to makethis a unified experience
between the learning journey andthe employment experience?
Universities thus far, I'm surewe'll have listeners who are
great at it, but in myexperience thus far universities
are still on that learning curveas to how to do that
(10:16):
effectively. And they've got alot to learn from the
apprenticeship sector in thoseterms, whilst the apprenticeship
sector, we've got a lot to learnin terms of the breadth of the
quality of knowledge coveragethat universities do and their
ability to create learningoutcomes and the clarity of
learning outcome definition andthe various methodologies
they've got. That's kind ofwhere the integration is
(10:37):
happening. So where doportfolios fit in?
Kristina Hoeppner (10:40):
That's then my question, Derrin, because
you've just mentioned theindividual learning plans and
that your learning is highlyindividualised and that you're
not really teaching or coaching100 people or 200 people, like
you sometimes have in lecturehalls, or many more, you have a
very individualised programmebecause you look at every
(11:02):
apprentice who's working at aspecific company, doing a
specific task or set of tasks,and create that individual
learning plan. That's where Ithink the portfolio of course
fits wonderfully since it is forthose authentic learning tasks,
documenting that learning,reflecting on that learning. So
how does it all work togetherfor you and for your
(11:24):
apprentices?
Derrin Kent (11:25):
So that's why we've been doing ePortfolios for
years. Funnily enough, in theapprenticeship sector, there
have been a lot of tools, socalled ePortfolio platforms that
are available for theapprenticeship sector that are
really not ePortfolios,Kristina. They're kind of drop
boxes with a tracking system ontop of it. They're not a
showcase, reflective ePortfoliolearning opportunity, which
(11:47):
Mahara is. So I've always beenvery precious about Mahara as
the core of how we do thelearning.
What they've done beautifully,certainly in our standards, is
the endpoint assessment tasksthat come through, and guess
what? A professional discussionaround an ePortfolio is the
majority endpoint assessmenttask, and the second one is some
kind of project deliverable,which they have to have done
(12:10):
real work experience in order tobe able to cope with the project
because the demands of theprojects are unpredictable. You
can only acquire the skill tosucceed at the project by having
applied things in real worldpractice. It's not just a
knowledge base, they're veryhands on real world practice,
kind of experiential projects,sort of simulation type things.
So the only way to develop thepeople for success on these
(12:31):
programmes is through thatreflective journal.
The ePortfolio, what it does isit allows our coaches every time
they go into the ILP discussionto look at not just the
aggregation of evidence oflearning in practice, but also
the reflection over thatlearning. SmartEvidence has been
really helpful for us morerecently because we can now sort
(12:52):
of start to plan ahead whatlearning needs to be delivered,
and then they can negotiatewhether or not we've got that
covered in practice. We can'tgrade it as pass or fail, but we
can certainly use SmartEvidenceto say 'There is some evidence
of this or there's a lot ofevidence of this,' and do you
see what I mean, so we can startbuilding that portfolio over
time.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:13):
Because you can set up the apprenticeship
standards and then map thecontent of the portfolios to
those standards.
Derrin Kent (13:19):
The learner can.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:20):
Yes, so that's what's SmartEvidence
gives you that you provide thestructure for the portfolio,
essentially, your standardsavailable, and the learner can
then check their evidence andsay, 'Yes, these pieces of
evidence are fulfilling thisstandard or a sub standard of
it.'
Derrin Kent (13:37):
That becomes the absolute centrality of the
learning programme as opposed tothe sequence of lectures that we
think are exciting as degreeproviders. So because that
standard is the main centraldriver, the learner and their
employer can go through togetherand think 'Oh, how are we going
to learn, how are we going toprove this, how are we going to
(13:58):
show this? How are we going toreflect around this?' Our coach
can go in and say, 'Oh, I've gotsome good suggested learning
materials that I can find from acontent aggregator platform or a
MOOC or something like that.'There are various and so you can
just go 'Oh, here's somematerial you could study.' And
that's it, and then we've alsogot our learning programme
running in tandem with it wherewe can say 'Let's think about
(14:19):
what we do at work to make surethis manifests as well and agree
on those tasks.' So that becomesquite an exciting negotiation
around that space.
What's interesting now with theadvent of AI is some of the old
fashioned learning assessmentmethodologies are not very
interesting any more. Example.
What's happened to us is theuniversity gives us modules and
(14:39):
we have to do what we do. We'realmost sometimes compensating
for the university's modules atthe moment in the way it's set
up, I think. Over time, thatwill change because as I say, I
think the portfolio assessmentapproach will be accepted. We'll
get more adaptability from ouruniversity partner in terms of
determining what good educationlooks like. We'll still have to
(15:02):
subscribe to Office for StudentsRequirements, and I celebrate
all of this. I don't regret anyof that.
But at the moment, for example,there's a module on cyber
security in the degree (15:11):
do a cyber security risk assessment,
okay? They'll go into Copilotand ChatGPT [laughs] and get at
risk assessment printed out, andthey can do that. And they can
also tweak it a little bit andmake it look as if it's theirs
by putting a few spellingmistakes, and it's compelling
enough. That's not gonna cut themustard though, isn't it? It's
not okay. So what we're doing inresponse to that is we're
(15:34):
saying, 'Right, that's theassessment method, but what
we're gonna do is different.
You're gonna have to producethat. But what we want you to
do,' and we instruct them. Wesay 'Go to Copilot, go to
ChatGPT, and go and look at acontent aggregator platform.
Let's get various printouts ofrisk assessments that are more
or less right for yourorganisation. As a learning
exercise, let's compare what theAI has given us and look at what
(15:56):
we think are the most valuableoutputs and which are the least
valuable outputs, and then craftthat into a real one by thinking
about what's happening at work,and let's get an ePortfolio to
evidence the reflective learningcycle and the application cycle
and the discovery thing to bringthat together, which will
ultimately result in thiscrafted thing, which is going to
(16:16):
get you your university grade.
But the real learning happens asyou continuously build and craft
and reflect on that developmentprocess in a real workplace
setting and getting feedbackfrom people on it.' So the
ePortfolio becomes central tothe learning delivery model, if
that makes sense.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:34):
Yeah, and because you have the real world
context, the risk assessmentneeds to be contextualised, and,
you know, sure, the AI can giveyou also something that can be
used because, of course, thereare standards. So it will be
applicable, probably in 60 to 80to 90%, but there might still be
(16:54):
a couple of items or more than acouple of items that are
specific to that organisationthat can then be brought in and
therefore knowing how to draftcertain analysis, rather than
just picking the first one theyget back from the internet
through whatever measure, that'sthe learning. That's how they
will also know in the future howthey can put you standard. What
(17:17):
I really love is that you askthem to reflect on that process.
Derrin Kent (17:21):
We want evidence of its application in workplace and
evidence of discussion, which iscaptured in the Mahara pages and
in the reflective narrative thatthey build around that
construction of that assignment.
So the real learning is theconstruction of the assessment,
not the assessment and thegathering of the influencing
content. So that's how we'rebalancing some quite old
fashioned views as to what goodassessment looks like. I know
(17:42):
there are lots of universitiesdoing really exciting things
with concepts like the casestudy and the portfolio, and
that's already happening in alot of learning institutions.
And it's been quite central tothe way a degree is achieved. So
you don't have to have a topdown university professor
determined diktat as to whatcontent knowledge looks like.
(18:05):
So here is a very practicalexample. One of the customers we
work in with is Microsoft, andin the module on cloud, it's
proposed very strongly thatlearners study Amazon Web
Services. Well, you can imaginethat Microsoft might not be
quite so keen [laughs] on theirlearners studying what the
university lecturer's decided isexciting for them. They'd prefer
(18:26):
them to learn Azure. I'm sure,if we were working for Amazon,
they'd have an alternative view.
What I'm saying is theprescription of content coverage
- the way that the IfATEdescribe the knowledge, the
skills, and the behaviours isvery clever because they put a
lot of thought into this.
They've gotten lots of employerstogether in what they call the
Trailblazer Group from alldifferent contexts. They
(18:47):
basically had their armwrestles, and they've agreed on
a generic knowledge requirementthat they can all agree on that
isn't specific to one technologywith one employer. That work got
done over a lot of discussionand a lot of hard work as
employers are all gettingtogether.
So when the university go in andbecome prescriptive over that,
it's almost spoiling the party.
It's kind of spoiling the hardwork that was done. So as an
(19:09):
apprenticeships provider, it'smore useful for us to
understand, and this isincluding universities as well
as sort of more traditionalindependent training providers,
for us to go in and say, 'Right,let's work backwards from what
the endpoint assessment is goingto assess. Make it relevant here
and let's not impose the set oflearning objectives over what's
already defined very beautifullyin the standard,' but I
(19:32):
completely understand that weneed a level of rigour in terms
of Office for Students definedoutcomes and that ability to
sort of, you know, set a realdevelopment of human thoughts as
they go up Bloom's taxonomy ofthinking and they become a
different type of Thinker overtime. I'm not throwing that
away, but what I'm saying is ifwe build our modules around an
(19:52):
ePortfolio as an assessmentmethod and still achieving the
knowledge required on thestandard and make the locus of
control is over how thatmanifests more localised to the
employer, it's very achievable.
I've done it myself. We got anOfsted 'Outstanding' judgements
on that kind of approach. We hadto move universities, so we've
(20:15):
changed a little bit. But as Isay, with time, I think we'll
get back to this more ePortfoliocentric approach to delivering
the degree. It's done inbusiness schools around case
studies, so it is veryachievable. That's the fun
ahead.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:29):
It'll be good to see the how the new
university that you're workingwith over time will also take on
the concept of portfolios andfind that balance also for
themselves in regards to howmuch general knowledge do
students need to know aboutdifferent cloud providers in
order to make comparisons, inorder to think for themselves
(20:49):
and realise what the differencesare and why there are
differences. Because yes,Microsoft prefers people to
learn about their technology,however, the students still need
to know the general field...
Derrin Kent (21:02):
...the basics of cloud, yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:04):
Exactly. It will be good to see how the
portfolio can permeate also intothe degree.
Derrin Kent (21:10):
Exactly. A bit careful with myself, Kristina
because I don't want tooverstate any reluctance on part
of our partner university. Theopposite is true. I'm saying
that we're all on the learningcurve together here, and we're
all positively impacting uponeach other. Any clashes we have
between organisations isbeautiful and positive. Do they
have ePortfolio as part of theirprogramme? They already do. I'm
(21:32):
not saying they don't. But Ijust think it needs to be much
more central to the approachthan it currently is, and that's
the journey we're on.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:40):
Let's come back in a year's time and see
how things have developed.
Derrin Kent (21:44):
Yeah, let's see how it goes [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (21:46):
Yeah [laughs]. So, Derrin, what do
actually your students say aboutthe portfolios when you
introduce them to them?
Derrin Kent (21:54):
Remember, we do the whole journey. The idea is they
start from Bootcamp, then theygo through a normal
apprenticeship, and then theybecome degree. So the people who
have gone through that journeywith us over time, they're kind
of already on it by the timethey hit degree level.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:06):
But if you get somebody who hasn't gone
through the Skills Bootcamp?
Derrin Kent (22:10):
Right, it's hard at the beginning for everyone. So
if you are used to aninstitutional education where
you're effectively going to betaught something, then spit it
back to somebody in the form ofan essay [laughs] or a quiz or a
test, when you've got aneducational organisation like
TDM coming up to you as alearner and saying 'Ah, rules
(22:30):
have changed. You're in chargenow. This is now your learning
journey, and you're going to bea reflective learner and you're
going to apply theory inpractice, and we're going to
negotiate with it we'll be yourpartner, we'll be your androgogy
partner rather than a pedagogypartner. So in other words,
we've been treat you as an equaladult, and we will collaborate
with you in order to interprethow this standard and this
(22:51):
knowledge needs to manifest inyour workplace, and then you're
going to do it, and youevidence, and you reflect on in
as you create it.' As you canimagine, in the first six months
of somebody trying this, there'sa big expectation shift. Some
people adapt to it very, veryquickly. It's fish to water. But
some people are just going 'Oh,this is nothing like I've ever
experienced before and this issomething entirely different,'
(23:14):
and they don't get it.
That's why we send in two typesof coach. We send in the skills
and knowledge coach who is verymuch attending to the standard.
But we send a second type ofcoach who is called the
performance and developmentcoach. What they're doing,
they're thinking about how thisperson is delivering at work, in
other words, whether they'reperforming but performance is
not this, oh, you know, carrotand stick and whips and you
(23:35):
shall perform. It's not thatsense of performance. It's more
about this idea of mastery androle, which is something both
the employee and the employerare looking for as a
collaboration. So it's aboutgetting better in their job
role. So that's conversationnumber one and conversation
number two is your developmentas a whole person, including you
as the learner. The Maharaplatform becomes very much part
(23:56):
of that early conversationaround the reflective
practitioner, which is useful asemployee, but also useful as
learner. I'm not going topretend it's all easy sailing
'cause it's not. I mean, it's abig negotiation sometimes. But
put it this way, those whosucceed, adapt to this and enjoy
it and benefit from it. Giventhat the endpoint assessment is
(24:16):
predominantly a live project ofbeing able to do something in a
real world scenario andsecondary a discussion around
the reflective ePortfolio[laughs], they have to kind of
get their heads around this inorder to succeed. So it's a big
requirements on them.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:30):
Your success numbers speak for themselves
because they are really, reallygood. How do you bring the
employers along that journey?
Have they often already seenportfolios before, kind of the
portfolios that you're askingyour apprentices to create or
did they also need a little bitof learning to understand what
they're seeing, what's in frontof them?
Derrin Kent (24:52):
It comes a bit of a shock to employers sometimes,
but a clear message that we haveto people is look, we're not the
apprenticeship provider. Don'tthink we're the apprenticeship
provider. We're not. We're justthe training provider. You're
the apprenticeship provider,employer organisation. Our job
is to help you implement awork-based learning experience,
which helps this person becomethe technical professional that
(25:15):
we're all aspiring for them tobecome. And of course, we want
to tailor this to yourorganisation, but there's also a
standard that the nationrequires that this person is
going to reach and be able toevidence when they get to the
end.
To be honest, if employers don'tadapt to it, we just stop
working with the employers[laughs]. What we're interested
in is the genuinely work-basedlearning that's relevant to you
(25:37):
as an organisation, and we wantto be your best friends in the
world to get this person tobecome a better performing, more
rounded, more effective employeefor your place that's good at
that trade.
We give the employer two roles.
Number one is the mentor. Sowe're the coaches, we send in
coaches. They supply a mentor,who's effectively the line
manager, but more important thanthat they're the learning
(25:59):
manager. So they're the personwho's managing that learning
with that person, and they'reavailable day in day out at
work. And then we have ourcontracting employer who's
normally the person from humanresources, or it could be the
business owner or somebody likethat. That's another ally of
ours. The mentor is as investedinto the ePortfolio as the
learner is. Is that a learningcurve? Sometimes, yes. We try to
(26:22):
be really clear upfront as thisis how we approach it, and other
apprenticeship providers areavailable, but if you want to
work with us, it's going to workthis way, and we're looking for
impact now.
The last survey we did, 85% ofemployers were delighted with
our work and others were sayingwe were good. We get strong
employer feedback, but we haveto choose carefully the right
(26:43):
kind of employer to work with.
We have lost employers along theway, if I'm honest with you
because they're not looking towork in the way we want to, and
so it's a match thing.
Kristina Hoeppner (26:52):
Do some of your employers then actually
also continue with a portfoliowork in other areas? Because of
course, while they are theytaking on apprentices, typically
everybody should continuelearning lifelong learning
and...
Derrin Kent (27:04):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:05):
... also as regular employee then to make it
part of the performance reviewprocess or something like that.
Derrin Kent (27:12):
I would love that to be the case. We haven't
strategically as The DevelopmentManager made much of an effort
in those terms to continue thatconversation. However, somebody
said something to me the otherday that the penny dropped for
me. You know, like IT businessessee themselves as a consumption
business. They'll have acustomer success unit. I bet you
(27:34):
at Catalyst speak in theseterms. I've realised that TDM
need to think that way as well.
It's a bit of a slow penny dropfor me, but we need to
understand ourselves as aconsumption business for people.
So yes, we've got the governmentfunded apprenticeship
programmes. But in terms ofworking with the Tōtara system,
which is the other big platformwe use and the Mahara system, we
can actually see ourselves as auseful commercial organisation
(27:58):
to help employer organisationsdeliver a more rounded talent
experience and a set of learningjourneys and stretch and
challenge experiences. So toanswer your question, have we
engaged with that? The answer'sno. Should we? We definitely
should. It's kind of longoverdue for us to start doing
that work as people.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:19):
I look forward to those conversations
then and what your employers sayand how they can make that
reflective cycle and also notjust having the reflective cycle
in there, but really also makingthat learning and that
reflection explicit.
Derrin Kent (28:33):
At the moment, if I'm brutally frank, the
conversation with employers isaround this is a great way of
doing apprenticeships, but it'snot become a great way of giving
a talent experience anddevelopment process for your
team forever as part of humanexperience. Yeah, that's a next
step for us.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:49):
Derrin, earlier you mentioned that
sometimes the portfolio isalready used in the degrees that
you of course, have it readilyintegrated into your
apprenticeships, is thereanything that you'd like to add
to where you see the future ofportfolios in degree
apprenticeships?
Derrin Kent (29:06):
I do think that, obviously, given my context of
England, really, and Britain,and I do think that is a
fascinating and vibrantconversation that's well
underway. So it's a relativelynew thing. As I say,
universities have been inwork-based learning for years,
but that formal apprenticeshippiece is relatively new for
(29:27):
universities really in thiscountry. And us as training
providers are putting thechallenges across to the
universities about some of theirassumptions. So I think the
future is - it's everything I'vedescribed is what I'm gonna say,
really Kristina.
We will become more excited bythe application of theory and
practice and the intelligentreflection over that than the
(29:50):
coverage of theory with a sortof like saying, get back to the
lecture. At the moment, theemphasis in universities is the
university teaches something,gets people to read things, and
then expects people to say itback to them. I think what will
be happening is we'll be saying,we're actually far more
interested in the self curationof content coverage, which is
(30:12):
negotiated with the employer andyourself and then the standard,
and then making sure youunderstand that and you learn
that stuff, and then you applyit in practice. We'll be putting
the assessment piece around yourability to be thoughtful in
terms of choosing what to learn,when to learn, and how to apply
it as opposed to just learningwhat the lecturer has told you
to learn.
(30:33):
I think degree apprenticeshipsare going to become much more
around that excitement ofapplication of theory and
skills, knowledge in real lifecontexts. I think that's where
it's going to go. I think that'swhere the debate will be. And
particularly as I say, with AI.
There is no other option[laughs] to assess competence
than to make people bethoughtful now and to be
contextualised. Because the ideaof churning out knowledge is
(30:56):
gone, hasn't it? So it's got tobe contextualised and applied
now. Otherwise, it'smeaningless. The ePortfolio
makes it unavoidably realbecause there's that genuine
evidence. There's the artefactsand the evidencing of the
artefacts, which an AI doesn'tspit out real world artefacts.
So reflection over real worldevidence is stronger than a
written piece.
Kristina Hoeppner (31:19):
That now takes us into the quick answer
around. Derrin, so last time,you already mentioned three
short phrases that you use todescribe portfolio work. Those
were 'learning journeys', 'showhow much you have grown', and
'strengthening your reflectivecapabilities'. Do you want to
add another three words to that?
Derrin Kent (31:40):
Those concepts are when I was talking about Skills
Bootcamps, which is kind of thisearly career entry phrase. At
degree level, I'm going tochange that to 'genuinely
work-based learning','application of theory to
practice' and 'learnerownership', and 'employer
ownership'. So I've cheated abit there and, but the last one
is two things together [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (32:01):
That's okay.
Derrin Kent (32:01):
Learner ownership and employer ownership, the
portfolio facilitate thatownership rather than
institutional ownership, whichbecomes exciting in degree
level.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:10):
Thank you for these additional phrases. Now,
what tip do you have forlearning designers or other
educators who create portfolioactivities, especially in your
context then of the degreeapprenticeships?
Derrin Kent (32:22):
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the so
called ePortfolio platforms areePortfolio platforms. They're
not. Mahara is an ePortfolioplatform, PebblePad is an
ePortfolio platform, but theseother platforms are not. So an
ePortfolio is a reflectiveshowcase of evidence of work,
but with a learning journeydemonstrably evidenced above it.
(32:46):
It's not a drop box [laughs].
It's a reflective account ofgrowth over time. So this is the
example I give with the creationof an assignment is interesting,
and the ePortfolio is a greattool for telling that story much
better than just the assignment,right? So it's a building of
stories. So approach it thatway.
Kristina Hoeppner (33:05):
What is your tip for apprentices who create
portfolios?
Derrin Kent (33:11):
Involve your mentor, actively. Use evidence
from colleagues and customersand clients, don't just think
it's something you do byyourself stuck in a corner.
Continuously gather artefacts.
Use voice recordings with peopleas you do in your everyday work
and just capture, capture,capture all the time evidence.
Know your standard, useSmartEvidence, know what you're
(33:34):
trying to prove. But then everyopportunity you get, just keep
capturing this routine practiceand then sit down every now and
again in that quiet corner tocraft all that aggregated
evidence into a story. See it asa continuous effort, not as a
weekly thing. It's a continuousthing.
Kristina Hoeppner (33:54):
Thank you for that tip. That of course does
not just apply to apprenticesbut also to others. Thank you so
much, Derrin, for this secondconversation now for your second
part where you use portfolios.
We had talked about the SkillsBootcamps and now the degree
apprenticeship so I appreciatethat you have shared what you do
there and how you use portfoliosin that area. Thank you.
Derrin Kent (34:19):
Enjoyed it. Thank you, Kristina, speak again soon.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:22):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with DerrinKent. Head to our website
podcast.mahara.org where you canfind resources and the
transcript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
(34:45):
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you'll listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then, create,
share, and engage.
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
(00:28):
My guest today is Derrin Kentfrom The Development Manager in
the UK. He's back to share howhe uses portfolios with
apprentices this time andspecifically with degree
apprentices. Welcome back,Derrin.
Derrin Kent (00:42):
Oh lovely to be speaking to you again, Kristina.
Hello.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:45):
Nice having you back on the podcast, Derrin.
Last time we talked about theSkills Bootcamps and how you use
portfolios with people who arelooking for a new job
opportunity. However, you'veactually been using portfolios
much, much longer than that inyour degree apprenticeships and
also regular apprenticeships.
Since degree apprenticeships maynot be something that is widely
(01:06):
known outside of the UK, can youplease give us an overview of
what they are and what theirdifference is to a university
degree and an apprenticeship?
Derrin Kent (01:17):
Yeah, good question. It's an apprenticeship
with a university degree in it.
With degree apprenticeships, ifyou're going to make one word a
capital word between 'degree'and 'apprenticeship', I think
the capital word should be'apprenticeship', not 'degree'.
And I think it's often perceivedwrongly by a lot of even in
Britain, some universityorganizations think it's capital
letters 'degree' with smallletters 'apprenticeship',
(01:39):
whereas I would say actually,it's an apprenticeship
experience.
Let's think about what thedifference is between these two
things. So apprenticeships havebeen over a long, long, long,
long, long, long time. I don'tknow when they first started,
but I suspect that when theywere building Stonehenge, those
stone miners were probably doingsomething broadly similar to an
(02:00):
apprenticeship, which is gettingpeople who were new to the trade
to learn the skills from themasters.
In Tudor times in Britain, youhad guilds, which had slightly
sort of misogynistic language,but you would have the
apprentice, then the journeyman,then the craftsman, and the
master craftsman. Women can alsodo these things - they could
then, but they certainly cannowadays. But you've got this
(02:20):
idea of this growth of thecraftsman. Does that make sense?
That happens in mentoring andunder supervision. And so what
you want to do is to set up alearning programme.
Apprenticeships are very muchinterested in work-based
learning. It's not just awork-based doing process. It's a
work-based learning process. Butthe structuring of that learning
is in response to what theemployer means to happen, and
(02:42):
what in the employment contextneeds to happen. Then you want
an educational provision thatbroadens that experience and
deepens it and accelerate infact, so it makes learning
faster, broader, deeper, better.
But it's all in response to whatthat employer organisation is
desperately needing.
Then you look at the idea of thedegree, relatively old concept
(03:04):
and going on for quite a longtime. But as big institutional
degrees, they take off inmassive scale, when I was taking
them, they were about 8% of theBritish population taking them.
They got more and more popularfor 18 to 21-year olds. But it's
the idea of putting people in toan institution. They're getting
access to beautiful,knowledgeable experts who are in
(03:27):
their field and the learner isin the institution, and what
they're doing is they'relearning what that expert
researcher and that expertprofessor is excited about. That
expert professor is reallystrong at this and sets some
tasks and learning activitieswhere they learn what the
professor is excited about.
So you can see that concept ofthe institutional programmes got
(03:48):
all that benefit of getting thataccess to that amazing expertise
from the professor is then setalongside the apprenticeship
experience where it's all aboutlearning what's relevant in the
workplace. Those two traditionswhich are both equally as
beautiful flash into what'scalled a degree apprenticeship.
So back to what I'm saying atthe beginning, I think what we
(04:09):
need to do is to make ourteaching and our lecturing
subservient to theapprenticeship experience in
that workplace and then reactappropriately and responsibly to
whatever the workplace needs interms of the determination of
what the most appropriatecontent coverage is, and that
becomes a bit of a challengesometimes.
What they've done in Britain,which is quite useful, is an
(04:31):
Institute for Apprenticeshipsand Technical Education have set
up a standard. So there's astandard of knowledge and a
standard of skills and astandard of behaviours. That
helps us to give a kind ofstandardisation to what does get
covered, but the problem is ifthe organisation's professors
get too excited and startteaching what they think is
relevant, it starts to jar andclash with what the employer
(04:55):
organisation needs.
It's bringing together of twobeautiful traditions, and it
really is. What's exciting hereis things from the university
tradition that have always beenreally, really useful are being
brought into the apprenticeshipdelivery experience to improve
it. So an example is the notionof a seminar and a seminar
(05:15):
paper. Somebody goes away andstudies something and comes back
in a seminar group and a groupof learners together basically
engage in seminar together. Thebig notion of lecture of content
coverage. Now, obviously, wedon't want to bring everybody
necessarily synchronously all atthe same time together. We can
record that video lecture andthen bring people in a
consolidation experiencetogether.
(05:37):
The way I explain it is this,when you're delivering an
institutional degree, you havethe luxury of people's time and
the problem of real worldexperience. But when you're
delivering an apprenticeship,you have the luxury of real
world experience, but theproblem of people's time. We're
now with StaffordshireUniversity, but when we first
(05:57):
started, we were with theUniversity of Wolverhampton.
We've had over 40 people comethrough, they've all passed,
only one has got a 2-2. All ofthe others have got first class
honours.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:08):
What's a 2-2?
Derrin Kent (06:09):
It's a second class honours in the second degree. So
only one has got this sort ofthird tier of grade. Everybody
else have got either a firstclass honours or a 2-1. Now, if
you think about it, thatshouldn't be a surprise because
the apprentices when compared totheir institutional colleagues
are producing a thesis, which isvery, very real.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:30):
Mhh.
Derrin Kent (06:30):
So instead of saying, 'Oh, this is what I
would do if I was doing thissoftware development projects in
the real world or this networkengineering projects in the real
world,' what they're doinginstead is saying, 'This is what
I've done, have a look at this,this is what happened. This is
how this manifested.' And so theassessors if you like when
they're looking at their work,are just going 'Yeah, that's
absolutely fantastic,' andthey're given them the very top
(06:52):
grades because it's very realand very contextualised.
So the challenge to theprofessor is to give that
excitement of the excitementwithout making it selfishly on
their own terms. So they cangive that flexibility, that
exploration, that collaboration,that intellectual experience by
making it responsive to what'sneeded at work. It's not just
(07:14):
data entry jobs, Kristina, it'sreally quite challenging,
stretchy, digitallytransformative projects that
these guys are delivering intheir workplaces in a very real
way. But instead of being anabstraction of theoretical
exploration, it's real andtangible. The challenge for the
professor is to make it deeplyenriching as well as real and
(07:34):
tangible as a learningexperience.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:37):
They are really nicely complementary...
Derrin Kent (07:39):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:39):
... because the students learn skills in the
degree that helped them in theapprenticeship like how to
think, how to research becauseof course a company also does
not want to be stagnant. Theyalso need people to think, to
innovate, to do a lot ofresearch, a lot of times. That's
where the degree part can comein. In other parts of the world,
(08:01):
while they might not really bethe degree apprenticeships, we
do see an uptake ofwork-integrated learning
activities that are now beingpromoted at the university level
so that students do get thatreal world experience and know
what to expect, get exposure tothe job market, and know better
how they can market themselves,what that job would be for them.
(08:24):
So yes, it's coming more andmore, just in a different way as
well.
Derrin Kent (08:28):
Exactly that. We're at an exciting point in Britain,
where the institutionaluniversity tradition, if you
like, I've got books in myoffice from decades ago talking
about work-based learning from auniversity level perspective. So
it's not a new thing. But Isuppose it becoming a heavily
funded educational programme inthe country is putting a lot of
(08:50):
questions through to the twosectors. The skill sector and
the university sector are nowmeeting up in conversation and
challenging each other.
What universities are not verygood at versus what we've been
good at as an apprenticeshipsector is the notion of the
individual learning plan (ILP).
So the individual learning plan,and this is very much what we
do, so as an apprenticeshipprogramme deliverer what we do
(09:11):
is we coach, we don't teach. Wedon't train, we coach.
Obviously, teaching and trainingare contributory towards the
process. I'm not saying theydon't happen, they do, but our
primary goal is to do what wecall the tripartite, three
party, highly individualised andpersonalised learning plan for
that unique employee in thatunique employment context in
(09:33):
relation to the knowledge andskills and behavioural
requirements of the degreeapprenticeship standard.
So it becomes a constantnegotiation as to what we're
going to do next? In theprocess, you're looking at
what's coming up at work, andyou just go right what can I
learn in consequence of thetasks that come up at work
that's relevant to the standard?
And then sometimes you'relooking at the standard, and
(09:55):
you're saying, what are we goingto do at work that's relevant to
the learning that I need? You'vegot this constant negotiation
around how we're going to makethis a unified experience
between the learning journey andthe employment experience?
Universities thus far, I'm surewe'll have listeners who are
great at it, but in myexperience thus far universities
are still on that learning curveas to how to do that
(10:16):
effectively. And they've got alot to learn from the
apprenticeship sector in thoseterms, whilst the apprenticeship
sector, we've got a lot to learnin terms of the breadth of the
quality of knowledge coveragethat universities do and their
ability to create learningoutcomes and the clarity of
learning outcome definition andthe various methodologies
they've got. That's kind ofwhere the integration is
(10:37):
happening. So where doportfolios fit in?
Kristina Hoeppner (10:40):
That's then my question, Derrin, because
you've just mentioned theindividual learning plans and
that your learning is highlyindividualised and that you're
not really teaching or coaching100 people or 200 people, like
you sometimes have in lecturehalls, or many more, you have a
very individualised programmebecause you look at every
(11:02):
apprentice who's working at aspecific company, doing a
specific task or set of tasks,and create that individual
learning plan. That's where Ithink the portfolio of course
fits wonderfully since it is forthose authentic learning tasks,
documenting that learning,reflecting on that learning. So
how does it all work togetherfor you and for your
(11:24):
apprentices?
Derrin Kent (11:25):
So that's why we've been doing ePortfolios for
years. Funnily enough, in theapprenticeship sector, there
have been a lot of tools, socalled ePortfolio platforms that
are available for theapprenticeship sector that are
really not ePortfolios,Kristina. They're kind of drop
boxes with a tracking system ontop of it. They're not a
showcase, reflective ePortfoliolearning opportunity, which
(11:47):
Mahara is. So I've always beenvery precious about Mahara as
the core of how we do thelearning.
What they've done beautifully,certainly in our standards, is
the endpoint assessment tasksthat come through, and guess
what? A professional discussionaround an ePortfolio is the
majority endpoint assessmenttask, and the second one is some
kind of project deliverable,which they have to have done
(12:10):
real work experience in order tobe able to cope with the project
because the demands of theprojects are unpredictable. You
can only acquire the skill tosucceed at the project by having
applied things in real worldpractice. It's not just a
knowledge base, they're veryhands on real world practice,
kind of experiential projects,sort of simulation type things.
So the only way to develop thepeople for success on these
(12:31):
programmes is through thatreflective journal.
The ePortfolio, what it does isit allows our coaches every time
they go into the ILP discussionto look at not just the
aggregation of evidence oflearning in practice, but also
the reflection over thatlearning. SmartEvidence has been
really helpful for us morerecently because we can now sort
(12:52):
of start to plan ahead whatlearning needs to be delivered,
and then they can negotiatewhether or not we've got that
covered in practice. We can'tgrade it as pass or fail, but we
can certainly use SmartEvidenceto say 'There is some evidence
of this or there's a lot ofevidence of this,' and do you
see what I mean, so we can startbuilding that portfolio over
time.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:13):
Because you can set up the apprenticeship
standards and then map thecontent of the portfolios to
those standards.
Derrin Kent (13:19):
The learner can.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:20):
Yes, so that's what's SmartEvidence
gives you that you provide thestructure for the portfolio,
essentially, your standardsavailable, and the learner can
then check their evidence andsay, 'Yes, these pieces of
evidence are fulfilling thisstandard or a sub standard of
it.'
Derrin Kent (13:37):
That becomes the absolute centrality of the
learning programme as opposed tothe sequence of lectures that we
think are exciting as degreeproviders. So because that
standard is the main centraldriver, the learner and their
employer can go through togetherand think 'Oh, how are we going
to learn, how are we going toprove this, how are we going to
(13:58):
show this? How are we going toreflect around this?' Our coach
can go in and say, 'Oh, I've gotsome good suggested learning
materials that I can find from acontent aggregator platform or a
MOOC or something like that.'There are various and so you can
just go 'Oh, here's somematerial you could study.' And
that's it, and then we've alsogot our learning programme
running in tandem with it wherewe can say 'Let's think about
(14:19):
what we do at work to make surethis manifests as well and agree
on those tasks.' So that becomesquite an exciting negotiation
around that space.
What's interesting now with theadvent of AI is some of the old
fashioned learning assessmentmethodologies are not very
interesting any more. Example.
What's happened to us is theuniversity gives us modules and
(14:39):
we have to do what we do. We'realmost sometimes compensating
for the university's modules atthe moment in the way it's set
up, I think. Over time, thatwill change because as I say, I
think the portfolio assessmentapproach will be accepted. We'll
get more adaptability from ouruniversity partner in terms of
determining what good educationlooks like. We'll still have to
(15:02):
subscribe to Office for StudentsRequirements, and I celebrate
all of this. I don't regret anyof that.
But at the moment, for example,there's a module on cyber
security in the degree (15:11):
do a cyber security risk assessment,
okay? They'll go into Copilotand ChatGPT [laughs] and get at
risk assessment printed out, andthey can do that. And they can
also tweak it a little bit andmake it look as if it's theirs
by putting a few spellingmistakes, and it's compelling
enough. That's not gonna cut themustard though, isn't it? It's
not okay. So what we're doing inresponse to that is we're
(15:34):
saying, 'Right, that's theassessment method, but what
we're gonna do is different.
You're gonna have to producethat. But what we want you to
do,' and we instruct them. Wesay 'Go to Copilot, go to
ChatGPT, and go and look at acontent aggregator platform.
Let's get various printouts ofrisk assessments that are more
or less right for yourorganisation. As a learning
exercise, let's compare what theAI has given us and look at what
(15:56):
we think are the most valuableoutputs and which are the least
valuable outputs, and then craftthat into a real one by thinking
about what's happening at work,and let's get an ePortfolio to
evidence the reflective learningcycle and the application cycle
and the discovery thing to bringthat together, which will
ultimately result in thiscrafted thing, which is going to
(16:16):
get you your university grade.
But the real learning happens asyou continuously build and craft
and reflect on that developmentprocess in a real workplace
setting and getting feedbackfrom people on it.' So the
ePortfolio becomes central tothe learning delivery model, if
that makes sense.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:34):
Yeah, and because you have the real world
context, the risk assessmentneeds to be contextualised, and,
you know, sure, the AI can giveyou also something that can be
used because, of course, thereare standards. So it will be
applicable, probably in 60 to 80to 90%, but there might still be
(16:54):
a couple of items or more than acouple of items that are
specific to that organisationthat can then be brought in and
therefore knowing how to draftcertain analysis, rather than
just picking the first one theyget back from the internet
through whatever measure, that'sthe learning. That's how they
will also know in the future howthey can put you standard. What
(17:17):
I really love is that you askthem to reflect on that process.
Derrin Kent (17:21):
We want evidence of its application in workplace and
evidence of discussion, which iscaptured in the Mahara pages and
in the reflective narrative thatthey build around that
construction of that assignment.
So the real learning is theconstruction of the assessment,
not the assessment and thegathering of the influencing
content. So that's how we'rebalancing some quite old
fashioned views as to what goodassessment looks like. I know
(17:42):
there are lots of universitiesdoing really exciting things
with concepts like the casestudy and the portfolio, and
that's already happening in alot of learning institutions.
And it's been quite central tothe way a degree is achieved. So
you don't have to have a topdown university professor
determined diktat as to whatcontent knowledge looks like.
(18:05):
So here is a very practicalexample. One of the customers we
work in with is Microsoft, andin the module on cloud, it's
proposed very strongly thatlearners study Amazon Web
Services. Well, you can imaginethat Microsoft might not be
quite so keen [laughs] on theirlearners studying what the
university lecturer's decided isexciting for them. They'd prefer
(18:26):
them to learn Azure. I'm sure,if we were working for Amazon,
they'd have an alternative view.
What I'm saying is theprescription of content coverage
- the way that the IfATEdescribe the knowledge, the
skills, and the behaviours isvery clever because they put a
lot of thought into this.
They've gotten lots of employerstogether in what they call the
Trailblazer Group from alldifferent contexts. They
(18:47):
basically had their armwrestles, and they've agreed on
a generic knowledge requirementthat they can all agree on that
isn't specific to one technologywith one employer. That work got
done over a lot of discussionand a lot of hard work as
employers are all gettingtogether.
So when the university go in andbecome prescriptive over that,
it's almost spoiling the party.
It's kind of spoiling the hardwork that was done. So as an
(19:09):
apprenticeships provider, it'smore useful for us to
understand, and this isincluding universities as well
as sort of more traditionalindependent training providers,
for us to go in and say, 'Right,let's work backwards from what
the endpoint assessment is goingto assess. Make it relevant here
and let's not impose the set oflearning objectives over what's
already defined very beautifullyin the standard,' but I
(19:32):
completely understand that weneed a level of rigour in terms
of Office for Students definedoutcomes and that ability to
sort of, you know, set a realdevelopment of human thoughts as
they go up Bloom's taxonomy ofthinking and they become a
different type of Thinker overtime. I'm not throwing that
away, but what I'm saying is ifwe build our modules around an
(19:52):
ePortfolio as an assessmentmethod and still achieving the
knowledge required on thestandard and make the locus of
control is over how thatmanifests more localised to the
employer, it's very achievable.
I've done it myself. We got anOfsted 'Outstanding' judgements
on that kind of approach. We hadto move universities, so we've
(20:15):
changed a little bit. But as Isay, with time, I think we'll
get back to this more ePortfoliocentric approach to delivering
the degree. It's done inbusiness schools around case
studies, so it is veryachievable. That's the fun
ahead.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:29):
It'll be good to see the how the new
university that you're workingwith over time will also take on
the concept of portfolios andfind that balance also for
themselves in regards to howmuch general knowledge do
students need to know aboutdifferent cloud providers in
order to make comparisons, inorder to think for themselves
(20:49):
and realise what the differencesare and why there are
differences. Because yes,Microsoft prefers people to
learn about their technology,however, the students still need
to know the general field...
Derrin Kent (21:02):
...the basics of cloud, yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:04):
Exactly. It will be good to see how the
portfolio can permeate also intothe degree.
Derrin Kent (21:10):
Exactly. A bit careful with myself, Kristina
because I don't want tooverstate any reluctance on part
of our partner university. Theopposite is true. I'm saying
that we're all on the learningcurve together here, and we're
all positively impacting uponeach other. Any clashes we have
between organisations isbeautiful and positive. Do they
have ePortfolio as part of theirprogramme? They already do. I'm
(21:32):
not saying they don't. But Ijust think it needs to be much
more central to the approachthan it currently is, and that's
the journey we're on.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:40):
Let's come back in a year's time and see
how things have developed.
Derrin Kent (21:44):
Yeah, let's see how it goes [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (21:46):
Yeah [laughs]. So, Derrin, what do
actually your students say aboutthe portfolios when you
introduce them to them?
Derrin Kent (21:54):
Remember, we do the whole journey. The idea is they
start from Bootcamp, then theygo through a normal
apprenticeship, and then theybecome degree. So the people who
have gone through that journeywith us over time, they're kind
of already on it by the timethey hit degree level.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:06):
But if you get somebody who hasn't gone
through the Skills Bootcamp?
Derrin Kent (22:10):
Right, it's hard at the beginning for everyone. So
if you are used to aninstitutional education where
you're effectively going to betaught something, then spit it
back to somebody in the form ofan essay [laughs] or a quiz or a
test, when you've got aneducational organisation like
TDM coming up to you as alearner and saying 'Ah, rules
(22:30):
have changed. You're in chargenow. This is now your learning
journey, and you're going to bea reflective learner and you're
going to apply theory inpractice, and we're going to
negotiate with it we'll be yourpartner, we'll be your androgogy
partner rather than a pedagogypartner. So in other words,
we've been treat you as an equaladult, and we will collaborate
with you in order to interprethow this standard and this
(22:51):
knowledge needs to manifest inyour workplace, and then you're
going to do it, and youevidence, and you reflect on in
as you create it.' As you canimagine, in the first six months
of somebody trying this, there'sa big expectation shift. Some
people adapt to it very, veryquickly. It's fish to water. But
some people are just going 'Oh,this is nothing like I've ever
experienced before and this issomething entirely different,'
(23:14):
and they don't get it.
That's why we send in two typesof coach. We send in the skills
and knowledge coach who is verymuch attending to the standard.
But we send a second type ofcoach who is called the
performance and developmentcoach. What they're doing,
they're thinking about how thisperson is delivering at work, in
other words, whether they'reperforming but performance is
not this, oh, you know, carrotand stick and whips and you
(23:35):
shall perform. It's not thatsense of performance. It's more
about this idea of mastery androle, which is something both
the employee and the employerare looking for as a
collaboration. So it's aboutgetting better in their job
role. So that's conversationnumber one and conversation
number two is your developmentas a whole person, including you
as the learner. The Maharaplatform becomes very much part
(23:56):
of that early conversationaround the reflective
practitioner, which is useful asemployee, but also useful as
learner. I'm not going topretend it's all easy sailing
'cause it's not. I mean, it's abig negotiation sometimes. But
put it this way, those whosucceed, adapt to this and enjoy
it and benefit from it. Giventhat the endpoint assessment is
(24:16):
predominantly a live project ofbeing able to do something in a
real world scenario andsecondary a discussion around
the reflective ePortfolio[laughs], they have to kind of
get their heads around this inorder to succeed. So it's a big
requirements on them.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:30):
Your success numbers speak for themselves
because they are really, reallygood. How do you bring the
employers along that journey?
Have they often already seenportfolios before, kind of the
portfolios that you're askingyour apprentices to create or
did they also need a little bitof learning to understand what
they're seeing, what's in frontof them?
Derrin Kent (24:52):
It comes a bit of a shock to employers sometimes,
but a clear message that we haveto people is look, we're not the
apprenticeship provider. Don'tthink we're the apprenticeship
provider. We're not. We're justthe training provider. You're
the apprenticeship provider,employer organisation. Our job
is to help you implement awork-based learning experience,
which helps this person becomethe technical professional that
(25:15):
we're all aspiring for them tobecome. And of course, we want
to tailor this to yourorganisation, but there's also a
standard that the nationrequires that this person is
going to reach and be able toevidence when they get to the
end.
To be honest, if employers don'tadapt to it, we just stop
working with the employers[laughs]. What we're interested
in is the genuinely work-basedlearning that's relevant to you
(25:37):
as an organisation, and we wantto be your best friends in the
world to get this person tobecome a better performing, more
rounded, more effective employeefor your place that's good at
that trade.
We give the employer two roles.
Number one is the mentor. Sowe're the coaches, we send in
coaches. They supply a mentor,who's effectively the line
manager, but more important thanthat they're the learning
(25:59):
manager. So they're the personwho's managing that learning
with that person, and they'reavailable day in day out at
work. And then we have ourcontracting employer who's
normally the person from humanresources, or it could be the
business owner or somebody likethat. That's another ally of
ours. The mentor is as investedinto the ePortfolio as the
learner is. Is that a learningcurve? Sometimes, yes. We try to
(26:22):
be really clear upfront as thisis how we approach it, and other
apprenticeship providers areavailable, but if you want to
work with us, it's going to workthis way, and we're looking for
impact now.
The last survey we did, 85% ofemployers were delighted with
our work and others were sayingwe were good. We get strong
employer feedback, but we haveto choose carefully the right
(26:43):
kind of employer to work with.
We have lost employers along theway, if I'm honest with you
because they're not looking towork in the way we want to, and
so it's a match thing.
Kristina Hoeppner (26:52):
Do some of your employers then actually
also continue with a portfoliowork in other areas? Because of
course, while they are theytaking on apprentices, typically
everybody should continuelearning lifelong learning
and...
Derrin Kent (27:04):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:05):
... also as regular employee then to make it
part of the performance reviewprocess or something like that.
Derrin Kent (27:12):
I would love that to be the case. We haven't
strategically as The DevelopmentManager made much of an effort
in those terms to continue thatconversation. However, somebody
said something to me the otherday that the penny dropped for
me. You know, like IT businessessee themselves as a consumption
business. They'll have acustomer success unit. I bet you
(27:34):
at Catalyst speak in theseterms. I've realised that TDM
need to think that way as well.
It's a bit of a slow penny dropfor me, but we need to
understand ourselves as aconsumption business for people.
So yes, we've got the governmentfunded apprenticeship
programmes. But in terms ofworking with the Tōtara system,
which is the other big platformwe use and the Mahara system, we
can actually see ourselves as auseful commercial organisation
(27:58):
to help employer organisationsdeliver a more rounded talent
experience and a set of learningjourneys and stretch and
challenge experiences. So toanswer your question, have we
engaged with that? The answer'sno. Should we? We definitely
should. It's kind of longoverdue for us to start doing
that work as people.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:19):
I look forward to those conversations
then and what your employers sayand how they can make that
reflective cycle and also notjust having the reflective cycle
in there, but really also makingthat learning and that
reflection explicit.
Derrin Kent (28:33):
At the moment, if I'm brutally frank, the
conversation with employers isaround this is a great way of
doing apprenticeships, but it'snot become a great way of giving
a talent experience anddevelopment process for your
team forever as part of humanexperience. Yeah, that's a next
step for us.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:49):
Derrin, earlier you mentioned that
sometimes the portfolio isalready used in the degrees that
you of course, have it readilyintegrated into your
apprenticeships, is thereanything that you'd like to add
to where you see the future ofportfolios in degree
apprenticeships?
Derrin Kent (29:06):
I do think that, obviously, given my context of
England, really, and Britain,and I do think that is a
fascinating and vibrantconversation that's well
underway. So it's a relativelynew thing. As I say,
universities have been inwork-based learning for years,
but that formal apprenticeshippiece is relatively new for
(29:27):
universities really in thiscountry. And us as training
providers are putting thechallenges across to the
universities about some of theirassumptions. So I think the
future is - it's everything I'vedescribed is what I'm gonna say,
really Kristina.
We will become more excited bythe application of theory and
practice and the intelligentreflection over that than the
(29:50):
coverage of theory with a sortof like saying, get back to the
lecture. At the moment, theemphasis in universities is the
university teaches something,gets people to read things, and
then expects people to say itback to them. I think what will
be happening is we'll be saying,we're actually far more
interested in the self curationof content coverage, which is
(30:12):
negotiated with the employer andyourself and then the standard,
and then making sure youunderstand that and you learn
that stuff, and then you applyit in practice. We'll be putting
the assessment piece around yourability to be thoughtful in
terms of choosing what to learn,when to learn, and how to apply
it as opposed to just learningwhat the lecturer has told you
to learn.
(30:33):
I think degree apprenticeshipsare going to become much more
around that excitement ofapplication of theory and
skills, knowledge in real lifecontexts. I think that's where
it's going to go. I think that'swhere the debate will be. And
particularly as I say, with AI.
There is no other option[laughs] to assess competence
than to make people bethoughtful now and to be
contextualised. Because the ideaof churning out knowledge is
(30:56):
gone, hasn't it? So it's got tobe contextualised and applied
now. Otherwise, it'smeaningless. The ePortfolio
makes it unavoidably realbecause there's that genuine
evidence. There's the artefactsand the evidencing of the
artefacts, which an AI doesn'tspit out real world artefacts.
So reflection over real worldevidence is stronger than a
written piece.
Kristina Hoeppner (31:19):
That now takes us into the quick answer
around. Derrin, so last time,you already mentioned three
short phrases that you use todescribe portfolio work. Those
were 'learning journeys', 'showhow much you have grown', and
'strengthening your reflectivecapabilities'. Do you want to
add another three words to that?
Derrin Kent (31:40):
Those concepts are when I was talking about Skills
Bootcamps, which is kind of thisearly career entry phrase. At
degree level, I'm going tochange that to 'genuinely
work-based learning','application of theory to
practice' and 'learnerownership', and 'employer
ownership'. So I've cheated abit there and, but the last one
is two things together [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (32:01):
That's okay.
Derrin Kent (32:01):
Learner ownership and employer ownership, the
portfolio facilitate thatownership rather than
institutional ownership, whichbecomes exciting in degree
level.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:10):
Thank you for these additional phrases. Now,
what tip do you have forlearning designers or other
educators who create portfolioactivities, especially in your
context then of the degreeapprenticeships?
Derrin Kent (32:22):
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the so
called ePortfolio platforms areePortfolio platforms. They're
not. Mahara is an ePortfolioplatform, PebblePad is an
ePortfolio platform, but theseother platforms are not. So an
ePortfolio is a reflectiveshowcase of evidence of work,
but with a learning journeydemonstrably evidenced above it.
(32:46):
It's not a drop box [laughs].
It's a reflective account ofgrowth over time. So this is the
example I give with the creationof an assignment is interesting,
and the ePortfolio is a greattool for telling that story much
better than just the assignment,right? So it's a building of
stories. So approach it thatway.
Kristina Hoeppner (33:05):
What is your tip for apprentices who create
portfolios?
Derrin Kent (33:11):
Involve your mentor, actively. Use evidence
from colleagues and customersand clients, don't just think
it's something you do byyourself stuck in a corner.
Continuously gather artefacts.
Use voice recordings with peopleas you do in your everyday work
and just capture, capture,capture all the time evidence.
Know your standard, useSmartEvidence, know what you're
(33:34):
trying to prove. But then everyopportunity you get, just keep
capturing this routine practiceand then sit down every now and
again in that quiet corner tocraft all that aggregated
evidence into a story. See it asa continuous effort, not as a
weekly thing. It's a continuousthing.
Kristina Hoeppner (33:54):
Thank you for that tip. That of course does
not just apply to apprenticesbut also to others. Thank you so
much, Derrin, for this secondconversation now for your second
part where you use portfolios.
We had talked about the SkillsBootcamps and now the degree
apprenticeship so I appreciatethat you have shared what you do
there and how you use portfoliosin that area. Thank you.
Derrin Kent (34:19):
Enjoyed it. Thank you, Kristina, speak again soon.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:22):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with DerrinKent. Head to our website
podcast.mahara.org where you canfind resources and the
transcript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
(34:45):
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you'll listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then, create,
share, and engage.
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