The safe use of an angle grinder.

 

Note, the first four stages of the checking of the grinder and the safe use plus the right equipment to use. 

 

 

Flexible learning presentation 25.6.12

Flexibility in learning

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Indigenous learners.

As i look after the courses for the engineering trades i do find we have a few Maori students enrol for each different course.
The first thing we do when they are here is encourage them to go to the Powhiri  on the Marae.
We find some want to go and some don't, when i ask them is there a specific reason ,they are like most teenagers and shrug their shoulders(there is an obstacle there but it isn't always recognised).

 http://literacyandnumeracyforadults.com/Educator-resources/Knowing-your-learner-Engaging-M%C4%81ori-learners

If  you read the above link and its article it describes the how as tutors we can interact better with our young Maori students.
An interesting article is one of the young woman who hated school and was a bad truant.

Read this article,

Learning story:

A young woman was a truant who hated school and reluctantly came

to [the course] with a practiced ‘staunchness’. This involved being

non compliant and refusing to co-operate. She arrived just in time

to go for a two week stint [on a military base] where she spent time

in a “whānau” environment with other youth and adults who took an

interest in her and recognised “she wasn’t dumb.” Once she returned,

she did so well at the course that she has gone on to further training.

This is a fantastic example of how a student re engaged which is what our youth guarantee course does.We have an example this year where we had one of our young Maori boys still having a lot of time off when he should have been here.After speaking with him and his Counsellor we all agreed he should enrol in a Adventure development course which works alongside Kai Tahu which takes them away for a week with other young people and directs them in a lot of  positive behaviour, personal growth  and it encompasses a lot of out door pursuits , mountain biking,tramping and  caving. All of these had  Maori content and it was interesting to hear the various points he enjoyed.

This also relates back to the link above where we as tutors need to have the right skills,

Expertise up-skilling appropriate to the environment’

‘Have passionate but understanding people (as tutors)’

‘Have a gentle, humble demeanour’

‘Build programmes for young Māori around their skills and passions and

integrate literacy and numeracy into programmes’

‘Looking outside the box’

Another good thing to instill is role models(guy's who have been there before them), we show them what young guy's can do and what can achieved no matter where you are from, the other is to educate the tutors (we should all have done the treaty of waitangi workshop) and have some understanding  of what is required.If young people can see that you are there to help them along and guide them then the trust which is important in any teen is firm and bonded.

When the young Maori guys ask about Maoris in engineering i always say they have been in engineering for years,   


  

SUSTAINABILITY IN EDUCATION

After listening to Sir Ken Robinson's article on (do schools kill creativity) i was really reassured that what we are doing with the Automech guy's is spot on.

In earlier blogs i had written about how our high schools are not for everybody and that even after ten years of schooling some of these guy's are disillusioned with education .
Learning about various subjects and then condemning some of the other subjects to just an introduction , is that really the right way?

It was good to see the government do a u turn on the Technology classes, this could have really killed some of the children's creative thinking had it proceeded,as you know not everybody wants to become an Accountant or Bank Manager.

I will now talk about the Automech guys and how they respond to Project based learning, as i have written earlier sitting them in a classroom for hours does not work (it didn't work at school why would it work now?).These guys love moving why they learn (they were fidgety and disruptive at school) and spent many a time removed from lessons because of this.
We firstly say that this is not school, treat this like a work place where you are responsible for your actions.This at first is challenging as they are still in school mode but if you make it gradual then they respond.

Don't put your hand up if you need to go to the toilet.
If you need to smoke at break you can but off  the campus.
Wear safety gear when in workshops.
Respect!!!!!!
Give them subjects that they are actually interested in.

These are some of the examples we come across early on and it does not take long for a more adult learning environment to take place.We encourage participation,talking,challenging others as this was always shut down at school. 



A great example of teachers not listening to the students from the 1970's Pink Floyd  album The
Wall.

If you look at the guy's as a whole they like to experiment , that is why we do the weld test on the cube, we work with ferrous and non ferrous metals, we let them work on different makes,models of cars ,this always creates discussion which is always positive.
Another practise we encourage is health and safety for themselves and their colleagues, if you sat them in a classroom and talked about this it would fail so we encourage them to observe their work place and identify the hazards , we get some good and often funny feedback relating to this as well as the understanding, we also give them examples of what we have come across in industry.

 

Do you like the welding helmet this clown is using.This is a real life example where the guys see what others have done before them and what the consequences were, this they relate to far better than textbook after textbook

 

 THIS IS HOW WE EXPECT THE GUYS TO LOOK WHEN WELDING. 



If we still look at sustainability then we can see that the guys relate more to this course than school so it obviously works better for them.
This course is also sustainable because it gives the students a pathway, the first year this was run four students came back and enrolled in the full Automotive programme.
The second year more students enrolled in different pathways, 3 in Auto, 4in engineering,1 in carpentry, 2 in foundation studies, what this course does is reengage them where they had become disengaged and creates an interest plus pathway where they would have otherwise not bothered.
We have found that bringing real life examples of learning and experiences can also position them better than being at school which did not.

We can of course always change the programme to cater for new techniques and technology so it will never stand still, it will keep on moving just like our students.

Cheers,

TECHNOLOGIES FOR LEARNING.

If you read the HORIZON REPORT 2012 it says of how all the latest trends and emerging technologies will have an affect on how we educate now and in the future.

The areas of emerging technology to watch :

Time to adoption: One Year or Less

• Mobile Apps
• Tablet Computing

Time to adoption: Two to Three Years

• Game-based Learning
• Learning Analytics

Time to adoption: Four to Five Year

• Gesture-based Computing
• Internet of Things

If you read this you understand that nothing stands still and we as educators need to keep ahead or even on top of what is out there and bring it to the lesson.

If you look at the BMET'S course it teaches all the fundamental categories of the engineering trades.On area that was highlighted by the student survey was the machining content and how it consisted of a lot of steps to do each project.This compounded if the student didn't take notes or was absent.What we have been trying to do is film each machining segment and then edit them and then hopefully the student can access all the steps on an I pad touch and browse through to see which step they need extra help on.This is an area where we have enlisted help, has i wrote in a previous article that filming and editing are not my forte but if we do this right then this app could be used here and outside the polytechnic.



If you look at this milling machine in operation you can see that if the student did not take any notes or missed a few classes then to try and machine a complex job would be difficult, that is why if each step was recorded then it would make it more user friendly and of course more safe.


Another area we have been discussing is the area of social media, all our students use Face book and they are all savvy with using their phones so it would make sense to combine them when our Automech students went on their work experience.


They could take a photo as evidence of what they have been doing and then add it to the app with some text along side.

Taking the photo.

Evidence of the work done in a garage.


This is a useful app what the guys will be able to use  as their evidence.


Cheers,

ADULT LEARNING THEORIES AND APPROACHES.

Project based learning.

If we look at what the guys do in the Automech programme then it is mostly all PBL.

If you look at the demographic and social life's that these guys are part of plus their cultural,personal and often medical reasons they are here then it really does show why 

we use PBL.

If we tried the old and tired sit down in a classroom when some of these guys only have a short attention span then we would be setting them up to fail.

They have already done 10 yrs of schooling where they spent a lot of time away from school or sat out side the principals office, they were either disruptive or just bored.

This shows that this kind of system does not work with these guys for one reason or another.

We have found that these guys( learn on their feet.)

What do i mean?

If you look  these guys learn  by doing, firstly we talk about health and safety around a certain piece of equipment then we show the guys how it works, then we let them use the equipment.

If for example we look at one of our projects (the grass karts) we then know that this type of learning works.We get them to design their karts and when it comes to the manufacturing we offer them different processes they could use, this gets them thinking about which one they would choose and which materials they are going to use.

If say they were fabricating using round mild steel tubular steel then we give them the options of either rolling the steel through rollers or bending them through a bender, they get to learn these processes by using them and working with them rather than from a text book.

  

This is one of our guys using the magnetic bender on flat mild steel bar. He learns that this kind of bender works only on mild steel because it is a  ferrous metal (magnetic).

Another process they use on their karts is MIG welding (Metal inert Gas), we teach them how to use the welder and then why we use this process on their karts and when they have done this we apply some theory on why we use an inert gas instead of an active gas on this process.

 

 This is how project based learning works and how the guys pick up the learning.

If you read some of Vgotsky's works he says of how young people learn better by firstly being shown and then mentoring them along either by the tutor or a buddy.

If you look up the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky ,it says of the ZDP the Zone of Proximal Development and states that young people have different needs and different levels of help are needed to help them along,basically it means the tutor offers more support to the student who is having more difficulty.He also addresses that if some of the students cannot perform independently then they will need extra guidance albeit working alongside a more competent student (buddy) and this also helps them understand the tasks.

Ideally more than anything this promotes development and confidence.

The zone of proximal development has been defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p86).

                                                                                          
This definitely works in our programme where a lot of the guys were disengaged from the school system but still enjoy learning but in a different way, yes they tend to be wayward at times and are challenging to keep on task at times because they don't always think ahead mainly just here and now.


1902-1977
I was a Soviet psychologist.
I believed in the importance of discovering " the way natural processes such as physical maturation and sensory mechanisms become intertwined with culturally determined processes to produce the psychological functions of adults" (Luria, 1979, p. 43).

I believe that what we are doing with these guys really helps them learn a different way and a way that is relevant to their needs and behaviours.






Cheers,

 

OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCES.


If i look at how i sat some of my papers in the early years they were done either by coming to the poly tech or by correspondence.I found the personal interaction worked better for me rather than just reading it from a paper booklet.I found that the open education offered me lots of flexibility in that i could do it any time (day or night) and when ever it suited me personally especially when my children were younger.
Basically it was set up like i was sent the material, i worked through it,then i sent the work back where it was marked and then i received any feedback that was necessary.
This worked reasonably well if there were no problems but if  i needed any advice then i would have to chase up the respective tutor on the other end of the phone(this sometimes wasn't always conducive to normal everyday living).


If i look at how i run the Automech classes now it is mainly project based learning with a lot of practical in engineering and automotive plus some embedded theory after they have learnt the practical.


What do i mean?


If I sat them down in a classroom and quoted Pythagoras's theorem they would all be asleep or completely bored as they had supposedly learnt this at school but could not apply this any where.

This has no relevance in normal life for what the guys relate to.   

What we had to do then was to relate it through a practical sense but also with an OER.

Firstly we had them work on a wishbone (front suspension of a car.) We then applied the theory around its design, (a triangle) this is purely for strength and rigidity and then we applied a few You Tube examples of Pythagoras and it seemed to make a lot more sense.

If you look at some of the video examples they are really good examples, we then encourage the guys to look up at least  about three examples and rate them.

Another example of what we use is a site called workings of machinery where we show them firstly how to operate a Lathe safely and then we get them to look onto Moodle and find the site and look up The Centre lathe  and how to set up the tool height and do basic  machining operations.

This site gives them various options including machinery,hand tools, power tools etc.It can be accessed any time as long as the student has access to a computer.

If you look at a lot of state schools in different countries  then they are already digitising a lot of their text books.Bangladesh are doing this in all of  their text books from grades 1-12. South Korea are planning to digitise all of its text books and provide each student with a P.C.

If you look at this then we have to indeed acknowledge what is happening and implement changes,

i think with students owning P.C's this is a start and then they can access the course work when ever they need to. The only thing stopping us from doing this right now is cost.

 

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/disacc00.htm

If you read the above link it says of how OER are always under review or development, which means that it will get easier to access as long as you have the right accessibility and resources.

One that we are already trying to set up is the use of machinery particularly the Centre Lathe.

We are filming certain segments of machining steps and we then hope to firstly make it available to our students and then hopefully put it under the O.P. banner and use it as a OER. This is currently being done and i have enlisted the help of the EDC as my filming and editing skills are not the best.I do however believe that this will be a useful tool both internally and externally.

Cheers,