Defining the Problem Or Defining Opportunities

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Defining the Problem? Or Defining Opportunities?

• Researching adult literacy numeracy in
  different contexts.

Dr. Peter Waterhouse Presentation for 15th
National, VET Research Conference, at
Mooloolaba, Queensland, 12-14 July 2006
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In the swampy lowland

• In the varied topography of professional
  practice, there is a high hard ground overlooking
  a swamp. On the high ground, manageable problems
  lend themselves to solution through the
  application of research-based theory and
  technique. In the swampy lowland, messy confusing
  problems defy technical solution.
• (Schön, D. 1987, p.3) .

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Naming, framing problem setting

• When a practitioner sets a problem he chooses
  and names the things he will notice. Through
  complementary acts of naming and framing, the
  practitioner selects things for attention and
  organises them, guided by an appreciation of the
  situation So problem setting is an ontological
  process a form of world making.
• (Schön, D. 1987, p.4)

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Frames framing

• Language always comes with what is called
  framing. Every word is defined relative to a
  conceptual framework Thats a frame.
• (Lakoff, 2003)
• These linguistic expressions are anything but
  neutral. Each framing defines the problem in its
  own way, and hence constrains the solutions
  needed to address that problem.
• (Lakoff Fergusson, 2006)

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Evoking Reinforcing frames

• Every word evokes a frame Words defined within
  a frame evoke the frame Negating a frame evokes
  the frame Evoking a frame reinforces that frame
  Every frame is realized in the brain by neural
  circuitry. Every time a neural circuit is
  activated, it is strengthened.
• (Lakoff, 2006).

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The potency of reframing

• An important aspect of developing an
  appreciative spirit is learning to move out of
  using deficit language into an appreciation of
  what works well by reframing, words, issues or
  situations We have been amazed by the potency
  of reframing.
• (Goh, Simpson Martin 2003, p.2)

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Contradicting the Stereotype

• Case studies 10 Digital Life Stories
• Using respondents own voices
• Resource for teachers learners
• Successful positively deviant
• Continuing difficulties with literacy
• Achieved on-going employment life goals
• No literacy in another language

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Key messages

• Remarkably resilient individuals
• Value of focus on the positive
• Recognise, appreciate strengthen the success
  strategies being utilised
• Collective competence, literacy as social
  practice
• Use of technologies
• Value harness multiple intelligences
• Appreciate the double edge of disability
• Multi-literacies para-literacy?

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Working from Strengths cross sectoral exchange
to enrich adult literacy provision

• Dr. Peter Waterhouse
• Dr. Crina Virgona

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to be, or not to be

• To be literate means being a master of a
  complex set of strategies which govern who uses
  texts, and how, and for what purpose. (To be
  literate is to know) when to speak, when to be
  quiet, when to write, when to reveal what has
  been written, and when and whether to respond to
  texts already written.
• (Hull, 199519)

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in the Health and Welfare Sector

• Person-centred therapies
• Rogers, Maslow, et.al.
• Narrative Therapy
• Appreciative Inquiry
• Strength Based Practice
• Similar related interests concerns to those
  in ALBE
• What possibilities for learning across the
  sectors?

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Strength-Based Practice

• (SBP) depends upon core values of respect, self
  determination, empowerment, social justice and
  power sharing which translate into practices that
  
• assist people to recognise and mobilise their
  strengths and resources towards solutions to life
  difficulties
• enable the client to direct the process of
  intervention as much as possible
• (McCashen 2004)

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Disability Attendant Support Services

• DASSIs clients are able to manage their own
  attendant support, have the final say in the
  employment of their attendants, manage their
  rosters, participate in training of workers and
  specify the terms and conditions of their support
  contracts.
• www.dassi.com.au

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Methodology

• 6 data gathering groups
• 3 x Adult Literacy / Basic Education
• 3 x Strength Based Practitioners from Health
  Welfare sector
• Comparative Case studies
• Dialogue for data gathering
• Using a professional actor
• Exploring framing, perceptions problem
  setting

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Exploring questions such as

• How have the discourses informed (or influenced)
  different professional practices/approaches
  across the two fields?
• What do the two fields have to learn from one
  anothers approaches?
• Do we give credibility to the communication
  strengths across a full range of
  literacies/intelligences or are we fixed on a
  traditional print-based literacy?

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Provision or Development? Exploring employers
understandings of workplace, literacy, numeracy
employability skills

• Dr. Peter Waterhouse
• Ray Townsend
• Dr. Crina Virgona

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Literacy in todays world?
Literacy
in a changing world
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Questions

• How do employers understand workplace literacy,
  numeracy and generic/employability skills
  requirements?
• What are the consequences and/or implications of
  employers understandings of these issues?
• Do employers understandings reflect contemporary
  research findings about the nature of
  adult/workplace literacy, numeracy and
  generic/employability skills?

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Methodology

• Dialogue with employers
• mini-conferences/workshops/interviews
• Four sectors research partners
• Local government (VLGA)
• Group training (GTA Vic)
• Community Services Health (ITB)
• Manufacturing (ITB)
• Currently data gathering

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Just a taste of the data coming in

• An employer, on adopting an integrated
  approach
• We dont see it as addressing literacy
  numeracy. Its a way of addressing the work
  required in that environment We dont see it as
  separate goals, its just a matter of meeting the
  work required.
• Literacy numeracy and essential skills are
  deeply embedded into the program itself so that
  these skills are an integral part of the training
  program to the extent that they are hardly
  noticed

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re. Learning in the workplace context

• So if they are coming in and they cant do that,
  we can either keep looking or bite the
  bullet ourselves and say well take the best of
  what we can get, based on the qualifications, the
  work they are going to do, the interpersonal
  skills they are much harder to teach
  (interpersonal skills). So we might as well buy
  those in and teach the written skills ourselves,
  within a context that maybe makes sense for them
  to finally learn it, because they havent learnt
  it up til then.

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Aptitude testing

• We dont think that we will ever get what we
  want from the school system
• However this is not a criticism of the school
  system. It is recognition that it is an
  impossible task to report in forms which meet the
  needs of every individual employer.
• We do our own aptitude testing. It may not be
  any more credible but we understand what it
  means, based on our history.

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Solutions thinking

• The significant problems we face cannot be
  solved at the same level of thinking we were at
  when we created them.
• Albert Einstein,
• (cited by Covey 1990, p.42)

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Contact

• Dr. P.J.Waterhouse
• pwhouse_at_wli.com.au
• Workplace Learning Initiatives
• 436 High Street, Melbourne
• Ph 03 9486 8600
• Fax [phone]