Hi everybody! It's Paul here from intro2outro
video productions, with another cafe catch
up interview today with Mark Samaha.
Mark is the Director of Education here at
Nirimba TAFE, here in Sydney and Mark
has been one of my managers in the past
and also a great innovator and a
supporter of innovators. He supported me
personally in a role that i had, years
ago introducing social media within a
large training organization. So, really
looking forward to catching up with mark
today and hearing his opinions on
different topics within education
I'm just driving at the limestone cafe
now. It's a great little café here in
Schofield in Western Sydney. Not far from
the Nirimba TAFE.
Mark!
Hey Paul!
Thanks for coming today to the cafe catch up.
Thanks for inviting me.
Yeah. So, this is the Limestone
cafe in Schofield. Not far from where you
work. Yeah, around the corner. So, it's
one of your favorite cafes?
Yeah. Yeah. I love it here.
[inaudible] love the coffee?
Yeah, it's a little hidden- hidden gem, if you like.
Absolutely.
This area is changing a lot. So, there's quite a few more decent cafes
in the area. And , it's good to see.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Well, let's get straight into the questions.
Thanks, Paul. Yeah, for sure.
So, Mark, You think that classroom teaching will become obsolete
in the foreseeable future?
Paul, I am-
as you know I'm- I work across the trades. And so,
a lot of the work- training we do is a
combination theory and very very
practical kind of stuff. So, in my experience
it doesn't really change that much
between disciplines. Learners love to be
engaged, love to participate, love to be
highly active in their learning and as
long as you do that, I don't think it matters
whether it's in the classroom or online or
remotely or distance or whatever. It's
about the audience. And, in many cases the
audience doesn't have a maturity or the
discipline to cope on their own and the
amount of guidance a teacher can add, and
the value a teacher provides is just
immeasurable. So, I'd hate to think that
that isn't recognized. The fact that a
teacher guiding a learner through a
process where they're heavily engaged in
learning, that is the height- and the most
heightening learning that can take place.
There's a lot of difficulties with online learning.
You need a certain type of student really, don't you?
I mean you need a certain style of
teaching as well. It's quite different.
But, also a student needs to be like self
motivated. What other qualities
would you say, we are dealing with a student
for online learning?
They're learning style? They need to really
have a learning style that's suitable
for the particular mode or media that's being used.
You know, there's lot of studies that show
that the most engaging television, movies do
not impart a huge amount of learning and
knowledge. People enjoy it. They listen, they
watch. But, if you assess them a couple of
days later the level of acquisition is
quite low. So, you can try and do something
really really glossy and really polished
and highly entertaining. But, the
learning isn't there. They've got to
engage, they've got to do things, they've
got to write, they got to read and they
got to investigate and critically
analyze the media. And in case- if the
video is great as long as they're
critically analyzing it and documenting
that analysis and that's what embeds the
learning. So, it's about- it's about
knowing that. A lot of- a lot of people
think it's about sitting back reading a
book and that's [inaudible] or reading a
screen or- and that's just not it, you've actually
got to be engaging. you have to be prepared to
create your own content from what you're
learning so that it's embedded. And it's understood.
Is it the new- new top learning
they called 70/20/10 which is 70% is
actually doing, 20%
is informal learning from those around
you and 10% formal learning.
What do you think of that style of learning?
yeah the model is great. The model
actually quantifies to a large extent.
The different forms that learning can
take place. So, formal forms are very
expensive and often not the most- most
efficient and effective. So, that's why
10% is allocated to that. The more
informal, the more mentored and informal
learning that's more specific and
directed at the content that want to be
acquired. That's the 20% and
that's also quite expensive because it
relies on a- a mentor.
But, it is the most ubiquitous learning
is the idea- is the 70% that- you
know, if you're actually actively engaged
in and focusing on experiences and
understanding from those experiences the
knowledge and the skills you're trying to
acquire and deepening that through
practice. That's a far more- and being
autonomous about your own learning-that's
a far more effective way to teach people
to acquire knowledge. If you do it that way,
you're always learning and you're
always consciously learning. The more
conscious you are about your learning.The deeper it is.
So Mark. Do you think that Google is dumbing down our youth?
or exposing our youth to more knowledge?
I think it's exposing our youth to more knowledge. I think it's a wonderful
resource. It's not the only resource. There are
other ways to search the inter-web.
In terms of *laughs* the in terms
what google provides. It's an immediate
opportunity. So, often in
conversation you have this debate about
you know some fact then you can just
look it up on google and straightaways
you'd know. So, i think it eliminates a
certain level of conflict. But, not only
does it do that but it provides an
immediate source of information. So, when
you want to know something you can find
out and that's great from a learning
perspective. I don't think it's dumbing
down society. I think it's just making knowledge
more accessible and in the past I
suppose you used to refer to
encyclopedia or have to get to a library
and often that meant that the
opportunity to learn as a consequence of
a need was moot. If you have a need you
can find- you know you can get on your
smartphone
and actually access knowledge really
quickly. The only problem with google I
might say is that, the quality
qualified information or the informations
provided, the only question about it is
to be very critical and make sure that
you're understanding that it's not
necessarily the most authenticated
material of evidence. So, do you think a
good skill for students to have would be to
be able to verify if it's a quality source
or you know that information where it's
coming from, is it a quality source. Is it
something that is proven.
Yeah. That's important and not only with google but
across the board as i hear a lot of
stuff from the media through other
channels and being able to clarify the
important- the truth or the reliability of
the content is a great skill and in the
earlier we teach people to be critical
and look at the biases. 'Cos every
source has a bias and it doesn't
mean- it doesn't mean it's wrong just cause it has a bias.
But, certainly just be aware of that bias.
yeah. So, you can weigh up all the different
opinions and views and articles.
So Mark, probably a controversial question but i'd like to
know if you think the standard of
education in Australia is improving or declining?
I think the answer, if you look at the-
the global comparison is that we
are declining. We are losing- losing our
place in the top ten. It's actual- high up
in that space. So, I think
essentially, if you look at the way in
which we educate our school kids. The
model hasn't changed in decades
absolutely and the generations are
changing, and our model doesn't change.
Yes, the contents became more appropriate
more relevant. Sometimes, they're looking at-
there was a move away from some of the
more traditional literature for example
and now they're coming back to it so
there's a bit of an oscillation and a
cyclical process here where we're
leaving and departing from one model and
returning back there in a way to try and
improve what we're doing but
fundamentally if you look at how our
kids are performing in the level of
literacy and numeracy issues, you know we
certainly aren't moving ahead in leaps and
bounds and until such time as we
actually acknowledge that there are
other models out there. And, instead of trying
to deal with the behavioral issues
understand that our model is actually
the problem not the behavioral issues of the
student. We will never get away from
this problem about some kids not liking
learning because of their early
experiences and always being disengaged
and and less likely to apply the
knowledge to make them prosper in life
yeah. And some really good models
like in countries like Denmark
where they have a really really high
standard of education.
They- I think education is free for everybody and- like all types of
education and it's got a really high
standard and teachers and educators are
really highly regarded and respected and they
haven't like a very different model as
well but I think we should be looking
possibly at some of those types of
models that are really working well and
possibly see how we can use that
here yeah I think you're right. I think there's
some really good models. The teacher is
critical whether you pay them more or
less or it's all about the training and
it's less about- it's less about necessarily
being an honor student and more about
being able to know how to treat the
learner and so unfortunately a lot of
our university programs are very much
focused on the theoretical, the research
not enough focus on the practical and
the applied understanding of it. So, I'd
love to see us recognize our teachers
for the value they actually provide and I
think in TAFE, we pay our teachers quite
well and they get very good condition so
if you can't- if you put the two together
I think it's a quite well pay. I just- I
I don't think there is a- in socie- in our
society, there is enough respect for
teachers
for the profession. What it is- what it does is
profound for our society and it's
just rhetoric really most the time when
you hear people talk about it and
not really follow through with
a meaning- A meaningful demonstration of the
value that we have for our teachers.
Yeah. Absolutely.
So Mark, what are some of the challenges in teaching school intensive courses as
opposed to knowledge intensive courses.
Say, for example carpenterie as
opposed to say IT?
Ok, I think the main
challenge is quantity or volume of
learning. Volume of training. Volume of practice.
Typically what you have is an
apprentice model where you've got
someone in the workplace who's constantly
practicing a certain skill comes to
TAFE to hone that skill get to know
the exact best practice and go back and
practice it that is ideal but seldom
does it actually occur that way. Seldom
does the training lineup with the
practice in work- in the workplace so
that's why off the job is so important
because we can align the two up. We can
do the induction, the instruction and the
practice within the same- within the
same kind of motion or flow or process.
But, having adequate practice you'd be
surprised for how long. Just to- just to
be able to lay bricks to build a wall
and it takes it takes a long time to get
that perfected. To get it exact- And we
take it for granted. Look at the wall, and you'll
see every brick's laid perfectly, it's all
level, it's all even, it stands up. You think
that's a simple process. In fact it
takes in a lot of practice and you take up
to a year for someone to be able to do
that confidently and proficiently and
absolutely. The good thing about IT is
that you can practice. You're not really
restricted to a particular spacious
neither- You just need the device
unfortunately some of our trade areas do
require more sophisticated set up
So, it's been harder to practice whenever
you like. And that's what I'd like
to- My journey and as a director and
what I'm aiming to do is to create
those spaces. The open workshop concept
which is about having a space available
for ongoing practice, for learners to look
into and have access to until they
mastered that skill so we're not
restricted to a timetable that's based on
a teacher, it's more based on the
learning and through competency-based training.
You know, I'm just thinking about
some of the training provided, some of the
private providers that set up and they do
courses that are information intensive.
Basically they don't have as many course as
like at TAFE, for example, we do all the
trades and everything else. So, they can provide
maybe their courses
could be- cost a little bit less because of
their course alone. But, at the same time they're
not providing a wider range of courses
where it's TAFE is and that's why the
cost of TAFE courses- Well, TAFE itself
the funding that is needed is a lot more
because we provide for those practical tough
situations that are so necessary in a trade
or in other areas.
Absolutely. I think it's a
huge asset that the government provides
for society and for the industry we
don't utilize it as well as we could
I'll say that that we could utilize it
more- more efficiently and more-
Hopefully, I think there are holiday periods
and evenings where some of us is still
is underutilized, and unfortunately they-
you know the- the- the learning then is
compromised. All of the potential for
further practices is compromised. And in
terms of private- there a lot of good
private providers out there. Some of them
do not have the capital to be able to
build the facilities, and have the
property imperative which means they
don't have the ability to do as much
hours of training as TAFE does. It doesn't
have a property imperative. But,
fundamentally the- the asset that TAFE
provides should be valued and should be
should be preserved for future generations
and we need to evolve and continue to
use those facilities and those assets to
promote higher skill- skill levels.
Fantastic! Alright, Mark. Well, is there anything
you want to add before we finish the interview?
No, I think it's a great conversation I
really enjoy talking about this stuff. I've
spent a long time in education training
24 ideas and this is a constant dialogue
that I have with various
people around what- how can we improve and
how can we provide the best service.
Well, thanks so much for actually taking the time out to come today. And
hopefully, it wasn't too scary
No. No. it's a great experience.
It's great.
that's why I try to make it a relaxed environment
because a lot of people, you put them in front of a
camera. And normally, like a studio or something and
you know they become a little bit-
they freeze up basically, and what I
find is this creates a more relaxed
environment and people speak freely
and enjoy the coffee.
Great!
Thanks very much, Mark.
Thanks Again.
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