Our first project, The Learner’s Journey explores how we might articulate, design, assess and accredit learning in a way which better reflects the diverse knowledge sets, skills and dispositions of students.
This work unlocks how 15-19 year olds move through compulsory schooling into ongoing learning experiences so they can make a smooth transition from school to further study and work and into a thriving adulthood as lifelong learners.
A shift in how learning is recognised strengthens and increases agency in young people and helps them to effectively navigate and access a range of pathways beyond school that are more inclusive of the needs of students disadvantaged by the current dominant systems.
Our Approach
A National Social Lab
Through a National Social Lab we have been unlocking several solutions around new metrics and a better currency for recognising learning.
We explored a trusted and well-endorsed approach to recognising learning that could stretch beyond formal completion of subjects and courses with tests and scores.
We hosted a series of online engagements to connect and learn from a wide range of people from across states and sectors. From our engagements and research to date, we have curated a body of evidence on how success is currently defined within the education system, who benefits from that definition of success and who is left behind. These engagements provided the foundation to commence our work.
Using the Social Lab method, our approach is:
Centred on young people
Grounded in technical rigour and expertise
We partnered with the Assessment Research Centre at the University of Melbourne who bring deep expertise in assessment, reporting, credentialing and warranting of learning to enable a new understanding of success metrics.
Experimental
We prototyped, tested and found ways to scale promising solutions in the real world
Collective
We brought together people from different sectors and communities including teachers, government, education and business leaders, policy makers, parents and young people to unlock shared insights and ideas
"I know (that) I know things that employers would value but I don’t know if what I know is a lot or a little."
Young person: from Recognising Learning Success For All
our focus
The problem we set out to solve
We are focussed on establishing ways of recognising valued learning that allows every 15-19 year old to demonstrate their levels of confidence and creativity, knowledge and knowhow so they can make a smooth transition from school to further study and work and into a thriving adulthood as lifelong learners.
A NEW SYSTEM OF RECOGNITION
The shift taking place
We envisage one recognition system with many pathways.
We want to see new ways to redefine learning success for young people that are trusted and understood by the community while being technically viable. At the heart of this work are the technical systems of assessments, metrics and standards that authorise valued credentials and give them social and economic currency.
The change involves deep technical knowledge to ensure that the less visible back-end of our system reflects the true-to-life aspirations and productive needs of learners, employers and educators.
Together, we are shifting how learning is recognised for 15-19yr olds so that:
- They are central to solutions as the experts in their own learning journeys
- Value is given to the holistic picture of learning that recognises both their in and out-of-school experiences
- New and better pathways are imagined, reimagined or opened to further study, work or other life paths
New solutions will be inclusive of the needs of all students, and designed particularly for those who are disadvantaged by the current dominant systems.
Download the resource
Chapter 2 - The story so far
The following download is a summary that presents the body of work around The Learner’s Journey to date - covering our first cycle of the National Social Lab – and provides some snapshots of our story of engagement from the those who have driven the work.
