Priority Learners Expert Forums
Welcome to the Expert Forums page for the Increasing Educational Attainment for TES Priority Learners project. This page contains information about a series of discussion forums that Ako Aotearoa is hosting as part of the Priority Learners project.
These forums are based around some recognised experts in particular aspects of tertiary education that are relevant to priority learners. These forums are intended to promote discussion and debate about how we in New Zealand can best serve the needs of priority learners, particularly through considering any insights that international experiences might have. We also hope that they will contribute to wider debates about teaching, learning, and achieving the best possible outcomes for learners.
Each expert will be speaking at one main forum, and a smaller number of focused regional meetings. Contact details for these meetings are below.
As new experts are brought into this work, we will post information and materials on this webpage. Find out how to be kept informed of new material, changes, and discussion opportunities.
If you have any questions about these forums or the work of any of these experts, please contact Nicholas Huntington at n.huntington@massey.ac.nz
Dr Bruce Vandal
Director, Postsecondary and Workforce Development Institute, Education Commission of the States, US
Bruce Vandal coordinates research and policy work as director of the Postsecondary and Workforce Development Institute at ECS. Currently, Bruce is the director of Getting Past Go, a three-year Lumina Foundation for Education project to more effectively leverage investments in remedial and developmental education to increase college attainment. He also is the co-director of the Tennessee Developmental Studies Redesign Initiative, which is a partnership with the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) to reform developmental education courses at TBR institutions funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.
Bruce has also directed projects on aligning education and workforce development policy, teacher preparation and college access. He earned his PhD in Education Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota.
Copies of the presentations given by Bruce can be found below:
Professor Ewart Keep
Deputy Director, Centre on Skills, Knowledge, and Organisational Performance (SKOPE), University of Cardiff, UK
Ewart Keep is deputy director of SKOPE and is based at Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences. His research interests include: lifelong learning policy, learning organisations, training for low paid workers, the design and management of education and training systems, employers’ attitudes towards skills and what shape these, recruitment and selection activity, how governments formulate skills policy, higher education policy and the nature of the linkages between skills and performance (broadly defined). He is currently working on the role of recruitment and selection as a source of skills and the feedback signals that employers’ patterns of recruitment send to the learner; future research priorities in the field of E&T, and how English policy makers conceive of skills policy and its linkages to other policy domains.
He is a member of the Scottish Funding Council/Skills Development Scotland joint Skills Committee, HEFCE’s Strategic Advisory Committee for Enterprise and Skills, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ Policy Expert Group, and the Scottish Government’s Skill Utilisation Leadership Group. He has provided advice and consultancy for the National Skills Task Force, DfES, DTI, DBIS, H M Treasury, the Cabinet Office, House of Commons and Scottish Parliament committees, the Welsh Employment and Skills Board, Skills Australia, and the governments of Queensland, New South Wales and New Zealand.
Copies of Ewart's presentation, and the discussion paper that forms the basis of this presentation, can be found below:
The following links to external websites contain material referenced by Professor Keep:
- What incentives to learn at the bottom end of the labour market? (Keep and James 2010)
- Review of vocational education - The Wolf Report (Wolf 2011)
Professor David Conley
Director, Centre for Educational Policy Research, University of Oregon, US
Dr. Conley is Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership in the College of Education, University of Oregon. He is the founder and director of the Center for Educational Policy Research (CEPR) at the University of Oregon, and founder and chief executive officer of the Educational Policy Improvement Center, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit educational research organization. Dr. Conley serves on numerous technical and advisory panels, consults with educational agencies nationally and internationally, and is a frequent speaker at national and regional meetings of education professionals and policymakers.
In 2003, Dr. Conley completed Standards for Success, a groundbreaking three-year research project to identify the knowledge and skills necessary for college readiness. This project, funded by the Washington, D.C.-based Association of American Universities (AAU) and The Pew Charitable Trusts, analyzed course content at a range of American research universities to develop the Knowledge and Skills for University Success standards. In 2005, Dr. Conley published his research from this project in College Knowledge: What It Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready.
Since 1996, Dr. Conley has received over $28 million in grants and contracts from federal and state governments, national education organisations, and foundations to conduct research on a range of educational policy issues. He has published the results of this research and other studies in numerous journal articles, technical reports, conference papers, book chapters, and books, including Who Governs Our Schools?, which analyzes changes in educational policy and governance structures at the federal, state, and local levels, and College Knowledge. Dr. Conley's most recent book, College and Career Ready: Helping All Students Succeed Beyond High School, which features case profiles of America's most college-ready high schools, informs policy-makers, administrators, teachers, parents, and students how they can develop a culture rooted in postsecondary success.
A copy of David's presentation can be found below:
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