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May 2020
Simon says...
Kia ora koutou
Everyone’s been pretty distracted for the last six weeks with the COVID-19 lockdown, putting in a huge effort for our learners. All that hard work is going to make a strong story for the October EER, so, thank you for all that you are doing!
We’ve also had confirmation of the final EER focus areas, so planning for the October visit can begin in earnest.
In this update I’ll share with you the make-up of those focus areas and explain what we need to do between now and October. I’ll also say a bit about the impact of COVID-19 on our goals and plans. The main message remains, however: “We’ve got this” – as long as we keep focusing on excellent teaching, academic quality and learner support, we are on track.
Ngā mihi
Simon Nash
Interim Executive Director - Ako
The confirmed focus areas are listed below and the School:
While the strategic areas were already on the list, the ‘sample’ areas are additions, as is the NZ Diploma in Sport & Recreation. Our Lead NZQA Evaluator, Peter Sherwin, advised that he was looking for more coverage across Unitec, hence the addition of samples and one further programme. This means most main areas of strategy for learners and most teaching teams are covered to some extent, but it also means we know how to plan for EER, which is good news. In advance of the October visit, we will send the NZQA panel summary information for each strategic and programme area, and for Unitec as a whole. When the panel visits, they will want to talk with teams responsible for leading and supporting each of the strategy areas, and to staff from each of the programmes and ‘sample’ areas. They’ll also want to talk to students from each of those areas, and some other stakeholders such as Student Council members, Rūnanga and Fono. |
Need more info?Email EER 2020 or send your question or suggestion to Simon Nash. |
Internal Evaluation and Review: May - June 2020
We will conduct an Internal Evaluation and Review (IER) for all the focus areas listed above, and with the ELT and Academic Board. The IER will be conducted by a team of external consultants, modelling the actual EER process. It’s our opportunity to practice for the October EER visit, and to assess our readiness. The IER will be conducted online.
If you are involved in a focus area, you’ll be invited to preparatory sessions and will receive a range of resources to help with knowing what to do in the IER.
Power BI for staff
Most academic staff and many professional staff now have access to Power BI. This is our in-house source of data on Educational Performance Indicators and is crucial for EER, as it’s the best way to keep track of data on learner outcomes. Te Korowai Kahurangi will be providing training. More on this here»
All teams should now have a confirmed takitahi and action plan that deliver to our Unitec Strategy Manaakitia te Rito. Together, these address the work we need to do for EER. As I’ve said before, we not going to be asking for a lot of additional EER-specific work; we just need to do our business-as-usual work well and focus on the best possible outcomes for our learners.
COVID-19 and the move to online learning have meant some tweaks to EER-related initiatives such as I See Me and the Learner Outreach Project, with the latter expanding significantly in recent weeks to ensure we stay in touch with all our learners.
For updates on all the work that’s underway, here is our Academic Quality Action Plan Update, also linked to the image below. This provides an overview of our response to the 13 NZQA recommendations from the 2018 EER.
You can also view here the full Academic Quality Action Plan Project Plan with details of all activities.
