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Practicum

Practicum Program for VET Students 

The College employs a variety of teaching approaches with a heavy emphasis on learning through practical experience. The College Practicum program is an integral feature of the academic program. Students are able to learn both theory and practice side by side in and through the ministry departments of Hillsong Church. The program includes practical involvement in the daily ministry activities of Hillsong Church and incorporates mentoring, coaching and work placement as part of its scope.

Specialist training

To ensure quality and consistency in practicum training, all specialists must be provided with induction training prior to being assigned a student.

The Practicum induction program ensures that specialists are familiar with:

  • The purpose and focus of work placement
  • How to complete the Practicum Passport
  • How and when to complete the Specialist Feedback Form
  • How to induct students
  • What support is available to them from the Practicum Training Team.

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Children in Classrooms

Children are not permitted in classrooms as Hillsong College is set up as an adult learning environment and not suitable for children. One off occurrence requests will be considered for school-aged children upon submission to the campus Campus Dean. These type of requests will only be considered under special one off circumstances

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CRICOS Registration

CRICOS Registration

The College’s current registration with CRICOS includes:

Registration as a Registered Training Organisation to provide 3 accredited courses:

  • Certificate IV in Ministry
  • Diploma in Ministry
  • Advanced Diploma in Ministry

Approval for student numbers permitted to study.
Approval of delivery sites for CRICOS courses

 

Review and Amendments
The Compliance Manager/Academic Dean advises CRICOS of any changes to the academic program as they occur.

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Feedback

Feedback on these Policies

Feedback is formally taken:

  • From students – on their classes at the end of each term
  • From students – on the College at the end of each term (primarily via the Head Students)
  • From students – on the Executive Team and Faculty at the end of each year.

This feedback is reviewed and changes implemented where required.

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Guest Trainers & Lecturers

Guest Trainers and Lecturers

Guest trainers and lecturers should be selected and invited for their individual expertise and the unique contribution they bring to the training of students where this cannot be provided by current faculty resources. Prior approval must be granted by the relevant stream co-ordinators in accordance with budget requirements. If the person has any national or international status, this can only be at the approval of the Executive Vice President.

Guests are remumerated according to standard adjunct trainer and lecturer pay rates. Faculty or subject co-ordinators should prepare trainers files if these trainers are regular guest trainers (even annually), the normal process for payment applies.

Guests who teach in our vocational programs are required to hold the minimum Enterprise Presenter Skill Set.

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Professional Development

Professional Development

The College advocates lifelong learning and continuous improvement. This begins with the individual development of its leaders. To that end, all staff members are required to improve their professional skills and qualifications.

Support Staff

Training courses are attended or conducted internally as needed in order to equip staff for successful completion of work responsibilities and to progress to the most efficient level of operation.

Faculty

The College is committed to excellence in the delivery of training and in the development of its teaching faculty. All faculty members are required to continuously improve their professional skills and teaching qualifications in the following three areas:

  • Specialist areas of training
  • Vocational Educational Training
  • Industry Experience

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Staff Competencies

Competency of RTO Trainers and Assessors

It is the responsibility of the Academic Dean in conjunction with the Executive Deans to ensure that trainers and assessors are suitably qualified to meet AQF requirements for the courses in which they teach.

All prospective trainers and assessors whether permanent staff or contract, are required to produce a Curriculum Vitae showing current industry experience and vocational competency in the area they will be training/assessing as well as academic transcripts including the Certificate IV Training and Assessment (TAE40116) or equivalent.

Trainers will not be engaged until they have produced sufficient evidence of their qualifications as a condition of their contract.

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Validation & Moderation

Validation

The processes used to validate assessment activity in the College’s courses are:

  • Course Development Manager to meet with Subject Convenors to define the appropriate assessment process for each subject prior to delivery
  • Subject Convenors review assessments as soon as completed, recommendations are passed on to the Course Development Manager for approval, any alterations are commissioned
  • Assessors validation meeting is held annually to review all assessment processes
  • Validation happens once prior to initial delivery and then once within the 5 year registration, with 50% completed within the first 3 years.
  • Validation team to include;
    • a qualified trainer from an alternate stream
    • student’s from a higher award (including at least one ESL student)
    • an industry expert

Moderation

Moderation is our quality control process that ensures assessment decisions that are made by staff are brought into alignment so that the same decisions are applied across all assessment results, especially when there are multiple assessors within a subject or course. This process is usually completed before finalisation of the semester. Often moderation is triggered when a student if NYC but very close to Competent, then an assessor will request a moderation by another assessor to ensure competency judgements fall within the rules of evidence and principles of assessment.

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Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement

We have as a central function of our core business a continuous improvement procedure and tools that provide the structure for our strategy for continuous improvement. This procedure uses the following steps:

Information about our operations and functions are gathered through a range of available sources including:

  • Internal and external audits (as required)
  • Students – once per semester, subject or course – via on-line survey forms accessed through Collegeworx
  • Students – at the end of course using Quality Indicator Surveys.
  • Students – through ongoing focus groups chaired by key training and administration staff, as well as feedback through tutorials, workshops and informal conversations.
  • Students – Complaints, Appeals & Grievances
  • Course Development Team – validation processes, during training manual development process, and then once for each subject / unit over the five year registration.
  • Course Development Team – analysis of student assessment results (as relevant) each semester, and feedback from assessors and trainers.
  • Staff, Trainer, Assessor & trainee meetings
  • Industry – during the initial development of training and assessment material and then periodically thereafter.
  • Staff – Performance Review Form
  • Informal discussions
  • External experts & attendance at seminars, information days etc.
  • Any other method/source.

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Course Development

Course Development

The College has as one of its key goals the development and provision of high quality training and assessment, for domestic and international students, in a range of ministry fields, and at a range of levels. The development and delivery of such courses involves the following activities:

Delivery and Assessment Strategies. The framework for all courses will be articulated in a delivery and assessment strategy, that describes:

The qualifications delivered by the College, and in what specialisations (if any).

The units required to achieve each qualification

The clustering of units into stream or specialisations

The relationship between the units that make up each qualification, the subjects in which the units will be delivered and assessed, and the sequencing of such subjects.

The nominal hours for each unit, the delivery methods used, the resources required, the trainers required, the trainer: student ratio required, the assessment methods to be used.

The relationship between units, delivery methods and any work placements. Continue reading “Course Development”