The Learning Success Blog

Are you a recent school leaver?  Waiting for your results? Are you hoping for a university offer?

In my last article, How to Make Career Decisions at the End of Secondary School, I discussed a number of things Year 12 students needed to consider relating to their future.  By their “future”, I’m not talking about the rest of their lives,but I certainly am talking about the next stage of their lives – that is, the next study stage, and the working stage to which that naturally leads. 

So I’m looking at a period of time up to ten years out. 

After the HSC exams and registering preferences with your tertiary admissions centre (UAC, VTAC, QTAC etc), it’s time to take a break.  Hopefully, you have done, or are doing that. 

How do young people, school leavers, and those who have completed post-secondary school education figure out what they want to do as a career? How do they succeed in the interviews for the job they want?  And how can they learn some of the people skills to help them succeed in their workplace?

There is an interesting skill that may help. Internationally recognized facial profiling authority, Alan Stevens spoke to the Learning Capacity Podcast and discussed the course he has developed for school leavers transitioning to work. And he explains why the Pinocchio nose story may not be totally fictitious.

For nine years, Jess Leondiou has been doing what many people aspire to do: living the dream and working her passion.

Jess has a free-range global career, living and working in multiple countries in Australia, Europe, and Asia.

She is the driving force behind The Butter Collective - leading a dynamic team of independent creative designers around the world. 

Jess shared insights into her career, which is becoming a more available option for people in our digitally connected world, in an episode on The Learning Capacity Podcast.

She describes the freedom it provides her, and also the challenges, including how to find a WIFI signal on Mt Annapurna in the Himalayas.

How do you communicate complex information in a way that people unfamiliar with the subject's jargon can understand it? 

How do teams of experts from different disciplines communicate with each other? 

Dr Judy Ford, retired genetics expert and now a communications specialist, spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about ways to overcome these challenges.

She has been working with PhD students to help them navigate through their PhDs, and this includes how to communicate in writing and especially speaking.  

In the Podcast she talks about the Three Minute Thesis Competition in which students have only three minutes to communicate the ideas that are important in their PhDs.

Can teachers use students' facial features to understand them and their learning styles better?

International profiling and communication specialist, Alan Stevens, says yes they can.  Alan has developed a process he calls rapid trait profiling which enables people to make a fast personality and character assessment of others. He says large companies and organisations such as Disney Films have seen the benefits of clearer communication and understanding between people. 

Alan spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about how rapid trait profiling is being used in many areas of life including education and parenting. He also discusses learnings from Australian Aboriginal lore, and taking up free fall Skydiving at the age of 50.

Learning support teacher, Moya Gibb-Smith has used most of the well-known remedial reading programs to help her  students who were struggling to learn to read.

While she said they all had merit, there was one program that stood out for her.  "It was like doing it on steroids. It was just so much quicker, so much more effective".

Moya described her journey from a young "reluctant teacher" to a passionate remedial reading teacher in an episode on The Learning Capacity Podcast. Listen to the podcast, or read the transcript of her story, which includes how her husband  was "going a bit blue-mouldy" on the way.

Many senior secondary students around Australia are under considerable duress at this time of year. The Trials for the HSC, VCE and other State based credentials are over and students have received their results. 

It is often the case that results are not as good as the students hope.   

As a result, they sometimes feel dejected.  It can be difficult to get motivated in these circumstances, but they have little or no choice.  There is nothing they can do to change the past. 

Pressures ......

There are other pressures.  Schools, parents, peers, siblings, the media all bang on endlessly about “what course (and that invariably means what university course) are you going to do after you finish school?” 

It takes a lot of guts, curiosity, time and effort to learn a language as an adult.  

So, if you find yourself in this position, then hats off to you. Sometimes we have to learn a second language out of necessity.

For much of the non-English speaking world, that need is pretty clear. If you want to exist in the labor force just about anywhere these days, you’ll need to get comfortable with the Oxford English dictionary.

On other occasions, our desire to learn the lingo is born out of a desire to learn about the country, culture, or person we’re falling in love with.

Should we concentrate our teaching on trying to improve where students are performing badly, or focus more attention on helping them build on their existing strengths?

It shouldn't be an either /or choice. But according to positive psychology expert, Penny Nesbitt, working on a student's natural strengths will be more rewarding for both the student and their teacher.

Penny spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about the movement to positive education and how the strengths approach is being used in classrooms around the world.  She also spoke about the power to two little words:  "NOT YET".

Maybe not soon.

But it’s highly likely robots will be used to assist human teachers in the not too distant future.

That’s according to a research study by scientists from universities in USA, Japan and Europe.

The study involved a review of more than 100 published articles, which have shown robots to be effective at increasing learning outcomes.