General
Compliance
We take education seriously and so does the government. This means both internally and externally we have to comply with policy, quality assurance measures and acts of Parliament.
The QMS - TPP’s Quality Management System
The QMS provides the blueprint for how the institute is run. Put simply it is a set of policy documents which state the institute’s stance on various things like filing results, making a complaint, or conducting a performance appraisal.
A number of these policies and the processes behind them relate to students so you need to be aware of them and follow them.
Early on you should ask your line manager to show you have to get into "SharePoint" the electronic platform where all policies are stored.
As an easy-to-access set of guidelines the QMS keeps all staff on the straight and narrow and maintains consistency across the institution.
NZQA and other acronyms
NZQA stands for New Zealand Qualifications Authority. This is a government-run organization which maintains quality standards across all areas of the education sector in NZ. NZQA also looks after the New Zealand Qualifications Framework on which all qualification and programmes of study sit.
Underpinning these are unit standards, or standards. These are prescriptive pieces of learning which ensure that all the students who study and assessed against them, across the country, can be relied upon to have the same depth of knowledge and capability.
If you are going to be teaching unit standards you will need more explanation on how they work. It would be best if you book a time with your line manager or an academic facilitator for some-one-one training on this.
NZQA also runs the EER (the External Evaluation and Review) of Polytechnics every four years.
This is a new process which involves polytechnics putting self assessment systems into place so they can identify what they are doing well, and what they can do better.
Moderation
Back to moderation again! NZQA externally moderates a lot of unit standards, while standard setting bodies (SSB) such as industry training organisations (ITOs) post moderate some also.
If you are teaching unit standards you need to be ready for external post moderation so you need to keep three pieces of marked material for each assessment . Photocopying the original is fine. Usually we keep an excellent effort, a marginal one which just passes, and a failure.
Put these into a filing cabinet until they are needed to be sent off by your Programme Leader.
This is a formal process, the policy and the forms to be filed in are on the QMS.
Numeracy and Literacy
The government has funded polytechnics to run a special initiatives to help students studying at levels 1- 3 to improve their writing, reading, comprehension and mathematic skills.
TPP has two people working across the organization to help tutors with this project.
If you are teaching on a programme at L1-3 one of these people will "test" your students at the start and end of their study to see if they have improved their basic numeracy and literacy skills. They will also help you "embed" methods by which you can help students improve these skills are part of the teaching.
Confidentiality
Student information is governed by the Privacy Act. Be aware that if a 20-year-old student's mother rings you to ask about the progress of their child you cannot discuss it with them without that student's permission - you cannot discuss attendance either.
Entering Marks
Marks are incredibly important – and we must get them correct.
A number of the departments at TPP use a system called A Plus+ to enter marks against student names. Ask your line manager if you should use this. The results are then exported into the student management system called Artena, and appear on the student's record of learning.
Programme Rules and Regulations
In the TPP Student Handbook which every student receives are a set of generic programme regulations. (Also attached).
These cover all the generic policies out of the Academic Statute which is part of the QMS, for example results, re sits, aegrotat passes, complaints, illness, etc.
There may also be regulations specific to your programme, please check with your line manager about these.