Removing the complications and making things clear!
4Clarity Consulting Limited
4Clarity Consulting Ltd is proud to be a New Zealand business that focuses on providing clarity to business and academic learning environments.
There are so many complications in our education and business training worlds. Having access to clear and helpful information to untangle complexity and allow organisations to focus on positive results is a key goal of 4Clarity.
What, Why and How
A quick overview!
WHAT WE DO
For tertiary education providers, we offer services to assist with
Assessment design
Moderation and quality systems
Course and content design
Programme design
Consistency advice
EER External evaluative review
Monitoring of internal moderation
Monitoring of external moderation
For businesses, we work to provide learning solutions, assess learning needs, design courses, formulate competency frameworks, and establish return on investment tips for learning and HR interventions.
WHY WE DO IT
After 40 years across many countries in many roles related to education and business management, the passion to make things clear and easy to understand is my passion.
Navigating the complex and confusing compliance requirements in education and business does not need to be hard if you have clear processes, user-centred documents and a recipe for uncluttered excellence.
Having started an NZQA-approved tertiary institution alone and done every single aspect of the operations the knowledge and skills have been lived. This has included set-up, compliance, teaching, design, assessment, and all student interactions. The school, LEARNPLUS, won provider of the year from ITENZ in 2015 and was awarded Category 1 in every EER since the school began. And... after working inside NZQA for a short period, helping other schools navigate through NZQA requirements in an affordable and easy-to-follow way is something I love to do.
HOW WE DO IT
We ask lots of questions.
We listen to what you need.
We do lots of critical analysis.
We come up with clean, clear and uncluttered solutions.
We share templates and contents and discuss the “to-do’s” and “not to-do’s”.
We have been exposed to the jargonisation used inside many organisations, so we use everyday language without the complexity of NZQA or corporate jargon.
This is what you need to do –
This is how you need to do it -
WHAT WE'VE SHARED
Over the years several articles have been published and more in the works.
While the time periods may have changed, workplace learning and performance are still impacted by values, beliefs and processes inside organisations.
Managers get the behaviour they allow!
Organisations get the performance they deserve!
And... time is still a non-renewable resource!
Why
we do it
Life is for learning.
Learning is for life.
We are each still learning things every day. The important thing to do is to work together and help others learn and perform with more ease and more efficiency.
With an intense passion to make learning work and after 40 years across many countries in tertiary providers, universities, at NZQA and in corporate workplaces we have an innate need to help other organisations strive for excellence. But the important thing is to have a clear and uncluttered path that is easy to understand and even easier to follow.
Too much time and money are spent on what we call 'the wrapping paper' rather than having rich and reliable content and processes.
In the education sector in NZ, meeting NZQA compliance requirements is easy if you are set up with the right people, and the right papers, based on the principles and processes. The insights from working inside NZQA in 2022 were valuable.
We can help with every single aspect of the setup, compliance, teaching, design and assessment, moderation, monitoring, etc., and also provide you with tips, techniques and tools that promote efficiency and success.
Education should not be hard but the requirements appear like barriers and obstacles to many. We can help! We can share and help you on your
journey.
Checkout some of Helen's published articles.
Integrated Assessments - AKO Award
The Managers Role in the Transfer of Learning
Training Initiatives + Performance Objectives = Bottom Line Results
How
we do it
We will work with you face to face, by phone or by Zoom/Teams to ask lots of questions and listen to what you need – or in some cases, what you think you need.
We analyse the situation and consider the internal and external realities. We come up with clean, clear and uncluttered solutions at the same time as sharing templates and contents. Most importantly, we clearly articulate what you MUST do and what you MUST NOT do in order to achieve positive results.
Our proposals are short and sharp, clear and to the point. We spend our time on your solution not writing pages convincing you to hire us.
Our use of time is efficient and effective. We don’t talk and tantalise instead we focus on understanding and providing results.
While we respect the terminology and requirements of compliance, we break this into normal language with straightforward instructions. We know how hard it is to decipher some of the compliance requirements – we make it easy with everyday language and lots of tips and templates.
The one thing that is important is that we tell you the truth. If we feel what you are doing is not going to achieve a great result, we tell you why and offer ideas of what to do. If it is something that falls outside our area of expertise, we will tell you that and link you to suitable specialists if we know them.
Our solutions are not generic, instead, we create and grow the best solution for you with the ingredients that will work inside your context.
The main thing is we care! We are small and our clients are people we get to know and care about.
Caring and clarity go well together.
For tertiary education providers
After being an external evaluator and a monitoring and assessment evaluator for NZQA we have first-hand insights into what you need to do to succeed. Also, after sitting on panels at NZQA to review unit standards and qualifications, and from working with a plethora of adult education providers we have experience in designing compliant assessments across every field imaginable: tertiary teachers, rural professionals, nurses, funeral embalmers, mobile crane operators, first aid workers, greenhouse gas emission consultants, early childhood educators, marine officers and more!
We can assist with:
Assessment design
Moderation and quality systems
Consistency advice
EER External Evaluative Review
Monitoring of Internal Moderation
Monitoring of Moderation
National external Moderation
Assessment design – for competency and norm-referenced environments. The focus is to provide learner and assessor-friendly documents that are coincidentally highly compliant, rather than highly compliant documents that neither learners nor assessors can easily understand.
Moderation and quality systems – if your organisation needs pre or post-assessment moderation assistance we can assist with that. We currently perform moderation services in the primary, motor, dental, beauty and early childhood sectors as well as multiple tertiary providers. Additionally, we can help develop smart systems for you or help you to create an efficient and compliance process.
Course and content design – We can design learner-friendly teaching and learning resources. We can connect with industry experts or your subject matter expert (SME). It is critical to take the SME knowledge and skill and develop suites of learner-centred training with sound pedagogical strategies.
Consistency advice – Preparing for an NZQA Consistency review is another aspect providers have to manage amid the plethora of other activities they have to complete. We have some advice tips, templates and processes that can help you.
EER External Evaluative Review – Going through an NZQA EER process is not complex if you have put in place the processes and documents needed. We provide guidance, templates and support for you to meet you EER processes.
Monitoring of Internal Moderation - NZQA now performs a monitoring evaluation and review of the internal moderation process in schools. We have first-hand experience to assist you with this.
Monitoring of Moderation - NZQA also has an evaluative review of the entire moderation process of a provider. Again, with first-hand insights, we can assist you to ensure you present easy-to-follow information to evidence your compliance.
National external Moderation - The annual moderation process is another aspect with which we can assist. The new standard-setting groups and NZQA need to easily see how your assessing practices are helping to keep the bar raised in NZ education. We can help.
For businesses
Smart organisations use smart systems which rely on informed people using efficient tools. We can help to streamline some aspects related to learning and development.
We can assist with:
Determining the learning needs
Designing courses
Formulating competency frameworks
Establishing return on investment tips for Learning and HR interventions
Determine the learning needs of staff is a key component and we have done these processes for insurance companies, parliamentary services staff, retail environments and much, much more. We can work with you to determine the gaps and provide advice on the best solutions to apply.
Design courses. If you need a course designed, we can assist. Whether it is for a corporate, manufacturing, or academic setting we can create engaging learning resources. The key is to include “sticky points” that really stick in the learners' minds!
Formulate competency frameworks. We have assisted with the design and development of the competency framework for rural professionals covering every aspect of farm consulting include greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient management, etc., and we know the NZQA framework well. Where there are various levels of knowledge and skill, a competency framework can provide a road map or series of ladders for workers to pursue.
Establish return on investment processes and tips linked to learning and HR interventions. As an internationally certified ROI specialist, the process can be applied in your workplace by us, or we can show you how to set this up inside your organisation.
If you can’t measure the results, why do you make changes?
