Skills Education

How to cluster units strategically so that assessment becomes more authentic, efficient & commercially viable - while staying compliant.

If you hear an argument against using clustering, it’s usually centred on perceived issues linked to funding, completions or difficulty untangling progress when a student exits their course early.

On the other hand, proponents of clustering will always tell you, when done well, clustering actually delivers significant organisational benefits including:

• Reduced assessment time, assessor workload, duplication, learner fatigue, and administration processes
• Better experiences for learners who will be demonstrating integrated workplace performance
• Authentic course outputs as good clustering mirrors real work
• Better commercial outcomes via reduced costs and increased productivity and profits

Despite many RTOs thinking clustering creates more problems than it solves, the reality is that clustering isn't the problem, poor clustering practice is.

This 90-minute session explores how to cluster units strategically so that assessment becomes more authentic, efficient and commercially viable, while simultaneously maintaining compliance and improving learner outcomes.

Rather than asking, “Should we cluster?”, in this session, we’ll answer the more important questions:

“How do we cluster well? – and do it confidently and compliantly?”

Key points covered:

• Why RTOs struggle with clustering
• The business case for clustering  
• Principles for successful clustering
• The five tests you need to do before you cluster

Presented by Wendy Cato who has authored an eBook on clustering effectively and designed 3 microcredentials to upskill people in best-practice clustering techniques