Enriching the Cinderella Sector: Exploring the Potential Role of Technology in Supporting Practitioner Research in the Further Education Classroom
Candidate Number 382157
Dissertation submitted to the University of Oxford for the degree of M.Sc. Education (e-learning)
Trinity Term, 2009
Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Chapter 1 Introducing the Actors and the Play .................................................................................. 1 Purpose .......................................................................................................................................... 1 Institutional Context ...................................................................................................................... 3 Theoretical Foundation .................................................................................................................. 4 Research Questions & Rationale .................................................................................................... 5 Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 2: Connecting, Reflecting and Distributing Knowledge ........................................................ 9 Reflective Practice ........................................................................................................................ 10 Distributed Cognition Analysis ..................................................................................................... 16 Socio-Cultural Factors and Institutional Constraints.................................................................... 20 Chapter 3: Structuring a conversational exploration ....................................................................... 23 Strategy ........................................................................................................................................ 23 Methods ....................................................................................................................................... 27 Validity and Reliability .................................................................................................................. 29 Ethics ............................................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter 4: A ‘Truth’ revealed ........................................................................................................... 33 Description of Study ..................................................................................................................... 34 Collaborative Research: Perspectives and Practicalities .............................................................. 35 The Practitioners .......................................................................................................................... 35 Collaboration in Practice .............................................................................................................. 36 Challenges and Constraints .......................................................................................................... 44 Institutional socio-cultural constraints .................................................................................... 47 External Socio-Political Constraints.......................................................................................... 51 Page | ii
Chapter 5: Endings and Sequels...................................................................................................54 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 58 Books and Journals ................................................................................................................... 58 Websites ................................................................................................................................... 63 Appendix A – Transcripts.................................................................................................................. 64 Appendix B – Screenshots and documentary artefacts ................................................................. 114 Appendix C copy of Action Research Spiral.................................................................................... 119 Appendix D Copy of Interview Guides ........................................................................................... 121
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Abstract This research project is an exploratory study undertaken at a college of Further Education. It examines the potential role of a technology-augmented approach to designing and running practitioner research. It focuses on the use of collaborative reflective practice and the development of a research practicum within the FE environment, as a mechanism for enacting the government policy of professionalising the FE Sector. It explores the attitudes and responses of teaching staff and senior managers to a software environment that would enable lecturers to design, run and reflect on practitioner research projects. It is a qualitative study based on individual and group interviews. Individual interviews were held with four college lecturers from a range of backgrounds and with differing levels of experience. These interviews concentrated on the participants’ attitudes to teaching, and in particular their understanding of collaboration and reflective practice. Individual interviews were also held with the Deputy Principal and the Head of IT Support to explore the operational, cultural and external socio-political constraints on implementing new technologies within the sector. The results demonstrate a desire on the part of the participants to collaborate, reflect and develop their practice. The findings also highlight a number of constraints that can cause problems for new technology initiatives within the learning and skills sector, with problems being apparent at every level. These findings are analysed using a systems approach drawn from distributed cognitions analysis. Using a holistic approach to the theory, the technology and the operational practicalities proved to be a rich technique to guide future development effort. Conclusions regarding how to take these findings and apply them to the next stage of research at doctoral level are made.
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Chapter 1 Introducing the Actors and the Play Purpose This project is an exploration of some of the ways that professional practice in the English Further Education (FE) sector might evolve to better meet the needs of post-sixteen students. This is especially important in light of the move to compulsory education up to the age of eighteen in the UK under the provisions of the Education and Skills Act 2008. It also aims to look at a way in which teaching practice can be developed to help promote improvements in teaching standards in the sector. This is in accordance with the aims of the Foster Review and the resultant Further Education and Training Act 2007.
During the training of new teachers reflective practice forms a core part of the training. This is then intended to be carried over into the workplace. For example, all lecturers in the learning and skills sector (which includes FE college lecturers) are required to be members of the Institute for Learning and to undertake 30 hours of continuing professional development a year and also to reflect on it and explain in what ways it is being applied. After teacher training however it is difficult for lecturers to maintain their role as reflective practitioners in a meaningful way. This is because the support structures and tools are not part of the general infrastructure of a college in the way that lesson planning or attendance tracking systems are.
The research also seeks to show how the role of teacher as collaborative practitioner-researcher can be enabled and supported by technology, and why this extends the use of technology into the role of teaching and not just the delivery of subject matter. This enabling role however is not one of division of labour, where the technology makes a process more efficient or stands in for the teacher at any stage. Rather, it is the use of technology to extend and deepen the knowledge constructed during the research process, with the roles of people and tools within a research community being interdependent and the whole system being seen as a single cognitive entity. Page | 1
Pea discusses this idea of distributed intelligence in support of his proposition that distributed cognitions are a vital component in the learning ecology of an educational institution (Pea 1993). This discussion underpins the project. This is because if technology is to have a transformational role in teaching practice and not simply be an option, whose adoption or rejection is purely a matter of personal teacher preference, then a rich understanding of the ways technology can help promote what Engeström refers to as the “ horizontal widening of collective expertise by means of debating, negotiating and hybridizing different perspectives and conceptualizations” (Engeström 2000, p960) is essential.
The project draws on thinking from a number of areas including distributed cognitions analysis and reflective practice. It has a practical objective as it explores the potential use of a tool to manage the design, development, implementation and reflection on practitioner-led classroom research. One of the pillars on which the project rests is a view on the purpose of reflective practice which is based on the way it connects to, and fosters the development of, distributed intelligence. In order that the research is purposeful it is discussed in the context of lecturers building their skills in the design and development of formal formative assessment tools. This accords with current changes to best practice advice being developed by the Learning and Skills Councils and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (Website 1) who are responsible for funding and quality improvement in the sector. This is a change from judging the profession purely by the outcomes of summative external exams and many teaching staff are only just starting to get to grips with the behaviors and processes such a change requires.
The aim of this project’s analysis is to find the best form for technology to take if it is to support lecturers in self-identifying as critical learners. This will then act as the springboard for the next stage of research, in which teaching staff are enabled to take responsibility for their own Page | 2
professional development and empowered to develop their own evidence-based philosophy of teaching and learning within the sector. This would involve staff, especially newly qualified staff, in thinking about multiple approaches to their practice and testing out ideas for themselves and then sharing this with colleagues through an integrated practitioner research tool. This study will be used to inform and act as a proof of concept vehicle for further research at doctoral level.
Institutional Context The research was conducted within the general Further Education Sector. The college involved is a tertiary college that teaches students from a wide range of ages, and at various levels, from Entry level to Level 6 postgraduate courses. All teaching staff at the college are required to be members of the Institute for Learning, with the majority of staff holding a postgraduate teaching qualification. The college is part of the English FE system, where there are over 300 colleges and more than three quarters of a million students. These colleges deliver the majority of level 3 qualifications, including ‘A’ levels but also vocational courses such as National Diplomas. Participation amongst ethnic minorities is also higher than in other areas as they represent 18% of the national college population compared to 11% of the general population. Colleges teach twice the number of students from deprived backgrounds than school sixth forms and this is reflected in the fact that 68% of all students in receipt of Education Maintenance Allowance study at an FE college (figures are from the Association of Colleges, see website 5).
It might seem obvious that these colleges play a central role in the education of young people and also adults in the UK (84% of employers have used an FE college for staff training activity). There should therefore be as much attention paid to them as to other parts of the education system. It should be surprising that simply typing ‘Further Education Cinderella Sector’ into the Google search engine can produce 44,000 results that, when investigated, include statements from government ministers (e.g. Alan Johnson 2006) describing the sector as under-appreciated and underfunded with promises to end this status; editorials from various industry journals and Page | 3
numerous articles in the Times Higher Education Supplement (e.g. a 1997 article on the Kennedy report which aimed to transform FE but which was never taken forward). The sector has suffered in the past from a reputation for low quality teaching in comparison to the secondary sector, something noted in the Foster review of 2005 (Foster 2005, p100).
This is partly because in the past there was a lack of national minimal qualifications to teach. Following the passing of the Education Act 2002 and the Further Education (England) Regulations 2007 the Further Education Sector was provided with its own registration body. This is titled The Institute for Learning and the sector also now has its own professional status award of Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS). The college in which the research was carried out is relatively small, with approximately 1800 full time students. It is also in a rural location with a very large catchment area, attracting students from over 40 kilometers away. The college is however typical of FE colleges in having higher ethnic minority representation than the local population and a high proportion of students in receipt of Educational Maintenance Allowance.
Theoretical Foundation When he wrote The Reflective Practitioner Donald Schön felt that the design practicum approach offered a new way of understanding and developing practice for those working in environments that are often treated as technical functions. He describes how professional practice is often examined in terms of a positivist worldview of deterministic inputs and outputs, where the measurement and study of good practice can be achieved through a process modeled on, “instrumental problem solving made rigorous by the application of scientific theory and technique” (Schön 1991, p21). This is different to the reflective approach seen in other spheres such as art, music and architecture. His point was that the multiplicity of potential inputs and the context of the particular situation makes reflective practice a powerful tool for adjusting and improving individual professional practice in many areas outside the traditional creative studio. This improvement and increase in tacit knowledge then plays out in the form of large scale effects Page | 4
across the whole profession when this ‘know-how’ is shared and discussed in a community of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991).
In particular Schön wanted practitioners to be much more aware of their in-action reflection and how this is used to develop the tacit knowledge that he identifies as so important to skilful practice. This type of knowledge is developed through a process of overcoming disturbances as they arise, when traditional and previously successful interventions in a situation don’t work and new approaches must be attempted.
When Roy Pea was developing his ideas on how distributed intelligence can be both developed and anlaysed through a heuristic framework he made particular reference to Schön’s work in relation to the adaptation and development of new affordances of a technology. Pea understood the role of reflective activity in the cycle of continuous improvement in the successful sharing of intelligence across groups of people and artefacts. It is this synthesis of reflective practice and the distribution of intelligence across people and systems that is explored in this study. It is however done in a slightly different way, as it examines the role of the teacher as researcher in a classroom-based research community rather than as a pedagogue looking for new ways to construct subject knowledge.
Research Questions & Rationale The research questions focus on exploring the potential responses to, the benefits of and the difficulties with the suggested type of system within the FE environment. The theoretical grounding for the project is used to help frame my understanding of whether there is a role for technology to augment classroom research in the real FE classroom, in a way that extends practitioner knowledge.
Constraints on implementation are considered as these can create very long lead times for change Page | 5
and can also prevent changes that are generally seen as worthwhile from ever coming to pass. The core question that is asked is:
• How can technology be used to augment collaborative research activity in support of the reflective practice of Further Education lecturers?
And this is then examined in more detail with the following sub-questions:
•
How much do FE practitioners engage in positive ways with technology-augmented collaborative research activity in support of their role as reflective practitioners?
•
Would the use of an integrated research environment help overcome cultural, institutional and external constraints when undertaking practitioner led research in an FE College?
The main question seeks to uncover potential merits of implementing a system for the collaborative construction of practitioner-led research in an FE College. This research may be directly associated with the achievement of a learning objective. However, such a tool should not be seen as restricted to creating classroom resources. It equally applies to processes of planning, management and development of learning activity. It is a practitioner development tool rather than a teaching aid.
The second question takes the tool itself as a focal point for research, and in particular the role of collaborative activity in assessing the usefulness and viability of the approach. This aspect of the research work does not use a custom tool; this project is there to identify the possible features of such a tool not test them. In this respect the study takes core features, such as the collaborative writing that can be undertaken using a wiki and seeks to uncover how lecturing staff respond to them. It also looks at the ways in which it might help in the process of embedding research design Page | 6
and implementation as part of the general process of learning design.
The final question takes the theoretical grounding as sound and assumes some level of acceptance of the desirability of a specialist integrated software environment. This element of the research is concerned with the barriers to successful implementation of a software tool that also works towards changes to teaching practice and the Further Education curriculum. A successfully rolled out programme in a college would change the nature of learning design, collaborative working and classroom delivery. Potentially, it could also have an affect on the design of learning spaces and would certainly lead to changes in the way timetabling and other management functions are carried out. I felt it important that, rather than separating the research results about applicability and desirability from the potential conclusions with regard to practice, the data itself should be examined and critiqued in a way that is informed by the knowledge of potential constraints to implementation.
Methodology This research project is an exploratory study and the research design reflects this, being based around lecturer opinions, responses to issues associated with collaboration and management identification of structural and cultural constraints to any future implementation. There is no attempt to measure teaching effects or provide detailed analysis of a particular tool. The study design does however aim to get a sense of how different lecturers and groups of lecturers see their own role as collaborative actors. It also enabled me to look at how that might be supported and adjusted through the use of a specific tool.
As the study is concerned with gathering ideas, beliefs and in-depth opinions most of the data was gathered via individual interviews. There was also a workshop. This captured group responses to the huddle.net tool being used as a prototypical environment in the specific context of researching formal formative assessment practices. In addition, to gather a more detailed view of the Page | 7
institutional constraints under which a new system would operate, two interviews were held with senior managers.
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Chapter 2: Connecting, Reflecting and Distributing Knowledge
The research is predicated on a number of fundamental assumptions. Two major ones are the existence of distributed cognitions and the importance of their role in the learning ecology of a Further Education establishment. This is an environment where, amongst other things, androgogical considerations as well as pedagogical ones are important. It is also a place where ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) are often badly designed and implemented, poorly understood and then reluctantly adopted by staff, who are not provided with a compelling case for their use (see e.g. Robertson 2003). The Further Education landscape is a complex one involving students from many backgrounds, of different ages and with different motivations. As such it is an environment that I think can cause teaching staff many different levels of disruption in terms of what goes on in the classroom. They need a very big toolbox of coping strategies. This review looks at how reflective practice can help in the stocking of that toolbox and it adopts a distributed cognition view of learning when doing so as this fits well with the development of the skills discussed in the second set of assumptions. This second strand of assumptions is centred on the important role played by deeply-embedded reflective practice. I will argue that it is this that connects the whole-system cognitive entity view of the world that flows from the concept of distributed cognitions and the individually motivated and conscious activity associated with the object of creating, extending and adapting the affordances of a technology used in education. These assumptions are all drawn from the literature on reflective practice, distributed cognitions, collaborative learning and activity theory. As part of the argument in favour of the creation and reporting of practitioner-led research I will look at the ideas connected with the development of situated action models. This is particularly in terms of understanding the nature of people’s instinctive and flexible responses to new events. Finally, I will Page | 9
briefly touch on the part of design theory that explores the creation of social infrastructure frameworks. This is important to this piece of research as the specific context of an FE college requires a wide angle lens that takes account of specific socio-cultural factors that might be missed by the more limited view provided by distributed cognitions and reflective practice on their own. I argue that the role of a tool to support practitioner led reflective research is materially different to tools to support a teaching role. These are focussed on learners and knowledge construction. The teaching role requires well designed and constructed learning events. I argue this is made easier if lecturers are designing and carrying out small scale research projects, constantly refining practice in response to these using a specifically designed support environment. I have also undertaken a brief discussion of some of the differences between distributed cognition theory, activity theory and situated action models. Each of these concepts helps us to understand a unit of analysis that extends beyond the individual mind. However, I argue that distributed cognition, and more particularly Pea’s heuristic framework for evaluating distributed intelligence (Pea 1993), is the most suitable approach to understanding how teaching practice can be augmented through the use of a tool for the development of practitioner research and reflection.
Reflective Practice The development of reflective techniques as an aid to improving professional practice has generated a number of strands, each of which can rightly be described as reflective. The common feature of activity described as reflective practice is that it looks at what has been done and searches for reasons why it was done and how it might be done better. For example, individual reflection through the use of personal reflective journals is widespread in fields such as counselling. Writers such as Gillie Bolton (2005, p57) see the use of such journals and personal storytelling as a fundamental part of the work of those involved in dealing with other people. Such journal writing is integrated into many teacher training programs. It is also described as part of best practice in FE teaching by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (Website 1). Bolton Page | 10
views development through reflective practice as being concerned principally with increasing selfawareness, and describes the journal writer as the ‘vital interlocutor’ in a therapeutic internal conversation that is conducted by the practitioner, as writer and then interpreter of their own experiences. This is a theme developed by Boud (2001) where he describes a three stage model of reflective activity in respect of what he calls an event. For Boud an event which might be reflected on is any situation in which learning might take place. This assumption that reflection and learning are tightly coupled is helpful. Reflective activity may occur at times other than deliberately chosen ones such as in a feedback meeting. Unprompted reflection will often lead to an insight or understanding of a situation and thus something is learned from the process, even if that is not the declared intention of the reflector. Boud’s model gives space for pre-event, in-event, and post-event reflection which may best be done in the form of a journal. It is a more structured approach than the one adopted by Bolton and builds on Schön’s suggestion of reflection ‘in’ and ‘on’ action (1983) with the addition of prior planning for an event. Boud’s promotion of the journal as a tool, “for working with events and experiences in order to extract meaning from them” (2001, p9) is useful but necessarily remains tied to the notion of reflection as an essentially personal process. Boud himself sees that this might not be an adequate sketch of the reflective practice landscape and has acknowledged the role of others in the reflection process, which is composed of the actions engaged in by individuals to explore their experiences with a view to reaching new understandings, “it may take place in isolation or with others” (Boud 1985). However, for this research such a personal style of reflective practice is too narrowly focussed. This is not to dismiss such thinking, indeed a personal reflective journal as advocated by Bolton would be a useful part of the system being considered by this research. This is because it would help identify and interpret those aspects of reflection that Moon refers to when discussing why personal reflection is so important in an overarching reflective framework. She describes a number of consequent benefits to Page | 11
such activity including the development of critical thinking skills and the fostering of reflective activity in a group situation. (1999). Personal reflective activity can therefore be seen as a necessary but not a sufficient condition for improving practice. Ghaye and Ghaye (1998) discuss a four part process by which personal reflection can be integrated into a systematic approach to effective reflection on activity, where the outcome is a positive change in teaching practice. These are the four elements: •
Reflection-on-values – cultural factors influencing teaching
•
Reflection-on-practice – how teaching is actually carried out
•
Reflection-on-improvement – forward looking reflection on how to improve teaching
•
Reflection-on-context – institutional and external factors
They are treated as part of a programme of reflective engagement that, if pursued, will provide a pathway to continuous personal development for teachers. This is a useful breaking down of the purpose of reflection and provides a clear set of guidelines for practitioners on the aspects of their role that will benefit from formal consideration and evaluation. They also provide guidance to help practitioners extend personal reflection by suggesting the use of such tools as concept maps and the involvement of a critical friend to comment on journal entries. Ghaye and Ghaye also describe the connection between practitioner led research and reflective practice. Where they have a gap however is in the collaborative space and the role of group cognition and understanding in reflective activity. If practitioners are purely operating in the realm of personal research and personal learning they are separating themselves from the world in which they operate. Their attempts at sense making will always fall short because they will be purely internal responses, unenriched by the contributions of others. Schön’s observation that “When someone reflects-in-action he becomes a researcher in the practice context” (1983) is at the core of why collaborative reflective practice is such an important aid to Page | 12
developing effective classroom practice. As teaching is a highly situated activity, operating in a domain connected to but not like the everyday world, reflective practice needs to be richer in scope than has been discussed so far. The emphasis on personal development (Pollard 2002; Bolton 2005) is a weakness that is carried through into the training of new lecturers, where requirements for professional development are often treated as being largely individual. For example, the registration body for FE college lecturers is the Institute for Learning. All lecturers are required to be on the register and to log their professional development activity. The tool for doing so is called “REfLECT” and the practice of personal reflection is certainly encouraged, but the emphasis is on recording past activity and using it to demonstrate professional competence in the manner required by law (see screen shot at Appendix B). Tabachnik and Zeichner (1991) discuss this problem in the context of four different traditions of reflective practice in teaching. The academic tradition really concerns itself with how teachers transform subject knowledge into material that their students can connect with. This is a helpful but very limited application of reflection and might better be viewed as a subset of the social efficiency tradition. This places reflective activity in the context of training teachers to select and apply generic skills drawn from large scale research. It uses the teacher’s reflective skill as a filtering mechanism and can certainly be viewed as the model adopted in many teacher training programmes, where student teachers use personal reflection to see if they are applying the expected behaviours of a teacher in their own classroom. For the purposes of this study the more promising two traditions explicated by Tabachnik and Zeichner are the developmentalist and the social reconstructionist. The developmentalist approach focuses on the roles played by the actors in the education environment, especially the teachers and students. This attention to the teacher’s roles as experimenter, creative disrupter and student-centred reflector fits well with the objectives of this study and broadens the scope of reflective practice into the area of cognitive development and the increase in students’ capacity to learn. Allied to this awareness of the importance of developing the teacher’s role from pedagogue to educational mentor is Page | 13
a need for placing the classroom environment within its particular milieu and this is the purpose of the social reconstructionist approach, where socio-cultural factors that are brought into the classroom from the outside world are considered paramount. The distinctly politicised nature of this style of reflective teaching is discussed by Carr and Kemmis in the context of the role of action research in moulding a new curriculum, directed at removing perceived inequalities in the education system (Carr and Kemmis 1986). This awareness of the impact of student and teacher cultures is vital to a rounded appreciation of the different impacts a technology may have in different educational environments. This is because neither technology nor the rationale for its implementation can be separated from the socio-historical background of the participants in an educational event. Their responses to it will be guided by the cultural forces that help shape them. This does not mean the adoption of a Marxist framework grounded in historical determinism is a requirement of effective reflection, but a good understanding of social infrastructures within the classroom is certainly beneficial. In his guide on being a reflective teacher Pollard takes a similar view of reflective practice to both Ghaye and Ghaye and Tabachnik and Zeichner. He writes about the purpose of reflective teaching as being in tune with Dewey’s ideas of reflective action being socially aware, capable of rigorous analysis and capable of flexibility in application (2006). Pollard’s work has influenced the English teacher training establishment’s view of the nature and purpose of reflective practice (e.g. see website 2) and the marrying of this more social constructivist attitude with the more positivist attitude to assessment, curriculum design and quality improvement has not been an altogether happy one. Pollard also takes up the idea of reflection being a constant spiral of personal development that needs to be actively engaged with throughout a teacher’s career. Whilst his specific advice on reflective activity is often aimed at the primary school sector the approach is applicable in FE. This treatment of practice, as a continuous spiral of personal development can be viewed as growing out of Vygostsky’s ideas on the internalisation of higher psychological functions. Vygotsky describes Page | 14
how these higher functions, which by definition include the capacity for reflection (Clark 2001), are transformed through a number of iterations until they are part of the inner landscape of the individual. This description tells us a lot about the process of reflection and the ways in which for it to work it must be rooted in contact with others, “the transformation of an interpersonal process into an intrapersonal one is the result of a long series of developmental events” (1978). Vygotsky’s point here is that internalisation is the outcome of interacting with the outside world and adapting one’s personal understanding of the meaning of signs based on that interaction. For the reflective practitioner this means that if Vygotsky is right and “all the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals” (1978, p56) then other actors in a situation must be taken into account when looking at developing new processes, such as a different technique for explaining subject content. It is not sufficient to simply reflect on individual activity and hope to succeed in either internalising an understanding of a situation or developing new cognitions in others. Indeed, when discussing the role of play (and reflective activity as part of practitioner-led research can be described in the language of play, bounded as it is by inherent rules and the imaginative experimentation of the participants) Vygotsky emphasises the spiral nature of personal development that takes place (1978). This is a common theme adopted across much of the literature on learning theory, not just teacher training materials such as Pollard’s (see e.g. Cole, Resnick et al. 1991; Salomon, Perkins et al. 1991). This acceptance of the idea of a spiral of iterative improvement implies a process of reflective activity. Having shown that reflective practice can be done in a collaborative, socially engaged manner it is necessary to be clearer on what is meant in this study by the term ‘practice’. Schön does a very good job of explaining the limitations inherent in a view of professional activity that accepts Glazer’s distinction between major and minor professions (1983). By showing why certain types of professional practice might struggle to apply the systematic scientific professional knowledge that is a core part of the role of the major professions Schön gives a clear view as to why even these have run Page | 15
into the problems that Glazer only associates with the minor ones. For Glazer, minor professions such as teaching suffer from ambiguous ends and unstable institutional contexts. Schön makes a very persuasive case that what separates a profession from other work functions is not an ability to apply a rigid scientific solution but to actually use the skill and judgement acquired over a long time to problematise and manage dynamic situations which are always unique for one reason or another. Therefore, for Schön the role of the professional practitioner is not to be the efficient implementer of standardised solutions based on large scale research results with a sure and certain knowledge of what the outcome will be but rather to be more of an orchestra conductor; a skilled craftsperson able to take well understood components and combine them in unique ways, understanding the purpose of each but always prepared to be flexible and adjust the process in tune with the ongoing situation. This insight is not new, it has been understood by performing artists and the creative industries for many years, but Schön shows how this attitude carries over into the world of professional practice not just artistic practice.
Distributed Cognition Analysis If teachers in the FE sector are reflective in their approach to teaching and are doing so in a collaborative fashion then they need a way to understand the learning that’s going on in the classroom. There are essentially two main ways of understanding cognition, the mechanism by which learning occurs. Traditionally it has been seen as being an individual activity. This is what traditional cognitive psychology has been based on. However cognition could be viewed as something that happens both individually and in groups and even in groups using tools. The existence of these distributed cognitions is arguable (see e.g. Button 2008) . Although many writers in the field accept that a bridge between the intra-psychical worlds of traditional cognitive science and the examination of group behaviour that is normally seen as anthropological study is necessary (e.g. Lave 1988; Stahl 2006), it is not obvious that the study of distributed cognition is the right approach. Partly this is because distributed cognition itself doesn’t havea universally accepted definition. Also, the Page | 16
acceptance of distributed cognitions requires the foregrounding of a system-centric interpretation of the interactions between people and mediating tools. However, there are other ways to view the ground between the individual mind and the study of group behaviour; what can be thought of as Wittgenstein’s ‘social mind’, individual but not complete without the socio-cultural system within which it lives, a symbiotic relationship which cannot sensibly be decomposed into the purely individual. One such way is traditional cognitive science itself; there is nothing to prevent the individual cognitions of a group being examined together, and this is the position adopted by Button. Another way is to focus on the motivations and desires of the participants by making this the main topic of study, as in Activity Theory (Cole and Engeström 1993). There is also another, and perhaps more serious, barrier to distributed cognitions not really being a middle ground between traditional individual studies in psychology and the group studies undertaken in anthropology; the cognitive system itself. Normally cognition is seen as a product of individual human effort, possibly supported by other people and objects. This is a position well defined and is well argued by both traditional psychology and others who , like distributed cognitionists see the merit of a unit of analysis that extends beyond the individual; Activity theorists for example (Nardi 1996) . It has been claimed that for a distributed cognitionist the cognitive system is neither the individual nor the community to which he or she belongs but is always one where the whole system is involved in the cognition and that all cognition is distributed (Nardi 1996). This is not something distributed cognition theorists would accept as being their view but it does lead to misunderstandings about the role of distributed cognition in analysing behaviour, even between distributed cognitions researchers. The difference between distributed cognition theorists can be illustrated by the disagreement between Salomon and Pea on the role of the individual in understanding activity. For Salomon, without individual cognition there can be no meaningful distribution. The idea here is that although the product of individual mental processes (including the artefacts produced as part of reflective activity) Page | 17
might be jointly developed, and may well not exist without that joint construction, the cognitive residue that is left within the individual mind, once the rest of the cognitive system is taken away, is the important thing. The relationship between the individual, other individuals and the tools that might be used is fundamental for the construction of new knowledge, but for Salomon the individual’s mental process always takes precedence. He makes a strong argument to suggest that distribution of cognition occurs but not always and everywhere. Where cognition is distributed across both people and technology the cognitive residue is left partially as a result of the effects “of” technology and Salomon argues this is more useful than the effects “with” technology that he suggests is the implication of Roy Peas theory of distributed intelligence (Salomon 1993). Pea says that cognition happens in the mind but intelligence is held not only by individuals but within objects and across the whole cognitive system being analysed (see e.g Pea 2004). For Pea then, the cognitivist claim made by Salomon that scaffolding is removed and the cognitive residue left behind is the most valuable area to study is rejected. Pea says this on the grounds that the scaffolding is not removed. It is used as the basis for building further knowledge, and is a core part of the mechanism by which distributed cognition enables people to operate within zones of proximal development. For this research the particular view of distributed cognitions developed by Pea (1993) has been used, but in the area of classroom research, as opposed to the more regularly studied space of classroom practice. Pea’s view assists our understanding of the ways that a traditional cognitive-science view of intelligence struggles to explain those aspects of knowledge construction that are not the result of intra-psychical processes but system-wide ones. The importance of this aspect of the exploratory study relates to the responses to the idea of the tool. Any such tool constructed with Pea’s framework in mind must aim to support the expansion of intelligence in classroom research practice, not just the reallocation of tasks between teacher and tool. This means the acceptance of not only the concept of distributed cognitions but also the particular nature of those, where cognition is in the head but intelligence is distributed. Therefore, addressing this question involves making a case that acceptance of the existence of such distributed intelligence is a valid standpoint. It also requires a clear definition Page | 18
of what is meant by division of labour in this context and why this is an unsatisfactory approach to tool design for this purpose and why the expansive nature of any tool is so important to its likely success in real-world settings. Pea’s understanding of distributed intelligence is treated by this research as a valid basis for the evaluation of not only the affordances of a tool, or the exploration of examples of distributed intelligence but as the foundation for an approach to evaluating small scale practitioner led research projects, which are grounded in developing teachers’ skills as practitioners within a design practicum as described by Schön . The project therefore assumes that the examination of affordances (including the search for new ones) and the recognising of objectives (or desires as Pea calls them) helps shape the tool that best fits in with the practical needs of individual teachers . This design process follows from collaborative reflective activity, within a practitioner research team, with the results of overcoming the disruptions caused by such reflection being used to inform design decisions for new artefacts. These could be learning objects, planning documents, evaluative/assessment instruments or other artefacts that result from the satisfaction of one of the desires described by Pea. The approach takes the process of using reflective practice and the exploration of how distributed cognitions affect behaviour into the development of teaching practice. This extends the use of such techniques from the more usual concentration on creating generic learning objects and generalised technology augmentations of classroom practice. An advantage of this approach is the way it seeks to enhance the traditional understanding of technology being used to improve the division of labour within the classroom. This is because rather than seeing the technology as something to which the teacher offloads certain tasks in the pursuit of efficiency the role of the technology is to increase the capacity for learning. It does so by supporting the distribution of intelligence in a reciprocally deterministic fashion so that, as collective reflection takes place and practice is improved, the tools available within the classroom for knowledge construction are enhanced. The result is that the balance of the teacher’s role shifts
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towards more use of mentoring and facilitating and less use of highly directive and inefficient “chalk and talk” techniques.
Socio-Cultural Factors and Institutional Constraints Collaborative reflection then is the basic approach and evaluation of progress in improving practice is grounded in distributed cognition analysis. The context within which these are applied is the third strand which needs to be considered. This is because without the socio-cultural context it is not clear to what extent the approach has been successful, and more importantly why it has been successful. There is a need to identify the situations and types of FE ecology within which the approach taken by the study works. This is because the one of the basic assumptions of the research is that individual institutions and individual groups of lecturers are better placed to understand the detail of the learning ecology and will know better what type of research activity they might benefit from than a standardised national FE approach is capable of. As there is a focus on iterative development and as such an evolutionary lifecycle approach is part of the design based research space within which a lot of distributed cognitions analysis is undertaken (see e.g. Brown, Ash et al. 1993; Scardamalia and Bereiter 1994). the understanding of social and cultural factors for this project is drawn from the design based research field and more specifically the work done on social infrastructure frameworks and their affect on research design. When Bielaczyc states, “when carrying out design research involving technology-based tools, it is critical to extend the design process beyond the tool itself to encompass a broader range of factors such as the classroom social structures” (2006, p302) she is trying to emphasise the difference between the design research approach and the randomised control trials that produce a clear idea of what might be ‘best practice’. Her point is not that other traditions ignore the context of learning but more that they are simply unable to develop a deep understanding of the exact reasons why something might work not just whether, under ideal conditions it does work.
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By having this awareness at the heart of design she is able to provide ideas for the key variables that might need to be considered if a deep understanding is to be obtained. This therefore fits very well with a tool set predicated on practitioners carrying out research and seeking to use the results of that to develop improved classroom practice. Tabak explains the importance of context in research into technology augmented teaching and learning practices and makes the point that, ”when design and intervention are central to the research process how we conceive of the notion of context is problematized and can facilitate or impede our ability to construct rich and veridical accounts of learning in naturalistic settings” (2004, p225). This is well argued and the description of what Design Based Research means in the classroom provides a clear reason for adoption of the general approach within this study, “The knowledge produced through the empirical component of designbased research methods typically includes a description of how learning unfolds through the day-today interactions of classroom life” (ibid, p226). This emphasis on context within a research tradition that seeks to answer questions of “how” and “why” as well as “what” is a good pointer to the way that reflective practice in research both designed and undertaken by practitioners on an institutional rather than a large scale can benefit from the underlying theory being developed for major research projects. Where Bielaczyc is so helpful for practitioner research is provide a framework for understanding what might be the critical contextual variables in design and the effects they may have on an intervention. Bielazcyc provides 4 dimensions of understanding through which the role of social infrastructure can be evaluated. These dimensions of cultural beliefs; practices; socio-techno-spatial relations and external relations fit well with Ghaye and Ghaye’s 4 part reflective process and provide a good basis for both the design of reflective activity and its evaluation.
This review of a reflective approach grounded in collaborative effort, evaluated against the framework for measuring the efficacy of distributed cognitions developed by Pea and based on an understanding of intervention design drawn from the context-aware approach used in design based research will act as the framework around which the teacher responses to the system being proposed will be viewed. Page | 21
This will help identify whether small scale research that develops practice within an institution but which takes cognisance of and informs larger scale research efforts so that specific ecologies of learning are better understood has merit. It will also provide information on whether practitioners are better able to produce evidence based learning design that is well adapted to their own teaching environment. Such an approach would support the conclusions of Preston et al in their re-examination of the National Initiative to train teachers in the maintained sector (though not the FE sector) in the appropriate techniques for using ICT in the classroom. They state that the study “supports an ecological view of the diffusion of ICT innovations in education and recommends that ICT teacher training be designed to support evolution of each teacher's classroom, school and region� (Davis, Preston et al. 2009).
More specifically it would help lecturers in the learning and Skills sector, where the curriculum is, to a large extent, developed within the institution rather than nationally. The idea underlying the research therefore lends itself to a process similar to what Bandura refers to as reciprocal determinism (Bandura 1978) in which the practitioner can help shape their world through an evolving understanding of their own practice and the socio- cultural environment in which it occurs. It was because of this particular way of understanding the idea that the research methods and the questions to be addressed at this stage emerged.
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Chapter 3: Structuring a conversational exploration Strategy As an exploratory research project that is intended to identify and map out terrain for deeper study I felt the adoption of a qualitative research strategy was the most appropriate. This is because a more quantitative approach would require a much larger sample than was available if the findings were going to be reliable. However, more than this, ‘quantitative’ also implies deductive reasoning with a hypothesis that needs testing. Quantitative approaches also suggest an ontological and epistemological stance where an objective reality is an accepted feature of the research process (Bryman 2008, p22). For this particular project there is by definition no hypothesis to be tested, as it is an examination of potential rather than a measurement of a variable’s effects.
Also, the work is grounded in a theory of social learning that is difficult to reconcile with the idea of a universally-applicable objective reality which underpins a lot of quantitative strategies. Rather, this work accepts a messy and multi-faceted reality as being more in tune with the real-world experience of educators than the idealised educational environment that is implied by a fixed research design. In fact, this study is predicated on the idea that activity is situated, certainly to the extent that classroom environments are unique. This uniqueness is not just between institutions or even individual teaching staff but across cohorts and even temporally within a particular subject group, and thus not automatically responsive to generalised solutions.
I felt that because of this the application of theory should also be highly contextualised. Even if I reject some of the more unlikely tenets of situated action models, such as the idea that activity cannot be planned but will always emerge from the situation at hand (see e.g. Lave 1988) I do believe there is a complementarity between research practices that require reflection and seek to engender changes in practice and units of analysis that range across artefacts, people and the settings in which they interact. This guided my thinking in designing the research. I wanted to capture both the story of what Page | 23
was happening and an understanding of why it was happening. I felt the ‘what’ question could be understood through studying the potential of the systemic cognitive entity as described in the distributed cognitions literature. For the ‘why’ question though I wanted to keep in mind what Lave writes about learning as a social, collective phenomenon rather than an individual, psychological one (1996). By approaching my research from this angle I thought it would enable me to gain a deeper understanding of what academic staff would be motivated by in a technology augmented research environment. In addition to this, I wanted to ensure I didn’t focus just on the mechanics of using a tool or finding out the ways in which academic staff might see it being used in their own work. I needed the research strategy to help me develop a better awareness of the social infrastructures within the academic milieu; the institutional setting and between the institution and the external world. If this was successful I thought the current research was more likely to have some long-run impact on future work in this area, especially in terms of understanding constraints on implementation and use and the difficulties that would arise in getting the tool and the concomitant changes in practice to make a positive difference to what actually happens in the classroom.
Having settled on a qualitative approach for pragmatic reasons, and also because of the difficulty that a fixed design has in, “captur[ing] the subtleties and complexities of individual human behaviour” (Robson 2008, p98) I needed a research design in which I could manage the problem of my role as participant as well as researcher. Working in the interpretative tradition seemed to offer what I wanted, which was in tune with Edwards’ observation that, “Responsible interpretative research is therefore not necessarily problem solving research. But it can be very good at shedding light on the problem, teasing out the complexities and pointing out how it might be tackled by practitioners” (Edwards 2002, p6).
As a project whose motivational force is a desire to discover mechanisms by which practitioners might be enabled to participate in their own development I felt the project should operate within the spirit of the action research tradition. The Action research strategy was first described by Kurt Lewin Page | 24
in 1946 and developed further in the field of education by Lawrence Stenhouse who was keen for teachers to participate in developing their own practice through research (Stenhouse 1975) . A popular definition of the action research strategy was provided by Kemmis and Carr, who describe it as, “selfreflective enquiry undertaken by participants... in order to improve the rationality and justice of a) their own social or educational practices b) their understanding of these practices and c) the situations (and institutions) in which these are carried out” (Carr and Kemmis 1986)
The term ‘participatory action research’ as used by Kemmis and Wilkinson describes the aim of such research as being an attempt to, “help people investigate and change their social and educational realities by changing some of the practices which constitute their lived realities” (1998, p22) . Whilst for my purposes this use of language, which resonates with the teacher-as-political-activist tone of much of the action research literature, is somewhat overblown the pragmatic adoption of some of the features of the spiral of action research activity (Carr and Kemmis 1986) seemed a useful tactic (see Appendix C).
The strategy of using an embedded practitioner-researcher for this project was not without risk. The ethical issues that it might give rise to are discussed later but there are other, even more fundamental problems. Action research can be dismissed as nothing more than ‘professional development’ and has been criticised for not being research in the true sense of the word, laden as it is with an inevitable researcher-bias. For some, the lack of generalisability discredits the entire concept of having qualitative practitioner-led research. As Hammersley states, it can be, ““difficult to see how the boundary between research and practice would be maintained” (Hammersley 2005, p12)
Before even considering the reliability and validity issues therefore this one major potential pitfall had to be addressed. I decided to do this by identifying a way in which my role as participant might be beneficial. Bryman describes a situation where respondents to a survey exhibited ‘procedural Page | 25
compliance’ but without any buy-in or commitment to to the results obtained (Bryman 2008, p390) . This ‘procedural compliance’ problem is something that David Hargreaves alluded to in his controversial Teacher Training Agency Lecture where he described most educational research as irrelevant to practitioners, who soon found that following teacher training there was little need to engage with the research community (Hargreaves 1996). Most damningly he also claimed that as a result of not being practitioner-led educational research activity succeds in, “'achieving neither prestige from the social scientists ... nor gratitude from classroom teachers”.
Despite the risks attached to being a practitioner researcher I felt there was justification for this project to try and overcome some of the resistance to a research presence in the staffroom. It is this resistance which gives rise to Bryman’s ‘procedural compliance’ problem. By taking advantage of the particular circumstances; that is to say, where the researcher is known and trusted as a fellow practitioner.
I did however want to make sure that the most important thing in educational research, trustworthiness, with its “concern about the strength of warrants for the relation between the research process and its representation of the world” (Furlong and Oancea 2004, p12) was central to the design. I therefore selected methods which I felt would achieve this within the context of the aims of the research. Being aware of the risks attached to my selection of research strategy I knew it would be important to strengthen the reliability and validity of the findings as much as possible and to operate within a well explicated ethical environment.
Having decided on a purely qualitative approach with the researcher as a participant actor I also wanted to ensure I had a proper understanding of the limits this might place on the conclusions to be drawn. I will therefore discuss the methods adopted, the mechanisms for ensuring reliability and validity and the ethical issues that were considered before moving on to the analysis of the data. Page | 26
Methods The methods I chose to support my strategy were in part driven by the research questions I have posed. There were other drivers for the selection of methods, not least of which were the numerous constraints placed on research activity in a working educational institution, especially those related to access and timing.
The methods I used were principally the individual semi-structured interview and a workshop. I will start with the interview, which is a chameleon-like research technique. It happily adapts itself to fit within a range of research methodologies, from the highly quantitative to the most interpretive of studies. However, whatever the context of use it always succeeds in retaining its familiar shape, that of a conversation with a purpose (Kvale 1996).
When deciding the type of interview best suited to my study I found Kvale’s ‘miner’ and ‘ traveller’ metaphors useful and will use them to illustrate my reasoning. This will also provide an opportunity to discuss some of the weaknesses inherent to interviewing which can be seen in some of the results obtained during this project. A key issue I found is that an interview is always a deliberate construction controlled by the interviewer rather than an objective recording of events (though the nature of objectivity also needs to be considered) . As Kvale reminds us, “an interview is not a conversation between equal partners” (Kvale 1996, p5). This tension between the interlocutors’ roles can make the resulting data suspect and these difficulties relating to reliability and validity of qualitative interviews will be examined to reach a conclusion on the worth of the in-depth interview as the core technique in my research, particularly in regard to objectivity. There are questions over this because I had a relatively senior role within the institution being studied, over and above that of researcher.
Trying to ensure objectivity in the interviews and obtaining people’s genuine opinions, not just the safe views that might be expressed was a key concern. I could have used a structured interview where Page | 27
all the participants are asked the same questions from which is possible to generate some directly comparable data. However in many cases the use of a structured interview is a redundant exercise, as similar results may be obtained more easily (and cheaply) with the use of a survey instrument. However this method did not fit with the aims of this project or the sample size available and so it was rejected as part of the design.
I then looked at more free-format styles of purposeful interview. Kvale provides a good guide to these types of interview and his reasons for wanting to concentrate on this more in-depth approach are both explicable and ones for which I found I had sympathy. In particular what has been referred to as the positivist hegemony (see e.g. Kincheloe and Tobin 2009, p513) makes it difficult for those wishing to develop a deep understanding of a situation to get listened to. One of the reasons for this and a major objection to the use of interview styles other than the highly structured is that the findings are not generalisable. Beyond the superficially flippant retort, “why generalise?� (Kvale 1994) Kvale reminds us that in-depth study of a few subjects can actually lead to generalisable results through the generation of theory.
I knew that from this study any claims of generalisability would be impossible to sustain; the small number of participants and the role I had as researcher within my own institution were just two barriers that would make any such claim meaningless. However, my intention was not to generalise from these interviews but to help build a cumulative corpus of knowledge about the way a particular specialist technology might influence teaching practice within an FE College. For this reason, although these particular interviews might not provide generalisable results they would provide a lot of base data from which future interviews might be developed and from which generalisable themes, if not actual practices might emerge.
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Semi structured and in-depth interviews are a core part of the qualitative research armoury, but are subject , amongst other things, to the ten objections examined by Kvale (1994). None of those criticisms however can shake off the fact that more information and a deeper understanding of an issue can arise during a ‘professional conversation’ interview than is possible within even a correctly designed and implemented structured interview. I therefore felt a set of semi-structured interviews and a group interview with participants selected to provide access to a range of views would provide me with the data I was looking for.
Validity and Reliability As has been stated already, the core requirement of the findings of a research project is that they be trustworthy. This does not mean that they are faultless or unarguable but that the way in which they have been drawn up is well explicated and the way they have been presented is open to scrutiny and does not seek to make claims beyond what the data allows.
When deciding how to approach this problem of ensuring valid reliable data from a qualitative study that lacked the straightforwardness of measurement that is a feature of much quantitative work I decided that what Seale refers to as ‘methodological awareness’ (Seale 1999, cited in Silverman 2005) was the key, or as Silverman puts it, “unless you can show your audience the procedures you used to ensure that your methods were reliable and your conclusions valid there is little point in aiming to complete a research dissertation” (2005, p209). I decided therefore to adopt the approach suggested by Lincoln and Guba (1985) in which trustworthiness is constructed from demonstrating validity of research efforts in language suited to the methods used, rather than trying to fit traditional scientific formulations of validity onto an interpretative data set.
I will explain each element of the processes I undertook to ensure that the findings of the research were credible and then move on to explaining the structure of the study and analysing the findings from it. Page | 29
The first thing I needed to ensure was the credibility of my findings, which is similar to the quantitative notion of internal validity. This is so that the ‘truth’ of the findings presented by the study is a fair reflection of the view of reality as seen by the participants and does not distort their views. I built three ways of doing this into my study design. Firstly, engagement in the field, then respondent validation and finally, triangulation of results. Engagement in the field was straightforward and was one of the benefits of being a participant researcher. The interviewees and workshop attendees knew me from my work within the college under study and I was able to understand very well the particular institutional culture within which I was researching. In order to ensure I was not falsely attributing views to participants I undertook to provide them with copies of interview transcripts. I felt this would be an effective way to help ensure congruence between my findings and the views of the participants. Most difficult of all was the triangulation of results but, it is, “the best way to elicit the various and divergent constructions of reality that exist within the context of a study” (Erlandson, Harris et al. 1993, p31). I wasn’t completely certain prior to the research how I would do this effectively, as to triangulate properly you need to look at exactly the same phenomenon from different angles. When I came to analyse my data I did a comparison of the research themes between each lecturer interviewed. I also obtained group responses to those themes in the workshop which I ran and also compared the views of lecturers against those of senior managers in the college on the issues that were common to both types of interview. As I had some online artefacts, wiki entries and planning documents I also used these to help confirm my understanding of the situation and by using the research themes that emerged from the data I managed a certain level of credible triangulation. The transferability (or external validity) of this research is essential if the pilot study is to have any value for my (and others’) future research efforts. Whilst not directly replicable because of the different contexts in which the tool and the conceptual model might be used it is still important to have an idea of the ways in which the findings are more widely applicable. As any possible transfer of characteristics cannot be easily listed I decided to use the concept of a ‘thick description’ to allow Page | 30
others, including myself in future work to find out in great detail about the intricate but somewhat tangled skein of relationships and understandings that occurred during the project. This should allow others to both judge what happened in this case but also to find connections to their own study and to develop ‘working hypotheses’ from the data as to what benefits might accrue from the approach and how they might best be accessed. As part of this effort to provide as much detail as possible I also deliberately selected participants to obtain a good spread of knowledge and experience and did not rely on random sampling. This meant that with a small sample I managed to cover a range of types of lecturer and also selected senior managers with a direct responsibility for the development of teaching practice and the use of technology in the classroom.
Reliability is a concept with a clear meaning for quantitative researchers, as it is one of the building blocks of the scientific method; it tests whether a study is repeatable. The repetition provides support for a study’s methodology as it implies stability in the variable being measured and allows for the open questioning of results, or dependability. To achieve this in my study I decided I would include an audit trail so it would be possible for future studies to be compared and for variances between outcomes to be explicated as products of changes in context or “reality shifts” (Erlandson, Harris et al. 1993, p34). This audit trail includes print outs of documents, screen shots of the tool and its use, transcripts of interviews and copies of contemporaneous notes, emails and other supporting evidence (See Appendices A and B).
Ethics The ethical stance for this project was guided by the requirements of the CUREC (Central University Research Ethics Committee). This was taken account of when planning the project, with approval being obtained prior to any work being carried out. Although the work was carried out in an educational setting no students were involved and therefore the participants were all adult volunteers who were given detailed information prior to signing a consent form. Most participants were members Page | 31
of academic staff but two of them were senior managers with no teaching responsibilities. All of them however were aware and agreed to the interviews and where relevant the workshops in which they participated. This aspect of the ethical dimension of the research was well understood, easy to navigate and uncontroversial. In accordance with the CUREC requirement and good ethical practice as detailed in the BERA (British Educational Research Association) 2004 Revised Ethical Guidelines (Website 3) When designing the study however I was aware of a more complex ethical problem, interviews with members of staff, when I was in a position of authority (Head of Department) within the institution. Although participants were all volunteers I knew it would be important to be sure that they were genuine volunteers and also that their participation was completely open and that they could be confident of the anonymity of their views. It was also important that I was not using their participation for any purpose beyond the scope of the research project. By being as transparent as possible I felt it would be clear I had always tried to behave in a responsible manner and had never sought to use my position within the college to influence people’s responses. I was aware however that some degree of power imbalance existed simply as a result of the circumstances, but felt this would be true of any purely qualitative research to some extent and that it was not a problem provided it was openly acknowledged.
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Chapter 4: A ‘Truth’ revealed
During research I found myself agreeing with Miles and Huberman’s observation that, “The core requisites for qualitative analysis seem to be a little creativity, systematic doggedness, some good conceptual sensibilities, and cognitive flexibility - the capacity to rapidly undo your way of construction or transforming data and try another, more promising track.” (Huberman and Miles 2002, p394). I will use this discussion of the findings to explain what I did and why and also to explore what the data told me in terms of answering the research questions I have posed. I have already explained that the methods used were semi structured interviews and a workshop. I will begin the discussion therefore with a description of the participants and my rationale for selecting them. I will then explain the way the research was carried out and then move on to discuss the findings gathered from the data. I will incorporate into this a description of the ways the data were analysed to achieve those findings. I will start off by talking about the lecturers’ understandings, beliefs and ideas and discuss what this means in terms of answering research question two1 . I will then examine the constraints on technology related changes to practice within a college and discuss how this addresses research question three2 and this will provide the lens through which the main research question will be answered. Following this, conclusions on the potential benefits and the mechanisms by which barriers to their realisation might be overcome will be drawn and recommendations on how future research might be structured will be made.
1
How much do FE practitioners engage in positive ways with technology-augmented collaborative research activity in support of their role as reflective practitioners? 2
Would the use of an integrated research environment help overcome cultural, institutional and external constraints when undertaking practitioner led research in an FE College? Page | 33
Description of Study The interviews took place at a tertiary college, a type of Further Education College that encompasses both sixth form, vocational and adult education. The college is referred to in this study as ‘Stretchford’ and is situated in a mid-size market town within a generally affluent rural area. The participants in the study were all volunteers; they were selected on the basis of either their level of experience and an expressed interest in developing their own practice (lecturers) or being interested in evidence-based support for changes to teaching and learning policy within the college (senior managers). Four members of academic staff were chosen for the individual one hour in-depth interviews. All of these lecturers were experienced users of technology in their work. This was because some familiarity with using cloud-based3 software environments was felt to be important if the research was going to be focussed on responses to such a tool. It also helped in the workshop, where participants took part in forward-looking reflection on how a specialist version of the tool might look. During the workshop a proxy environment (“huddle.net” see Website 4), for managing activity was explained and then used. The aim was to foster creative thinking about how lecturers might investigate teaching practice to examine the effects of formative assessment activity on students. This selection of formative assessment as a hook on which to hang the use of huddle.net was driven by its familiarity as a concept and the usefulness to practitioners of getting to understand how this teaching tactic might be applied in real classrooms. The role of formative assessment in the internal inspection and quality system of the college is being prioritised as part of a policy decision to provide improved individual support as desired by national policy makers and the OFSTED Common Inspection Framework (OFSTED 2009, e.g. p6). This provided a clear motivating factor for the five workshop participants.
3
Cloud-based refers to computer software that is stored and used over the internet, rather than being kept on a user’s computer. Examples include Google Docs and huddle.net
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Collaborative Research: Perspectives and Practicalities The interviews, both individual and group were guided by a set of questions aimed at exploring the understanding of collaboration and reflection amongst practicing teaching staff. This area of discussion was chosen as it directly links to the theory underlying this research; that collaborative reflection on practitioner research, assisted by technology, can improve teaching and learning in a college. The interviews were analysed broadly in accordance with the process described by Miles and Huberman (1994). This reduced the amount of data and coding it helped organise it into the themes I wished to study. It did so by providing labels with which answers could be tagged and narrowed the interview transcripts into “chunks of interest”. I therefore used my interview guide as a tool from which the codes could be developed. From practitioners I wanted to know whether they felt collaboration was an effective work practice for teaching staff; their opinions and understandings of reflective practice and their views on the use of technology to produce their own research drawing on both collaboration and reflective techniques.
The Practitioners Academic staff were selected for individual interview on the basis of wanting to ensure a spread of the levels and types of experience in teaching that exist at the college. The individual interviewees with their pen names are shown below: Pen Name
Years of Teaching Experience
Background
Gemma
Less than 2 years teaching at GCSE level - currently studying for PGDE
Qualified Academic Support Worker with 3 years experience of supporting students with particular educational needs, with particular experience of Autistic spectrum disorders
Toby
Less than 2 years teaching A Levels – Currently studying for PGDE
Working in a consultancy firm in the private sector
Mark
More than five years teaching a range of A Levels and
Spent some years teaching in a traditional 6th Form environment prior to joining Page | 35
Manjit
vocational qualifications
Stretchford College
More than 15 years mostly teaching vocational courses but also some Higher Education work at two different universities
Has taught in a range of environments in the Learning and Skills Sector; including Young Offender Institutes, Adult Prisons and FE colleges,
Each lecturer was interviewed individually over the period 17 to 29 June 2009. They were all interviewed using the same interview guide4. However the interviews themselves explored slightly different areas where the interviewees were more responsive and knowledgeable and which I, as the interviewer, felt were of interest to my study.
Collaboration in Practice All the interviewees saw collaboration within teaching as necessary and desirable but there was an awareness that not all teaching staff felt that way. Mark described an attitude he had seen where teaching is thought of as, “an intensely personal activity, where you go into the classroom, shut the door and how you do it is your business... that’s certainly something that attracts a lot of people into the profession.” Even though they all had ideas as to why collaboration was extremely difficult to achieve they all thought it was worth the effort despite knowing some of their colleagues might be less keen. For example, when Manjit said that, “I've never really felt lonely in teaching - I've always felt it is very important to be part of a team from the point of view of integrating the student and engaging the student sometimes it's important you do that with fellow members of your teaching team.” He was expressing a common feeling amongst the interviewees. The purpose of collaboration as described by Manjit is also interesting. He saw collaborative effort not just as a way of making his 4
see Appendix D Page | 36
own working life more enjoyable but as a key technique for drawing students into education. In the FE sector many students are arriving from a school environment where they have had a bad experience. Manjit described the role of the FE lecturer in the following terms, “I suppose it's a bit like having a sweeper behind the defence in a football game, we kind of pick up all the things that get through compulsory education. I suppose the biggest thing I think is we act as a refocuser - we can refocus people back into an educational environment.” This reformative role of the teacher in FE was understood by all the interviewees and was a motivating factor for them in choosing the less well paid route of college lecturer as opposed to school teacher. Gemma described her motivation for teaching in FE as “I think the variety... the interaction with people... the students and explaining things well is a little challenge I quite like. And obviously, hopefully people doing well at the end.” The desire to collaborate in activity and to focus the outcome of that on the students was therefore an uncontroversial area with Mark in particular making the role of lecturer as a distributor of tacit knowledge and acting as a role model for students the key purpose of being in the classroom . There were acknowledged problems in making collaboration effective though, A common area of concern was the multiplicity of systems that teachers had to use to find information. This made collaboration across departments and faculties very difficult. Gemma provided a good example when talking about support workers liaising with academic staff in relation to students with complex support needs, “this year we've had like Word tables for student timetables and for support worker timetables which is a real pain - you have to type out you're basically repeating information. You're typing out everything on Columbus into a Word table and then sticking who the support worker is underneath, then making up a new timetable from scratch for the different staff and writing who the students they're supporting are.” Page | 37
These operational problems made it difficult to get the necessary degree of communication between lecturers and support staff going. This problem was also seen in the opinions of the other interviewees, with a lack of clearly understood processes for recording and sharing information being seen as a real barrier to information sharing, perhaps best summarised in Toby’s observation that, “there needs to be that communication there needs to be tat collaboration so, yes communication and collaboration is extremely important and the systems we have for doing that at the moment are weak.” However, even if the systems were developed to the stage where information could be easily shared, including information about individual research, the biggest problem to successful collaboration was the different micro-cultures within the college and the individual personalities of collaborators. This was made clear by Manjit’s remark that, “where you've got a really good teaching assistant that's on the same waveband as you, I mean it can turn a very slow class into a really vibrant thing.” This contrasts with the situation where you do not get the same feeling of connection and find yourself feeling uncomfortable , as described by Gemma, “I mean some people are more approachable so you tend to approach them more and it might be a little question whereas other people you might wait until you've got a list of big things or something like that I suppose.” Collaboration then requires a willingness to communicate and a desire to use collaboration to enhance the students’ experience as well as one’s teaching practice. All of the interviewees wanted to do this but all had come across operational problems in doing so because of the various ways information is shared make life difficult. All had seen psycho-social difficulties with some individuals viewing teaching as very much their own business and not to be shared and they had also seen systemic problems in terms of how the college is structured. Different faculties and departments have a lot of
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autonomy and often things are not shared or developed jointly through simple ignorance of their existence. Mark raised this as a serious barrier to improvement, “the silo structure of different departments... the fact I don’t even know anybody from Media for example and I’m sure we have a lot to learn from them.”
Reflection and its purpose The role of reflective practice within teaching was well understood by those interviewees who had undergone teacher training but they knew also that sometimes it was not actually part of practice, with Mark acknowledging that, “I’ve known about reflective practice since my PGCE really, but it’s something we don’t do enough of... we often talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.” For the two participants who were just starting their PGDE studies the term was less familiar. However, they quickly grasped the main principal, that reflecting both in and on action as part of a continuous process of professional development assists practitioners in both understanding their own practice but also in developing a professional mindset, that allows the constantly unique situations thrown up by each and every lesson to be handled using well developed coping skills. Skills that themselves can be constantly refined as new disruptions occur and new solutions are sought, “sometimes you win, sometimes you learn”, as Toby put it when asked about why he thought formal reflection might be helpful. There was an interesting contrast between the two trainee teachers, Toby was very keen to record the strengths and weaknesses of particular lessons and felt it wasn’t a burden but a supportive practice that helped him develop. In fact he had developed his own note taking system for his mobile computing device (Nokia Communicator). Toby explained his approach to reflective activity in the following vignette,
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“I will look at how someone else is approaching a problem and then I will think ‘right, how else can I approach this problem?’ Speaking to people on the PGDE course it seems schemes of work and lesson plans are there mainly for external moderators and internal verification... they are there for other people, people see lesson plans as an inconvenience...and I never do that, but make them useful, make them relevant. Now my schemes of work and lesson plans don't always look the way they're supposed to look.” What Toby was describing was a reflective process he’d been through to understand the role and purpose of lesson support documentation, which he then adapted and also wrote down his reasons for adapting. This contrasted with Gemma’s more traditional personal reflection on her own performance, which she did regularly but never wrote down and she didn’t consciously seek to record changes over time in her practice. Both of these new teachers were aware that examining and developing practice was part of what it means to be a teacher. Gemma in particular thought it was an important component in understanding how to cope with constantly changing variables as a result of working with the eternally unpredictable. Toby saw reflection and development as common sense and appeared to have a more outward looking style of reflection which was more about the situations he found himself in and overcoming them, rather than the more internally focussed reflective activity undertaken by Gemma. The two more experienced teachers had a very clear understanding of how they apply the idea of reflective practice to their own work. However, neither of them mentioned it as a collaborative activity, reflecting the manner in which it is spoken about on most PGDE courses, where it is concerned mostly with the writing of a therapeutic journal. Manjit however took reflection very seriously as part of his regular practice, “Reflection with a purpose, to improve your ability to engage and present information - I sometimes record myself you know... just to focus on what I'm actually saying - I think sometimes you know you Page | 40
get involved in particular anomalies, particularly where you're dealing with lots of levels - you just need to listen to yourself to make sure that you're actually covering what you should be covering.” He felt that without clearly recorded trails of evidence as to what and why things happened in lessons he was not providing the person that students needed in the classroom, a subject expert able to work with them as individuals to develop their skills and knowledge. This positive response to the idea of reflective practice as being an essential element of teaching was carried over into the responses to the idea of the tool for carrying out practitioner research projects. Manjit commented that, “It would be a very interesting tool to look at because it sounds to me like it would be able to look at feedback from different areas and help you be more reflective on what you're actually presenting to students and that way I always consider reflection leads to improvement.” Whilst Toby saw the purpose of the tool slightly differently and approached it from the standpoint of what it might mean for the teacher, “[it] might help clarify the priorities of a teacher a little more. One is to give [students] an opportunity to pass the qualification and priority two is to give them an opportunity to mature into happy useful active members of society.” Whilst there were different understandings of exactly how to apply reflective practice in their daily work there was a consensus that it was important. The thing that was not clear from the interview data was to what extent these practitioners felt that formal use of collaborative reflection as part of standard teaching practice, exercised through the medium of a specialist environment would encourage the creation of a research community and design practicum in place of the ever growing instrumentalism that all the interviewees mentioned as a common area of concern because they felt it ignored the realities of their daily experience in the classroom by relying on quantitative data to measure their performance. Page | 41
Technology and Teaching Practice For this part of the research findings, as well as individual interviews I also ran a 2 hour workshop on using a technology environment to plan and run individual classroom studies. This workshop was effectively a group interview where I and the 5 participants jointly discussed the role of formative assessment in teaching. We explored how we could trial different types of formative assessment tool in the classroom as part of a departmental or course team study. This study would be reflective in nature and grounded in the objective of changing practice to provide more individualised learning. One of the teaching aims would be more frequent feedback, in a manner suited to the type of student being taught and the preferred teaching style of individuals. This workshop was run on the 9th July 2009 and included lecturers from the following subject areas, Sociology, Travel and Tourism, Business Studies, Law, Economics. After a discussion about the paper “Inside the Black Box” (Black and William 1998) which participants had read prior to the workshop it was agreed that a starting point to changing classroom teaching practice was to scrutinise the political environment and subsequent policy decisions as there was a consensus that large gaps existed between the advice in the paper, as interpreted by OFSTED in the newly published common inspection framework and the metrics by which teaching practice was judged, summative assessment results. All the participants agreed that although they were supportive of the concept of increased individual feedback the ways that their work was judged was almost entirely quantitative and they felt under pressure to ‘teach to the test’. Therefore there was a lot of support for the idea of working together to build and test a range of formative assessment instruments but a lot of concern that before doing so there should be clear advice on how this would fit in to the college’s quality system when measuring performance. The role of formative assessment was well described by one participant when he said, “it helps you give students signposts to their future development” but the fear that any time spent developing new tools was explicated by another participant concerned at how the inspection regime would cope with its widespread usage, “how would you record Q and A sessions, that would be Page | 42
ridiculous.” Another theme that developed during the discussion was the context within which the college operated. The participants were of the view that, even though they could see potential benefits of a collaborative practitioner research tool, that might be because of the college’s location and catchment area. When one of them commented that, “one of the reasons this college does so well is that we are in a white middle-class area” he was speaking for the group as a whole. This developed into a discussion about the role of teaching itself and how it might develop, with the general feeling being that academic staff were being judged purely on the exam results that students achieved with no account taken of students’ personal background or other aspects of education which took account of the range of demands placed on lecturers to produce constantly improving performance data. When the participants moved on to looking at how they might plan for using formative assessment by building it into a scheme of work they were given a tour of the huddle.net software environment. Huddle is a workspace that has been created with the intention of allowing small projects to be planned and run with information being shared by a number of people. It provides access to documents, a simple wiki environment, calendar and other simple tools to allow a group of people to collaborate. It runs over the internet so nobody requires software on their own computer and they can access the project information from any computer with an internet connection and a modern web browser (see Appendix B for screenshots). Although it lacks many of the features that would be included in a specialist tool as envisaged for the doctoral study following this project, it does include many of the main features. These include an ability to collaboratively construct new artefacts to be used in practitioner research and to attach reflective commentary to a project as it develops using the wiki environment. The group concluded that the tool had a lot of possibilities but that they would need to be sure of strong management support before they would think of trying to use it. They all felt that provided it received clear management backing and they were given time for training and also for running their research projects it would be something they saw as both worthwhile for themselves but also as being Page | 43
in tune with their own view of how teaching should develop in the future, with teachers taking more of a mentoring and coaching role with technology being used to assist classroom practice both in terms of offloading mundane tasks and improving efficiency but also in terms of increasing the capacity of students to develop their own study and learning skills. This attitude was reflected by the individual interviewees as well, who all enjoyed using the huddle.net software but were concerned that they would be criticised for spending time on something that wasn’t a mandated technique to be used within the college. Again, they all mentioned being given specific time to design and carry out their mini research ideas, some of which were lesson activity driven (“why do so many students struggle to draw information flow diagrams?” for example) and others which addressed other areas (e.g. “in what way can my schemes of work be changed to take more account of individual learning plan objectives?”). A lot of the concerns over the implementation of a research support tool fit into the operational/administrative constraints discussed with the senior managers later in this report. However, the pressure that teaching staff felt from the outside was not picked up on by either of the senior managers. There is a clear discrepancy between the two parts of the workforce which might be a cause of problems in future research.
Challenges and Constraints The interviews with senior managers were analysed in the same way as for lecturer interviews, though the interview guide focussed on the themes of ‘administrative/operational’, ‘institutional sociocultural’ and ‘external socio-political’ concerns. This project was not about how a research management tool might improve lecturers’ practice within a generalised ‘ideal college’ but how it might play out in the real and messy world of actual practice, where considerable barriers to implementation exist at individual, institutional and extra-institutional levels. The interviews I held with two senior managers were therefore useful in understanding how to prepare for and overcome some of the problems inherent in changing the way lecturers operate, above Page | 44
and beyond the personal conservatism of any individual lecturer. Stretchford college is also very highly ranked in OFSTED league tables and is also a ‘beacon’ college, so already has an excellent reputation, being graded ‘1’ in all areas at its last OFSTED inspection.
Administrative / Operational constraints It became clear after the interviews that there is a need for greater clarity on the part of the college when it comes to specifying and implementing software in the area of teaching and learning. Partly this is the result of the college’s history, in which it has grown rapidly and has sometimes struggled to maintain systems commensurate with the size of the institution. In the year 2000 there were three full time IT support staff to support a full time student population of 1000 and 6000 part-time students. There has been no change in the size of the IT support team but full time student numbers are now approximately 1,900 and 8,000 part time students. More important than this though is the operational backlog caused by funding constraints. Per student the FE sector receives less money than a secondary school, due to the nature of the funding regime. The funding is also not stable over time; as the Deputy Principal, Brian, put it, “And funding of course, you never know from one year to the next exactly what your funding is likely to be.” Colleges are also self-governing corporations and are not under the control of the local education authority. College strategy and funding priorities are therefore set by the Governors of the college and this will be looked at in more detail later. The effect of current funding decisions is a large overload of jobs for the IT support department, as Janet, the Head of IT Support said, “If it's the case that financially we can't support something we still say ‘there are other ways we can do this’ which isn't going to require the support – but things will die a death without the support.” It is not surprising therefore that when asked for her first reaction to the news that if a new piece of teaching support software was to be rolled out, with training for staff being supplied internally, her comment was to laugh and say that she would probably throw her hands up in horror. This reflects Page | 45
Robertson’s findings on why ICT has failed to transform schools (2003). This was reinforced by an experience Janet had had at the college in 2001. The college had invested heavily in the ‘Blackboard’ learning platform, with the stated intention of moving into the world of e-learning. Although a lot of money was found for the installation and maintenance of the software no budget was allocated either for initial training of staff (both academic and support) or for ongoing user support. The college had committed to an expensive 3 year licence deal and at the end of that time not a single course or learning activity was being used. Janet described this as a frustrating experience for the IT team which was partly caused by another major problem that affects the success of ILT initiatives; integration with other systems. The college is similar to most in the FE sector in having two distinct IT teams. One is responsible for all the ‘data of record’ that the college is required to keep and they manage systems such as enrolments, class registers, qualification results, predicted grades and other performance related data as required by OFSTED and the LSC. Janet manages the other team, who are responsible for all IT systems related to teaching and learning, including the VLE, student assessment and tutorial support, individual learning plans etc. Often a new system will require information to be entered that is kept on another system managed by the other IT team. The choice then is to rekey data, which is a major undertaking that takes a long time, or produce a piece of linking software so one program can talk to another. “if you have things like that which then have to link in to other things like CIS systems, that can prove a bit nightmarish... just because they typically speak a different language from an IT point of view and then you need a programmer or someone beyond an IT support person who can make the systems speak to each other.” To undertake such work requires an ability to plan over a fairly long term, as making major changes in the middle of an academic year is usually deemed too disruptive. There was some discrepancy however in how the two managers saw this. Janet wanted to be able to plan and operate within the tight confines of the resources she had available. Brian however felt that part of the college’s high Page | 46
performing status was a result of flexibility of managers and staff in coping with an ever-shifting environment. Operationally Janet felt the IT infrastructure was overstretched and thus was unable to coax, cajole and generally encourage the take up of worthwhile technological innovation. However, Brian saw the benefits of not being tied to a particular ILT strategy as outweighing the difficulties it caused. Brian’s understanding of the nature of the operational environment was shown in his opening comment, “The way we go forward with ILT is a microcosm of the way we pursue things in the sector in general, in which you have an environment in which you are implored to plan... you go on a management course and they'll say plan for the long term, think strategically which is all fine but then you operate in an environment in which it's impossible to do that - if you did... you would have to keep changing strategic direction so often you'd just mess everything up.” As a starting point for success in implementation then the funding and administrative issues need to be clarified prior to taking any action. Whatever the cultural or external constraints that might arise to throw a new system off balance without a clear financial and operational framework for implementation running over an extended time period it is difficult for new initiatives to be successful.
Institutional socio-cultural constraints The attitudes within the college to new ILT initiatives were described in detail by both the managers interviewed and their opinions were broadly in tune with each other. However there were some interesting divergences. For example Brian saw the teaching staff in a subtly different light from Janet. When he commented, “I think you've got very very good professional teachers here, who know their stuff and are able to engage in debates about their teaching and it isn't a case of 'I've always done it like this', you very rarely get that - people express their concerns in very progressive, very learner-centred terms. I think we've created a culture in which people do feel comfortable changing and experimenting.” Page | 47
He shows a more optimistic view of the academic staff’s attitude to overcoming the inertia of habituated thinking than Janet’s view that,
“A lot of times with lecturing staff there can be a real problem overcoming the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' mindset, especially in our case as we are a beacon college. We get excellent results and there's lots of times this attitude which says 'we're already a great college why do we have to change when we're doing things so well?’ A lot of the staff are very techno-phobic.” The core problem from a socio-cultural view though can be explained in the single word ‘fear’. This is the main constraint identified by Brian. This fear can seen in different ways, from managerial concern that the radical change which could potentially be wrought by a system that allows teaching staff to use technology to not only change their teaching activities but could lead to experiments in classroom design, timetable structure and institutional purpose might lower the quality of provision, through to individual fear on the part or lecturers that their own individual use of the technology might absorb too much time and attention. As the college is a high performing one Janet’s observation that ILT might find a more welcoming reception in a failing institution was replete with a sense of frustration that the college might be left far behind in terms of effectiveness (a measure of the value added to students per pound spent). As she says, “Having a college with good success rates in some ways is a hindrance [laughs]. A failing college will have to find ways to... and then it's measurable too. It's this thing about measuring a lot and being able to really show it's making a difference, and that is hard.” The metrics used to judge the outcomes of using any system that changes teaching practice are the only way that management and can be persuaded that they are worthwhile, and even a small change in summative assessment outcomes might be enough in a struggling college to demonstrate the worth of a particular technology. At Stretchford college however the internal approval is deemed more important even than any outside evidence of a technology’s value. This prioritisation of internal acceptance is made possible by the current success rates, which provides the college with a clear Page | 48
justification for doing things in the way it wishes to. When asked about this need to address the range of staff opinions on change, Brian said, “I would only want to do it if I felt a critical mass of the staff genuinely thought it was the right thing to do.” So both senior managers felt the culture of the college gave staff permission to experiment but they also both believed there was a range of levels of willingness to embrace new ways of teaching and learning. Janet, who deals with teaching staff on a daily basis had a different take on where on the spectrum between very reluctant and evangelistic most staff sat. However, both she and Brian also felt that, provided the benefits were clear, there was no overwhelming resistance to change but that for it to work it needed to be organic and with close staff involvement at all stages. Another area of difference came up when discussing how students react to new ILT developments. There has been widespread acceptance of the idea of students being “digital natives” (Prensky 2001) and, whilst this isn’t accepted by everyone, it is clear that there is an assumption that students will take to new ILT systems quickly and with enthusiasm, driving the use of ICTs within education through their expectations and behaviour. Janet certainly thought there was some truth to this, “students are normally fairly open to change just because that's the way they live now.” However, a different understanding was provided by Brian, who has overall responsibility for all of the 16-19 teaching that happens in the college. He pointed out that a large minority of students (between 20 and 30%) had not logged in to the college computer system apart from at enrolment time and he also noted that change amongst students was slower than many might think, “we used to think 'in five years time students won't want to come to the college because there isn't a computer on every wall' and that simply wasn't the case was it? And we still even now, ten years later, have students coming to us who don't have a huge experience of ILT.”
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The reasons for this slower adoption of learning technologies than is sometimes assumed might be related to students’ own views of what education is, what they expect from it and their preparedness to use technology within the education environment that they are happy to use in their private life. This would need more study, but the evidence is that there is a muddier picture of how students at the college perceive the role of technology within their education than some, even those operating in the delivery of services to them, might think. To overcome the different types of fear preventing change two things are required. Firstly, the affordances of the tool(s) in question must be very clearly explicated and agreed upon by all parties as both educationally sound and also capable of adaptation and contextualisation to fit the range of teaching styles used. Secondly the technology must be capable of being incrementally implemented by growing numbers of staff as it becomes an accepted part of the learning landscape within the institution. A large ‘cutover’ release of a new tool would have a high risk of failure; the college’s Blackboard experience is an example of this. This left a real mark on the corporate memory of the college. Both interviewees gave examples of other initiatives that had succeeded on this organic roll-out basis; individual learning resource centres; FOFO (the polite version of which is ‘Flip Off and Find Out’) projects with individually supported e-tutorials to guide progress and electronic submission of assignment work via the VLE. These all started off as small pilot projects that grew as they proved their worth to lecturers and students. Janet felt all the internal reasons for rejection of a new technology-augmented style of practice could be overcome provided the support was there, including the time and financial resources with the outcome then being that, “The more staff see that it actually is working... it would grow exponentially, more and more people would then start getting on board.”
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External Socio-Political Constraints In addition to the changes that must be managed internally, either operational or cultural the FE sector is subject to a wide range of external demands that can affect the success of new initiatives. As Brian explained when describing how part of his role was to act as a filter, protecting most of the staff from a range of problems, “They don't need to think about the other stuff, the shouting and screaming at the LSC, tearing hair out about funding regimes.” The way the sector is managed is what gives rise to some of the operational problems described by Janet earlier. The college is a self-governing corporation but is a public body, and must comply with the needs of government policy as interpreted by the LSC, OFSTED and other agencies. This is an unstable environment that, as previously discussed, makes planning difficult. These external influences however, were not seen as entirely negative. Where they were problematic however Brian felt the college was able to withstand the buffeting and constantly shifting nature of external priorities, “It's a matter of picking those areas where you can be longish term - it can be systems. A lot of the way we organise ourselves; quality, staffing procedures, staff development policy and so on, they support the college almost regardless of which strategic direction it wants to go in or whichever way the wind blows us.” And, “It's empirical. I work very closely with benchmark colleges and the reason they are so successful is regardless of what they might say they broadly have this same sort of approach. In the vast majority of cases they think short to medium term but have really good systems in place so that almost regardless of what happens externally you have a good solid foundation.” Are clear statements of Brian’s belief that the college’s ability to set its own direction, albeit guided by and influenced by the needs of external parties was secure. Both Janet and Brian were very clear Page | 51
that whatever the political environment the college would manage its own affairs. For Brian this was partly a matter of the college’s situation, “There are a number of things going for us, we've got a pretty stable area, the demographics are fairly stable with high staying-on rates.” And this situatedness was picked up by Janet in a very revealing statement about how contextualising new initiatives was the only way to give them any chance of success. When asked about reviewing and implementing the results of large scale research within the college she said, “sometimes our colleagues, they could read 300 case studies that say 'this helped and it worked' - they have to be shown in their own environment that it's relevant to them that it really is going to improve their students' experience... I mean I read case studies about things going on at other colleges and I think ‘that works there but that's a different demographic, a different set of students’ it's like it has to be proved in your own environment.” External actors then were not seen as a barrier to change except insofar as they were not very helpful in providing a stable environment for planning. Interestingly these senior managers felt that outside research might be of interest but would not itself lead to any changes in practice. One of the aims for the system being considered for this research is that it enables lecturers to take some external research and then build their own, highly situated case studies for sharing within the college’s community of practice. Both managers were of the opinion that the college could control its destiny and that the teaching staff played a key role in providing a high quality learning environment informed by but not controlled by external policy decisions and changes in funding priorities.
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These constraints on implementation can be evaluated via the concept of desires within the design of learning activity as laid out by Pea (1993, p54). This is intended to be used for looking at ways of examining the role and purpose of distributed intelligence within activity by understanding the affordances of technology. I would argue that if those affordances are to be understood completely then the constraints on successful tool development need to be seen as barriers to the achievement of some of Pea’s ‘desires’, in particular the ‘task desire’ and the ‘mapping desire’. Task desire is essentially the use of a tool to achieve a specific end located in the situation at hand. Pea provides a useful example of a chair’s affordance for being burned and providing heat might outweigh its affordance for sitting if you are very cold. In terms of the system being proposed here this equates to the level of congruity between the affordances of the system for lecturers, for the IT support team, the senior management and other stakeholders, particularly students, as the system is ultimately intended to benefit them. Mapping desire is described by Pea as a need to close the gap between intention for the bringing together of resources into a system that exhibits distributed intelligence and the action that is specified to be taken. This is where the failure of a lot of ILT systems occurs, understandings of the ways in which activity should be structured, either in terms of classroom use, IT support or achievement of teaching and learning policy objectives are not clearly understood. The mental maps for how things should work are different between individuals, which then plays out in a failure of the tool to operate in the way any individual wants/expects. The failure of the college’s implementation of the Blackboard VLE system can be traced back to this failure to lay out the task desire (which includes the task of being economically efficient) and a plan for the closing of the mapping desire so that some partners in the cognitive system simply failed to understand what it was for or how to use it to create effective learning design. By analysing the proposed tool through the lens of distributed cognition analysis it is possible to create a holistic view of the entire cognitive system, and thus break down some of the artificial Page | 53
barriers between potential problems in implementation. A lot of analysis of technology related projects identifies weaknesses in particular aspects of the implementation such as technical, sociocultural and learning theory for example. The approach adopted for this small exploratory study however revealed that the activity, the actors and the artefacts when viewed as one system and measured accordingly can provide a useful approach to identifying where potential problems might arise, the nature of them and the connectedness with other aspects of the tool and its use.
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Chapter 5: Endings and Sequels During the research process the triangulation of the interviews with each other; both between lecturers and between lecturers and the senior manager interviews and also with contemporaneous observation notes, and analysis, led to a holistic understanding of the issues involved; the potential benefits; the main barriers to successful implementation within an FE environment and the generally converging conclusion that there was enough perceived benefit to warrant carrying out further, more detailed work on the tool on a larger scale. I will therefore draw on the findings from this study and undertake a review of both research design and the research questions being posed. I also need to use the findings from this study to inform the description of a theory of practitioner-managed research activity grounded in theories of reflective practice, distributed cognition and the use of collaborative technology. These conclusions can then be used as the starting point for next project. Firstly, from a research design perspective there was a clear benefit to adopting a purely qualitative, exploratory approach for this study. It fitted well with the underlying theories, especially in terms of concentrating on understanding the complexities of the human element in using research techniques within a learning design practicum. For purely pragmatic rather than paradigmatic purposes it was also a sensible route to take. The lack of any quantitative data is a potential weakness in this project but is ameliorated by the other parts of the design such as the nature of the presentation of findings. However, if the research is to act as a catalyst for change on a wider scale it will be necessary to demonstrate that it can have an impact on a much broader canvas and can cope with different types of learning ecology within the FE environment. It will also be important through further research to show that lecturers feel it has had a positive impact on their practice and that college managers see it as a contribution to improving quality of provision within their institution. Therefore whilst for the current study it was right to set Page | 55
quantitative methods aside this should be changed in future work by adjusting the design to include relevant quantitative methods including, but not limited to, survey evidence. The study was designed in part so that the research questions helped drive the selection of research strategy and methods. This process was guided by the description of trustworthy qualitative research provided by Anfara et al (2002) which proved helpful in negotiating the complexities of creating a design in which useful data could be collected and for which the analysis process addressed the questions asked. The theoretical element proved to be a more tricky beast to tame however than the design of the study itself. There are well understood individual links between reflective practice, distributed cognitions and ideas of design based research and participant action research. The end product being sought is a tool and a process that encompasses all three. The reflective practice element is to support the development of a design practicum within and across FE institutions, where distribution of intelligence across actors and artefacts leads to an enhancement of capacity to learn by both lecturers and students. Reflective practice is described by Pea as a key source for understanding the affordances of a tool that has distribution of intelligence embedded within it (see e.g. 1993; 2004), and the connection between reflective practice and participant action research is explicated by Clark and his reflective critique of Kemmis’ work (2001). It should be possible therefore for these elements to be combined in a way that takes the role of distributed cognition analysis into the peer examination of the role of teachers as well as the effectiveness of their classroom practice. This research has found this might be achieved by providing tools to enable the design, execution and evaluation of research projects using a specialist software environment. These research tools can provide a base from which an institution can test and refine the general solutions provided by large scale research programmes, allowing them to be tailored to their own context. At the same time they would provide opportunities for their academic staff to develop as professionals who can operate comfortably in the evidence-based world required by policy makers. It Page | 56
would also provide a knowledge base which can be used when reporting to OFSTED and other inspection bodies on the progress being made in improving teaching and learning. The difficulty in this area is not attached to the actual complexity of linking these different theoretical views together but in their straightforward explication to lecturing/teaching staff. It was noted by David Hargreaves in his TTA lecture that teachers rarely adopt the language of other social policy professions and after completing their training will rarely participate in theory based discussions about teaching and learning. This was my experience from this study; I had to always be sure to discuss the aims of the project in very clear and basic language that would be understood by almost any person. This was a challenge at times as classrooms as teaching is a complex profession beset by obtuse theorising on the one hand and over-simplification on the other. Far from it being a criticism of academic staff however I felt it was a demonstration that they were expected to explain complex ideas to others in straightforward terms and expected the same courtesy from others. I will need to ensure that I have a good and clear explanation for the work I am doing and my reasons for wanting to do it and this must carry over in to the design for the tool and the processes for its implementation. When doing this however I will also need to be aware of just how demoralised teachers can get when they think about the way the education system is run. In a frustrated aside during his interview Manjit spoke for many of the lecturers I have worked with when he said “the awful thing is the middle management in colleges I've come across. The fact is it's full of people who can't teach and they tend to be the people that actually set the agenda for some of this, and the politicians‌ I mean sometimes I think it's the wrong people that set the agenda for education - it's not the educators, it's the middle management, the politicians - the peripherals I would call them of the education system.â€? The involvement of practitioners in my future work will be central. It will act as a guiding light. I want to ensure the development of tools to promote practitioner research within colleges is always grounded in a realistic understanding of what is relevant and achievable but also transformative. Page | 57
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Websites Website 1 – Learning and Skills Improvement Service www.excellencegateway.org.uk Accessed 14 August 2009 Website 2 – Teacher Development Agency Teaching Standards http://www.tda.gov.uk/partners/ittstandards/guidance_08/qts.aspx accessed 14 August 2005 Website 3 – British Educational Research Association http://www.bera.ac.uk/files/2008/09/ethica1.pdf accessed 1 September 2009 Website 4 – huddle.net cloud based project and document management http://www.huddle.net accessed 1 September 2009 Website 5 – Association of Colleges http://www.aoc.co.uk/en/about_colleges/index.cfm accessed 1 September 2009
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Appendix A – Transcripts
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Practitioner Gemma (GFS) 16 June 2009 Data Anonymised
INTERVIEWER: ... A little bit about what you're going to be up to next year which is quite varied How do you feel about that GFS: It felt alright when I said I'd do everything! laughter We'll just see come September really I've got the GCSE ICT AS Applied ICT which has got loads of coursework - I think the coursework marking is going to coincide with deadlines from the PGDE. And then GCSE Maths 3 hours and 3 hours of AS Maths which I think is stats probably INTERVIEWER: Have you been lumped with stats? GFS: Well I think they said, well I don't know I haven't spoken to helen but a few other have said they think if you're doing the three hours you end up doing a bit of core but all the stats INTERVIEWER: right GFS: And I think that's the short straw myself INTERVIEWER: So you had no involvement in sort of deciding what you were doing GFS: Well I don't know for sure of what I'm doing yet so there may be some haggling but I suspect not INTERVIEWER: And that process though of sort of working out what you're going to do next year - how did that shape up? I mean is it just a random collection of people coming up to you saying 'Mary we'd like you to this'? or.. GFS: Pretty much! Well I thought I was going to.. I wanted to do the PGDE and so was deciding either I.. next year I decided next year I had to do something either I go into teaching or I go into something else but something had to change so I decided to go down the teaching route and then I'd already been asked to do the GCSE ICT again anyway.. so then you advertised the job didn't you INTERVIEWER: That's right yeah GFS: And so I went for that and got it (smiles) thank you very much and then yeah the AS Applied came out of it when I spoke to Sarah about different things to do INTERVIEWER: Was that because you wanted to try a range of things or.. GFS: Well to do the PGDE they recommend you have as wide a range of subjects and levels as possible... it possibly helps when you're looking for jobs or whatever, it seems to count what you did in it ummm so that was partly why and then obviously my degree subject was maths so it makes sense to keep a foot in that camp as well, and they were short of people so... INTERVIEWER: And there's the huge bonus you get if you become a maths teacher Page | 65
GFS: OK INTERVIEWER: Which is rather good...
GFS: I know, you get a little one for IT don't you? You get something like 3 grand for IT and 5 for maths INTERVIEWER: Yeah.. it's BIG for maths, it might even be bigger than that isn't it? GFS: Well let's hope so (laughter) you get taxed on it though INTERVIEWER: To be able to teach maths at 'A' level you deserve some kind of special bonus anyway Right so you've got a range of courses and that's come out of a desire to make sure your PGDE is sort of as useful as possible to you when you come to look for work as useful as possible for you when you come to look for work so you've got a good range of different types of teaching practice - have you noticed anything different in the way that the different departments you're working with have organised themselves? GFS: [Laughs] well maths is pretty traditional so, you know, they've had the same courses, their courses might change a little bit but it's all a very well oiled machine. They know what they're doing, the schemes of work are done they've got all the resources so if I want to use my own resources I can but I could also just use all of theirs. It's all there they set...they have..booklets of homework so I don't even have to set the homework. They'll homework deadlines all outlined by September and the classes try and keep in synch so they've got...I don't know how many GCSE sets 5 or so? I don't know INTERVIEWER: Right GFS: But they'll try and keep them working to the same scheme of work and the home works will be set at the same time for all the classes, collected in the same time - that sort of thing, so it's all very sort of oiled, they don't have meetings cos there's no need really cos it's just all just ticks along INTERVIEWER: Kind of runs itself? GFS: yeah INTERVIEWER: Do you see any weaknesses in them doing it that way? GFS: Well it depends if they see a need for an improvement or if someone does it depends how open the rest of them are doesn't it a little bit... whether it's ever. I think they're probably reasonably flexible..but I errr don't know (laughs) I haven't worked for them yet! INTERVIEWER: You'll find out won't you! GFS: I'll find out (both speaking at same time) INTERVIEWER: So how about compare, sort of how does that compare with for example the work you've been doing with Academic Support and the chaotic world of ICT Page | 66
GFS: ummmm well the difference, maths - first of all there's no coursework which instantly from my point of view makes it easier cos, you know, ummm you don't have loads of marking at particular points. You have some but, you know, it's not as big a deal ummm Academic Support, again you don't really have the marking but you have all sorts of liaison with different people so there's no routine ermmm although I have a timetable of when I'm supporting different people the rest of the time I could be doing anything so I try and break it up a little bit for me but in practice it didn't really work. Things kept eating into my time so if someone's kicking off somewhere you have to go and sort it out - you know, that's the nature of the job really and there's a lot of liaising with, possibly parents more often, other tutors, other members of staff. and the students themselves, sometimes it can be doing admin, sometimes it typing up timetables for them but using colour coding because they don't like ones college produce and putting ones with their support worker in because again college doesn't produce that. So that sort of thing, it's not teaching as such although I did 1 to 1s as well but I didn't really prepare any lessons for them INTERVIEWER: no no because they’d bring the work... GFS: yeah, in theory and otherwise we just kind of winged it! (laughter) "what would you like to do today then?" INTERVIEWER: So that's quite an interesting contrast - you've got maths, which basically sort of runs itself and then you've got academic support where it's a much more on-demand type environment where things GFS: Yeah... I did KIND of do a plan for someone. I made a note of things he needed to do and kind of ticked them off but I should have written it up a bit more properly, it's on a scrap of paper in my diary and we just sort of...I wrote dates as we did things; what we needed to go over and stuff but it's not in any sort of official form. I couldn't hand it in to anyone if they wanted to review my work but then I didn't really have to.. Actually no... there is a sheet whether it's up to date or not is another matter cos I have to record it in various places so I've put in my diary; I have to log it on the system but I can't write too much detail because it can't be too personal because of auditors and stuff. INTERVIEWER: Right GFS: Ummm And then, I don't know why but they have these green cards you have to fill in for every session as well so it's a lot of... I don't really understand why they have it like they do but INTERVIEWER: So you've got information going in different places, the same information going in different places GFS: seems a bit pointless to me - could be improved INTERVIEWER: It's always annoying though isn't it if you're entering.. GFS: It is annoying yeah - but it was a response to lack of recording they had before so.. INTERVIEWER: But what that experience has given you then is some kind of insight into different types of student than you might experience if you were just teaching I don't know, high flying A level... Page | 67
GFS: Yeah INTERVIEWER: Maths students. Is that something you think will just become part of your regular teaching practice, you know, that regular support type knowledge GFS: Hopefully, errrr I think I could, I think I would have to make a conscious effort to let it cos otherwise you can just get a bit consumed with the teaching as a whole I can see how people do that and forget sort of the individual things. And there is a limit to how much you can do in a class of, I don't know, 15 or whatever I'm gonna have - but yeah, I'm going to try and bring it in. Some things are easy, something’s are just the layout of your materials, using a font that everyone can read and stuff like that. That's just good practice anyway and putting borders round pages - some people find helpful. Stuff like that is easy to do, sometimes... I dunno, some of the coursework I suppose you have to break it down so yeah you can break it down perhaps more clearly than you might otherwise but that's the way I think anyway INTERVIEWER: Right GFS: I like things broken down INTERVIEWER: So you think that is you actually rather than the... GFS: Yeah I mean it's very useful for people with, say, Asperger's and stuff like that cos they don't like open tasks but then I wouldn't particularly either. I like to know what I'm doing so I think I would always try, maybe not successfully, but I'd try and set it out clearly anyway and give people ideas of where they're going to. So on the mark sheets I've got to talk with Sarah about it but I've put in the official marking guide, or, ummm, close as so that they can see, whereas before it was just "this report maximum 5 marks" and it didn't tell 'em how they would get the marks INTERVIEWER: So where the marks actually come from GFS: so, Yeah, I was going to say that INTERVIEWER: cool - so you decided that you would do your PGDE rather than go to do something else. So I'm presuming because of that you're motivated to become a teacher GFS: Yeah (laughs) INTERVIEWER: And that leads me to think that you actually have a vision of what people think 'a teacher' means, GFS: ohhhh (sounds doubting) INTERVIEWER: You know your role in I don't know, your role in society, the education system GFS: I hadn't really thought about that really. You're asking the wrong person INTERVIEWER: So what would you say is your motivation and interest in being a teacher not just the bonus to sign on Page | 68
GFS: Yeah (laughs) how long do I have to it for? I think probably the not being in an office is one thing and I think the variety is another I think the interaction with people is another and the students and explaining things well is a little challenge I quite like. And obviously, hopefully people doing well at the end. INTERVIEWER: Yeah GFS: We'll wait and see on that (laughs) INTERVIEWER: I'm sure it will happen but that is a good feeling - one of the good things about teaching; yeah so you've thought about being a teacher..How do you think you might start thinking about what you do as a teacher? Do you think you're one of...are you naturally a person who thinks sort of or reflects upon what you've done? GFS: I do but I don't generally articulate it or write it down, I'm sort of well it's blindingly obvious I did that badly and this is what I need to do but I wouldn't tell anyone because it would just be obvious to me INTERVIEWER: Ahhh, so it's kind of a mental... GFS: Do you know what I mean? INTERVIEWER: model of it? GFS: Which may cause me problems in the PGDE (laughter) INTERVIEWER: You'll certainly get the hang of doing your reflective journal... they're very keen on that. So at the moment, basically at the moment you're doing something, I mean you must do this kind of thing in your work with academic support, think about ummm... when you're in a session with somebody you get a feeling don't you whether something is going well or not GFS: Yeah, you just adapt it as it goes along INTERVIEWER: Yeah, but you wouldn't say that you actually use any sort of formal approaches for doing it? GFS: Nope! INTERVIEWER: And is that ever talked about, like in team meetings or.. GFS: Well what we have done, rather than doing a ummm individual reflection ummm like the students fill in course reviews they fill in one for learning support as well so we've got them and Hilary has done report if you like so we've seen some of the things they've said. Some of them we could pick out referred to me anyway as they'd had 1 to 1 and it was only with me! It's pretty obvious! (laughter) so some of them we can pick out We have to do one of those self assessment reviews but again Hilary will do most of that really and, what else (very quietly) INTERVIEWER: Does she involve you at all with... in that process? Page | 69
GFS: She would normally, but she hasn't done it yet - I don't think INTERVIEWER: Yeah I know that feeling I haven't done mine yet either GFS: I don't think she knows what to put in it really umm and then... what else do we do? We have meetings, like there's one student who you will be familiar with - we have review meetings to look at strategies for us all working together and possibly with external people as well so have review meetings on that and what we could do differently and how to plan for next year. SO for individuals we will have review meetings but in terms.... are you meaning more a personal reflection really? INTERVIEWER: I suppose I do mean both actually and I am quite interested you raise that thing about the whole team reflecting on what's going on and then as a sort of subset of that you've got what's going on with you - your sort of your own reflections on what you've done that day week or whatever GFS: Yeah I mean it is tricky cos sometimes we're supposed to not talk about things - you know students are supposed to be able to talk with us in confidence and occasionally you'll be in conversation with someone and you think "ohhh you know I don't really know how this is going should I be saying this should I back up?" you know but if it's in confidence then you're a bit stuck really so you can always go for the hypothetical conversation INTERVIEWER: Do you find yourself..I mean that's just an approach that people have I presume isn't it? You know there's this student.. GFS: Yeah or you can just say 'I was talking with a student and not say who it was or something like that. And of course there are occasions where sometimes we just have to pass things on or if you really need the advice then you HAVE to talk with someone so...yeah INTERVIEWER: And are you trained in... on what sort of occasions it's OK to sort of break that type of confidence cos there are occasions when you need.. GFS: Yeah, what I have done, probably a little inconsistently I can't remember now but what I've tried to do is in the first sort of.. or when an issue arises I will say to people "Just stop there. You should know that if it's, if you're gonna talk about something criminal or something that's going to be harmful to you or someone else then you can't regard it as being in confidence" and people are fine about it generally. Sometimes I been asked to pass things on anonymously a couple of times, things like that INTERVIEWER: How does that feel? Oh that's fine because the things I've been asked to do haven't been a problem - yeaaah, one of them was but that was a couple of years ago... that was a bit more awkward With things like the student feedback questionnaires and everything do many of your students make comments at all on those do you find or do they just do the numbers? GFS: Well I've mainly seen the summary - I have seen some of them and generally yeah I think they've been reasonably good at putting comments in as well. Whether they had a choice because they may have needed a scribe! Yeah most of them probably did do it with somebody's support there so they had no option really Page | 70
INTERVIEWER: I mean do you think you find that kind of thing, that feedback, is that actually helpful do you think, does it make you think about what you've done or do you tend to... GFS: Yeah, I mean I haven't seen that much - mainly the feedback I got was just that they appreciated my support it wasn't a specific thing all that much but I had a student, going back to winging it, he came to see me. He'd finished all his work so you know, 'why are you here?' and so we did a review of the year and came out with a couple of things and strategies for him. He came out with some comments about... "what was it he said?" He wanted us all to use the tick sheet because he said he'd wanted them, I'd done them and then people hadn't used them. So that was one to start off for next year and the other one was that everyone needed to work together more, all the support workers - but errr (laughs) we HAVE tried quite hard! That was his comment so that's useful INTERVIEWER: Quite an insightful comment as well then cos he's obviously noticed that GFS: Yeah, and it wasn't prompted. I didn't say "How do you think your support workers worked together?" you know, it wasn't prompted like that at all I was just saying you know, and so we went through some achievements and we went through... again not in that order we'd gone through things he could do better next year and "oooo better do achievements" as well! and we went through support and then we went through what to do if you're stuck on something and he's got a whole list of things to do in future INTERVIEWER: I mean that comment actually leads us nicely on to talking about collaboration GFS: It was planned (laughs) INTERVIEWER: It was planned that way! It's your enormous Brasenose brain kicking into action! In your experience, you're quite lucky. You get around the college and you see totally different types of teaching going on and in different subjects. If somebody put you on the spot and said "Do you think teaching's a collaborative profession?" what would your instant.. gut reaction be? GFS: In some areas "Yes" in some areas "No" If that's not a contradiction in terms INTERVIEWER: No, I don't think it is, I think you're probably right - I think in some aspects of work.. GFS: Yeah some departments liaise MUCH better with Learning Support than others - so yeah, I have a mixed experience INTERVIEWER: You have a mixed experience? And is that just, like a case...is it down to the people involved or is it their processes do you think or...? GFS: I don't know - in some cases I think it is personalities but in some I think there are quite a few people perhaps in say one area which makes you perhaps feel it's... maybe not deliberately but maybe the influence comes down from the Head of Department I don't know but somehow they're not as co-operative as others.. and I'm not referring to you! INTERVIEWER: Which is quite interesting because, you know, if something's good practice and it helps the student and clearly the students do like it when people know what's going on Page | 71
with them and everybody knows what’s going on. So, if you stuck everybody in a conference and said 'hands up everyone who thinks collaboration is a good idea' everyone's gonna stick their hand up GFS: Hopefully! INTERVIEWER: What do you think might be.. In your own work life do you find yourself collaborating with somebody... more willingly with some people than others or do you have a more objective outlook? GFS: Umm I mean some people are more approachable so you tend to approach them more and it might be a little question whereas other people you might wait until you've got a list of big things or something like that I suppose. I mean I think you have to respond to people as individuals, as everyone is ...ummm but I'd say probably I do make an effort with people if I think it's in the student's interest - yeah I'd say I can communicate, unless I’m short of time and can't physically do it INTERVIEWER: Yeah I wonder if that's quite a barrier sometimes
GFS: Well I think perhaps it is because I think with teaching you can put as much or as little effort as you want in up to a point and I think there probably are people who do prepare their resources, deliver the lesson, mark the work and consider their job done. Whereas there are other people who will be much more geared up to the students and wanting the students to succeed and liaising with anyone they could possibly liaise with in order to help that student and try different techniques, try different approaches - perhaps with the whole class first but with that student in mind and there's quite a big difference in what people are prepared to do. INTERVIEWER: That's an internal thing isn't it? What drives them in their own work - what they think their job is; there's a lot to that. But you clearly I think quite like working with other people and making sure that stuff happens. I quite like your comment where you said you know "If I think it's in the interests of the student" you will push it GFS: Yeah INTERVIEWER: And actually do something. Do you think that's fairly common -that attitude? GFS: Well I think... hopefully! Yeah I think, no, I think generally it is yeah but think some... I think where the problems have, where there have been problems it's been because the particular person involved has been thinking of for the greater good of their class. So they've been focussing on their class rather than an individual within that class. SO I think probably their intentions have still been good but from our point of view perhaps I don't know... INTERVIEWER: Interesting because then you're talking about the priorities of individuals when they're taking an action - you know when you're doing something and you know you're view of it is very different from somebody else's.
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GFS: Well I try and see it from all perspectives and I do have to bite my tongue a little bit sometimes because, you know, in Academic support you have people who are all guns blazing to defend and support individual students whereas you've got teachers on the other hand who're saying you know "you're asking me to spend hours more with this one student when actually what about the rest of my class, what about my tutor group, what about this that and the other" so there is a balance but I think sometimes the teachers think that we're asking them to do things when actually all we're asking them to do is explain something to the support worker who can then take that pressure of them - and we're going to try and do that a bit more next year. INTERVIEWER: So you've got perhaps a miscommunication, a misunderstanding of roles
GFS: Yeah, but if people won't communicate with us or reply to emails or phone us or you know, it's quite tricky so that's... INTERVIEWER: Yeah cos I think this sort of whole thing about collaboration particularly between different parts of the education environment I think is really interesting and really quite difficult to make work effectively because of all the constraints you talked about, the time, people's personalities, their view of their own role and different priorities I've got a question here... [blah blah waffle] Do you think collaborating at work is different from in your social life so in other words in your social life.. GFS: In my social life I'm dealing with people I choose to be with whereas at work you're dealing with whoever the college employs and you may choose to be with them but you might not! SO it's completely different, if you have a problem in your social life it's your choice whether or not you walk away from it whereas at work you're stuck really. You COULD look for another job but it would get a bit tricky after while INTERVIEWER: Yeah if you constantly... if it's always other people it's never you - yeah OK that's true. I'm just really interested in people's motivations for collaborating and as you say in your social life, that is your world that you create and in work you're just not in control of that so much GFS: Well you do choose people within departments to liaise with in preference to if you get a better response from one person, you're gonna go back to them which perhaps isn't fair on them but that's the way it works! INTERVIEWER: Yeah that's the reality! Have you found any uses for technology in terms of assisting with collaboration - I mean you do a lot of stuff by email - do you think that's probably the most important tool that you have GFS: Umm Student Comments is quite good as well but then you know you've got problems with information in two places a little bit as well - ummm say it again INTERVIEWER: I was just wondering sort of what kind of things technology might help you do or get in the way of doing in terms of the work that you do with others
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GFS: OK, well we've got the shared dive which is quite useful obviously and we can restrict who sees different folders within that so that's quite helpful, ummm we, well not me personally but a spreadsheet is being compiled of all the students who will be coming in next year with perhaps special needs to some description and then that gets.... will be available to who needs it saying what they've got and where they're from and what sort of support we're gonna put in place to start with and so we've got that. We use Columbus a lot and any support will be put, there will be a note on there. It's not particularly detailed but it lets people know whether they get extra time or... I don't think it says whether they're going to have inclass support but it makes some comment anyway that support is available Err... and obviously all the tutors can look at that err.. we use it quite a lot for getting a bit of background on people because you can get qualifications on entry and stuff like that. INTERVIEWER: So there's a sort of store of facts and basic information about people and that's quite good but you've also got a number of different systems by the sounds of it that you need to use in order to get a full picture. GFS: Yeah cos Columbus is, you know, College Information Systems, they do their bit but they don't take account of any support needs or anything like that so then this year we've had like Word tables for student timetables and for support worker timetables which is a real pain - you have to type out you're basically repeating information. You're typing out everything on Columbus into a Word table and then sticking who the support worker is underneath then making up a new timetable from scratch for the different staff and writing who the students they're supporting are. So next year we're doing this database that I've been working on which hopefully will work so that'll be that bit a bit better, ummm and then everyone can see that and make changes and stuff and then so yeah there's Learning Support so that's our bit then there's Academic Support and they do the assessments and stuff like that. Some of their stuff is more confidential and doesn't go on the computer at all they have paper files for stuff INTERVIEWER: Because of confidentiality GFS: Yeah, there's stuff that I've never seen, that I wouldn't be allowed access to ummm and you might get just a little snippet "Be careful this person doesn't like men" or something like that but that's all you're allowed to know so yeah INTERVIEWER: So just enough so you can do what you need to do with the person? GFS: Yeah so we wouldn't put a male support worker with them - which is fine because we don't have many! INTERVIEWER: So you're creating... I know about your fantastic database which is getting attention from around the college I think GFS: Is it! INTERVIEWER: Yes, it came up in the ILT strategy meeting GFS: What's that? INTERVIEWER: It's where DGS and GFS: Really! Page | 74
INTERVIEWER: Mick Forsdike and me and Ian Hartnell... GFS: Oh God! I hope it works - there is quite a big problem in it - but it works, but there is a bit of a problem every entry for a student [some explanation of problem nothing useful for research] INTERVIEWER: So you're quite a big user of ICT in you work aren't you GFS: Yeah, we do use it quite a lot - we've got like a spreadsheet for staff pay and the hours, because most of our people are hourly paid, so we've got hours worked and checking if what they've claimed on their pay form tallies with what they've logged on the system which it pretty frequently doesn't!! you can edit that!! Well it doesn't because you can't log everything all the time so meetings... you can only log things if they're against a specific student so if you go to a meeting which is a general staff meeting you have to be paid for it but you can't log it - yeah so it's quite labour intensive really it's quite a pain - we've got one for that and it sort of shows absences and all that and it does stuff automatically - oh, user guides we have as well, I'm not convinced people use them though, a couple f people mentioned them but they're more happy if I do a demo in a meeting and they're more happy to just come and ask me. I don't think... I'm not convinced some of them even know to get to the G drive - despite being shown INTERVIEWER: So amongst that particular set of staff then.. GFS: Well some of them just, they're just not IT literate they really are not into it INTERVIEWER: Collaborative planning using technology is not really something that goes on a lot? GFS: No, we use it at say management level but for the general support workers we really are limited cos...I just... I mean some of them can - some of them INTERVIEWER: It's just not there thing GFS: No they're just not interested INTERVIEWER: So clearly from what you've told me then there are technologies you think would be useful for practitioners to have including a better environment where you haven't got information in different places, or the same information in different places so that sound like that would be quite useful - And if students are saying things about that they prefer if you are communicating better then maybe there might be a role there for technology GFS: Yeah well what I'm also trying to do and I don't know... I don't have a clue how to do it but on this super-duper database that isn’t' yet super-duper what I want to do is have...I want ummm I can do report and it, you put in the student name and it pulls up all the support workers working with that student - I'd like an 'email all these people' button but I don't have a clue how to do it. Cos at the moment it's quite labour intensive again cos you have to look u all their initials and then type them into email and it's all a faff - so and you can't Eudora's a bit rubbish cos you can’t set up groups which everyone else has access to so I couldn't set up a group for John Bloggs and then if you can't email back as a group to everyone that they then could have that group and it would email all these people that were in it ummm which is a bit of a pain and I think that would be quite useful to do but the advantage of doing it if I Page | 75
ever get to do it with this database is that it would always be up to date. So you would always have but then you've got other access issues as well cos I wasn't gonna let all the support workers have access cos we're going to have staff notes and stuff on there as well INTERVIEWER: Yeah so you need to manage who can see what GFS: Which again I don't have a clue how to do INTERVIEWER: That's a major undertaking you've got there GFS: Well I just think ...well the plan was get a basic thing working - say to College "this is what you need - do it better" but I don't think they're gonna do it better and I kind of like dabbling but I don't really have that much time left to dabble INTERVIEWER: No, and you won't have any time next year will you? GFS: So I think I might have to just sacrifice some of the functions but just put a desirable thing on it... INTERVIEWER: [irrelevant] Generally though would you say though that if you have a good technology idea that you get a lot of support both within... amongst your colleagues and the college GFS: Depends what it is. I would say not really from the college because when I've asked people for help... I mean I don't think people have been unwilling more unable, perhaps in ability perhaps in time. IXH didn't think he could really, they suggested RWB but when I phoned up they said "oh he's not our ICT person anymore you need to speak to so and so" I spoke very briefly to this guy but I got the impression he probably didn't know... you know I probably knew as much as him. INTERVIEWER: Have you spoken to CHJ then discussion off topic GFS: The other thing is to get it into a state where it's nearly working but not quite and then palm it off on to Capita! INTERVIEWER: It would cost a fortune but come back working GFS: Well it's just annoying cos you know it could be really useful INTERVIEWER: Now this is our pre-activity interview and we're going to have a go at using Huddle to do some planning and to think about how that planning went and how we might do it differently next time GFS: OK INTERVIEWER: What activity are we going to do GFS: Well what I thought possibly is just to do like a course handbook cos I'm quite up for people having a - some staples in something cos otherwise you get so many loose sheets everywhere ummm so I just want to do one with... I know you're doing a department one aren't you? Page | 76
INTERVIEWER: Yes, we've got like a departmental GFS: So we need to collaborate INTERVIEWER: Indeed! GFS: So I don't do the same stuff INTERVIEWER: ...Online so it doesn't have to involve a meeting and you can see like drafts of documents and stuff GFS: Yeah cos I was just doing a new one outlining the way the course structure is and then the contents of it and what the different tasks are - I don't know entirely what else cos I put all the database worksheets into a booklet last year and they thought that was good, they liked that rather than having separate sheets handed out every lesson. INTERVIEWER: And if we're gonna do that kind of activity as a kind of a handbook thing, there's no real reason why we couldn't do it say as a Wiki - have you used wikis? GFS: oh ok, I haven't used them, I've heard what they are but I've never used one - could you have the whole document as a wiki? so you could have a word document of example INTERVIEWER: Yeah and you could look at them so you say "how about we change this bit" GFS: Do they actually change it or do they just write it somewhere "I want to change this" what do you do? INTERVIEWER: There's a HUGE debate and I've got... GFS: OK cos that could be really quite annoying or it could be helpful INTERVIEWER: Yeah People are very uncomfortable with the idea a) of having their own words changed and b)actually changing somebody else's.. GFS: Cos the other thing is would you know what has been changed? INTERVIEWER: Yes, cos you get like a version so you can see what are the changes GFS: Ok does it show you just the different versions or does it... I mean you know like when you do track changes and it has the little red bubbles and stuff if it just listed all of them that would be easier than having to look through three different versions of the same document INTERVIEWER: That's true you can get, depending on what wiki environment you're using but you can get like this Compare Changes thing will show changes highlighted where the changes have happened between different versions but Wikis are quite an interesting thing form that standpoint because they can make people feel very uncomfortable and if the end product can be the result of many brains not just one so GFS: And if you don't get your just credit for it!
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INTERVIEWER: It's true - it's something that's really important to think about - so, the handbook - you think this is going to be helpful because? GFS: COs then students know where they are and even if they don't look at it in the beginning of the course which I'm guessing some of them won't when they fall behind, as some of them will (laughs) then at least they've got a structure to look at where they're going as well. And with some of the worksheets I haven't decided exactly what to put in it as I'm aware that you get people transferring and stuff so I don't want to get thick workbooks and then most of it's wasted cos then the student changes course a week later - so yeah I don't know whether to do quite a thin one maybe only a couple of sheets I don't know, just outlining the course and saying what the different tasks are or whether to put worksheets, some of the worksheets in as well, I've got to decide - I’ve also got to actually make the worksheets! But we won't worry about that!! INTERVIEWER: So generally that sounds like, ‘I think that's a good activity to use this kind of environment for.’ GFS: Is that OK? INTERVIEWER: Because a)you can ask for other people's input and thoughts and b)it fits in with something bigger happening in the department with the departmental handbook both for students and for staff.. GFS: What, you're doing a separate one for students and one for staff, oh right INTERVIEWER: The one that we're developing for staff, SES and I are developing for staff gives a bit more information about what you're expected to do so where are you supposed to put your copies GFS: Ohhh OK INTERVIEWER: of documents and the format things are supposed to be done in and so on GFS: OK INTERVIEWER: But again that's something that if we were doing that via a particular environment like Huddle we could share that more easily and also people could give their opinions about it just in one place - Do you think with Huddle, you've had a look at it so you know there are tasks and deadlines you can set, do you think that's a useful kind of thing to have? Inside a tool like that? GFS: Yeah, I wonder if it would be easier cos at the moment you go into Huddle and you've got your tasks but then I really would like it with a calendar on and... I'd like the whole interface changed cos I don't like it (laughs) INTERVIEWER: Right! GFS: If that's not too much to ask! Apart from that.. (laughs) I can see the use for it and actually I have used it today looking at what I said I'd do so I could use it for the tasks but I don't think that's enough on its own to say yes it's worth having cos that's only one thing -you could do it on Outlook or something so that on its own which is mostly what I've used it for I wouldn't say is enough to say 'Yes that's worth having'. And the other thing, reservation is Page | 78
didn't you set up a course on Moodle for IT department; does that overlap? would you need to use one or the other? INTERVIEWER: I think there is an overlap - that's a really good question, I think one of the things Huddle gives you that's slightly different is you have got that slightly more lightweight environment - you know, the VLE's a big beast and it does so much. I think Huddle's a bit more lightweight, I think having the wiki type environment you can flick from a files view to the wiki just through tabbing GFS: Oh OK INTERVIEWER: In Moodle you have to get into one resource out of another GFS: Yeah that's quite annoying INTERVIEWER: That's a bit more clunky [irrelevant discussion of new Huddle features] GFS: So is it gonna have like a chat thing like they do on facebook - is that the idea? something like that INTERVIEWER: Yeah, you'll have like Wikis, you'll have instant messaging and I don't know if you've seen but you can create Word and Excel files within Huddle GFS: I saw you could do it but I actually haven't had a go cos I've got Word and Excel INTERVIEWER: That's quite nice though because it just brings it up in an editor inside Huddle you can quickly type a document GFS: ohh, OK INTERVIEWER: And then close it or you can upload your own files to it GFS: And does it look like it's in Excel? cos when you go into Moodle you know sometimes you open something but actually it's rubbish cos you can't do anything sensible on it so I end up closing it downloading it and then opening it - Do you know what I mean? I can't really describe what it INTERVIEWER: Yeah it actually opens up.. it looks more like, I don't know if you've seen the Google spreadsheet GFS: No, I tried to find it the other day.. INTERVIEWER: It looks more like that than Excel but it does all the things you would want a spreadsheet to do and it save it as an Excel workbook which you can then download so it's very flexible and also you can lock files for editing and it does version control. If you're all working on a particular type of document you can have it locked, nobody can edit it and then you can unlock it and let somebody else have a go GFS: Does it do that automatically if you're in something INTERVIEWER: If you're in something then it does it automatically Page | 79
GFS: It locks it INTERVIEWER: But you can also lock it anyway GFS: Oh, just as if you were working on it but not right now but you don't want anyone else meddling INTERVIEWER: Exactly, so it keeps different versions GFS: How do you decide whether you lock it - who has the right to decide who locks the document INTERVIEWER: That's the workspace manager GFS: So... you! INTERVIEWER: The owner of the workspace and anybody else they invite to be a manager so you can have a number of people as managers of your workspace. [then irrelevant] So I think the activity you have chosen is small enough to be doable in the time that we have for this particular thing but also incredibly useful and hopefully you'll be thinking about it out loud when you're doing it - it will be really interesting to see if that actually has an impact GFS: So do you want me to be writing comments like that trial one I did INTERVIEWER: Exactly yeah - that was actually really nice GFS: And where do I put it INTERVIEWER: You can just keep adding it to your whiteboard GFS: Just add it to that one? INTERVIEWER: Yeah and just put a date in the comments GFS: Yeah it doesn't do a date automatically - that should be improved INTERVIEWER: That would be a definite improvement If you did that then we'll have it all in one nice place GFS: OK INTERVIEWER: Or you could do it as a Word document, dated Word document GFS: I may as well just do it in there INTERVIEWER: The whiteboard 's quite easy cos it's easy to find and use - thank you very much for your time GFS: OK that's alright!
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Practitioner Toby (TMS) 17 June 2009 Data anonymised
INTERVIEWER:
Right... [introductory remarks - not relevant to data gathering] So I'm going to start off talking about your background and what you're teaching at the moment what you're going to be teaching and that's really to give a context for the activity that we'll be doing as part of the research process. So what courses do you teach at the moment?
TMS:
Ok at the moment I'm teaching the AS and A level COmputing courses. I teach the BTEC and the Foundation Degree - now I say teaching, the academic year has more or less finished so I'll be taking the AS and A2 starter sessions tomorrow but then that's more or less it.. INTERVIEWER:
And that's quite a range of courses actually you teach isn't it? Particularly for somebody new to the profession. TMS:
Well I'm new (laughs) So I don't know
INTERVIEWER:
Yes, it's an unknown unknown but it is quite a range. Now tell us a bit about where you're at in your teaching career because I think you're in quite an interesting...perhaps somewhat unusual position
TMS:
Well, as you say I'm more or less right at the start, from many perspectives. I started teaching here at CC in early December last year - before that ummm I had been involved in education in a sort of nonstandard capacity, I don't know how you'd put it but I had been working with some schools and colleges and technical colleges and... in Africa - and I'd also set up a nursery school and a computer training centre. So I'd, "dabbled - I think is the wrong word but ermmm I'd seen the overview - ummm I had been invited as a guest lecturer to two technical colleges and errr secondary school [then a long description of lots of previous work experience] INTERVIEWER:
So basically you've got a massive amount of industry experience in the IT arena - you've also had I think some quite interesting experience in the education system in Africa and yet you come to the College and you get told basically you're unqualified and then you're right at the beginning so next year you'll be doing the PGDE aren't you so you'll then become formally qualified. So quite interesting because sort of you're highly experienced but unqualified or something, it's errr TMS:
Maybe
INTERVIEWER:
So how do you feel about you know that...
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TMS:
To be honest I quite like it - I quite like being... Most people know that I'm new to teaching which is great for 2 reasons 1) because it gives me time to sort of observe and 2)people are quite willing to talk to me about how to prepare for exams or how to prepare a lesson plan or risk assessment or some worksheet - people are quite willing to be open and to share their ideas; and also because not much is expected of me if I do something it tends to be well received, greatly appreciated...I don't know...well yeah it's good. It gives me... being on the bottom rung of the ladder gives e plenty of time to absorb what's going on and learn how learning works! INTERVIEWER:
I'm quite interested as well in what you as someone new to the British education system from a teaching perspective, I just wonder what you feel the general role of teachers within the 16-19 year old environment...what purpose do you think teachers and lecturers actually serve - what are we here for? what's our basic mission? That's a very difficult question - the role of the teacher... I remember very clearly r4eading through the contract, obviously it wasn't that long ago, it had a list of roles and responsibilities and at the end it says "and any other duties that you may be called upon to perform from time to time"... and that last contract really sums up. Obviously the main focus is to deliver a course and not only get students to be able to recite but also understand a syllabus and have it at the forefront of their mind when they take an exam or when they're producing coursework and make sure they actually produce the coursework and get it in on time - so that is the sort of number one priority if you like, certainly as I see it. So number two priority is about 4 million things there's teaching them organisational skills, teaching them respect teaching them some ethical structure, teaching ... not always teaching..listening getting a flavour for what's going on in the student's life and if.. maybe what's happening it's kind of related to the number one priority if there's something going on preventing the student meeting their deadline figuring out why and trying to help them get over that problem or whatever. One of the students even asked if I was interested in being his father! (laughs) he said 'there's a vacant spot going would you be interested in being my dad?' ummmm I do feel that we are obviously not parents but we are.. a senior friend? I don't know. Yeah, so not like their regular or social friends certainly not a parental figure in the full parental sense but something quite unusual TMS:
I mean it also may be related to ummm there's a lot of things happening with tutors at the moment because I haven't mentioned it yet but I'm also a personal tutor for the BTEC notoriously difficult group which has been... educational in itself shall we say. I learned a lot from them and I like to think they learned a bit from me if I relate it back to the 4 million and 1 other things because I'm a tutor I've given a few tutorial sessions. I've given one on globalisation, one on how to organise and manage your time and your files and your calendar ummm I've given another one on free money, basically compound interest and how it works and why you should save rather than get a loan and just other random umm because obviously I'm here as an IT lecturer INTERVIEWER:
Well I think it's one of the really interested things that you said - that the number one priority is to get that sort of syllabus and exam answers and everything into the forefront of the student's mind so that they can succeed in their qualification and then second Page | 82
was all things about developing them as human beings and I think you're right but do you think it's right that the priorities go in that order TMS:
Well it depends on what you mean - I don't think it's right those priorities go in order from the student's point of view but from an IT lecturer's point of view I do think that is right and that they go in that order because I am an IT lecturer, I'm not a counsellor, I'm not... there's no official, I mean these things are all unofficial - I mean it wouldn't make any difference from a teaching point of view and from the student's - from the college stats point of view it wouldn't make much difference and it seems to be quite a sort of voluntary thing that's not even recognised or rewarded.. the tutorial system I think you get given 70 hours per year, now to be a good tutor takes a lot more than that. To be a bad tutor would take a lot less than that. So that's one of the things I quite like about the job - it is an extremely flexible job, you can make as much or as little from it as you like. I mean 21 hours a week or 23 hours a week, 26 hours including the PGDE, whichever way you look at it isn't THAT many hours to work per week. In London I was working that in maybe two days or sometimes less so ummmm it's quite relaxed, it can be quite relaxed from an hours point of view and then it depends on what you do with your time. It's all about what you do with your time INTERVIEWER:
Some people have said to me that teaching can be like a two hour a day job or a 24 hour a day job TMS:
Yeah, it can
INTERVIEWER:
Which leads me on quite nicely to talking about reflection and its role in teaching practice because I think you're right, I think if you want to make the most of your career as a teacher, most of your life as teacher cos there's definitely a vocational element within teaching, you shouldn't do it if you aren't interested in young people. if you want to make the most of your time as a teacher I think you need to be thinking about what you're doing and how you're doing it. Is that a statement you can agree with? TMS:
It is something I agree with ummmm it's the same - it's true of anything obviously, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. It is worth keeping track of what went well and what didn't go so well - learning from your mistakes, constantly applying them, constantly refining them and your technique - or whatever you want to say, however you want to put it. Changing your approach, which is sort of inevitable anyway because that's what human beings do, I mean we do, you stub your toe on a wall then you're a bit more careful when you walk past it next time INTERVIEWER:
which itself is the result of a reflection isn't it
TMS:
it is - but it happens automatically so but there are different levels of course because there's so much happening at once, I mean 2526 hours a week isn't that much and those 25 hours a week are in some ways even easier to keep track of because you have your lesson plans, you know how far through the syllabus you are so you can look back it's the extra bits, the unquantifiable, the second priority stuff that becomes harder to track.
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INTERVIEWER:
DO you do that in any way at all at the moment? Or is it sort of all in your head, your tracking TMS:
It's a weakness of my organisational system at the moment - I mean the way I organise myself I have my calendar and my diary which I fill in for future dates and when those dates come and they pass they're still there though I rarely look at them. There are... I have my files which are just like all the files I need - all my presentations, all my resources all my hand outs, all the forms questionnaires the quizzes all the teaching resources and maybe associated extra related bits ummm and then I have my task lists. Now my task lists are brilliant - they mean I can see at a glance, actually I have 2 task lists I have immediate and important stuff and then I have sort of less important less urgent stuff and ideally I'd have four but that becomes more complicated so urgent and Important goes on one task list and then not urgent not important goes on the 2nd task list and the tasks are likely to jump from one task list to the other. I do all that using my Gizmo which for the record is a Nokia E90 Communicator INTERVIEWER:
Which you use quite heavily?
TMS:
I do use it very heavily, I have like 16 gigs I connect via USB cable to... it's my memory stick, it's my calendar and it's my task lists and the one flaw of me organising myself that way is the task lists, because I want to be able to access them in a variety of different ways and different places I keep them as a text file because it's the most compatible file format I've found and the problem with that is that when I complete a task I delete it it gets removed from my task list and I have no way of I have no record of all these tasks that I've done. It's great from the point of view that it means I get things done but it's not great because it means I can't always, I can usually remember if I've done something obviously but errr I can't remember them all. If you said 'what have you done in the last three months' it becomes a much more difficult question. What am I doing for the next three months? I can simply read you my task list but what have I done for the last three months ummm I have to rely on memory which is not that great and it's just a system which has slowly evolved in time and is continuously evolving - like i say my new, I mean I could create a third task list where I just copy stuff afterwards but because that takes a little bit longer it's just less likely to happen. INTERVIEWER:
I'm quite intrigued, your talking about your schemes of work your lessons plans being art of your reflective portfolio - of thinking about what you're doing and how you're doing it and why you're doing it - is that something that you actively sought to do or is it just what you see as the natural way of being? TMS:
my appraoch to everything tends to be one of ... a lot of the time I will look at how someone else is approaching a problem and then i will think "right, how else can I approach this problem?" - it's one of the things that made me successful I guess as an IT consultant was the ability to approach a problem form a completely different angle either that no-one else would have thought of or no-one else would bother with ummmm speaking to some of my colleagues and certainly speaking to people on the PGDE course schemes of work and lesson plans Page | 84
are there mainly for external moderators and internal verification to... they're not there... they are there for other people, people see lesson plans as an inconvenience, something that has to be done but that they don't necessarily believe in and I never do that. I mean there's things like that all over the place but if I'm going to do something i'm going to do it well and otherwise I'm not going to do it so either I don't do lesson plans and schemes of work or i do them but make them useful, make them relevant. Now my schemes of work and lesson plans don't always look the way they're supposed to look. On my PGDE there have comments made that they weren't detailed enough. I didn't write what was going to happen to the nearest minute in a session and that's because I don't believe it's a good idea to write things to the nearest minute. I believe that an element of flexibility and being to sort of take a moment to investigate a particular topic a little deeper or if I find a student knows quite a lot about a particular subject I'd like them to share their knowledge ummmm I'm also aware of the fact that whilst it's me I'm the one there teaching them the syllabus and preparing and guiding and leading the sessions, sort of facilitating the sessions, I do see it as sort of a large part is participation. A lot of the students are actually really good - their knowledge may exceed mine in certain areas and I'd like to be able to tap into that and share it with the rest of the class ummmm for two reasons. One because other students therefore learn more and from different sources and it comes with a bit more credibility to it, if it's just me saying 'this, just take my word for it' then it's more boring and less likely to be remembered and if we have a group discussion and we all agree then it's more likely to be remembered, it's more likely to be applied and we can see different applications because my experience, my knowledge of the topic can be complemented from other places. INTERVIEWER:
So you can construct a group idea?
TMS:
Precisely but that's the kind of thing that you don't, can't plan for and so I don't plan for it, rather than saying "we're going to be doing this" and mapping out the entire lesson to the nearest minute I have a plan for the lesson and I know what I want to cover in the lesson and I have an idea of how I'm going to do it and it usually is an idea and a set of notes. I certainly don't... I will have an idea and I will know what I need to cover and I'll have some resources so I could in theory just stand at the front assume no-one knows anything and deliver just the material I've brought and point the students to other resources elsewhere and umm INTERVIEWER:
So what you're saying is you really have a pragmatic, flexible approach TMS:
Yes I believe in being flexible - I believe learning should be flexible - because it IS; it is inevitably because the more rigid you try and make it the more likely you are to fail INTERVIEWER:
Do you feel some of the formal structures we have like, for example we have a faculty scheme of work for example. Do you see that as mechanistic box ticking rather than useful...
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TMS:
Well I see it as a framework because on the one hand freedom is great but on the other anarchy isn't and I would far rather start with a template than with a clean sheet of paper if you see what I mean INTERVIEWER:
Some sort of scaffold..
TMS:
Yeah I can see I'm contradicting myself in a way - yeah exactly it might be I end up writing my own template and running with that but for the time being it's quite handy I mean I can design my own thing and then I look at key Skills and think oh Key Skills and I haven't said when the lesson is going to happen - those things don't take a moment, you stick 'em in and they ARE quite handy. It means anyone seeing the lesson plan - the other great thing about lesson plans is that err ummm IF I've already prepared the resources and I've already got the lesson plan and I get hit by a bus, so long as they're on the G drive anyone who wants to take over can pick up the lesson plan can pick up the resources and go and scan through the lesson plan and give more or less the same session I was gonna give. I do believe that lesson plans and schemes of work can be extremely useful and I have found them extremely useful myself - I mean I came in in December and that wasn't the start of term! I picked up a few courses in the middle of courses where the, certainly on the Foundation Degree I picked up a unit from SLB and I picked up another unit from RTG and sort of picked them up looked at the schemes of work and ran with them. Things weren't necessarily up to date but I could at least see what they'd done. The first session I did with both the Foundation Degrees I sat down with the scheme of work and basically asked the students "So what have you covered so far and what have you not covered" and sort of made notes on the scheme of work and then went back and that scheme of work evolved into another scheme of work which we followed to completion. And it seems to have worked quite well. INTERVIEWER:
And it does lead us on very nicely as well to what... I'm quite interested in a few of the things you said. One was about you with a group of students and you have a group discussion and what comes out of that and the new knowledge that is constructed, which is more full because it's the result of more people's thinking rather than one person saying "it is this way" it's a collaborative effort and the other thing is picking up someone else's scheme of work and actually using it in a live environment. It's not like the theoretical version #1 that.. # TMS:
#2 Yeah #
INTERVIEWER:
Which makes me feel that a really important element of teaching is collaborative work TMS:
Yeah
INTERVIEWER: TMS:
#1 In many different shapes and forms #
#2 okay #
INTERVIEWER:
and teaching is often I mean you'll definitely find this on the PGDE and the PETLS course is we talk about collaboration
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constantly and teamwork and that sort of thing. In your experience a) does collaboration happen? And b) if it doesn't should it? TMS:
OK I do believe that we're a department, that we're delivering these courses all together - there's not one course I've delivered myself and I don't think that's ever likely to happen - so on the one hand collaboration and communication, communication especially is extremely important and knowing what someone else has done, if I'm working with someone to deliver a course I need to know what they're teaching they need to know what I'm teaching so that we don't either end up teaching the same stuff or both of us assume that the other person has taught something that they haven't. If we want to cover everything in the level of detail we want there needs to be that communication there needs to be tat collaboration so, yes communication and collaboration is extremely important and the systems we have for doing that at the moment are weak. Mainly they... the best is to sit down and chat with someone, if someone doesn't work here anymore or if someone s part time it can be very difficult ummmm having some system whereby as your teaching you sort of make notes or ideally the notes make themselves by you working like you upload your modified scheme of work - the other thing I do with schemes of work, amend them, I make notes on them in the evaluation section at the bottom The other thing that happens is the stuff that is borne out of the lecture, stuff you wouldn't expect, I make notes, again they tend to be text files or Word documents, like the links to sites that we've gone to or interesting new topics I will make notes about them somewhere, either simply put them on a text file and save them to the course folder I mean if I can come back to that maybe but yeah, some way of recording it and some way of keeping track of what's happened what's been done, all the new stuff that's come up and not wasting all the new resources the new learning which is borne out of the session because a lesson plan is just a piece of paper and until you've actually delivered the lesson then you don't know, I mean you can guess but until you've delivered the lesson you don't know if it's going to be good or not. You don't know which bits are going to work best, you don't know which bits the students already know lots about, you can predict you can guess, you can try and foresee but until its actually happened you don't know. So just by delivering a lesson plan you can learn a lot. INTERVIEWER:
But do you think you're only gonna learn it if you do actually then reflect on it and keep those notes and make those adjustments TMS:
Yes, and what I, Like I say, what tend to do not only do they go on my task list if it's something like for example the table behind us that was actually, my plan for this server (points to new euipment) is to install some virtualisation software and then get Solaris running on it because out of one of the AS Computing session we ended up talking about Solaris and zoning and load balancing and what makes servers go and that then ended up... that didn't end up on the AS Computing task list it ended up on my main task list, my second task list my not urgent/not important but still part of building the research and development lab in here - I want to get Solaris running on the Mac and play with zoning and get the students to play with zoning Page | 87
INTERVIEWER:
And so you did that presumably because you saw a use for it beyond the A level TMS:
Exactly, so that wasn't review it wasn't evaluation it was just a good idea that came out of discussion with a student in a class. I mean this talk of review and evaluation - this is just words and even if you think about what they actually mean they're not always that applicable. You don't sit there at the end of the lesson and go "Yes, actually that didn't go terribly well" or yes that did go quite well. You know instantly as you're doing it whether it's going well or whether it's going badly and if it is going badly you need to switch tack you don't just struggle through to the end - you're reviewing as you go. You know what's working you know what's not working and you can make notes but sometimes you know it was so bad you just completely rewrite the lesson plan and all those resources go in the course folder and to be fair I don't look at them until I'm doing another sort of plan for the next topic or the next unit - it's only I don't, it's not a daily thing it's maybe something I do every half term when I have time to sit down and go through all my resources because it always happens I mean it's like you need to tidy things up from time to time and it's when I'm tidying things up that all these small notes that I've been making throughout the year get absorbed into the next lesson plan or get absorbed into the scheme of work or maybe into my task list or absorbed into the calendar or absorbed wherever they need to go. INTERVIEWER:
But is this an activity that is basically solo activity that you're undertaking? TMS:
Well OK this lead me to the next - I mean this is what I do that could scale to other people. Relating to what we were saying earlier where there are effectively... a teacher has two priorities deliver the course and... everything else. Now not all teachers, as we've already discussed as we've already agreed you can make as much of this or as little of this job as you like. That makes collaboration quite difficult because you can do as much or as little as you like. Inevitably there will be those who work harder than others and as a result of this collaboration - I mean collaboration, a collaboration tool could be very useful in keeping track of exactly who's pulling their weight but I think #1 there must be some # INTERVIEWER:
#2 Doesn't it always come down to a willingness to collaborate? Because I always think perhaps with collaboration we all want to do it and we just get on better with some people than others # TMS:
#1 well yes but with collaboration I mean that's inevitable and some of the projects I've worked on I've worked with people I really didn't like but at the end of the day we all had to complete the goal otherwise we'd all lose our jobs. # INTERVIEWER: TMS:
#2 OK #
Now that's not quite the same in education - you can do as little as you like, the bare minimum for teaching is really quite little it seems and you can work that way for quite some time and on the one hand yes sharing your knowledge and sharing your resources and everyone Page | 88
pulling together is a wonderful vision but the reality... I think that vision will often get stuck in reality whereby some people will be well it's just inevitable, some people are just better at planning better at organising just better at doing things I suppose. And ummmm INTERVIEWER:
That's quite interesting what you were saying about using a collaboration tool - collaboration, reflection, development - you might be able to start seeing where the gaps are in terms of people's participation in terms of development of the team as a whole.. TMS:
But people can see it anyway - I mean you don't need a collaboration tool to tell you who's working hard and who isn't, you don't need... but that's something else that struck me early on about education and the way education works is that hard work isn't necessarily rewarded - in fact it's the opposite, the harder you work the less you get paid, the less the pay works out per hour if you see what I mean. If you do the bare minimum your hourly rate is extremely high - if you do the max then your hourly rate is ridiculously low. INTERVIEWER:
So there are few incentives do you mean
TMS:
There are no incentives in fact the incentive is to do the bare minimum as hard work is not rewarded INTERVIEWER:
So do you think managers and the people providing the funding, they're relying on the vocational element, relying on people's good will to go the extra mile? TMS:
perhaps. They might. I think that maybe my experience is, my experience is limited to the last 5,6,7 months now ummm it's ummmm There's been quite a high staff turnover in our department and as such I see the problem is constantly fire-fighting and I see that the problem is not necessarily... it's almost impossible to predict, education is so very volatile. I mean not just in the classroom where you don't know if something is going to work or not, even on the larger scale you don't know how many students we've got starting next year. It makes it very difficult to predict how many teachers we're going to need how many classrooms you're going to need how many of whatever you're going to need and everything can change at the last minute and therefore it is constantly fire-fighting - it's constantly reacting to things ummmmm and it's very difficult to actually plan for. I mean we've been planning a whole new building [irrelevant diversion into new building] I think the managers have their hands full reacting to the pressures from up and so I guess the teachers also have to be able to react to the last minute pressures from up. And try maybe, I dunno, trying to shield the students and maintain a professional veneer ummmm and show them what it means to be organised show them what it means to actually do a good job I think is another responsibility of a teacher and ummm it's certainly not something that's in the contract and the collaboration idea I think is a great one but trying to implement it would be extremely hard because you would have to... it would need everyone to use it not just you and me who are collaborating on a course it would need the whole college almost - a way of managing and sharing the information. The other thing is that knowledge is power and everyone knows that here more than anywhere. There are so many
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essential bits of information that are not communicated through official channels. They end up going round the grapevine INTERVIEWER:
There are a lot of informal ways you get to hear about something quite important? TMS:
Yes ummmm
INTERVIEWER:
Do you think some of that though might be the information is so distant? I mean it's kept on so many different systems it's always somebody else needing to enter basically the same information so it's really annoying TMS:
Yes, but there's something we haven't even mentioned yet and that's politics. It does also strike me that politics is... I've worked for local government in Africa so I have a pretty good idea of what politics is about but there is a large political element in here. it's all about who's friends with who, which particular party you're a member of - the information that gets passed around, the ummmm, uhhhhh you know what I'm talking about I don't need to ummm... INTERVIEWER:
You see that as, to my mind that's got to be a huge constraint on the potential success of any tool aiming towards the sharing of people's reflections on what is going on in the classroom and also on collaborating on future things you want in the classroom and across college - you know, I'm thinking about support workers and so on. If we're collaborating as teachers on the design of a course what are our mechanisms for involving Academic Support in that? TMS:
OK
INTERVIEWER:
They're an important element - we have some students with very particular needs but it's very difficult for us to actually achieve some of what we want isn't it? And if the politics are then layered on top of that.... TMS:
Well another thing that strikes me about the college there are lots and lots of small communication systems. We have the Student Comment System, there is the Moodle system and we all have our own email address - there are... I can't remember them all now but my desktop is littered with icons to link to collaboration tools. I mean they're all small parts of a collaboration tool. There's a spreadsheet over here for keeping track of this, another spreadsheet over here for keeping track of that and I mean it's almost like you need a collaboration tool to figure out which collaboration tool to use. INTERVIEWER:
I mean CCO was an effort to try and start bringing that into one environment TMS:
Yes, and it's a great theory sort of... t fails in the implementation I think because it... ohhh for two main reasons. Because people don't use it that much and the other is because it's underresourced. I mean why.. there are things I COULD use Moodle for but it takes half an hour longer than doing it the other route so I use the other route. Moodle is a great idea and in the future I'm sure it will be great but it requires a lot more effort to be put in to it ummm Page | 90
because it's frustrating it's unstable and it doesn't always do... I mean it is usually possible to do something in it but it takes so much longer than and is so much more complicated than doing it an alternative way so.... INTERVIEWER:
So that does bring me to one of the points I wanted to make sure I covered which was your view of how well technology and implementation of technology projects, how well that is supported by the college. TMS:
Before we move on to the technology bit can I just rewind a bit because there’s something that I thought about just before you mentioned... that was, we talked about collaboration, we were talking about how we can all collaborate together. I find myself the main people I want to collaborate with are my students. I want to be able to communicate with them I want to be able to share my resources with them I wan them to be able to share their resources with me I want them to be able to tell whether they're going to be coming to the lessons or not. I want to be able to tell them what they missed out on. I want to be able to discuss things with them and I see that as being more important than being able to share schemes of work and share my resources with my immediate colleagues who may not even be teaching on the same course, who may not even... Yeah who don't necessarily need them. I think that's part of the reason, I mean need is the mother of invention, well necessity is the mother of invention but it's part of the reason I came up with alternative routes is to communicate with the students not to communicate with my colleagues... INTERVIEWER:
So are we thinking then your views and thoughts about what goes on in the classroom, if you want to record your thoughts and make adjustments to your schemes of work based on what's gone on in the classroom that then leads to thinking about collaboration but it's collaboration with the students rather than as you say sort of sharing it around with other lecturers TMS:
ummm I'm not sure!!
INTERVIEWER:
Reflecting on what you're doing and how the course is going making adjustments are geared towards this sort of collaborative learning aspects with your students rather than with other people TMS:
Yes always
INTERVIEWER: TMS:
Have you created or used Ning or anything like that
Ning?
INTERVIEWER:
Have you been to Ning.com? It's kind of... it's a "Build your own" social network - and it looks quite interesting [irrelevant] In terms of being able to communicate easily it does that part of the job - I just wonder if something like that goes part of the way but actually you're still going to think "well we've still got bits here and here" so we're still missing this holistic overview of what's going on TMS:
Yes..
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INTERVIEWER:
With the student experience
TMS:
That's a much more difficult thing to visualise - A holistic overview of what's going on with the student experience? INTERVIEWER:
You want to know not only what are they doing on their current course but what about the other courses - I mean are they working for you but not working elsewhere.. TMS:
Ohhh right I see
INTERVIEWER: TMS:
Are they going to their academic support
Interesting
INTERVIEWER:
Are they not attending your sessions but attending other people's? Quickly and easily without having to trawl through 15 different systems and trying to piece this information together, which also then allows you to record your overall thoughts and feelings about the course and the individual students. TMS:
Yes
INTERVIEWER:
Is that the kind of thing that might be attractive
TMS:
Umm yeah I think the ability to share information is always a good thing and on the one hand it would be interesting to know how my students are doing in other courses. On the other wll worst case scenario it might make me prejudice unfairly against a student. It may be... I mean we're all humans and different people get... as we've already discovered different people get on with different people better it may be that a student that I don't get on with at all, a student where we really do clash then I might... they might have got on as friends if I hadn't said - what I'm trying to say is it is possible to read the information and draw the wrong conclusions - If all I know about the student is what other have complained about them INTERVIEWER:
That's an interesting point because when students start here at the college almost all lecturers I know make almost no effort to find out what their experience was of school because for the ones that have had a bad experience we don't want to start off with them thinking '"ahh, here we go this one's going to be trouble" because we want to give them a genuine clean slate TMS:
Yes
INTERVIEWER:
On which to start so that is a tricky one
TMS:
But it's interesting how you find out random snippets of information - there was one student in particular BSD who been a particular challenge for just about everyone and it wasn't until he had another final warning sent home that I realised his parents are called Mr and Mrs P or his parents... I don't know who he lives with but it's not his parents and then when you start talking to him the
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whole reason for him being the way he is starts to unravel and considering where he's come from he's actually quite successful and on the one hand should that make any difference? he is loud obnoxious and irritating but on the other hand it gives you a bit of background and makes you, gives you, more motivation to try and help him and help him realise the error of his ways. [irrelevant talk about a student] ...trying to get down to the real person underneath is not always that easy - I don't whether you can structure or formalise or whether a system that gives a holistic overview of the student experience would be able to capture all the relevant information or at least organise it and present it in a way that... I don't think it should be about painting pictures I think it should stick to the facts and the facts that you need to know and whilst there are some bits of information that may be nice to know stick to the facts that are essential; such as whether you've already delivered a particular thing or whether this part of the syllabus has been covered or umm I don't know INTERVIEWER:
Do you think that's one of the things teachers very often do and it works for almost all students is that you come into the classroom deliver the material - your only concern is whether the student has been given an opportunity to learn the things that they have to learn to pass their exam and that is the scope of your responsibility and you're not there as a sort of guardian angel solving all their life problems and that's up to them to sort that out. TMS:
Yes
INTERVIEWER:
DO think it's reasonable for teachers...
TMS:
I think it is and I think that's part of the reason why the salary is low because what we're then talking about is not teaching we are talking about a guardian angel which is a different role and the government doesn't provide those at the moment! So but I thin it's als fairly well known that if we don't do it who else is gonna do it. I mean the idea of being a parent is... we've completely forgotten what family is about in this country and the family unit has been well nonexistent almost for quite a while let alone extended family- the whole people, family neighbours friends joining in to help raise a child it's left to no-one it seems - certainly in some students' cases it's left to no-one. [chatter about how this affects life chances] Maybe that might help clarify the priorities of a teacher a little more. One is to give them an opportunity to pass the qualification and priority two is to give them an opportunity to mature into happy useful active members of society. [apologies and discussion on straying into philosophical territory] interview
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Practitioner MXM 23-06-09 Data anonymised
INTERVIEWER: Tell us a little bit about the type of course you're used to teaching and the type of courses you have done in the past MXM: Well I’m 55 years old now I started teaching just after I finished my degree when I was 41. I've always taught in FE, I've always taught in computing and ICT. Before I did my degree my background was working for a company called Inchcape and I was one of their IT technicians so I had experience of that. I worked for them for about 25 years ummm courses I've taught, most BTEC, Practitioners, Networkers, Games Makers taught ummm a little bit on 'A' level 'AS' level, taught on HND, HNC FD - oh I've done GCSE but only to distance learners. I think I've probably taught most post16 qualifications in terms of IT, taught A+ I'm... I've got A+ and Network + certification, I'm CCNA certified INTERVIEWER: So as well as academic qualifications you've also done vendor led ones as well MXM:
I've done CCNA yes and A+
INTERVIEWER: MXM:
And all in an FE environment
Yup always in an FE environment
INTERVIEWER: What do you think separates the FE environment perhaps from other parts of the education system MXM: Well apart from the pay (laughs)I guess it's ummm it's less structured in FE than it is in compulsory education and higher education, it's little bit more grass roots - because I did my degree late in life I always like to give everybody a second, third fourth fifth chance and I think you can do that in FE which you can't necessarily do in compulsory and higher education. I just like it, I like colleges I like FE colleges, they're extremely worthwhile INTERVIEWER: of them MXM:
Yeah, so it's not only the culture it's actually the purpose
Oh Yeah, definitely
INTERVIEWER: How would you describe the role then of an FE lecturer within the education system MXM: I suppose it's a bit like having a sweeper behind the defence in a football game, we kind of pick up all the things that get through compulsory education. I suppose the biggest thing I think is we act as a refocuser - we can refocus people back into a... an educational environment sometimes we can refocus them from a work point of view as well ummmm and I think that's our big, that's what we do isn't it. This ability to take younger students refocus them on higher education or attaining qualifications, take older students and do the same with them.
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INTERVIEWER: And that all goes back to your point doesn't it about giving people a second, third opportunity MXM:
Yeah, it is about that sort of thing... for me anyway
INTERVIEWER: And in a way that does lead into the next thing I wanted to talk about which is reflective practice because I think that idea of having an environment where people can look at their achievement sand think "well I want to do this now" MXM:
Yeah
INTERVIEWER: of myself"
"I'm fed up of setting fire to cars I want to make something
MXM: Yeah, I think you know it works in two ways doesn't it, this reflective process - I think certainly from a student point of view and my experience as a student in FE was a very reflective process looking at the opportunities I had in compulsory education and failed to take ummmm as a teacher I'm almost always reflecting on backgrounds of the children, their ability to attain as well as my own teaching you know - it's a very reflective environment really form that point of view. INTERVIEWER: MXM:
#1 And it's almost a continuous reflective environment #
#2 oh definitely yeah, yeah I Mean it's #
INTERVIEWER: One of the things you sometimes hear when you do your PGDE PGCE and everything whatever they call it now - they teach you about reflective practice but it tends to be like "you do this and then you sit down and reflect upon it" I mean is that your experience of reflective activity or is it a bit more... MXM: No, I think it's a bit more than that isn't it I think ummmm I don't necessarily think there's... when you talk about you do something and then reflect on it it's almost like it happens in two different time frames and often it doesn't do that. Often you can be reflective while you’re actually presenting information in the class. That's the other thing... nice thing about FE it's very, particularly the field that we're in, it's very adaptable - I don't think I've ever given, I might have planned it but I've never given the same lesson twice. You know, however many years I've been in it. That's down to an awful lot of reflection on what I do. I think it's a very important part of you know, self improvement really, the reflection process. INTERVIEWER: What I was wondering with that reflective activity and I think you're right I think so much of it happens in-process and as you say, I don't think I've ever given the same lesson because of a hundred different... MXM:
reasons yeah..
INTERVIEWER: Ummm but the more you do it and the more you reflect on it do you feel you require an ever-richer range of tools to call upon to cope with different...
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MXM: Yeah I think you feel very much more adaptable if you're constantly examining what you're doing - I think it makes it very much a... it exercises that particular part of your brain or character which actually does that. I mean you become extremely quick about what to do next and how to move into something and again it allows you to... if a lesson isn't going well it allows you to adapt that lesson, change that lesson so it becomes more engaging to the students point of view. Doesn't always work but it can produce some great results can't it at different times. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel the education system itself - are there systemic weaknesses that discourage people from participating in that kind of activity MXM: I think we have a kind of achievement culture that sometimes doesn't allow us to be as adaptable from a teaching point of view - I mean certainly some qualifications I've taught n have been extremely prescribed, right down to the schemes of work and in some cases almost the lesson plans INTERVIEWER:
Actually arriving in a folder you mean?
MXM: Yeah - I think that doesn't encourage the holistic element of what we have to do - Not only are we about imparting information and creating a learning environment we're also about helping to form characters and helping to form you know individuals' ... make individuals a lot wholer in their thought process, you know, the way they react to things. I mean education historically changes people - Sometimes it's you know, ever increasingly in this day and age it's become an achievement culture whereas we seem to have lost that holistic view of education that it makes people better or makes people different, I don't know whether 'better' is the right word really INTERVIEWER: But we aim to make them more thoughtful and more participatory in society MXM:
Well exactly!
INTERVIEWER: MXM:
And more thinking
Yeah! definitely and more sociable as well
INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that sort of development of them which needs to be done in a social environment really MXM: Yeah, I mean I think there is something to be said about us being a little bit too academic at times; that's another thing I like about FE - I think FE is a lighter atmosphere and it's sometimes a bit more inducive to being able to enjoy your learning - you know learning is one of the ummmm big ways that we ummm can transfer knowledge, if we're right in ourselves, if we're relaxed you know, open to suggestion then we can take in a lot more information INTERVIEWER:
Almost playful? That's been said to me
MXM: Yeah I think there's a big thing about that - about having a relaxed you know enjoyable thing something that you can go home and say 2guess what we did today" - children lose that don't they when they get into secondary education
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INTERVIEWER:
It's almost kind of squashed out of them!
MXM: I've noticed with my son - it's not quite as much fun as it was at junior and infants school and I think there's something to be said for making education fun. INTERVIEWER: One of the things I find there is that teachers, or lecturers almost to a person agree with that and yet the education system seems to be designed in a very different way MXM: It is I mean - the awful thing is the middle management in colleges I've come across, the fact is it's full of people who can't teach and they tend to be the people that actually set the agenda for some of this and the politicians without getting into a whole different debate I mean sometimes I think it's the wrong people that set the agenda for education - it's not the educators it's the middle management the politicians, the peripherals I would call them of the education system but as you rightly say talk to 9 out 10 teachers and they would like to make it fun as well - sometimes it's not easy to do. INTERVIEWER: No it's not actually it's very difficult to do to make it successful and not just wasting time. I think it's actually a very difficult trick - which does require you to understand a lot about your own teaching which of course then means you have to be reflective and one of the other things I've found is that right at the start of my career I was told teaching can be a very lonely profession but at the same time it is often seen as a collaborative profession - how does that tension play out? MXM: Well I’ve never really felt lonely in teaching - I've always felt it is very important to be part of a team - from the point of view of integrating the student and engaging the student sometimes it's important you do that with fellow members of your teaching team - I think it's very important you know - although sometimes I'm not always the best team player - I think it's an essential part of what we do at colleges like this to be able to... and particularly teaching on BTEC which I suppose I'm mostly teaching on at the moment the needs an awful lot f team teaching INTERVIEWER: There's a lot of units and there's a lot to be taught that's bound to be taught by more than one person MXM: And you know there are strands of those units that tie in with other units so it's very difficult to teach a unit in isolation - plus it helps build the students empathy and sometimes students tend to like a particular teacher rather than... or one teacher stands out to them and I think that's a bad thing - I think you have to promote you know your mate , your fellow teaching staff as well and they you - helps the students to respect you and it helps you to get over the salient points about each unit and how they tie in. And of course IT is a collaborative industry isn't it. most projects are brought home by a team, most design is team based. You need to pass that, transfer that understanding on to the students. INTERVIEWER: Is there a tension though between that and the fact that one of things that attracts some people into the profession is that they also want to control their own environment and destiny to a certain extent MXM: Yeah I would agree I mean certainly one of the reasons when I first came in what I really liked about teaching was the fact you were kind of
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left to your own devices - mean subsequently I don't think that's the best thing to do because I think it breeds a lot of bad habits, it breeds a lot of indiscipline and it can also lead to people dropping out of the industry you know, particularly early but yeah everybody would like to help control their own destiny wouldn't they and it's nice to be able to organise yourself and be able to go and present something and not have anybody else you know ummm poke their little oar in! I don't think it's a good thing but certainly when I started I did find it an endearing part of it. INTERVIEWER: I've started to think about it - when I first came into teaching it was about me and it was great because you weren't being watched over all the time and then the more I've done it the more I've thought you need to be very open and actually share not only your resource stuff but your feelings and thoughts MXM: Yeah and I think it's very important that when you're in the sort of environment we are in ummm that you do share some of your practices you do share some of your ideas - I mean if you're thinking in terms of making yourself and island in education, particularly in further education it's not the best way of being able to run with it because I mean we're talking about reflective practice which is improved by engaging with other people by talking about what you're experiencing and I've picked up so much from sharing what I've done with other people INTERVIEWER: MXM:
So reflective practice really needs to be...
Yeah it certainly does need to be collaborative definitely
INTERVIEWER: It's interesting - I wonder if when you read some of things written about reflective practice it always seems to be about you as a person - how your day went... MXM: You know I mean reflective practice is not just helped by sharing your thoughts with your colleagues it's also helped by getting information from the students - I remember when I did my PG|CE they used to talk about getting feedback from the students in every lesson well it's not always practical but useful feedback about how the lesson went or what students sometimes think is good - I'm not saying they're right but it's a source of information you can look at and try and include next time you have that sort of class or you're teaching that particular subject INTERVIEWER: Do you think though if we tried to improve the way that teachers collaborated in a deep way not just sending each other copies of meeting minutes and stuff - you know deep collaboration, I just wonder if some of that collaborative stuff is very personality driven; collaborate with him because I like him MXM: I think obviously in any environment where there are other people around you choose the people that suit you don't you? That maybe have the same attributes, similar characteristics so I’m pretty sure when you collaborate with somebody it's probably better to collaborate with somebody that appreciates you the same way that you appreciate them so sometimes it's not always easy to collaborate with somebody from a different end of the spectrum - having said that I think we should collaborate an awful lot more, maybe even within, inside the classroom - I mean certainly with... at colleges I've worked at I've had favourite teaching assistants or people that have been teaching helpers that have been helping students that require a second party to facilitate them and we've had some great results
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from that - I mean we think of it in an isolated form in the classroom don't we but I think I could quite easily go into the classroom with some teachers and do it from that point of view INTERVIEWER:
Right, that's interesting
MXM: Well where we've got you know in this day and age where we have two and three hour lessons sometimes it could work to the benefit of students INTERVIEWER: MXM:
It could shake things up a little
Whether it would be practical or allowable in real terms...
INTERVIEWER: of scenario
All those real world gets in the way of a good education kind
MXM: But you must have found it where you've got a really good teaching assistant that's on the same waveband as you I mean it can turn a very slow class into a really vibrant thing because you're both approaching it from different ends INTERVIEWER: I mean we both know that teaching very often is a bit of a stage performance and a double act is going to be a very powerful... MXM:
It's can be more engaging sometimes can't it
INTERVIEWER: And moving on to technology - we've thought a bit about reflective activity and collaboration and also I think tying those two things together - one of the interesting things you pointed out was that good reflective activity is gonna need input from a whole range of outside people - I'm just really interested in the way that technology might assist in that process - you said something about involving the students in that I would like to see a software tool where you could plan and deliver different kinds of activity and receive feedback all within the tool so instead of having one thing over here and one thing over there you've actually got this whole mini-research tool. If you had something like that do you think it's something that would be useful? MXM: Of course! Yeah I think you know video diaries and that type of thing ummm we seem to have lost this ability to reflect on our thoughts it's certainly very good from a psychological point of view to write things down and it helps from that point of view and it would be nice to have a tool like that from a reflective practice point of view and the time to use it. I think they go hand in hand - it's alright having the tool and there are lots of similar tools out there but it's also this ability to actually have the time to be able to reflect. Certainly it would help on the long term basis to be able to look at what your comments are after certain lessons - whether that's some sort of video diary that you allow the students to comment on some of the sessions - yeah I'm all for it. I think anything that can make you think about things and make you improve I think is a worthwhile thing and I think sometimes we - and I don't mean to be detrimental but I've seen teachers just delivering the same old stuff year in year out with little or no variation. I don't think you can do that in our industry. I'm passionate about the fact you know the beauty of our industry is it changed since I started this sentence you know? And it's constantly changing because of that we have to constantly change - our subject matter at least and often our way of presenting that matter to somebody.
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INTERVIEWER: That's a really interesting thought as well though because what you're saying is you've got different types of lecturer basically for different types of course - if you're teaching maths which changes very slowly.. MXM: Yeah, very slowly in its evolution isn't it. Perhaps you wouldn't necessarily need such an immediate tool as it were - other subject, history and things like that which change on a... evolve in a slow way wouldn't necessarily gain as much from this sort of almost immediate feedback tool whereas IT would be perfect for it. I mean IT is perfect for that, you know that immediate feedback. It would be bound to make a difference to how you would teach the next lesson, to how you would teach in general. I think it's a good thing, anything that makes you think and wants to work at how you do things and ultimately assess I think is a good thing. Not saying it's good in every subject but particularly in what we're engaged in. INTERVIEWER: I think some of these big solutions like government solutions to problems in education they seem to rely on applying it always and everywhere - it's sort of "that's it" the solution for everything and actually very often it's... MXM: Maybe a solution for one thing but you know the awful thing about education is you CAN'T generalise - that's another big failing we have is the fact that we... from outside education you think we, compulsory further higher education all merge into one and of course that's because we have this attitude with what's good for one is good for the other I mean look at the way we rate our schools by Ofsted, we now rate our FE colleges by Ofsted our HE provision Ofsted - we generalise it all and I think we shouldn't do that. INTERVIEWER: MXM:
Because it doesn't take account of...
The individual parts of it, yeah
INTERVIEWER: You've worked at a number of different which is helpful for me because I'm just wondering generally if there were some sort of Supertool that helped teachers with their CPD in the field of reflective activity which is a big thing for the Institute for Learning do you think... in what circumstances would they give good support and in what circumstances would they not? MXM: Well, they're always very concerned about CPD or at least they make themselves seem to be very concerned about it - I think anything that could change and genuinely help to improve, particularly in FE at the moment the ability to engage students and the ability to make the teaching environment more interesting for the students would be trialled you know wherever - as we move into the second decade of this century we have a problem in FE and the problem isn't ummm about achievement it's about getting people to attend and getting people to, getting to people who maybe haven't got as much out of compulsory education as they should have, allowing them to take the opportunity of a second chance I think that's a big problem we've got INTERVIEWER:
By attend I don't think you mean just turn up do you
MXM: Oh No I mean be there and become involved and want to come back you know we've tried EMA we've tried various strategies to get you know the
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younger student to ummmmm stay at college and some have been successful. But we need to explore things more don't we. [interview interrupted and moved to part 2 location from room x to y] MXM:
It would be a very interesting tool for umm to look at because it sounds to me like it would be able to look at feedback from different areas and help you be more reflective on what you're actually presenting to students and that way I always consider reflection leads to improvement INTERVIEWER:
I think that's got to be the aim of it hasn't it - it can't be reflection just for you it's got to be reflection with a purpose MXM:
Reflection with a purpose to improve your ability to engage and present information - I sometimes record myself you know, it's the worst thing I can do but sometimes I do INTERVIEWER:
What audio or video
MXM:
Yeah audio usually just to focus on what I'm actually saying - I think sometimes you know you get involved in a particular anomalies, particularly where you're dealing with lots of levels - you just need to listen to yourself to make sure that you're actually covering what you should be covering - I'm very aware of that sometimes particularly with BTEC where it's quite diverse and not prescribed there is sometimes a challenge where you can miss out parts of things INTERVIEWER:
Particularly if you pick up a bit of interest from something and you decide to run with it MXM:
Yeah and that's one of the reasons I started to do it - it was because I did find myself very easily sidetracked - sometimes the students can play on that can't they.. INTERVIEWER:
Yes, they do - "oh tell us another story about when you
were..." MXM:
Yeah anything to stop us doing this a bit longer (laughs) - I was quite shocked sometimes about how I repeat myself how I structure my work how I structure what I do INTERVIEWER:
Yeah it was a brave thing to do really
MXM:
I mean it would probably have been braver to let everyone else criticise it but I just kept it to myself INTERVIEWER:
Just wrap up cos we've talked about reflection and a bit about collaboration and we've talked a little bit about technology - If I was talking to someone from a different department finding out if they were interested in using technology in their teaching it would be different but if you separate your interest in using technology with technology within the education system are there things missing that you have seen - resources that would actually assist their learning
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MXM:
Yeah I think... it's difficult isn't it because what happens is when I first started teaching back in 92 there wasn't the Active Boards, the Moodles that type of thing and as the technology's improved and come along we take advantage of the technology but teaching isn't technology driven - I think we're kind of responsive to the technology but we don't actually - but the technology hasn't been as dramatic as to drive how we present things; I think we've adapted our presentations to the technology as and when it's come along INTERVIEWER:
And do you think that's a better way of doing it
because... MXM:
I think the problem is we haven't had anything really Earth Shattering that's come along - you know, we haven't had the blackboard reinvented sorry we have had the blackboard reinvented but we haven't had anything that actually has a real Wow! factor so consequently we go with the Active Boards we go with the Moodles and online learning environments and that sort of thing INTERVIEWER: MXM:
But they're not fundamental improvements are they
No
INTERVIEWER:
They're what we did before only electronic
MXM:
yeah or doing it a slightly different way- I suppose the biggest sort of emergence I've seen and the real emergence I've seen is video and the se of that and the use of remote learning I think whilst it doesn't improve the quality of the sessions I think it could improve how the student feels - allows the student to learn in his own environment or her own environment so that quite possibly is a little bit more on the revolutionary side INTERVIEWER:
But that's kind of changing the structure of education
isn't it MXM:
Yes it altering the balance and as I said to you earlier learning is all about the mood the learner is in - the more relaxed the more they can take on board and if that environment can be adapted into a home environment then all the better so maybe that is a field which is you know a little bit more innovative but most of it is supporting things that we did different ways in the past with or without technology really so there's nothing been Earth shattering that’s come along. INTERVIEWER:
I think most teachers would support that view [then some irrelevant chatter on government policy] MXM:
I think where we could spend more money is on actually developing lessons - you know innovative ways; I've been to meetings in the past where we talked about developing skills through games play and through team events and things so whilst we seem to want to spend an awful lot of money on the technology we don't spend much money on the design of the lesson and the stuff that goes into the lesson. Or, the use of technology within the lesson.
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INTERVIEWER:
Which is very often just an add on.
MXM:
You know we think we're improving teaching by providing an Active Board - WE'RE NOT! we're just replacing a blackboard with a whiteboard with a form of technology - we might be, were we to invest that money in an innovative way to teach students how to create subnet masks or how to program in Java - we spend money on the technology we don't spend money on the planning and the actual lessons themselves. INTERVIEWER:
I think a lot of the research coming out now is geared towards taking that standpoint [general chat on whiz bang technologies] MXM:
There's been some innovative things neverWinter Nights isn't there - which is a Role Playing game was developed by Nottingham Uni or college into help with the Key Skills - they've just trialled it in Gloucester and it's been extremely successful - last year the KS was 40-50% this year it's 70-75% so I mean -it's great, they're doing what they like doing and they're satisfying the college from a KS point of view INTERVIEWER:
Cos what they're actually doing is demonstrating they've got those skills but if you don't ask them in the right way.. MXM:
That's often our problem isn't it often with the adult students too - they've got the skills we've got to try and help them you know any technology that can do that gives us an advantage but I don't think Active Boards and nice sound systems are able to do that - I think it's more on crisper technology that's applied to the interests of the individual - that can gain access to other things INTERVIEWER:
Technology totally embedded in what you do so it's not something so your whole learning activity is just there and the technology happens to... MXM:
Yeah there's a lot of this that comes out in role playing games isn't it - this ability to develop ideas and this ability to do things as you're in the role of a particular character and you know thinking again of some of the skills that we try and impart to our students can be imparted in that sort of environment [discussion on RPGs in education] We don't put enough learning sometimes in FE into play and it's good in Primary schools they do that and they do it a fair bit in junior schools but in secondary and FE and HE it seems to stop - the skill seems to be an awful lot of chalk and talk doesn't it INTERVIEWER:
Which is funny because play plays quite a big role throwing ideas around, messing about... MXM:
Of course, yeah
INTERVIEWER:
Seeing what happens when you try and stick these two bits
together MXM:
And developing technology is about that - think about some of the major technologies in the last 10-15 years have been about people thinking outside the box and thinking about different... you know the
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internet, the World Wide Web is a classic example of this where somebody thinks outside of the box and comes up with a quite revolutionary idea INTERVIEWER:
Which is then used in ways that they never imagined as well, which is also interesting. MXM:
Exactly I mean that's changing all the time as well it's that sort of idea - now if there was some technology to encourage THAT again you know I think it would be worthwhile I think you know going back to where we started really with this reflective practice can hone those sort of skills which allow you to start thinking and using some of these more interesting technologies to help students learn INTERVIEWER:
And if educators were then allowed to experiment with those things try them out see what happened record their results share those results and then.. MXM:
Yeah the problem of course in FE is always cost isn't it - but I think we are too cautious sometimes, we are maybe now we're into a recession going to get more students and get more revenue and try to develop some of these things [irrelevant chat about NeverWinter Nights] I mean the problem is sometimes when you think outside the box you get pooh-poohed and that's our big problem is that as I said earlier on it's that band of middle management that really aren't educators the holders of the purse strings as it were they often can't see the benefits - they can see the benefit of putting a shiny new Active Board in a room but they can't see the benefits of spending the same sort of money on software that students can play a game on. INTERVIEWER:
That is very true [interview then ends]
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Interview 17-06-09 Janet (JRF) Senior Manager IT support Data anonymised Interviewer: Introductory talk about nature of discussion Imagine a piece of software that allows staff to collaborate on and carry out research into classroom activities. So it's for them to not only develop the planning documentation but to record the problems and issues they face within their daily practice and also carrying out pseudo experiments in the classroom. JRF: OK, couple of questions - is this exclusively to be used by staff or is it staff and students? Interviewer: I think staff and students - I think students would want to give their feedback, or rather staff would want students to give their feedback on an activity. JRF: And err... then I assume it's a central system, so all staff in theory say I was a tutor in History and that student was going to a ceramics class is the idea that all of the information would be there so even though I teach the student History I would be able to access information about that student in ceramics? Or is it more a tool to use for teachers, is that more the way we use it? Interviewer: Yeah more for teachers so although the students would use it they would use it more in a one way capacity to provide feedback activities that teachers have designed and requested their feedback. JRF: So what we're talking about here is something like a VLE whether it be Moodle or Blackboard Interviewer: Yeeeahhhh although it's more to do with not the assignment itself but the type of activity that the assignment is based around and whether it works or not - so whether it's an effective technique.. JRF: Ahh, got ya Interviewer: so it's much more to do with teaching practice than with teaching activity JRF: so it's almost like something to assist... like a pedagogical assistant in some ways. OK great, just wanted to make sure I understood exactly what it is we are talking about. Interviewer:
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What's your first instinctive reaction? JRF: [LAUGHS} As an IT person my first instinctive reaction is probably to throw my hands up in horror. Typically one of the things we find is that a lot of the very specialist kinds of software they are absolutely brilliant at what they are designed to do but then things like the installation the roll out, getting permissions right getting things to work correctly can then prove to be a nightmare. We have a problem, particularly in FE where we have minimal amounts of money so a lot of times we can have problems with specs of machines and form an IT point of view that's what we tend to look at, it's the whole thing of "How is it gonna run on OUR system" and even "will it run on our system". Will it let students and staff efficiently access it and it be a tool as opposed to ending being a hindrance sometimes when they think "why are we just not using paper" and passing it round that way. SO that sometimes is my immediate reaction tempered by this thing of knowing also that thing might be just the thing we need but then the practicalities of putting it in place do present the IT team with a real issue. Especially then if you're having things like this, it sounds like the type of thing you need to have information in there about what students need to be registered, what staff etc. I'm kind of guessing this is what we're talking about. If you have things like that, which then have to link in to other things like CIS [Computing and Information Services]systems that can prove a bit nightmarish just because they typically speak a different language from an IT point of view and then you need a programmer or someone beyond an IT support person who can make the systems speak to each other. So those are the types of things we typically face. Interviewer: So that's a number of issues - It's FE so budget constraints is the first thing that springs to mind so literally we can't upgrade the systems just to meet the requirements of any bit of software so that's just not going to happen. You've got the resources constraint because you've got a team of a certain size so how many of these kind of things are you able to support. What about cultural constraints something you kind of touched on JRF: The cultural constraints, obviously I'm speaking as a non-academic who has been in IT support in Education for a number of years and the cultural problems often tend to be with the teaching staff - it change, the students are normally fairly open to change just because that's the way they live now. A lot of times with lecturing staff there can be a real problem overcoming the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' mindset, especially in our case as we are a beacon college we get excellent results and there's lot of times this attitude which says 'we're already a great college why do we have to change when we're doing things so well2. A lot of the staff are very techno-phobic. Now I tend to be a firm believer that given the right support I think most people can learn these things. There are issues of time, our staff are hugely under a lot of time pressure and our academic staff are under a lot with this increasingly.... more and more paperwork. Some will jump into it say 'yeah, let's get on with this' and then you have the ones that think this is a good thing but don't have time and then there'll be some who just say 'why are we bothering with this' so there's huge problems when you have
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lecturers of varying, hate to say this, ages, degrees of experience etc. Often times we just don't have the staff to offer adequate support so that's a big one - in my experience anyway! Interviewer: What some people are arguing that there is believe it or not a European Directive on digital literacy, so what some people are now talking about and you're starting to see job adverts for it is the job of educational technologist which sits between the pedagogical role and the IT support role and they will take the load off the teacher in terms of getting to grips with the technology. If that role existed here would that help overcome some of the cultural barriers to JRF: I think it would probably evolve, starting by overcoming a few problems but then grow into overcoming the many as long as that body had the right amount of hours and time, a dedicated person full-time. \potentially that person.. the use of.. with some of these technologies it's almost that you have to go out and bang on doors because a lot of staff, even with dedicated support would still be very sceptical so that person would have to go out banging on doors say 'this is what I can do for you'. The more staff see that it actually is working then it would grow exponentially that more and more people would then start getting on board. I believe if staff are shown the benefits and given support they will get on board. There's a certain amount of lip service always paid to these things... the government will jump on a bandwagon and say "this is the latest thing in education" which forces the management of the college to jump on it and the corporation to jump on it but what they think is a good idea and actually getting it to happen and properly supporting it are two different things. Some restatement of same thing ...where students give good feedback and believe it's helping them I think that will show lecturers the potential Interviewer: Right so you're saying make sure it's relevant for the students? JRF: Yes Interviewer: If the students can see the benefit of it they're then going to take to their lecturers about it who are then going to be more motivated to give it a go JRF: It's got to be relevant to the students it has to be usable and it has to be supported. I have to say a lot of times in FE problems there are financial. If it's the case that financially we can't support something we still say there are other ways we can do this which isn't going to require the support – but things will die a death without the support and we have had that here with previous the VLE for instance. It never got used and it died a death. You have to prove to staff they have the time and there is support and someone willing to help them. Also that it's not wasted time. Sometimes staff have viewed innovations as time wasters not giving any benefit. It difficult to say how you should measure the effectiveness of these things - if you've already got good results it's difficult to say 'this will improve results'. So it's all about ways of finding how to measure it is improving teaching. I think relevancy to students and making sure they are getting the best possible experience and going away from the college with a decent all round education
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Interviewer: that's always a question though isn't it - it's quite reasonable to say ' what are you giving me?' so you've got to have those metrics read to answer that question haven't you. JRF: You have to be able to prove.... though I'm a firm believer that sometimes our colleagues, they could read 300 case studies that say 'this helped and it worked' they have to be shown in their own environment that it's relevant to them that it really is going to improve their students' experience. Hopefully make their jobs a little bit more interesting too because it's about the students but it's also about the staff being motivated because if the staff aren't motivated then in some ways they might sit back. If you had some people doing it and they could show their colleagues it is being effective and they are getting feedback from their students then it's like building your won case study. I mean I read case studies about things going on at other colleges and I think "that works there but that's different demographic a different set of students" it's like it has to be proved in your own environment. That's my opinion. Interviewer: So it's not just relevant generally it is relevant in these particular circumstances. JRF: Yeah sometimes I think it's hard for our colleagues to associate themselves with another college even if it's just down the road it might as well be in a different country. Having a college with good success rates in some ways is a hindrance [laughs]. A failing college will have to find ways to... and then it's measurable too. It's this thing about measuring a lot and being able to really show it's making a difference and that is hard. Interviewer:
Are people looking for specific numbers or a perception?
JRF: I suspect it's a little bit of both. My suspicion is the management are more into the figures whereas the staff at the actual grassroots level doing the teaching I bet they're less interested in a number as having a feeling it's helping their students. Interviewer: strategically do you think this college is on the lookout for how technology can help the students or is it just an efficiency device and how can it save money or is it a case of what's the latest government initiative and are we going to have to follow it? JRF: It sounds quite cynical I suspect a lot of the time with the management it's a case of what the government’s latest innovation is unfortunately and in fairness to the management they're almost forced to because we get funding from the government and there's bound to be situations where the government sees you as colleges where if you're doing these things you might get more money. Fir the management then sometimes it is that route. I think with the staff I believe there really are a lot of staff who really do want to try and improve the student experience, retention and so on for all the right reasons. SO management think one thing and staff possibly another. I think a lot of these initiatives come from theories developed by people with little idea about day to day practice.
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Interview 29-06-09 Senior Manager Brian (BRS) Deputy Principal Data anonymised BGS: The way we go forward with ILT is a microcosm of the way we pursue things in the sector in general, in which you have an environment in which you are implored to plan and common sense tells you planning is a good thing - and long term planning is better than short term planning and so on - you go on a management course and they'll say plan for the long term, think strategically which is all fine but then you operate in an environment in which it's impossible to do that - if you did that, only thought strategically, you would have to keep changing strategic direction so often you'd just mess everything up. So you're in an environment in which it is impossible to plan even in the medium term. The funding changes, changes in policy, maybe changes in government, organisational changes - the LSC's born, then it dies, new things come and go and you just go round in a circle. And funding of course you never know from one year to the next exactly what your funding is likely to be. INTERVIEWER:
So it's actually a really systemic problem then?
BGS: Oh very much so - and so I think successful colleges have management which is able to deal with that environment and say we just have to get on with it and compromise with it and work with it and I think one of the reasons we are a successful college we are generally speaking, I'm not just talking ILT here, able to operate that approach. I do know of some colleges where they have tried to take a much more clearly and definite strategic approach, particularly when it comes to major change and it's almost like they're saying 'regardless of all that other stuff which is going to bombard us we are going to go I this direction' and it's ever so brave and sometimes it's successful but you do need the luck to go with you. I truly don't think you can do that approach unless you have it. But if you are single minded about it and you have a fair wind and you have a number of these things which push you along as well as hold you back you can be successful but I think it's a very risky strategy and of course I know of other colleges where they've tried it and it's gone wrong. And then instead of just saying 'that's not the way to do it' they think 'oh we got the strategy wrong' - we'll have the same approach just go in a different direction - but it's very difficult. You can see why people think they ought to do it. It's a matter of picking those areas where you can be longish term - it can be system, a lot of the way we organise ourselves, quality, staffing procedures, staff development policy and so on, they support the college almost regardless of which strategic direction it wants to go in or whichever way the wind blows us. If you've got that solidity there then as long as you're not making huge commitments in terms of strategy then you can be more medium term. If you've got good systems backing up what you do that's helpful so don't have to keep going back and changing everything. INTERVIEWER: so you're saying if you have those core systems in place then that's where your adaptability and flexibility can come from? BGS: I believe that. If we that would seem to me to be with benchmark colleges and of what they might say they
were having a purely theoretical discussion right but it's empirical. I work very closely the reason they are so successful is regardless broadly have this same sort of approach. In the
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vast majority of cases they think short to medium term but have really good systems in place so that almost regardless of what happens externally you have a good solid foundation, in terms of quality, curriculum and development, good teachers and that, as far as the learners that come and go are concerned that's what they need. They don't need to think about the other stuff, the shouting and screaming at the LSC, tearing hair out about funding regimes we hide that because we've got good systems that doesn't translate down to the learner; we give the learner the best possible deal that we can so that's the big picture and I actually see ILT as a microcosm of that. So we have an ILT plan which we used to call an ILT strategy if you remember and we were told by the Corporation and by the consultant who came in the strategic plan isn't strategic at all and the answer to that was we simply do not feel able to be strategic in the normal sense because that requires you to know where you're going to be in 4 year's 5 year's time and you don't even know where you're going to be in 2 year's time, because of all the things I just spoke about but with ILT there's the technological changes, the skills of staff, the expectations of students it’s the unknown unknowns. INTERVIEWER: However clever you are, trying to see what's going to be useful in 4 or 5 year's time let alone ten or fifteen is terribly difficult BGS: It is - so broadly what we've done Steve as you know - we have to make some stabs at what life will be like in two years time but on the whole we've not tried to make too many assumptions about what life will be like in the future so we can be responsive - take podcasting 2 years ago it was something a few people had heard of - if we put all our eggs in a completely different basket and spent a lot of resources on some other aspect of ILT we wouldn't be able to have the resources and the time, the energy, the development time to take up podcasting. So who knows what two year's time is gonna be. So we've been pioneering netbooks for instance and changed the way we deal with laptops. Now imagine if 3 or 4 years ago we'd said "the answer is laptops" we'd have been stymied so it tends to be an incremental experimental approach. It IS cautious but I think because of the environment we're in I will defend that approach. It doesn't mean you don't plan, we've got a plan; we know what we're going to be doing next year, we're pretty sure about the year after and it's very likely in 3 year's time such and such will still be the case but beyond that committing resources is quite deliberately not done in anything other than a very general way and of course the other thing that stymied us was the build or rather lack of... INTERVIEWER: That's a perfect example of the ground shifting - I'm also interested in the responsiveness of the ILT provision which takes a slow cautious approach, what is the impact then of ILT on changing teaching practice; with the way that ILT can reshape the classroom what is it that stands in the way? In terms of the timetable and classroom structures? what stops a technology being allowed to have the most benefit? BGS: OK so I can think immediately of three things - fear that we would be making considerable changes and they wouldn't work and it wouldn't be successful educationally; then there's the individual fear that we would all have as teachers, as you know one of the biggest struggles with ILT is getting everyone up to the same standard, that's the normal fear of change, it would be frightening for all of us. Then there's the 'if it ain't broke why fix it' approach. There's also the way that learners would respond to it - we all make assumptions in our work and it's very easy to have assumptions about what students will have had access to in the past and what they will want from us, and the process of teaching students the use
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of ILT below 16 was actually slower than a lot of us thought - we used to think 'in five years time students won't want to come to the college because there isn't a computer on every wall' and that simply wasn't the case was it? And we still even now ten years later have students coming to us who don't have a huge experience of ILT. 20 to 30% of students don't ever use the computers in the college so that assumption they will all use it effectively... there is also the other false assumption it is in and of itself a good thing educationally - well it's a tool, it can be used well or badly but I think the potential for using it is massive. my argument is not that you must stop what you've been doing which may have been extremely effective and good teaching and adopt a completely new pedagogic approach it's a slow incremental approach where it's a tool in your toolbox to be used appropriately. And there are some things that if you do use ILT some old practices do fall off the edge; In terms of using ILT as a learning tool it's mostly just more stuff you can do, more possibilities. And students will have some expectation that they will have at least some access at some stages to these new types of learning. Gradually then, year by year that baseline of expectation just becomes the norm. In a few years time when we've all got podcasts on Moodle it will just be what we do and it won't seem radical. INTERVIEWER: That's really the name of the game - showing it is no more special than a book or a pencil BGS: Yes, exactly INTERVIEWER: Do you find that you get put under pressure to adopt certain practices and approaches as a result of large scale research which shows some technology is a magic bullet for a problem? BGS: No - not really, started off by saying we had had criticism from Governors that we're not strategic enough about ILT but they haven't necessarily said to us you need to have a big picture. Not having a certainty about what we will do in the long term is our strategy so we sometimes end up arguing about language and the meaning of 'strategy' - but no not under pressure to do things a certain way. What are the external benchmarks we could use to judge these things; OFSTED didn't suggest we were being wrongheaded about it. The LSC insofar as they think competent to comment on ILT haven't made any suggestion. Using the Benchmark group again of other colleges like us. I have genuinely gone away and looked at what other colleges do, high performing colleges, and broadly speaking they have the same approach. Say you develop a new building - at that point you take a look and think how learning might be managed the equipment you're going to have but that still seems to me like a building by building approach. Then there's the curriculum development approach, take new Diplomas; that gives us an opportunity to think about how to use new technology because that is part of the approach of Diplomas. SO I think it's harnessing ILT to other developments that are going on. I'm just not sure wholesale change to the way we teach a qualification is educationally justifiable and effective. INTERVIEWER: I think that educationally justifiable point is really important - so what you're saying is if we implement new ILT it's as an enabler of good teaching practice BGS: I hope so - there's too much of things being a solution to a nonproblem, we've got enough problems!
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INTERVIEWER: I'm really interested in what you were saying about changes to the classroom environment - you're right fear is the biggest problem as no one can guarantee the results would be better and it might make them worse. SO by doing it incrementally are you saying those changes might happen as things get embedded into how things are done so in ten year's time the classroom may look very different but that won't be because we've had some big change. BGS: I think that's right - In a way changes to the physical design of learning environments and changes to the way we organise sets and timings will follow changes in practice. SO within the existing constraints of timings and rooms that we have in the college people will experiment with different things - put groups together, introduce one-to-one tutorials FOFO and unaccompanied learning resource centres. As teachers as we get to so these things more effectively we want to use more of them. If an opportunity arises - when we built the J building for example it's mostly fairly traditional teaching spaces, but with some smaller and bigger rooms some computers around... a new building meant we could experiment. With the laboratory, having one for biology and chemistry with some small classroom spaces opposite so the students move backwards and forwards was a really good example of something that was fairly bold but tailored to some orthodox teaching spaces with desks and a smartboard. The students and the staff both enjoy it - the staff were worried at first and now I don't hear about it. Nigel had seen it and thought it was a good use of space was efficient and pedagogically it encouraged a more adult approach. INTERVIEWER: Everybody likes to use different approaches depending on what you're trying to cover, from very behaviourist thinking through to social constructivist things - do you think that approach which has worked well in science, if we tried to roll it out more broadly and teaching staff were sharing their experiences of those micro-experiments you were talking about what kind of problems would you face - where would the biggest pinch-points be in trying to change the college in that kind of direction?
BGS: I think they would be physical/organisational rather than theoretical as you would already need to be on pretty strong ground to change things and you would never impose such a change you would have pretty strong consultation about it and you would get a variety of responses from 'what's the problem we get 100% success' through to 'yeah let's knock all the walls down' - I would only want to do it if I felt a critical mass of the staff genuinely thought it was the right thing to do - I think you've got very very good professional teachers here who know their stuff and are able to engage in debates about their teaching and it isn't a case of 'I've always done it like this' you very rarely get that - people express their concerns in very progressive very learner centred terms. I think we've created a culture in which people do feel comfortable changing and experimenting; we've never gone down the route of 'this is your perfect template lesson plan' which they have been doing in schools because we know there are different methods for different groups and lessons. I would want to look at different parts of the college and course teams who say 'we do it this way' and try to spread it out from there, definitely taking people with you, you simply cannot impose this. You've got to make them feel it's their change at their pace but you give them all the support and encouragement you can. INTERVIEWER: That's interesting because I think there are too many of these things where people think 'if all teachers did this' it would automatically lead to a 4% improvement in outcomes; I'm not convinced that's true
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BGS: Well, there are areas in the college where we need to raise our game - we have the internal inspections which don’t produce a completely even view of provision. People understand where there's underperformance and they work very hard to try and put it right and they know they'll get supported in it and they know that the culture we have here is one in which they're not just going to be blamed they're gonna be supported to find solutions to their local problems INTERVIEWER: The final thing I'd like to ask you then do you feel pretty much the college is in charge of its own destiny?
BGS: We are subject to the whims of policy but we are pretty firmly anchored. There are a number of things going for us, we've got a pretty stable area, the demographics are fairly stable with high staying-on rates. Our bread and butter stuff here is pretty stable, we're not subject to economic changes in the way that some colleges that have a lot of vocational work might be for example, loss of adult funding provision whatever the rights and wrongs because they are a relatively small part of what we do if they're not hugely successful t doesn't have a major impact on us as a college. If you look insofar as you can at the future you can't see the majority of the courses we deliver not being here in three or five years time, A levels, Nationals, GCSEs in projecting forward in terms of our main curriculum it does give us a stable position and we do it well so there's no reason to think we will suddenly stop being a high performing college because those basics are in place. There'll be ups and downs but because of those basics, very good staff and a supportive local community we can ride out the changes from outside, that would be my judgement.
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Appendix B – Screenshots and documentary artefacts
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Huddle.net Project Management and Collaboration Tool The huddle.net site can be used by individuals and groups to store their reflective activity. Strengths of huddle are that it is cloud based and thus accessible to teachers from anywhere with an internet connection. It also includes a range of collaboration and planning tools i one workspace. Weaknesses include the lack of a good diary system and the low level of functionality of the wiki system and the haphazard nature of user account management which makes it hard to see what is really going on. Huddle was used as a prototype environment because it includes many features a research management tool would need.
Figure 1 The huddle dashboard, which gives an overview of all the documents, tasks and whiteboards (huddle name for a basic wiki environment) for one of the participants.
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Figure 2 An example whiteboard showing how a wiki can be used to collaboratively develop planning documents and reflect on them at the same time
Figure 3 An example collection of files for sharing amongst practitioners. Huddle allows files to be collected and worked on by a group with links being made to the whiteboard and the task manager so that both reflective activity and project management can be carried out by a teaching team
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Figure 4 A task collection for a teaching team, this allows ownership of tasks to be made clear and allows a team to see the status of particular jobs. As it connects to the wiki environment then problems and issues can be managed by the team during development of resources.
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Institute for Learning REfLECT System of personal reflective activity
Figure 5 The IfL personal reflective activity environment allows FE lecturers to record their own development. It does allow for shared activity but there is no training on its use or motivation for doing any activity. The system is based on the Pebblepad personal portfolio system and is a place to record past action rather than manage personal development as a research practitioner
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Appendix C copy of Action Research Spiral
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Spiral of Activity in Action Research There are many examples of the Action Research spiral of activity. It is sometimes drawn as a cycle but the spiral design is a better visual representation of the iterative nature of action research and it also serves to demonstrate that no two iterations are the same but develop as the process goes on.
Figure 6 taken from Doing Action Research in Your own Organisation (Coghlan and Brannick 2001) This particular version of the spiral was selected as it concentrates very much on planning and evaluation of activity in an upward progressing spiral, rather than the downward spiralling one that can be found in Carr and Kemmis.
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Appendix D Copy of Interview Guides
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Technology Assisted Reflective Practice Interviews : Research Title: Exploring the Potential Role of Technology in Supporting Practitioner Research in the Further Education Classroom Required: participant info sheet Purpose
Me
Participant - reasons for discussion
Data sought + why
Opening:
Briefly introduce nature of research and explain the research title
Give background info to help interviewee contextualise answers
Perception of what the purpose of the study is
What kind of courses do you teach
Get basic info
Need Background info
Where are you at in your teaching career?
“
“
How would you describe the role you play in the education system
“
“
What do you understand by the term
Discussing general ideas – don’t let them wander into other topics here
What kinds of rp do you currently use
Need to guide interviewee here in terms of potential tools but must avoid leading interview
Qs based on my explanation •
•
General Info
Reflective practice
What do you understand by discussions about the way about how people use technology to achieve things Would you find it useful to know more about how colleagues approach their work
Identify their level of awareness
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Collaboration
Technology
Are there other things you think would be useful
Encourage open discussion of weaknesses in education structures
Are there systemic weaknesses in teacher support?
Do you see any barriers to you making use of RP
As above
Do you think it is useful to your own development
Try and get them to be open about their own practice
Do you think teaching is a collaborative profession
Should open a major conversation
Is there a difference between theory and actuality
Should it be? Is collaboration an effective way of working [does it help students?]
Get them to focus on collaboration in dealing with workloads not just lesson design
If there is a difference as above why?
Do you enjoy working with others [try to explore how important individual personality is in willingness to collaborate effectively]
Key area for discussion
To what extent can technology mitigate any problems and does it create new ones?
What is your own experience of collaboration within teaching
A good war story for good or ill
Concrete experience
Do you think collaborating at work is different from in your social life (e.g. use of social networking/ MMPRPGs / team sports etc)
What makes the real world so different from the work world
Does technology help/hinder collaboration – in what ways eg CCO – Web 2.0 – email etc
What tools do they use at the moment and what are their problems?
Is there a demand for a more integrated collaboration tool?
What ICTs do you use to help with your planning?
Gather basic background
Identify the starting point
Are there technologies you know about you think might be useful in your work but don’t have
Shows how much they see technology as offering solutions
Is technology well supported by the college
Discussion of institutional constraints
What is the reality of tech implementation in the college
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Wrap up
What activity are you going to use to find out about how useful a collaborative piece of software might be
Identify what we will be using Huddle for
Tell me a bit about why you thought this might be helpful
How much thought have they given to collaborative planning
Do you enjoy looking for new ways that technology can help you in your work
Are they a leader or follower in technology use and how well thought through is their attitude
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