2010 SW LSRN Conference - Morning Presentation Sessions
South West Learning & Skills Research Network
Annual Conference 2010
"A Road Less Travelled ... Research in the Lifelong Learning Sector"
Thursday 8 July 2010
(10.00 am - 3.30 pm)
at
Buckfast Abbey Conference Centre, Nr Totnes, TQ11 0EG
held in partnership with
Tthe South West Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SWCETT)
The University of Plymouth Higher Education Learning Partnership
Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (HELP CETL)
and
The Western Vocational Lifelong Learning Network (WVLLN)
SESSION (1) : 11:45 - 12:15
1(a) Anne Parfitt & William Richardson - University of Exeter
Understanding the Evolution of Further Education to Inform Present Debates
This workshop will present a progress report on a year long project entitled: ‘the reputation of English further education: understanding the evolution of the sector’, the main aim of which is to deepen understanding of English further education through recovery of its past record in selected communities for the period 1944-1996.
At present, the public standing of further education (FE) in England, along with the professional development of its staff, has been held back by the lack of coherent and balanced narratives about the contribution of further education colleges to public life and their local communities over the post-war period.
In particular:
a) ‘opinion-formers’ remain ignorant of many of the most important contributions made by FE since 1945 and the historic causes of contemporary concerns;
b) many staff working in FE have no comprehensive account of their professional and institutional heritage, which they can use: during initial training/CPD; for debate amongst themselves; or to share with the wider public.
Many present day prescriptions for the future development of FE in England have failed to address, in any detail, how FE came to be the shape and size it is today. However, if a strategy aimed at creating a highly regarded FE system is to address contemporary concerns successfully, it needs to reconcile the compromises and contradictions of the past with ideals and hopes for the future.
The workshop will:
• review the fieldwork methods that largely comprised collecting oral histories and relevant archival documents;
• outline some of the preliminary outcomes regarding the different communities that formed the research sites; and
• invite participants to consider how the findings of the project could be made available most effectively to stakeholders in the sector.
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1(b) Jacquie Rogers - University of the West of England, Bristol
Opportunity or Obligation? Identity, autonomy and conflict in work-based learning
Professional upskilling has become a widespread necessity in recent years, and has altered the balance between experience and education for many professionals, including FE teachers and college managers.
As a case in point from a profession moving to all-graduate entry, this presentation interprets some of the findings of an interdisciplinary evaluation of an innovative work-based practitioner enquiry programme for senior hospital Sisters in the south-west of England. The programme consisted of two work-based learning modules, in which Action Learning Sets were used to support individual practitioner enquiry projects. The study found a complex variety of outcomes, including impacts on patient care, on organisational practices and cultures, on learning achievement, and on the Senior Sisters themselves.
This presentation focuses on the accounts of a small group of Ward Managers, whose interviews portray a rich weave of narratives. The analysis is concerned with the interplay between their attitudes and experiences of the learning programme, their descriptions of changing identity, and the relationship between the two.
The study draws on frameworks derived from social and psychoanalytic psychology (Bandura, 2000; Wood and Bandura, 1989; Menzies Lyth, 1988)) and educational theory (Beck and Young, 2005; Eneau, 2008) to examine learning trajectories. Aspects of adult learning in a situated work-based context are distinguished. The development towards self-efficacy is traced with reference to the work of researchers of professional education, and informed by the ideas of Bandura et al (1996) and Boud (1999). The aim is to explore the interface between the individual’s construct of identity, and interactions with a dialectal model of autonomy and reciprocal learning.
One tentative conclusion drawn is that policy with regard to normative standards of work-based learning needs to be better informed by both contextual and individual influences. Professional education programmes may benefit from more understanding about the shifts and balances between identity formation and situational factors that affect adult learning processes and outcomes.
This paper’s conclusions point to implications for other changing professional settings, such as FE practitioners and managers faced with upgrading their qualifications.
Download the presentation and the selected bibliography and literature review notes
1(c) John Fitzsimons - Exeter College/University of Plymouth
Developing Employability Skills with Web 2 Technologies
The Leitch Report (Leitch 2006) highlighted the importance of employability skills for the future growth of the UK economy. Drawing on the recommendations of Leitch, this project explored the potential for Web 2 technologies (eg. YouTube/Facebook) to support students in using evaluation and reflections to develop key employability skills such as communication and problem solving. Foundation Degree students at Exeter College were linked with their counterparts at Central Washington University in the USA through video conferencing. Collaboratively the students undertook a TV production project to produce a TV magazine programme to showcase local talent from each location.
The use of Web 2 technologies to support the production of the programme and management of the project by the students will be considered. The presentation will include video evidence taken from the video conferences, self evaluation reports from the students, and exerts drawn from the magazine programme.
Attention will be paid to the input needed from the practitioner-researcher to support the project and ensure students developed the desired skills. The video conferences demanded detailed preparation and attention from the group, to take them beyond a normal production meeting. As the project progress, students organised and ran these conferences, and associated meetings, themselves. This helped them to learn skills that are currently in demand in their profession.
This presentation will conclude by demonstrating how developments have been embedded in course modules and future projects with different groups of students, that continue this international collaboration.
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1(d) Rachel Wilkinson - Exeter College
Exploring ways in which staff in creative disciplines can be brought together through research into communities of practice
The presentation will reflect upon the experience of an on-going project, (supported by HELP CETL), to explore ways to create structures which could encourage HE in FE staff to exchange information, link research skills to professional practice, and perhaps collaborate on academic and applied practice-based research projects. Initial research into Communities of Practice, and HE identity and ethos, included consideration of specific issues facing HE in FE communities, centrally those issues generated by meetings of the staff involved in the HE Forum for the Creative Industries at Exeter College, (the group established during the project).
The dynamic approach of the Community of Practice model offers the opportunity to develop knowledge exchange systems based on activity and participation. Focusing on participation rather than acquisition is also particularly relevant to successful practice within the creative arts/industries, which is the educational subject-base addressed in the project. Fundamentally, it suggests a way of conceptualising a forum bringing together groups of people who may have been initially separated by current structures, and recognising their empowerment to define and contribute to aspects of their own learning and development.
Current aims are sharing good practice arising from this, and identifying opportunities to explore Communities of Practice beyond subject boundaries, to create cross disciplinary links within the Arts within the University of Plymouth Colleges.
Links with Employers’ Forums have also been explored by the HE Forum for the Creative Industries group this year, culminating in a student conference focusing on creating bridges between academic studies and vocational aspects of the curriculum. One aspect of the cross-curricular community of practice within the creative industries/arts has been a focus on practice-based research, personal creativity, and the relationship between members’ own creative practice and their academic research. This has been an area of particular discussion from the groups’ genesis, including aspects of practice which are specific or particular to creative disciplines, and will be the focus of events planned for the next academic year.
Our ‘rolling’ focus is on exploring the further development of HE in FE identity and ethos, for staff and students, through research, debate and dialogue, with an emphasis on experiential knowledge, individual perception, and a multi-disciplinary approach, specifically opportunities and challenges in further promoting a sense of community and participation.
SESSION (2) : 12:20 - 12:50
2(a) Jim Crawley - Bath Spa University
Am I bothered? Research does make a difference
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
Clarke (1962)
At present, time for research has become even more difficult to find than at any other time, and it never seems easy! Getting teaching planned, marking student work, completing the latest self assessment and updating CPD records and all demand attention more forcibly than carrying out research. We may also have doubts about just how much difference research makes, and whether anyone pays any real attention to it.
This session aims to act as an antidote to such thoughts, and to argue that:
• Research can and often does make a difference
• Teaching would never move forward without the research done by practitioners
We will start with examples of research, both small and large, which have made a real difference, and will then reflect on research activity, small or large, which participants have been involved in during their career to date. The collected feedback and resulting discussion will provide an encouraging snapshot and will underpin both what we as practitioners our students and organisations and indeed teaching and learning get from research, and just how much we need to continue researching at all times, especially times like these!
"To find out what happens to a system when you interfere with it you have to interfere with it (not just passively observe it)." Box (1966)
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2(b) Ellie Gilman & Kristine Partridge - City of Bristol College
Are we nearly there yet? Improving the learning journey for students through the tutorial process - an ESOL perspective
Our presentation concerns a recent action research project undertaken with funding from the Learning & Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) which aimed to address the insufficient development of the tutorial process within ESOL.
The presentation will cover the following points:
• An explanation of the need for a tutorial process within ESOL
While all students can benefit from group and 1:1 tutorial time, adult newcomers to the UK need a different focus to that of UK-born students. This includes being better able to take part in the wider community and to develop stronger study skills, particularly considering the lower levels of previous education of many of them.
• A summary of the existing difficulties with implementing a tutorial process for ESOL and discussion of Individual Learning Plans (ILPs)
This includes a current lack of direction, materials and support for tutors in how to integrate tutorials (and ILPs) into already bulging timetables, leading to a lack of enthusiasm for the process.
• An outline of the LSIS pilot project
We conducted a 4 week pilot for Entry 3 classes, in which tutors delivered a tutorial programme based on a prepared syllabus and materials for 4 tutorials. Support for how to use these was provided throughout the project.
• A demonstration of the materials developed for the project and accompanying tutorial syllabus
• A summary of the findings from the project
We discovered that a structured approach was enthusiastically supported by students and tutors, though a number of valuable lessons were also learned.
• A discussion of possible developments for the future that the pilot has indicated
The aim will be to roll out the 4 week pilot for higher and lower level ESOL students to cover a whole year of tutorials.
This will be followed by an invitation to participants to offer examples from their own practice and to discuss the issues arising.
Download the presentation and handouts - E1/E2 ESOL Tutorial Syllabus, E3/Level 1/Level 2 ESOL Tutorial Syllabus
2(c) Gillian Rowe - Penwith College
Vocational currency: the elephant in the room
I undertook a small HELP CETL research study which was prompted by an embarrassing classroom event. I was discussing with some nursing students the interpretations of The Single Assessment Process and The Delayed Discharge Act, the students informed me that that practice had changed and explained the ‘new’ way of doing things. I reflected upon this and determined to ‘keep up’, but how was this to be achieved? Teachers employed in the FE sector have traditionally come from the technical sector where technical knowledge was a prerequisite for employment; however the cliché ‘out of the job, out of date’ remains a truism for those with technical expertise.
To examine current practice, I interrogated evidence using the Institute for Learning (IfL) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) websites, however both proved unsatisfactory. As a generalist teaching across the FE and HE boundaries, nothing seemed to apply to my circumstance, and no-one seemed to be having this conversation. This indicated that research needed to be undertaken.
Therefore I undertook an action research study by conducting qualitative interviews and drew some conclusions which suggests that educational institutions do not take subject specific knowledge as seriously as would normally be expected. Lecturers from five institutions, covering six subject specialisms contributed their experiences; it was revealed that maintaining vocational currency is something beholden on the individual practitioner. The evidence shows that many engaging are in self-learning, frequently at their own expense. With no means to validate self-learning, the practitioner often feels insecure and vulnerable. This research also considered the use of subject forums, this revealed a complexity of attitudes, the prevailing view was that use of a subject forum as a ‘good thing’, but closer examination exposed questions of validity. Some wished to have a certificate of attendance that would contribute to their Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and others felt that such was worthless as this was not evidence of learning outcomes. This presentation will discuss the research and open up it up for conference discussion.
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2(d) Judith Mann (Cornwall College) and Maureen Mason (formerly of Cornwall College)
Teaching and research in HE in FE - the impact on the student experience "the path yet arrived"
This paper draws on the experience of Teacher Researchers, who were Award Holders in the HELP CETL. It aims to examine the impact of their awards on their own and their students’ experience.
The research is based on semi-structured interviews of 6 of a cohort of 9 HELP CETL Award Holders from a cluster of Colleges in the South West Region. The HELP CETL Awards were granted to support research into aspects of the teaching and learning process.
The paper explores the context of delivering Higher Education within Further Education, and the lessons that can be learned from undertaking this type of research. It explores the value of scholarly activity and the nature of that activity in an HE in FE context. It considers the impact on the students’ learning and enrichment that can take place via the teachers’ professional development. It considers the effect on the teachers’ personal and professional identities that can result from being research-active, including an increase in confidence and credibility that this can bring. It also refers to some of the tensions and challenges that can be present in these contexts.
It will advocate for a more pro-active approach to scholarly activity in an HE in FE context, in order for teachers in these contexts to develop their particular role of ‘academic beings’ in the terminology of (Light and Cox 2001). This is proposed as distinct, and different from the role of an academic in a traditional Higher Education Institution, and as such is ‘the path yet arrived’.
We are interested in the wider notion of research and teaching and whether HE in FE has any lessons to offer Higher Education Institutions about this relationship. We expect to present these ideas to the workshop and broaden the discussion about the relationship of research, scholarly activity and teaching at HE wherever it takes place.
References:
Light G. and Cox R. (2001) Learning and teaching in Higher Education- the Reflective Professional, London, Sage.
Download the presentation