This paper was about shaping the way to prepare teachers. Films were used by videoing teachers in class and then undertaking a reflective interview and then the mentor provided suggestions. Films in the series focused on reflective learning, developing professionally, using portugese, teaching students to use the language and teaching students to read.
The value of these were that they showed authentic classroom situation with teachers in action. There were suggestions to improve teaching and the mentor provide some simulated lessons.
The principles when developing the videos were that they were simple and practical, easy to use, short and focused only 25 mins per module and diverse classrooms were shown that had limited resources. The modules were interactive with pre-watching questions, then questions for answering whilst watching and questions for after viewing.
The evaluation used a survey and 45 staff took part. Most were under the age of 30. They felt that the videos helped them overcome problems and anticipate problems. They were practical, showed daily work and made you aware of your strengths and weaknesses. 69% of the teachers were qualified but 31% were not.
There have been several models used to teach student teachers but they were all very traditional. There was dissatisfaction with this at the institution and the literature showed that this model did not prepare teachers appropriately. The senior staff wanted a change and so in 2010 this happened.
A new practicum model for trainee teacher was brought in. This focused on a joint approach and responsibility for the students between the University and the school placement staff. The change process was difficult and there was a need to create a sense of urgency in the partners. Kotter’s work was used.
So some preparation and training was planned and the first seminar all had to attend was focused on change and professional development. A one day workshop was run which looked at different models of partnership from the literature and the teacher’s role in these models. The staff were then put into groups to develop a model of partnership for their programme. In all 60 hours was spent on this training. At the end all felt this had been good and the first time they had all been learning together. The staff enjoyed this so much that in the evaluation they all asked for more on other themes. Many had gained new ways of thinking however it is not possible to change everyone’s view and practice.
There was an institutional objective to use technology and academic developer was leading this project to explore how this could be implemented. Many academics were angry about this and were worried about looking foolish.
The project was about building on work rather than replacing work and reflection on the process. All teachers in them project were given an Ipad. A constructivist framework was used and there was while year of teacher development planned. All students were also given Ipads when they started.
The views of academics varied as time progressed but some were very positive and there was disciplinary differences. However a shift did occur over time moving from 30% being positive to 70%. There was some surveys used with students and staff and a focus group. Of 70 people invited to take part 25 did. The findings included the following responses:
- Teachers did not want to be directed
- There were some concerns about students being on face book
- It was positive exploring new ways to teach and learn
- New ways of engaging and collaborating
- Time was an issue though for staff
- Wifi and AV and issue
- Leadership was not always available
- The ipads had home and work use
- They could showcase activities
There were concerns at the end around sustainability with constant change in the sector but also in technology. The teachers however found it useful being a student again.
The speakers recruited undergraduate students to do this research. They wanted a student consultant from each school. The students had to apply and then the learning and teaching co-ordinator for each school chose the student and they were mentored by a school member of staff who was a developer.
Some issues that arose early on were that staff all had different titles so researcher, teacher etc.
Each student did 9 interviews and then wrote a discipline based article which went into a journal the University produced. All students also presented at a learning and teaching conference.
The issues raised by the students’ research were:
1 Teaching = social versus research so research is seen as an individual activity
2 Research = the discovery of new knowledge and advancement of the discipline, it also leads to personal and professional development. Teaching though is for perceived as for others
3 Ownership of research versus teaching being seen as sharing
4 There were both disciplinary differences and personal perspectives of these views
This leads to needing to consider what are the implications of this for faculty development?
This session was about developing critical thinking in undergraduate students. Students and staff cannot describe this well but say things like I know it when I see it.
Kuhn (1999) said there are different stages but students should arrive at evaluation at the top end of skills by the time they arrive at University. However students are often not there and so they wanted to look at how to get students to different stages. In the literature there is a lot of information about assessing critical thinking and tools but no good theoretical frameworks.
Kuhn’s (1999) framework had three levels:
- Meta strategic knowing – managing, selecting, monitoring strategies
- Metacognitive knowing – expressing what I know and how
- Epistemological knowing – understanding knowledge and knowing how anyone knows.
Kuhn’s work was around children and not adults but some relation can be drawn.
The speaker then focused on how critical thinking is viewed by cognitive evolution. Critical thinking is an evolved mind ability that arises from brain structures. More cranial volume leads to millions more neurons with connections and qualitative changes do occur in the brain during one’s lifetime and the process does not stop unless we stop unless we stop learning.
Kuhn’s further work looks at what students do in two further areas. So:
Realist to absolutist – students are unable to express their knowledge or use critical thinking. Students prepare their assessments as tutors tell them too rather than as a paper scientifically written. There is a need to create assessments that proliferate neural connections through complex reading/writing, expose them to the fact that theories can be wrong, reveal the possibility of false belief, require them to mix domains of knowledge and tell them this is what critical thinking is.
Absolutist to multiplist – students begin to express the source of their knowledge, begin to use critical thinking, can identify contributions and limitations of theories. Knowledge is still a set of judgements. Create assessments with more reading/writing, expose students to how theories are developed, require new associations of knowledge, try to use own theory and then share as many views as possible then they can pick one thing about theory.
Multiplist to evaluative – students think knowledge is indirectly accessible and believe opinions are equally right and abandon critical thinking, they can identify contributions and limitations of theory. They read more but change what they do rather than what they learn. Get them to generate their own knowledge but then grading wok is difficult it becomes unique work. You have to grade the process rather than the outcome.
The conclusions of this work I that getting students to evaluative stage is the most difficult to achieve. The process of change can be identified but not all students will achieve this stage.
The team wanted to explore what made students stay or go. What personal messages did they remember? There was a student engagement programme in place and so they undertook a quantitative study with first year students at the end of the first year and now they had also undertaken this with first years from this year but after they had done five weeks of the course. 80 students had been involved.
They found the most memorable messages came from lecturers/tutors for both groups which 70% of students reported. 52% said that the second most memorable messages came from peers and others students.
The team wanted to find out what the most important message was about in the first semester and these were:
Assessment 32%
Learning and teaching 22%
Time management 10.5%
Attendance 6.8%
Student services 6.8%
Peers 4%
Fun/practicum 4%
Other 12%
What the team noticed was that none of this information led to students being inspired about their learning or motivated.
The assessment messages that were heard were mixed from lecturers so students were never clear, there was also messages about a pass gets your degree so what you put in is what you get.
The team’s next steps is to undertake focus groups to follow up these issues and to look at whether messages are changing. There was also a need to share this and explore how induction needs to explore motivating students from the beginning.
There is a need to make clear the explicit tensions between pedagogical models and institutional culture. The University had a model based on eleven principles which were:
- Outcomes based
- Blended delivery
- Team based
- Experiential and authentic
- Learning communities
- Integrative
- Applied
- Engaged learning
- Action research
- Supportive
- Flexible
A literature review had been undertaken that explored transformative learning and this led to findings that explored disorientating dilemmas, threatening and challenging opportunities for reflection, deliberate choice, questioning choice, releasing old ways of knowing and new levels of consciousness or insight. There were also feelings of excitement, satisfaction and freedom as well as sadness.
The team undertook some action research to explore if these principles did lead to transformative learning. The study involved a survey of students in their second year and they gained a 50% response. They wanted to know what students saw as different then used the themes from the literature to code the data.
In relation to disorientating dilemmas students learned about their self, peers and cohort learning. The students had to learn and were not just fed stuff. In relation to reflecting students said this tested their ability to work with others and they had to get used to sensitive comments and critiques from their peers. This did however provide opportunities for more insights and deeper learning and a new awareness. This led to a questioning of assumptions and a need to take more responsibility for their learning.
The team felt that they had to reflect on this and the fact that they needed to make these principles clearer to students and how this impacted on learning and teaching.
This project arose from concerns about becoming associate deans, deans and other heads of department and a lack of development for the role. Many were trained as researchers but not as managers. The purpose of the study was to examine roles and expectations placed upon them.
The team started to look at the literature but there was a dearth around leadership for these roles. They did find some literature around the 1940’s and HOD’s roles but not recent literature. The literature from the 1940’s identified the role of the Deans was to:
- Manage faculty staff and promotions and performance
- Committee work
- Budgets
- Managements of programmes
- Conflict resolutions such as student and staff issues
Present issues facing HODs were:
- Entrepreneurial activities such as raising funds, research grants and marketing
- Greater engagement with the community such as professional associations, unions and accrediting bodies
- Quality agenda related to learning and teaching, quality research and rankings
- Legalities such as labour relations and student complaints and legal challenges
- Impact of globalisation such as information age, technology integration, international reputation, increasing access and flexibility
The implications for leadership development included the dissonance between employment criteria and actual role with research versus leadership. What preparation is there for the role? What value is placed on effective leadership? What can be done to promote more effective leadership?
Having undertaken a literature review the speakers have started to interview staff in these roles about their preparation. To date the findings have been that they have had management type training so budgets, performance management and legal issues but not about the developmental parts of their role. The team have now got four countries involved and Susannah and I have contacted the team about being a UK link for the project.
Colin is well known for his work around student engagement and his links with RAISE (researching, advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement) http://raise-network.ning.com .
Colin started with discussion of the origins of student engagement having been some 60 years ago now in the US but that much of this originally was around behaviourist models and most of the research was being undertaken in schools. However in the 1970’s Tinto was also looking at student engagement but from the social integration perspective. Since this time there have been many other explorations of student engagement with work on ways of being a student by Dubet (2009) who found these included personal projects, integration into university and intellectual engagement with the subject. There is also relational engagement by Solomonides et at (2012) who focused on a sense of being, transformation, professional information and discipline knowledge.
The nature of student engagement is holistic and socially constructed but every student is an individual and so this is dynamic, fluid and multidimensional. Key influences on student engagement are their expectations and perceptions so matches to personal projects and interest in the subject. There should be sufficient challenge and appropriate workload with degrees of choice, autonomy, risks and opportunities for growth and enjoyment. There must be trust in the relationships, communication, a sense of belonging and community, supportive social networks and opportunities for ownership.
There is a flip side to student engagement which is around performativity and disciplinary power, battles of cultures and values and inclusiveness. How to create student engagement, there are varying origins to student partnership so the HEA and NUS, pedagogical and political dimensions Dewey and Rogers, student representation and democracy and student feedback through surveys. The values of partnership need to be ethical, democratic, dynamic and progressive. There have been a range of initiatives around this as have been shared at the conference.
At Newcastle there have been range of activities but many come from the combined honours degree programmes. This is a diverse initiative with 400 students across 24 disciplines all doing slightly independent degrees. Many of these students did not have a sense of identity and belonging. There is a centre for the combined honours and Colin is the director. The activity started outside of the programmes with social activities first and then progressed to building communities and spaces, peer mentoring and transition, the PASS scheme around academic integration and student staff liaison committees.
The student staff liaison committees are different because they are about empowering student reps. They are all student led with staff support. They are the engine room for ideas with each student rep having about 40 students they liaise with. There are working groups but these relate to student chosen agendas.
Students also presented and they discussed their role around co-designed modules. There have been modules on independent study module similar to a dissertation, graduate development and running the next academic year is one on issues of the 1st Century. The partnership in these modules allows student to shape the delivery and content, types of assessment and weighting, assessment criteria and deadlines.
Reflections on the strategy at Newcastle are that it is important to join up all activities to share and promote, it is not easy to involve all some are hard to reach but use projects and internships, keep things radical and exciting, continue to evolve and grow the student champions. This can be exciting and rewarding but requires commitment and investment and believe. This can create an unpredictable and unknown future but co-creation and democracy is exciting.
This focused on an evaluation of the teaching development grants scheme run by the Higher Education Academy. The scheme’s aim was to inspire and support effective practice in learning and teaching across the sector. The evaluation included grants awarded from 2012 and 2013 and there had been 2000 applications with 250 grants awarded and an investment of over £3,000,000. The evaluation planned to review the effectiveness of the scheme, the impact of the scheme and the methodologies used and hoped to be able to make some recommendations.
The evaluation lenses used were student engagement, student learning experiences, pedagogical and professional practice, benefit beyond the institution and sustainability. The main findings were positive in terms of contribution to the development and support of teaching but there were many variables which made measuring impact difficult. Student engagement was however a challenging issue. There were some unintended benefits which included the attitudes of staff working together, ways of working with students and strengthening links between teaching and research.
The session focused on student engagement issues. Within the projects they found that often there was a lack of clarity and understanding of this term and that two interpretations mainly existed. The first was around students operational involvement and the second was that staff engaged students in their own learning. The guidance for all projects provided reference to model of dimensions of student engagement from Coates (2007). The model has five dimensions which are:
- active and collaborative learning;
- participation in challenging academic activities;
- formative communication with academic staff;
- involvement in enriching educational experiences;
- feeling legitimated and supported by university learning communities.
Hamish Coates (2007), ‘A model of online and general campus-based student engagement’, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 32(2), 121-141.
The participants in the session then discussed aspects of this model. There were issues around what does challenging mean? This can be personal for the student but can also be challenging to develop them further. The whole issue of engagement and what this meant was also debated as students are unique and so engagement will mean different things to individuals. The model whilst felt to be useful was also using language that perhaps not all staff and students could engage with.
Key findings from the evaluation around student engagement included the need to consider and understand the risks of directly engaging students, setting realistic expectations when scoping projects, do good preparatory work, understand the context of your institution, allow yourself to be opportunistic, think through longer terms plans so what can be sustainable, don’t underestimate what students can do and are willing to do but the support they need and don’t spend a lot of time on something that might not have any impact except on a few.
With the latest press release from the HEA about their funding reduction sadly these projects will no longer be available but some good advice here about student engagement projects.