SW SLIM/LSRN Summer Conference
Making Progress or Losing Control?
The Exchange, Bridgwater
12 July 2006
SPEAKER ABSTRACTS
Philip Barker
Managing managers’ competence and developing leaders
This research project took place in a large college of further education in the south west of England. Funded by the Centre for Excellence in Leadership’s Practitioner Research Program, it aimed to explore the impact of introducing competence based standards to support the performance of a group of curriculum middle managers. Using a web based survey, face to face and telephone interviews, and the results of a postal survey, the views and experiences of 43 curriculum middle managers and a sample of their managers were sought. The initial findings point to the insufficiency of the competence based framework to support the development of middle managers; the difficulty of using the framework to ensure standardisation amongst middle managers; and the effects of using financial incentives to ensure the competence of middle managers. The notion of leadership, although recognised as important by both middle managers and their managers, appeared underdeveloped within the framework. This is recognised as an important issue if curriculum middle managers are to effect change within the organisation and to respond to new demands made upon the post-16 sector.
The seminar will review these findings and explore with participants the implications of the new agenda for further education managers, and in particular for middle managers. Some of the questions that will be explored include: What new demands, if any, are placed on middle managers? Does our understanding of Leadership need to change to accommodate the new regime? How can middle managers be prepared for, and supported in, the new era?
Graham Corner
Staying Power: an investigation into the reasons for non-completion of Apprenticeship
Programmes
This study investigates the reasons for apprentices dropping out from their
apprenticeship programme and proposes recommendations to reduce early leaving
and non-achievement.
Previous studies of factors affecting early leaving and non-achievement recognise
that the involvement of an employer in the training process can add significant
complexities and uncertainties to an already complex scheme.
Research evidence from this study indicates that the majority of apprentices who leave their programme early do so because of problems at work. Relationships with work colleagues, levels of pay and the opportunity to attempt challenging work all contribute to the learner’s decision whether to remain on their apprenticeship programme.
An analysis of survey responses indicates that employer’s often underestimate
their apprentice’s determination to complete their programme and desire
to do a job well. Additionally, employers underestimate the importance of workplace
friendships to the learner but overestimate the learners’ reluctance
to take responsibility for their own work and take on new skills and tasks.
In general, college staff share the views of employers.
Jim Crawley
Is networking not working? – Questions we should all ask about ICT
and e-learning.
We live in what is often called a 'networked society'. This seminar will suggest
that for Post Compulsory Education and Training, this 'networking' is often
not working, but will also provide ideas about how we can change that.
Research undertaken by the presenter into Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) and e-learning in the post compulsory sector has included:
- Surveys of staff ICT and e-learning skills
- Visits to Post Compulsory Institutions in the UK, US and the Netherlands, including interviews with teachers, managers and students.
- Literature reviews of the impact, uses and limitations of ICT and e-learning.
This research has produced the following results:
- Although staff skills in IT are improving steadily, there continues to be a problematic gap between those skills and the capacity of staff to use e-learning.
- There are many examples of innovative and effective uses of technology, but the degree to which this has spread across the curriculum is patchy, it is rarely used to personalise learning, and ICT use is not embedded across the sector.
- Whilst funding of ICT is one of the key factors for its sustainability this is secondary to having the appropriate staff and structures. Without these there is no guarantee of sustainability irrespective of the amount of funding available.*
In the meantime the intense pressure on teaching staff to use technology remains, often however without the accompanying training and support.
This workshop will summarise the research involved but will concentrate on key questions which it is suggested all practitioners should ask before, during and after using ICT and e-learning, including:
- Why have you chosen to use e-learning in particular?
- How will it contribute your students' learning?
- Do you and your students have the ICT skills needed to carry out any task or activity involved?
- Do you and your students have the equipment where and when it is needed, and technical support available?
Each participant will be able to ask some of those questions with regard to their own professional context, and to take away the 'Making the Most of Learning Technology' checklist being developed by Jim Crawley.
*BECTA (2005) ICT and e-learning in Further Education. A report to Post-16
E-learning Policy and Project Board. Coventry: BECTA
BECTA (2006) ICT and e-learning in further education: management, learning
and improvement. A report on the further education sector’s engagement
with technology. Coventry: BECTA
Crawley, J. (2006) Everybody's Talking. Online Communication Tools in action.
Presentation to HE Academy. York, July 2006.
Crawley, J. (2004) Shrouded in the mists of someone else's vision. Paper presented
to the BERA Conference, Manchester.
Crawley, J. (2005a) ‘Transformation – what transformation’ -
Teachers using Learning Technology in Post Compulsory Education. Presented
at the ALT-C Conference: Manchester 7th September 2005.
JISC (2006) Sustainability of Investment in ICT. Bristol: JISC
Matt Davis and Carolyn Nye
A Comparison between Paper-Based and IT-Based Initial Assessment Tests in
ESOL
The perceived link between national economic growth and a literate, skilled and flexible workforce, combined with the push towards a ‘demand-led, world class’ education system have increasingly had implications on classroom and administrative practice in ESOL. For instance, in a large FE college in the South West of England, changes in funding at local level led to the decision to convert existing paper-based Initial Assessment processes to an IT-based system. We conducted a study to examine the new assessment procedure in terms of both accuracy and efficiency of placement and quality of learner and staff experience. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies have allowed us to draw conclusions about the effect on a established process which was considered to be effective, successful and reflective of the prevalent learning culture of the institution involved.
Although ‘real world’ factors have meant that a limited data set was collected, the conclusions which we have been able to reach are, we feel, thought-provoking. Reading scores were adversely affected by the IT-based test in several cases, to a degree that the test may not be considered reliable. The writing assessment was markedly less efficient for many learners, which suggests that the process developed here needs to be, at the very least, refined. This factor impacts on both the economic motives for changing the test medium (efficiency of staff time) and presents a barrier to those learners who are not comfortable producing word processed texts.
We would like to present a short summary of the context, methods and findings
of our research, before asking colleagues to examine examples of the qualitative
data gathered and discuss further refinements to the testing system employed.
We will also discuss how these findings have (or have not) influenced practice
and the repercussions these decisions have had for the practitioners and learners
involved.
Kim Diment, University of Exeter; Hugh
Sutherland and Lyn Walsh, Connexions
‘Dead End Kids In Dead End Jobs? - Researching Young People In Jobs
Without Training.
This workshop session will focus on an ongoing longitudinal research project being undertaken by the University of Exeter with Connexions’ partnerships in the South West. The project began in the summer of 2006 and will report in December 2007.
Young people who are in jobs without training, (JWT) that is, without nationally-accredited training provision, have been identified by policy makers as an area of priority. Whilst they are not placed at the bottom of the hierarchy of social concern, like those who are NEET, (not in education, employment or training) they are seen as having low levels of life and vocational skills, are difficult to contact and identify and are often unaware of or reluctant to take up statutory training entitlements. In line with the theme of this year’s conference, we will be raising questions about the extent to which young people in JWT can be said to be making progress in their careers or losing control.
Funded by the European Social Fund (ESF), the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and by the Connexions’ service, the research aims to explore issues and questions relating to young people’s lack of participation/involvement in work and training. The key assumption of our methodological approach is that the issues, questions and concerns of this cohort of young people cannot be easily represented, and indeed are often misrepresented. By conducting longitudinal interviews with young people in jobs without training across the South West, the project is able to explore the interests, enthusiasms and characteristics of young people themselves. In doing so, we can gain a better understanding of how and at what point in their careers they may be most receptive to taking up learning or training opportunities. A second but no less important strand of the project has been to raise capacity and promote improved understanding and practice amongst front-line delivery staff.
The aim of the workshop session, which is co-presented by two of the seconded-Connexions’ researchers
and a university-based researcher, will be to discuss our interim findings,
and to stimulate discussion around the notion that young people in jobs without
training are ‘dead end kids in dead end jobs’.
Hazel English
Evaluation of an Online Study Skills Package for HE Students at City of Bristol
College
City of Bristol College uses an inter-active online package on its Virtual Learning Environment, Blackboard, to deliver Study Skills to its 1200 HE students. Many of these students attend on a part-time basis so benefit from remote access to learning materials. Mature learners who have not entered HE through the traditional routes are often concerned about how they will cope with academic study techniques. Further Education is very supportive of its students so the Study Skills package was provided as a response to students’ request for materials which could be accessed at a time and place convenient to them. It was designed to be used independently by learners and also available to staff to use as part of their classroom delivery of Study Skills.
This seminar presents the results of research which was funded by an Award from HELP CETL via the University of Plymouth, evaluating the effectiveness of the online Study Skills package. It covers the issues involved in designing and delivering the online content, tailoring existing materials to online use, making it easy to navigate and promoting its use amongst staff and students.
E-learning can cater for a variety of different needs, from the ‘pile’em high’ supermarket of resources to being the specialist store which enables the learner to put together their own ingredients for an individual course. Various models have explored this spectrum of learner involvement and empowerment, notably Gilly Salmon’s 5-step model of teaching and learning online through CMC (Computer Mediated Conferencing) in “E-Moderating” and David McConnell’s Three Models of E-Learning in “E-Learning Groups and Communities.”
The seminar will provide an opportunity to discuss these models and explore the different pedagogies underlying ways of designing and delivering materials.
Elaine Fisher
Persuading employers & their employees to place value on the learning
that “professionals” present them
Within the political arena there has been a gradual realisation that learning for learning sake is no longer satisfying the economic well-being of the nation. With Leitch has come a shift to skills and training which has been reflected in the development of the 14-19 agenda and Diplomas, Train to Gain as well as the Higher Level Skills Pathways Projects. Employer engagement is being heralded as the way to ensure that education and training are fit for purpose.
With the development of these new initiatives has come the necessity for organisations to form into consortia in order to develop effective education and training. There is an uneasy relationship between employers, further education, higher education, schools and training providers. Into this melting pot are added Train to Gain, Aimhigher, Lifelong Learning Networks and the Higher Level Skills Pathways Projects. There are areas where all of these organisations have the potential to overlap and there is the potential that as a result the learner is overlooked.
This longitudinal research project is an attempt to understand the wider impact of training interventions for individuals who may or may not have chosen the routes presented to them. In addition potential issues around managing expectations of stakeholders are explored.
The study has produced initial outcomes in the form of checklists of the challenges these issues present. To complement the challenges there are also some potential solutions.
Nick Heard & Doreen Devlin
SWOOP And Progression For The Older Learner
South West Opportunities for Older people sought to find ways to enhance the employability of the older worker in the South West. In the course of its delivery it sought to engage some older people in education and training. Anecdotal evidence suggested on all of the SWOOP delivery projects that people of 50+ were reluctant to pursue learning that would lead to a full qualification.
Whilst there seemed to be a willingness to fill skills gaps if these were clearly likely to be instrumental in improving job prospects, on the whole older people were reluctant to pursue full qualifications, either because they were perceived to be too onerous to achieve, because their acquisition was not reckoned to be instrumental in delivering employment, because a lack of qualifications were seen to be only one of several barriers to employment, or because justifiably people who had spent many years functioning successfully in an occupational area saw an imperative to achieve paper qualifications as undervaluing their existing capabilities.
Indeed qualifications are a crude proxy for skills, and often fail to validate essential capabilities that the experienced practitioner needs.
This workshop will explore these ideas and consider APEL approaches, and examine an online system in use with LearnDirect that may prove to be acceptable for older learners.
Angela Joyce
LLUK brief for keynote address
Representing LLUK, Angela Joyce, Teacher Qualifications Framework Manager, will be using the keynote address to bring participants up to speed with current developments and activities being undertaken to implement the reforms in Initial Teacher/ Tutor/ Trainer Education in the Lifelong Learning Sector in England, as proposed in the government document ‘Equipping Our Teachers for the Future’ (2004).
Overarching standards for teachers in the sector have been created in England. An audit of existing qualifications has indicated common elements of ITTTE programmes across the sector. Research has been conducted around roles and responsibilities in the sector, which ultimately has led to the identification of 2 teacher roles, while research continues into ‘teacher-related roles’ across constituencies and UK nations. New credit based qualifications have been written, derived from the standards and based on findings from the research, and these are to be fully operational from September 2007.
There have been and continue to be a number of challenges for LLUK in realising the government agenda, such as the aim to create a seamless system of credit accumulation and transfer across FE and HE, and the development of qualifications within the emerging Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF).
The keynote address will discuss how LLUK has ensured that the development process has been genuinely consultative, and ways in which different stakeholders have been involved at each stage. It will present initial findings of evaluations of the testing and trialling of the new qualifications, and ways in which other elements proposed in Equipping Our Teachers e.g. professional status (QTLS), mandatory CPD, link to the standards and qualification reform programme, to create a coherent package intended to improve quality and underpin professionalism for teachers in the sector.
Barbara
Majer
FE teachers – educational experts or skills factory foremen?
Research of a quantitative nature yields the statistical data sought by policy makers to justify educational initiatives. Such figures anonymise and eclipse the learners and indeed the teachers.
As an alternative, I offer the voices of a handful of bilingual FE students, participants in my recent research, in a quest to identify the characteristics of teaching they most valued. Their perspectives direct our attention away from national employment needs to those of individual learners.
In my EdD research, I sought to trace the shaping of the learner identity of six students whose first language was not English who were on year-long vocational courses at the City of Bristol College. Over that period, I conducted between 7 and 10 interviews with each, focused on the diaries kept by the participants on their experiences as college students. All interviews were transcribed and analysed.
Drawing on these data, I consider what aspects of teaching might be sacrificed in the government’s collective upskilling endeavour. Can teaching in the current climate still remain ‘a moral act’ (Gee, 1990), and if so, what can these students’ experiences tell us about how that role can be maintained?
References:
Gee, J.P. (1990) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideologies in Discourses.
London: Falmer Press
Dr Debbie Morgan and Dr Peter Whalley
Learning Support Assistants – Developing New Qualifications Situated
Within A Community Of Professional Practice.
This seminar sets out the background to development work undertaken by Exeter University on alternative approaches in assessment and the accreditation of learning. This is centred specifically on the role of Learning Support Assistants where existing approaches or qualifications appear to be unsuitable.
The work has reached the stage where accreditation by QCA has been achieved at level 2 and 3 for paid or voluntary staff providing learning support in a range of settings (FE, Community and Schools). The University is operating live pilots for these awards in one FE College and one local cluster of Devon Schools and is currently developing the infrastructure required to run these awards both regionally and nationally.
The methodology on which these awards will be based has emerged from research activity in Exeter with the potential to be applied in a variety of other settings. There are 6 main elements involved:
1. A learning approach derived from progressive mastery in European apprenticeship. This involves experiential learning in the context of a community of practice at work. It draws on theoretical roots in ‘constructivism’ which promote problem solving, creative thinking and self directed learning.
2. The use of peers as learning mentors. This is particularly significant in developing positive attitudes or behaviours in working with young adults but also has important elements for adults either returning to learning or taking on a new role in a volunteer capacity.
3. Assessment of real performance at work as an alternative to traditional tests or portfolios. This involves a fully integrated use of skills and knowledge in an extended live performance. It requires the individual to practise or develop ‘situated’ skills in the appropriate context
4. Performance assessment derived from the methodology used in music or performing
arts graded examinations. This relies on the observation of performance by
a recognised expert in the field whose judgement is based on shared normative
values within the relevant community of practice. The assessment draws heavily
on the cultural values and standards of quality expected within the sector
but recognises that the assessors are those who have proven performance skills.
5. A process to identify or develop a community of practice focussed on job
roles in a sector or organisations. Through such a group the key elements of
performance in the role are identified using Delphi techniques. These are expressed
as key constructs which form the basis for assessment and grading.
6. The use of a statistical programme which monitors the performance of assessors for accredited awards. Standardisation is achieved by comparing the consistency and reliability of each individual assessors grading decisions against a range of statistical indicators derived from the whole community of assessors over time.
Anne Parfitt
The Construction Of FE Lecturers’ Practice
My research is concerned with understanding the job of lecturing. College
lecturers work in the context of an ever changing environment driven by regular
initiative proposals. New initiatives are introduced without sufficient time
for previous policy drives to become embedded. Lecturers are left needing to
construct coping strategies in such fluid and uncertain work settings.
As a starting point I review my three central questions derived from the
literature on learning at work and policy in the college sector:
a) What do lecturers hold on to as practice and how may this contrast with
the espoused college definition of practice?
b) Are informal ways of working established; perhaps in some places and not
in others?
c) How do novice lecturers compare with established colleagues in terms of
their understanding of what the job demands?
A qualitative methodology was adopted to allow comparison of lecturers’ experiences from my four case study colleges (1 in London, 3 in the South West). Novice, established and experienced lecturers were interviewed thus providing three comparators. An additional level of interviews was built in for triangulation between lecturers’ and middle/senior managers’ accounts. The following themes are emerging as significant in analysis of practice: work intensity, work organisation, work content/quality, orientation towards work and development/training for work.
For the seminar, I will focus on autonomy. Worker autonomy has been widely advanced as an element of job enrichment, employee motivation and optimising efficiency in business organisations. Likewise, it has long been argued that autonomy is central to professional discretion in practice. I wish to elaborate on lecturer autonomy in the context of FE colleges driven by initiatives and examples of recent government policy.
Michael Tedder
Learning for Life and Learning from Life: Exploring Opportunities for Biographical
Learning through the Lifecourse
One of the intriguing findings from the interviews we have conducted as part
of the ‘Learning Lives’ Project with adults from a wide range
of different backgrounds and ages and stages of life is that they have relatively
little to say about the meaning and impact of formal education when asked
to talk about their life. We found that many people will talk willingly about
one or more school subjects they were good at or not good at, about the teachers
and tutors they liked and disliked, and about their friends and peers. Yet
they say little about what knowledge and skills they acquired, or whether
their ideas, attitudes or beliefs have changed. Nonetheless, the life-stories
told by our participants provide abundant evidence that people have learned
from their lives and do learn from their lives and that their learning has
had an impact on the ways in which they cope with important life-events.
This raises an important question. If lifelong learning is more than the acquisition
of qualifications through participation in formal education; if, in other words,
an important aspect of lifelong learning has to do with the ways in which people
learn from their lives and, through this, learn for their lives, then we must
ask what opportunities people have to engage in processes of ‘biographical
learning’. In this paper we explore how we might gain a better understanding
of biographical learning and its significance. We provide a detailed discussion
of one of the participants in the Learning Lives project, focussing on key
transitions because it is often around such events that learning from one’s
life becomes a necessity and biographical learning becomes most visible. We
would argue that an adequate conceptualisation of biographical learning is
essential for understanding ways in which people progress in their learning.
Dr Peter Whalley/David Greatbach
The Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Generic Employability Skills
The Centre for Developing and Evaluating Lifelong Learning (CDELL) at the University of Nottingham were commissioned in 2004 by SLIM to produce a research report examining the scope for improving young people’s generic employability skills. That research identified some significant findings concerning the perceptions of such skills. In particular it showed how employers, employees/trainees and training providers define and understand employability skills in different ways, attaching varying degrees of importance to key skills, other generic employability skills and personal attributes.
What this research failed to accomplish, however, was to map out the approaches
taken to the teaching, learning and assessment of generic employability skills,
the identification of case studies of good practice in this field and to set
out recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners. A second phase of
the research was subsequently commissioned with following objectives:
•
To review the relevant literature on current policies and strategies in place
to develop generic skills.
•
To identify the various programmes in place to deliver generic employability
skills and the range of skills being delivered.
•
To conduct case studies where the practice in teaching and learning in generic
employability skills provides evidence of good practice.
•
To develop a framework to identify and analyse the components of good practice
in developing learners’ generic employability skills.
•
To formulate a set of guiding principles underpinning good practice in the
delivery of generic employability skills.
•
To identify factors which are necessary for the successful implementation of
these principles.
•
To develop a framework for ensuring the effective delivery of generic employability
skills in a range of settings and programmes.
•
To make recommendations for providers and strategic agencies in the South West
region.