• An investigation into the Pedagogical Trajectories of PGCE Trainees Using Espoused 'Beliefs'

      Smith, Matt (Center for Promoting Ideas (CPI), 2016-11-01)
      Postgraduate trainee teachers undergo profound ‘shifts’ in their pedagogical understanding and practices through the year that they are taught at a UK Higher Education Institution. This study ‘investigated, in a paired pre–post design, the espoused pedagogical beliefs of three cohorts of PGCE trainees, at two time points – at the onset and toward the end of their studies in a teacher education department in a major HEI in the UK, with corroborative results from a fourth cohort and from a wider set of institutions. Using an adaptation of the ‘practices’ scale of Swan (2006), trainees’ pedagogical beliefs were charted and described on a continuum running from transmissionist to child-centred through answering 25 items, and shifts from pre-course to post course were investigated on two fronts – individually and for each item. Two general principles are represented in the data: trainees seem to either make rather more radical shifts towards child-centeredness (75/117 trainees [64.1%] at an average shift of +0.28) or more slight shifts towards a more teacher centred orientation (37/117 trainees [31.6%] at an average shift of -0.18. The average shift was +0.14 per trainee (from 3.35 to 3.49) - a significant trend towards a greater learner-centrism across the longitudinal study.
    • Conundrums of our own making: critical pedagogy and trainee further education teachers

      Avis, James; Bathmaker, Ann-marie; Kendall, Alex; Parsons, John (Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2003)
      This article examines the experiences and understandings of a group of fulltime further education (FE) trainee teachers in a university in the English Midlands. The article places the research within its socio-economic and discursive context as well as drawing out parallels with earlier work on FE trainee teachers. The main thrust of the article is concerned with constructions of critical pedagogy and learning and examines the relation of trainees to such constructions. It compares a model of critical practice with trainee teachers' accounts of their practice. It concludes by arguing that it is not enough to hold to an ethic of care or even a concern to engage students, and that there is a wider politics inscribed within pedagogic practice. A critical pedagogy would seek to question the wider social structure that generates systematic inequality.
    • Engaging the networked learner: theoretical and practical issues

      Lane, Andrew M.; Dale, Crispin (University of Wolverhampton, 2010)
      The nature of learning and teaching in higher education has changed significantly in recent years. The emergence of social media and technologies has had a profound impact upon learner engagement and tutors have had to adapt their learning and teaching strategies accordingly. The thesis discusses the author’s published body of research and presents a pedagogical framework for engaging the networked learner. The framework is based upon three perspectives that have emerged from the author’s research. Firstly, different learning paradigms should be acknowledged when developing pedagogical approaches to using learning technologies. Secondly, the thesis discusses how the author’s research on learning technologies, including VLEs and iPod technologies, should embrace networked communities and learner empowerment. Thirdly, the research on learning approaches is discussed which acknowledges different learning behaviours and the adoption of differentiated methods in learning and teaching. Whilst discussing the evolving nature of the learning environment, the pedagogical framework draws together each of the aforementioned perspectives. The framework raises a number of factors for engaging the networked learner. A set of practical guidelines based around institutional, tutor and learner perspectives are discussed and underpin the application of the framework. The thesis concludes with theoretical observations on learning and learning theory and presents limitations and areas for further research.
    • Exploring student nurses’ and nurse educators’ experiences of simulation-based pedagogy using case-study research

      Humphreys, Melanie (2016-03-01)
      Nurse academics are constantly facing new challenges from governmental and professional groups calling for the preparation of students to be able to work with increasing complex patient cases at a time of reduction in clinical placements (NMC, 2010a and b). Simulation is a method that has been embraced, by some, for preparing for these challenges, with the potential to escalate student skills and knowledge in a meaningful way (Benner, 1984). The aim of this study was to explore and make explicit the characteristics that make simulation effective within nurse education. An explorative, qualitative case study was chosen to collect spoken data from twenty-four participants through focus groups. Participants included both students undertaking nurse training, and academics involved in the delivery of simulation. Content analysis facilitated exploration of each participant’s contribution resulting in the emergence and construction of three themes (Creswell, 2007; Polit and Beck, 2014). 1. The approaches that academics use to integrate simulation into the curriculum; 2. The influences and decisions academics make to deliver simulationbased education, and their impact upon the student learning experience; 3. Evidence for the transference of skills to the realities of clinical practice. A conceptual framework has been developed and presented through the data analysis process (Saldana, 2012), which has culminated in the presentation of a unique model for ‘Developing Simulation Practice in Nurse Education’ (DSPiNE). The model relates to two key processes derived both during and following simulation activities (1) the preparedness for clinical practice, described as the process whereby the student gains insight into their current practice abilities; and (2) the transference to clinical practice, described as the process whereby the student gains insight into their readiness for future practice requirements. This study concludes that purposeful positive behavioural change could be achieved with the implementation of the DSPiNE model within nurse education.
    • Flipped Learning in Teacher Education

      Smith, Matt; Gurton, Paul (2019-06-28)
      The very term “flipped classroom” describes how the locations for learning events are inverted (Wilson, 2013). Abeysekera & Dawson list six characteristics of flipping learning, most of which demonstrate a clear inversion of the more normative, traditional approach to learning activities, which they call “moving tasks in time and space” (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015 p2). They list some examples of this as transferring what would traditionally have happened in class (i.e. the teaching of the subject material) to an out-of-class activity and, conversely doing activities traditionally considered homework (such as working on problems after teacher input) in the classroom. These in-class activities emphasise active learning and peer learning, facilitated through pre- and post-class activities, and the use of technology (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015; Yough et al., 2017).
    • Inclusive practice for families

      Mander, S; Bennett, Kay; Richards, Lynn; Brown, Zeta (Routledge, 2016)
      Family experience of high quality inclusive practice at an early stage significantly influences the understanding and expectation of inclusion within learning environments. Parents/carers, children and young people possess personalised, unique expertise regarding their own service requirements. This has the potential to support educational institutions in their quest to successfully implement inclusive practice. It is particularly relevant for families who may be marginalised through poverty, cultural or social factors, where reluctance to engage in and secure support from professional services offers a challenge to organisations to reflect upon and review the effectiveness of their inclusive practice. The impact of parental involvement in their children’s education is well documented: it has a positive influence on future educational attainment and therefore an integrated approach to parental engagement is advocated to build solid lifelong foundations for learning. This chapter will discuss the importance of user voice and associated participation strategies which are genuine and realistic, and also consider current service provision for excluded families with reflection upon the qualities and competencies required to firmly embed inclusion throughout all strands of these services. We shall use examples from the context of education as a way of exploring issues of inclusion with regard to children, young people and their families. The chapter is in three sections: poverty and inclusion, ‘hard to reach’ families, acknowledging diversity and complexity, and a case study example of effective consultation with parents of young children who experience disability. It is a salient point that families from minority ethnic groups and families with adults and/or children with disabilities are both more likely to experience poverty and disadvantage (Gupta and Blewett, 2008; Lansley and Mack, 2015) and so it is to the issue of poverty that we focus on in the first instance.
    • Interactive pedagogy and subsequent effects on learning in science classrooms.

      McGregor, Debra (Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2004)
      Observations of pupils-in-action whilst carrying out investigations indicated that there was plenty of social and cooperative exchange. There was, however, infrequent discussion regarding the planning of experimental approaches, predicting outcomes, consideration of the meaning of evidence and evaluation of task solutions. These observations informed the nature of interactive in-service programmes developed in Keele University Education Department. Professional development was designed to purposely illustrate a wide repertoire of pedagogic strategies that focused around these issues to support cognitive development of pupils. The interactive nature of the in-service training was shown to affect widespread 'change in teachers' practice. These teachers, involved in experiential in-service, reflected that they intervened more regularly in children's learning. Their engagement in in-service training as learners in problem-solving situations resulted in conceptual shifts in understanding the learning processes their pedagogical transformations could affect. The impact of this changed praxis on pupils' learning in investigational situations was studied after in-service intervention. These findings were compared with the performance of pupils of the same year group carrying out the same investigations before in-service intervention. The more interactive nature of the teachers' changed pedagogy appeared to affect change in the way pupils themselves interacted and learnt from and with each other. Explicitly sharing subjective views through exploratory talk was found to be important to affect learning through social interaction.
    • Letting in the Trojan mouse: Using an eportfolio system to re-think pedagogy.

      Hughes, Julie (The Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite), 2008)
      E-learning research, as an emergent field in the UK, is highly political in nature (Conole & Oliver, 2007, p.6) occupying a complex landscape which houses policy-makers, researchers and practitioners. Increasingly and more interestingly, the landscape is being shaped by the narratives and experiences of the learners themselves (Creanor et al., 2006, Conole et al., 2006) and the use of Web 2.0 technologies. However, as Laurillard (2007, p.xv) reminds us we still, ‘tend to use technology to support traditional modes of teaching’ and ‘we scarcely have the infrastructure, the training, the habits or the access to the new technology, to be optimising its use just yet’ (p.48). Web 2.0 spaces, literacies and practices offer the possibility for new models of education (Mayes & de Freitas, 2007, p.13) which support iterative and integrative learning but as educators and higher educational establishments are we prepared and ready to re-think our pedagogies and re-do (Beetham & Sharpe 2007, p.3) our practices? This concise paper will reflect upon how the use of new learning landscapes such as eportfolios might offer us the opportunity to reflect upon the implications of letting in the e-learning eportfolio Trojan mouse (Sharpe & Oliver, 2007, p.49).
    • PowerPoint and pedagogy

      Burke, Deirdre; Apperley, Alan (University of Wolverhampton, 2004)
      PowerPoint began as a business package which allowed for the seductive presentation of information to achieve particular objectives, usually to sell a product. Many of the features were thus designed to impress prospective customers and persuade them to purchase a particular product, and guidance in manuals seeks to serve that purpose. This project grew out of a school staff development session where staff shared perceptions of PowerPoint and raised questions and concerns about pedagogy. Essentially the crucial question is how can a product designed for a different purpose assist us in the presentation of information in a teaching and learning situation?
    • Practising what we preach? Contradictions between pedagogy and practice in the move to problem-based learning

      Hockings, Christine (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2004)
      This chapter explores the challenges facing individual lecturers as they make the transition from traditional teaching to problem-based learning. This case study highlights the conceptual, epistemological and pedagogical challenges such a shift presents and suggests ways in which academics can be supported through this process in order to improve student learning. It is of significance to academic developers and practitioners.
    • The Trampoline Tree and the Swamp Monster with 18 heads: outdoor play in the foundation stage and foundation phase.

      Waller, Tim (Taylor & Francis, 2007)
      This paper considers pedagogy and outdoor play in the early years. The particular focus is on the specific features and benefits of outdoor play in the Foundation Stage (England) and Foundation Phase (Wales). The paper will draw on current international literature and evidence from outdoor learning constructed in an ongoing research project in two settings. In the project, children aged three to seven years are given regular opportunity to play and learn in natural wild environments. The paper will reflect on the development and opportunities for children's play themes and how these impact on pedagogy in early years settings.