Teaching Today A Practical Guide Fourth Edition - part 10 ppsx

Providing learners with support 559 empathetic, non-judgemental listening• trying to identify barriers• focusing on the advantages of change.• Avoid trying to persuade the student. The change needs to come from within if it is going to happen, so forcing the student often fails. Here is a sequence of questions that may help: ‘What’s the problem doing this? Why do you fi nd it diffi cult?’ ‘Could you do with some help over this?’ (Consider pairing the student up with a fellow student who is prepared to help them if this is appropriate.) ‘How are you going to make sure you do it this time?’ If the problem persists: ‘What’s going to happen if you never sort this out?’ – getting an answer and then: ‘Are you happy with that? Is that what you want?’ ‘Are you letting yourself down here? Are you being your own best friend?’ ‘Do you think you have the strength of character to deal with this? Because I believe you have.’ EXERCISE Facilitating change Imagine a challenging and frightening or diffi cult change you might consider making in your own life, such as giving up smoking or tackling a problem with a relationship. Which strategy would be most likely to work? • Being listened to non-judgementally during a truthful exploration of the issues, including a non-persuasive exploration of the alternatives and their consequences. • Being challenged and persuaded. MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING If you would like to follow up this approach to persistent problems in detail, take a look at the Entry To Employment – ‘e2e’ Standards Unit materials. Have a look in your institution’s library. The model of change Most people who are faced with change are not ready to take action (70%) – for example, giving up smoking. • Several stages must be passed through before action occurs. • The object is to move people from one stage to the next, not directly to action. • Stage-specifi c communication skills and strategies are required. P05.indd 559 2/3/09 16:46:16 The professional in practice 560 Other strategies to ensure inclusion Inclusion, diversity, entitlement, differentiation, ensuring equal opportunities and personalised learning all require teachers to treat students as individuals. We have seen how course design (‘making the match’) and tutorial systems (‘catch them before they fall’) can help ensure every student succeeds. Here are some other ways, along with the chapter where you can learn more. Inclusion in the classroom: some key strategies: Strategy Chapter where you can learn more Establish good rapport and equal opportunities by showing respect 7 Help students with special needs such as dyslexia 7 Agree ground rules and enforce these 8 & 9 Set open, challenging, constructivist tasks 1 Use high-effect size methods Intro. to Part 2 Ensure feedback is ‘medal and mission’ 6 & 43 Use inclusive questioning methods such as assertive questioning 14 & 24 Motivate students with tasks they value 5 & 41 Use whole-brain, varied student activities to meet all learning styles Intro. to Part 2 Plan well-structured, active lessons 38 & 40 Most of all, listen and refl ect with the right values 45 & 46 Use initial diagnostic testing and tutorial monitoring 47 & 48 Integrate study skills: see Evidence Based Teaching, Geoff Petty, chapters 21 and 24 Ensure students know what to expect on the course, and give good initial guidance: see Evidence Based Teaching, Geoff Petty, page 360. The stages of change are: Precontemplation: ‘unaware, unwilling, too discouraged’ Contemplation: ‘open to information, thinking about trying something’ Preparation: ‘getting ready to try out new behaviours’ Action: ‘taking steps, needing will power, habituating behaviours’ Maintenance: ‘has engaged for at least six months’ P05.indd 560 2/3/09 16:46:16 Providing learners with support 561 References and further reading Look at the documents and procedures produced by your college or school. Practice varies and you need to know what is expected of you, and what is avail- able to you as a teacher. Basic Skills Agency (1997) ‘Staying the course: the relationship between basic skills support, drop-out, retention and achievement – further education colleges’, London: BSA. Shows that students on support are more likely to pass than those who don’t even need the support in the fi rst place. SOME ANSWERS FOR THE EXERCISE ‘MEETING THE EMOTIONAL NEEDS OF LEARNERS’ Pre-enrolment I need the best course for me • I need to know about alternative qualifi cations, courses and programmes that might suit me. • I need to have thought about the nature of the programme and what it will require of me. • I need to appreciate how the programme meets my long-term aims and adds value to my life. • I need to understand the consequences of doing the programme: costs, study time, effort, working conditions, extra commitments required for me to be successful. • I need to be valued and feel I am wanted. • I need to be ‘kept warm’ after fi rst contact. Induction and the fi rst few weeks I need to feel valued, respected and wanted and have my fears allayed • I need to meet my teachers and tutor on the fi rst day. • I need to meet my fellow students and begin to bond with them and begin to belong. We need to discuss and agree fair ground rules. • I need to feel secure about getting the support I might need to succeed. I need to believe that I can do it • I need achievable tasks as well as challenging tasks. • I need to succeed early on. • I need someone to discover whether I need support and to provide it. • I need to learn in the ways that suit me. I need the programme to adapt to me personally • I need to know more about what the course requires of me. • I need my teacher to listen to my queries and fears. • I need my teacher to ‘fi nd faults and fi x’ regarding my ‘match’ with the course. P05.indd 561 2/3/09 16:46:16 The professional in practice 562 Bloom, B. S. (1984) ‘The 2 sigma problem: the search for methods of group instruc- tion as effective as one-to-one tutoring’, Educational Researcher, June/July: 4–16. Shows that one-to-one teaching is about four grades better than whole-class teaching. Further Education Funding Council (1998) Inclusive Learning Quality Initiative Materials, Coventry: FEFC. See note in the bibliography of Chapter 47. Green, M. (2002) Improving One-to-One Tutorials, London: Learning and Skills Development Agency. This is an excellent pack which includes a video. All post-16 institutions were given a free copy. Martinez, P. (1998) ‘9000 voices: student persistence and drop-out in further educa- tion’, LSDA free download at www.lsneducation.org.uk/pubs/index.aspx (type the author’s name into the ‘detailed search’). Rogers, C. (1961) On Becoming a Person, London: Constable. Rogers, C. (1995) On Becoming a Teacher: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy, Boston, MA: Marriner Books. Useful websites www.qca.org.uk/qca_6444.aspx is useful to explore for key skills. www.keyskills4u.com has excellent key skills teaching material. P05.indd 562 2/3/09 16:46:17 563 Monitoring, evaluation and review of courses Like your teaching, the courses or ‘subjects’ you teach should be subjected to self-corrective feedback; it is the only way they will improve. I have seen even well- established and successful courses substantially improved by this process. Monitoring Monitoring is the day-to-day checking and improving of a course, with the aim of making relatively minor changes and improvements. It can be carried out infor- mally, but best practice is to have weekly or fortnightly ‘course team meetings’, attended by all the tutors on the course and a few student representatives. The day- to-day running of the course is discussed, and improvements agreed. For example, business at my last meeting included two requests by student representatives: one for more coordination of assignments, so that they were more evenly spread over the course; and the other for more copies of a certain coursebook to be placed in the library. Arrangements were made by tutors for a chemistry assignment to be ‘written up’ on computer to give the students more information technology experience, and there was plenty of routine administrative business. What could be done to improve the performance of problem students was discussed without the student representatives present. 49 Evaluating courses and quality improvement P05.indd 563 2/3/09 16:46:17 The professional in practice 564 Some teachers advocate having an open course diary, or an open suggestion folder for assignments, worksheet activities, etc. Students are invited or requested to write comments and suggestions for the improvement of the course or course materials, as the course progresses. Less formally, knowledge of students’ work and learning rate, and of the ideas and irritations of students and tutors, all helps in monitoring a course. Monitoring is a natural improvement process that any professional would undertake without thinking, but the most substantial changes result from an evaluation and review. Evaluation and review An evaluation and review is carried out at the end of a course; the aim is to arrive at an informed decision about the course’s effectiveness, or some aspect of it, and to use this to make suggestions for improvement. (A short course may be evaluated by asking students to write down one positive aspect of the course, and one way in which they felt it could have been improved.) Your institution’s quality system or self-assessment/evaluation system will usually state what must be reviewed, but you can of course go further. The following topics are amongst those commonly considered (though clearly any aspect of the course may be evaluated): aims and objectives• teaching strategies• assignments, worksheets, textbooks, etc.• course organisation• course documentation (e.g. student coursebook or handbook)• resources• assessment• learning outcomes, including a comparison of students’ entry qualifi cations • etc., with their subsequent performance on the course, drop-out rate, etc. Flow diagram to show monitoring, evaluation and review of courses P05.indd 564 2/3/09 16:46:17 Evaluating courses and quality improvement 565 It would often take too long to consider all these points in detail in any one year, so the evaluation may only cover key and troublesome aspects. A more systematic approach is to draw up a timetable, so that every aspect of the course is evaluated over, say, four years. Evidence for the evaluation can come from: students’ performance on assessment tasks and coursework• reports from verifi ers, moderators or similar external scrutiny (see below)• the opinion of teachers, support staff (e.g. technicians) and students on the • course – including those who dropped out of the course minutes of course team meetings, and other monitoring information• consultation with industry or commerce if it is a vocational course (especially • if it involves work experience) consultation with those initiating the training, if the course has been commer-• cially commissioned consultation with other members of staff who do not actually teach on • the course – for example, the appropriate head of department, and possibly also library staff and those responsible for quality control or equal opportu- nity policy. Opinions may be collected by discussion, memo, questionnaires or by structured interview. Questionnaires and structured interviews A student questionnaire is a popular ‘evaluation instrument’. It is usually completed anonymously, and ideally includes students who have left the course, if there are any. Your institution may use a standard questionnaire; if not, devise your own. There are three commonly used methods for collecting the students’ responses. A space may be left under the question in which the student is invited to write; alter- natively, one of the following methods may be adopted – both have the advantage that the responses can be easily quantifi ed: The question may invite a yes/no or a tick/cross response• . For example: Did you fi nd the section on computer programming useful? Yes/No The student is asked to agree or disagree with a statement on a given scale.• For example: strongly strongly agree disagree The computer programming section was useful. 1 2 3 4 5 Often questionnaires mix response styles. The questions asked should, of course, be related to the main aims of your course, so you must devise the questions yourself. Your questionnaire should aim to discover whether you are meeting the aims and objectives of the course, and any other priorities that you set for it (e.g. cost, enjoy- ment, student progression). Also, you should try to uncover any problems with the course. Typical topics and questions are shown below. Admission• . Were you given suffi cient guidance in choosing this course? Was it the right course for you? Did the course differ in any way from what you expected? P05.indd 565 2/3/09 16:46:17 The professional in practice 566 Resources• . Were the classrooms adequate? Did you have adequate access to library, computers, refectory, lavatories, sports facilities … ? Course content• . Can you give an example of an activity you thought particularly interesting/useful? Was there enough student activity? Were activities suffi - ciently varied? Did you enjoy the assignments/practical work? Were they suffi - ciently work-related? Were you clear what was expected? Was adequate time given? Was adequate work set? Was content suffi ciently challenging, or was it too easy or too hard? Were you actively involved in your own learning? Did you enjoy the teaching methods chosen? Would you have preferred others? Learning• . Questions on the students’ feelings about their learning are some- times useful, e.g. Do you now feel confi dent enough to book a hotel room in French? Assessment• . Was work fairly marked? Do you feel you were kept aware of how you were doing on the course? Course management• . Do you feel the course was reasonably well organised? Was the course literature adequate? Was the induction useful/satisfactory? General• . Do you feel the teachers on the course were effective? Have you enjoyed the course? State two things that were particularly good about the course. State two things about the course that could be improved. Please give the course an overall mark out of 10. It is important to choose your questions to suit the learners – for example, younger learners may need simple, direct questions. Mature learners can themselves suggest questions for the questionnaire, and contribute valuable ideas for improve- ment. Whatever you do, make sure you include the last four ‘general’ topics from the list above, and leave some space for unstructured responses (e.g. inviting ‘Any general comments?’ under each heading in the questionnaire). An alternative to the questionnaire is the structured interview, a one-to-one inter- view based on prepared questions. This may be a useful method for obtaining the opinion of former students, employers, etc. Customer satisfaction is important, but it is learning that really counts. So don’t always take the student responses too literally; their opinion needs to be inter- preted – but not ignored! ‘Success is overrated. Everyone craves it despite daily proof that man’s real genius lies in quite the opposite direction. Incompetence is what we are good at: it is the quality that marks us off from animals and we should learn to revere it.’ Stephen Pile, Heroic Failures Action plan Once the course has been evaluated, suggestions are drawn up for its improvement. P05.indd 566 2/3/09 16:46:17 567 This is called the action plan; without it, the evaluation would have been largely a waste of time. Ideally, someone should be made responsible for carrying out or overseeing each improvement, and a deadline should be set for the implementa- tion of the improvement. Then, in your next evaluation, you will fi nd you have a different set of problems! Verifi cation and moderation – how fair is my marking? We need to be sure marking is fair and consistent. This is not easy, especially if there is more than one teacher marking work on the same course. Standards need to be consistent between institutions too. It would not be fair on students if a pass in one institution would have gained a merit in another, or if assessment procedures such as the time and help students had to complete coursework varied. Also, students need helpful and informative feedback on their work in order to improve, not just grades or marks. These are ‘Quality Assurance’ issues which are usually addressed by ‘modera- tion’, ‘verifi cation’ or ‘standardisation’, terms which are often interchangeable in practice. To ‘moderate’ means to make sure marks given are not too high or low.• To ‘verify’ means to ensure marks and procedures are true and correct.• To ‘standardise’ means to ensure marking and procedures conform to a • standard. But how do you do it? Here are some common approaches; decide which would be best for the courses on which you teach or are a student, then compare this with what actually happens. In each case below, teachers teaching the same subject or course meet together to consider assessment procedures and marks. They might look over a random sample of students’ work, perhaps some weak, some average and some strong work. They might discuss work on a grade borderline. They are probably from the same institution, but might come from different ones. They might use the following strategies: a Discuss procedures and how to interpret assessment tasks or criteria. b Look at each other’s marked work to consider the accuracy of the marks given and the quality of the feedback (students need ‘medal and mission’ feedback – see Chapters 6 and 43). c Use blind second marking: a marked piece of work, but not the assessment decisions or comments, is given to another teacher to mark. The marks and comments are then compared. d An experienced teacher in the institution with a verifi er’s or moderator’s qualifi - cation looks carefully at marked work and reports on the quality of the teachers’ responses. Evaluating courses and quality improvement P05.indd 567 2/3/09 16:46:18 The professional in practice 568 e An external moderator or verifi er might visit an institution to do the same as ‘d’ above. They might visit a number of institutions and so have experience of procedures, standards and good practice elsewhere. You might consider getting a moderator’s or verifi er’s qualifi cations yourself when you have suffi cient experience. It’s a short course. It is common to complain of the above procedures and to fi nd them burdensome. However, with the right attitude you can learn a great deal. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of other teachers – ‘What exactly does “justify” mean in the context of this question?’ ‘Would you expect a graph for question 10?’ Benchmarking – how am I doing? How well do you teach compared to other teachers? Would your students have done better or worse if they had studied at a different institution, with another teacher at your own institution, or if they had studied with you last year? There is a mass of data to help you answer these questions, but the data is harder to interpret than most people realise. A common approach is to compare your results with those of other teachers, using a fi gure such as your pass rate, or the percentage of your students who stayed the course and completed (retention rate). Such fi gures indicate how well you and your students performed and so are called ‘performance indicators’. They are very crude measures, but very important ones for students, their families and college managers. Funding is often affected by institutional performance indicators, and continued underperformance can force a course, or even a school or college, to close. Merit or distinction. P05.indd 568 2/3/09 16:46:18 [...]... 1: Standards for the lifelong learning sector Domain A: Professional Chapters knowledge and understanding Professional practice Chapters AK 4.2 45 AP 4.2 46, 49 AK 4.3 46, 49 AP 4.3 46, 49 AK 5.1 47, 48 AP 5.1 47, 48, 49 AP 5.2 43, 47 AP 6.1 7 AP 6.2 7 AK 5.2 AK 6.1 7 AK 6.2 AK 7.1 AP 7.1 41 AK 7.2 49 AP 7.2 49 AK 7.3 49 + whole book! AP 7.3 49 Domain B: Learning and teaching Chapters AS 1–5 See above... improvements are identified Chs 14, 24, 46, 49 Q9 Act upon advice and feedback and be open to coaching and mentoring Chs 11, 46, 49 Teaching and learning Q10 590 Have a knowledge and understanding of a range of teaching, learning and behaviour management strategies and know how to use and adapt them, including how to personalise learning and provide opportunities for all learners to achieve their potential Chs... learners? 4 How well are learners guided and supported? 5 How effective are leadership and management in raising achievement and supporting all learners? Each question is graded separately: Grade 1 Outstanding Grade 2 Good Grade 3 Satisfactory Grade 4 Inadequate Notice the great emphasis on learning and learners’ needs and support Even leaders and managers are held to account exclusively on this issue... very much a team effort, and being part of a teaching team can be one of the great pleasures of teaching, and one of its greatest challenges! When I first started teaching, I had a very senior member of staff on my 576 Evaluating courses and quality improvement teaching team and I had to ask him for progress reports on my students He was sometimes very late in providing these and I wondered for years how... teach effectively across the age and ability range for which they are trained Chs 1, 5, 13, 24, Appendix 2 Q15 Know and understand the relevant statutory and non-statutory curricula and frameworks, including those provided through the National Strategies, for their subjects/curriculum areas, and other relevant initiatives applicable to the age and ability range for which they are trained www.nationalstrategies.org.uk... more attention to your own institution’s data from last year than to national averages • Pay most attention of all to how you could improve – even if your results are brilliant Teaching Today and Evidence Based Teaching both have a lot of detail on this • Remember that the biggest influences on achievement are setting challenging tasks (Chapter 1); giving, getting or ensuring informative feedback (Chapters... fall’ in Chapter 48 Darlington has its share of socially and economically deprived households This doesn’t solve all the problems, as year groups differ, and last year’s data do not usually tell you how to improve However, one’s own data are probably a better benchmark than other people’s data A better approach still is to focus on how to improve rather than on the data Don’t let benchmarking distract... positive: ‘At least that worked well.’ the negative: ‘That was awful.’ learning: ‘What can we learn from this?’ blaming: ‘It was the student’s fault.’ 580 How to teach and remain sane You can be active or passive towards difficulties at work; in relationships; in childrearing; in personal problems; in every imaginable field! Not surprisingly, research shows that taking control with the ‘active’ approach is a. .. 42, Appendix 2 across the age and ability range for which they are trained in which they: a) use a range of teaching strategies and resources, including e-learning, taking practical account of diversity and promoting equality and inclusion b) build on prior knowledge, develop concepts and processes, enable learners to apply new knowledge, understanding and skills and meet learning objectives c) adapt... have approached him about this, as I never had the nerve to confront him with the difficulties he was causing me, and my students Then I gradually began to realise that most of the principles of teaching applied to managing team members as well Good managers give medals and missions to their team, as we considered in Chapters 6 and 43; they require them to self-assess and to set themselves targets, as . institution’s data from last year than to national averages. Pay most attention of all to how you could improve – even if your results are • brilliant. Teaching Today and Evidence Based Teaching both have. you a team player? Evaluating and improving courses is very much a team effort, and being part of a teaching team can be one of the great pleasures of teaching, and one of its greatest challenges!. that any professional would undertake without thinking, but the most substantial changes result from an evaluation and review. Evaluation and review An evaluation and review is carried out at