THE USE OF COLLABORATIVE PLACEMENTS IN SECONDARY FLEXIBLE PGCE
(Summary paper for Working with Student Teachers in the School–based Practicum: Collaboration, Co-teaching and Multiple Placements.)
Paul Clarke & John Sears 2007
University of Worcester
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London, 5-8 September 2007
BACKGROUND:
As previously reported to BERA (Sears 2003, 2004) University of Worcester has used paired placements on its full-time taught PGCE (post graduate certificate in education) courses for the first school experience for many years. Through this practice we have gradually built up an understanding of collaborative work which we have tried to build into other routes that we have developed.
In the last few years we have developed a flexible version of our secondary PGCE in some subjects. The initial spur to this development was to be able to provide a part-time version of the course for people whose circumstances made it difficult for them to pursue full-time studies. So parents with young children, people running small businesses, or people acting as carers were all thought to be potential targets for this programme which would have part-time study, three possible start dates and only one block of full-time teaching experience at the end. We also felt it might enable us to develop a course where people, who were untrained but who had been teaching for some time, could APEL their experience against the course components and study for a shorter period of time. We wanted the part-time experience to be as flexible as possible but were restricted to the course having to be completed in two years (TTA requirement) which meant that the part-time experience should not fall below half a week designated as study time. However, we were clear that different phases of the course could be done at different rates of study time to suit the personal circumstances of the student teacher. Thus a candidate could start out doing three days a week of study but then do the first placement full time before dropping back again in the next phase of study.
DEVELOPING THE FLEXIBLE PGCE:
To make the flexible PGCE a viable option we had to modularise the course into units of study which would nonetheless embody the best of the ‘full-time standard course’ (as we re-designated the original PGCE). We were concerned that since both routes were intended to provide the same qualification, that the benefits of the taught course should not be lost in the development of distance learning modules. Despite the fashion for modularisation it is our belief that vocational training of the sort provided in a PGCE does not easily lend itself to packaging. Modules, by definition, provide an emphasis on discrete units of ‘knowledge’ which can be terminally assessed as you go along, giving rise to a ‘banking’ model of learning. In this model you pay in and store up knowledge sequentially until you achieve the final balance; the award. However, in a traditional PGCE you develop gradually against a set of standards, with some ups and downs as you try to integrate your learning, until at the end, you become a functional teacher capable of demonstrating the standards in a holistic way. Thus the emphasis is on final performance, not on stacks of small credits gained sequentially. This is more like learning to drive a car where in the end you need to integrate all the skills so that your passenger feels safe. In the course of learning you often make mistakes in things that you can do, if you focus on them, because you are currently focussing on something else. Thus the notion of secure banking of knowledge simply does not apply. Only when you can integrate the performance so that it no longer requires conscious thought will functionality be attained. We felt it was important not to lose the holistic nature of the course as we developed the new structure.
We were also concerned over the divide between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’. We are well aware that student teachers (and mentors) often refer to the school and University experiences as though they are separate things. There is also a lingering ethos in some schools that somehow educational research is divorced from the reality of teaching and consequently to be ignored and this we feel is often linked to views on training that believe that the best way to learn to teach is to be left to ‘get on with it’ as much as possible. People dwelling in this paradigm also tend to express views that the more teaching you can do the better prepared you will be (quantity, not quality).
As teacher educators we reject this framework for learning to teach and obviously reject the notion that research has nothing to offer. We have always believed that ‘theory’ is only valuable if you can apply it, and that practice is only going to be good where evidence from research is used to inform it. We are therefore more wedded to the Aristotelian notion of ‘praxis’ which embodies the idea of an integration of study, performance and context to produce the ‘expert practitioner’ (see also Roth & Tobin 2004). It therefore became imperative that the modules of the course should embody this philosophy and that all should have elements of school placement to support the integration of the learning. We studied other flexible courses where the modules had been divided into subject studies, professional studies and placements and rejected this structure as inevitably leading to a separation of theory and practice in the minds of students and mentors.
Another key issue was how to process individuals since the course was primarily designed to focus on individual need. Clearly we would have people from very different sets of circumstances applying to the course and we needed to be able to fairly support them all. This led us to develop a ‘needs analysis’ module which was purely process based and which would function in different ways for different people. Thus those arriving with little or no real experience in classrooms would have a process based around tutorial support, reviews and action planning. This would go on throughout the programme and lead to the production of the final portfolio. Those who came with teaching experience and asking for APEL would be asked to produce a portfolio at the start with evidence of achievement against the standards. These claims would then be tested out in a ten-day placement where the student would be asked to perform individually devised tasks with the support of the mentor and tutor. At the end of this period an evaluation of all the evidence would be made leading to a shorter training programme with some aspects of the various modules disapplied. This may sound a little like the ‘banking model’ approach but is better thought of as a means of deciding the focus of training rather than an idea that something is ‘ticked off’ and does not need to be done again.
This led us to develop our 8-module structure (see appendix 1). The modules were structured as study tasks based on clearly defined learning outcomes which were standards related (see appendix 2). The tasks were further structured in detailed handbooks to support the student teachers (appendix 3). In every module, (except 5), days in school were part of the study and tasks were devised to support the learning that was expected. Even in module 5 we expected students to show application from their subject studies in their teaching placements and to integrate reflections on this in their portfolio. This took us into a debate over assessment. Once you decide that a course is ‘tasked up’ the question arises as to how it will be assessed. It was clear from very early on that to require every task to be written up would be a disproportionate workload compared to the standard course. However, just as with tasks set in taught sessions we wanted to be sure that students had engaged with the study, so the issue became; how would we get evidence of task completion? In the end we decided to resolve this in three ways:
- Make some non-assessed tasks group tasks that had to be discussed with other students. Peer pressure would hopefully ensure completion.
- In tutorials, engage students with a discussion of the tasks which would show clearly whether they had studied them and also their level of understanding.
- Observation of teaching would enable us to see whether the outcomes had been attained given that we believed we had set up tasks that were directly related to successful teaching.
Finally we became engaged with the issue of peer support for students following a very individual pathway. It is clear that the standard course provides many opportunities for student teachers to work together both in University and when in a pair on placement. It became evident from the first few students that we had that peer support was likely to be lost on a part-time route and so it became important to address this problem.
Bizarrely the first thing we did that worked towards peer support was to devise a full-time version of the programme. This was partly a pragmatic decision due to large target numbers in our science PGCE. As our target had grown we had neither the space, nor staffing, to teach such a large group at one time. We therefore created a full-time cohort of 7-10 students who would follow the flexible modules as distance learners and have a few taught sessions at different times from the others. We took the opportunity with this full time cohort to place them in school in larger groups, up to four on first placement and at least pairs on final placement, to ensure they had peer support during their school experience. This has provided a group that part-time flexible students may also tap into for tasks and taught professional sessions and we hope to develop this model further over the years to come so that the very isolated part-timers have the chance of peer support which we know is supportive of good learning.
PROCEDURAL DEVELOPMENTS:
In order to select people to come on the flexible course we have placed more emphasis on their capabilities as independent learners at the interview stage. It has always been important that PGCE students have a degree of confidence and independence and our current interview procedures explore this with candidates by examining their educational and work history. It rapidly becomes apparent which applicants have been involved in independent studies, or run projects, or their own businesses and so on. This became a more important area of our procedures when judging an applicant’s suitability for the flexible PGCE and we have turned down some people whom we felt would not cope in such an environment. Clearly this is a difficult judgement area, but we have felt the need to have evidence of previous good organisation and independent work skills before accepting a candidate onto the flexible course. This is much the same as when judging the capability of those who apply for the GTP (graduate teacher programme) route where levels of peer (and mentor) support are much lower than on a standard PGCE (OfSTED 2007).
Our other key development area was in mentor training. The full-time flexible cohort was being placed in larger groups in departments both for their initial days of study and for their teaching placements. To ensure that mentors understood the nature of the programme and its difference from the standard PGCE, tutors visited the subject and professional mentors in the schools concerned and worked through the tasks and requirements for each of the modules. This was especially important for modules which had study days in school attached to them but which were not full-time placements. What we have found is that by using module 2 as the induction to a school for the module 3 placement, and similarly modules 4/7 as the induction to the module 8 placement, that good continuity and progression have been established.
MODES OF COLLABORATION:
Although not the driver for the development, the flexible structure has resulted in four key areas of collaborative work which we have studied as a result. The opportunity to explore these different kinds of collaboration has had a significant impact on our approach to the standard PGCE.
Firstly we have been able to continue our normal ways of collaborative working between students, and students and mentors, as described and analysed in previous presentations. This involves the development of reflective practitioners through collaborative work which is followed by reflective discussion. The only aspect which is different from previous practice has been the use of groups of three or four students as opposed to just a pair during the first placement.
Secondly the school-based work in modules 2, 4 & 6 has been a different kind of collaboration between students and mentors. This kind of observational, interrogative work based in practice as part of study tasks which need to be recorded, or at least discussed was a new venture for us. This has produced some very positive feedback.
Thirdly we developed collaboration between student teachers in relation to the completion of assignments and the project. This involved them working together on these items to collect and collate information even though the final presentations were their own. We also trialled peer assessment of the portfolio with this group.
Finally the APEL system which we have used in a few cases has meant a totally new way of thinking about collaboration between the mentor, student teacher and tutor, and involved us all in the debate of what constitutes evidence of successful performance against the standards and potential for disapplication of some areas of study.
FINDINGS AND COMMENTS