{"id":449,"date":"2016-11-14T08:49:57","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T08:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/education\/?p=449"},"modified":"2016-11-14T08:49:57","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T08:49:57","slug":"ill-get-by-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends-part-2-a-different-type-of-safe-space-creating-collaborative-learning-experiences-for-pgce-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/education\/2016\/11\/14\/ill-get-by-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends-part-2-a-different-type-of-safe-space-creating-collaborative-learning-experiences-for-pgce-students\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ll get by with a little help from my friends\u201d (part 2). A different type of \u2018safe space\u2019; creating collaborative learning experiences for PGCE students."},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last few months there has been considerable debate regarding the establishment of \u2018safe-space\u2019 on university campuses around the world, with the anxiety expressed that they act to shut down free speech.\u00a0 In a world apparently dominated by post-factual political rhetoric the need for debate and the interrogation of diverse views seems more important than ever.\u00a0 This is well exemplified by the columnist Timothy Garton Ash<\/a>.\u00a0 So, I guess putting the phrase \u2018safe space\u2019 in a blog post could be considered attention seeking. Actually it is not. It is a phrase which has emerged from a series of research projects in which I have been capturing views of a new and established teachers and lecturers, from primary, secondary, Further and Higher Education settings about practices and environments in which they experience professional learning.<\/p>\n

The significance of \u2018safe-space\u2019 is evident in my last blog post<\/a>, in which I concluded with the question, How do we create modern day collaborative learning experiences in which our student teachers will experience solidarity with each other and with the learners, will be given permission to be productively creative and do so in a safe space in which each of them can become the best teacher they can be?<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 This post picks up the theme where I left off, and also draws on the keynote I gave at the UCET annual conference.<\/p>\n

\"lofthouse\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The focus for this second post is the link between opportunities to learn collaboratively and learning as \u2018conceptual change\u2019.\u00a0 Whilst I have frequently in the last 15 or so years described learning as change to my PGCE and Masters students it is only recently that I have come across the idea of conceptual change. For this I thank Peter Davies at Birmingham University for creating a team of researchers from three universities. So Peter and I, along with Celia Greenway (also of Birmingham University) and Dan Davis and several of his colleagues (of Cardiff Metropolitan University) are exploring student teachers experiences\u2019 of their own learning to teach using \u2018conceptual change\u2019 as our theoretical basis. In essence conceptual change is the experience which we go through when we have to consciously rework and reframe an idea or understanding that we have previously accepted. This idea has been particularly well demonstrated in children’s learning of scientific phenomena. Take for example the fact that typically children conceptualise the world as flat because that corresponds with their early experience of it. Developing an understanding that the world is actually a globe requires a reworking of the flat earth construct. This is known as conceptual change.<\/p>\n

In our current recent research we are trying to determine the nature of conceptual change in learning to teach and some of the factors that might promote this change. Without attending to the entire research findings there are some key aspects to note and one of those is that the phenomena of learning to teach is essentially a complicated one. Part of the complication is that student teachers are not inexperienced in the phenomenon of teaching, indeed they have had years of experiencing teachers and teaching through being taught. For many this leads to a na\u00efve, but possibly strongly held, conception of what it means to learn and act as a teacher. Because it is a strongly held conception student teachers may be resistant to more systematic scrutiny of the phenomenon of themselves learning to teach.\u00a0 And of course this is doubly complicated because the phenomena in which they are immersed, rather than being something which they can simply be instructed in from neutral territory, is an experiential learning phenomena in which they participate. So whilst we may understand the need for a conceptual shift or change during a period of training or education for student teachers this may be a difficult thing to make happen.<\/p>\n

This is where collaboration comes in.\u00a0 In our research we have been interviewing students at different stages of their initial teacher education to try to reveal the dimensions of learning that they experience in learning to teach. Using analytical methods appropriate to conceptual change theory it has been possible to identify several key dimensions of learning to teach. Amongst others these include the contexts in which learning happens<\/em> and the various modes of learning<\/em> as described by the student teachers. And what we find in analysis of their interviews is that the student teachers highlight interactions with others, but just like other identifiable dimension there is variance evident in in these descriptions.\u00a0 So learning to teach from and with others is evident and this typically include one or more of the school mentors, other colleagues in school, the University tutor and their peers.\u00a0 These \u2018others\u2019 have the potential to create a social context for learning.\u00a0 Our analysis of these descriptions has resulted in three broad categories:<\/p>\n