Monthly Archives: February 2015

PROJECT TEACH: Applying Intelligence to Teacher Education

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Project Teach

As part of our ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ series, Rachel Lofthouse from the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT)within the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, writes about the pressing need for supportive improvements to the current teacher training infrastructure.

What is the problem?

A change is needed in our education system. Rapid policy developments prioritise the role of schools as providers of workplace learning, affecting the experiences of and infrastructure for teacher training. Even those professionals who support ‘on the job’ training for teachers appreciate that meeting the learning and social needs of children and young people has to be every school’s priority. In the current system new teachers are immediately exposed to the performative culture of schools, having their individual successes and failures measured and graded from the moment they arrive.

In some cases this creates significant anxiety. Student teachers may not be encouraged to innovate and instead they simply learn how to survive. Instead of new teachers being a source of inspiration and innovation, they adopt normative practices, and their potential and energy is not garnered for their individual benefit or that of the schools.  In the worst cases, instead of building the necessary professional capacity to work flexibly to meet ever changing demands of the job, they become less resilient to the stresses of the job.

The solution

Student teachers should be educated not only individually but also in teams, tackling real-life workplace challenges through projects based on research, development and practice. The teams would be supported by co-coaches (experienced teachers and academic tutors working together) who enable their team to develop collaborative, empowering and supportive relationships, as well as the knowledge and skills required for them to tackle the genuine challenges of teaching.  The responsibility for the professional learning of all student teachers in a team becomes a collective one; each team is aiming for the best possible outcomes in terms of professional learning, pupil outcomes, and school development.

Through PROJECT-TEACH, intelligent thinking would be applied to teacher training, drawing on the principles of successful learning organisations, coaching and project-based learning:

  • Post-graduate student teachers would form project teams hosted by, and learning on behalf of, an alliance of schools, supported by ‘co-coaches’ – providing combined professional and academic expertise and drawing on principles of servant leadership. The motto of this approach is to ‘gather intelligence and use it intelligently’.
  • The project teams would work through a number of core projects spanning the school year, based on the principles of ‘project-based learning’.  Each project would include the need to teach, and as the year progressed this would be over more sustained periods and include working with learners across the relevant age range and with complex needs.  This teaching comes as a culmination of research and development, making it more evidence-based and allowing for systematic evaluation of outcomes. Student teachers would be registered as post-graduate students, and gain academic awards as well as evidence of meeting professional standards as a result of PROJECT-TEACH.
  • Learning is a social process, and PROJECT-TEACH would enable new teachers to develop skills and knowledge through collaboration on authentic and rich learning tasks set in the context of the workplace. The project briefs would be planned by drawing on the combined expertise of the professional and academic co-coaches who would design them to meet the ambitions of the host schools as well as to take account of the development stage of the new teachers. New teachers would meet the Teacher Standards through coherent development opportunities rather than through atomised practice.  The ‘standards’ would develop significance in terms of long-term occupational capacity, rather than simply as a checklist of time and context limited competencies.

PROJECT-TEACH sits firmly in the current Department for Education policy of creating a ‘Self-improving school led system’, in that it would be ‘evidence based, data rich, sustainable, focused, attract and retain talent and create a collective moral purpose’.  It does however challenge some of the current practices of teacher education.  While the Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training (DfE, 2015) recognised that the ‘challenge for the nation is to maintain a supply of outstanding teachers so that every child has the opportunity to be taught by inspirational, skilled teachers throughout their time in school’ (p.3), it lacked imagination in its proposals for re-creating teacher education.  PROJECT-TEACH can be afforded within current budgets; student teachers pay their training fee, and gain DfE bursaries according to prior qualification.  It is a matter of ensuring that the resource is deployed differently to support the approach and ensure excellent outcomes.

 

The evidence 

  • Billett (2011) identifies three dimensions to workplace learning; the practice curriculum, the practice pedagogies, and the personal epistemologies.  PROJECT-TEACH would act on each dimension by developing a curriculum based on project-based learning and by addressing the student teachers’ learning needs through more open engagement with authentic complex tasks.
  • Student teachers would be supported by expert co-coaches drawing on the principles of effective teacher coaching (Lofthouse et.al, 2010) and servant leadership through which they prioritise the needs of the student teachers as their main professional role. . This would counter the impacts of the pervasive performativity culture (Ball, 2003) and detrimental practices of judge mentoring (Hobson & Malderez, 2013) in which judgements made by experienced teachers are rapidly revealed to the novice student teachers undermining the potential of mentoring processes to support development.
  • PROJECT-TEACH would develop new teachers’ resilience by enabling them to develop positive collective teacher efficacy and beliefs, which can help to mitigate the deleterious effects associated with socio-economic deprivation (Gibbs & Powell, 2012) and as such would help to address the problems in teacher supply and retention in England.
  • PROJECT-TEACH would support schools to become learning organisations where staff and students ‘continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free’ (http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/).
  • PROJECT-TEACH would build a ‘culture of trust (and challenge) in schools to enable professional learning of teachers to prosper’ which was recognised as key by the 2015 Sutton Trust’s ‘Developing Teachers report and thus encourage the essential components of professional learning of ‘creativity, innovation and a degree of risk-taking’ (Major, 2015).

We need to put energy and vitality back into educating (not simply training) new teachers, ensuring that those that enter the profession gain relevant expertise but also the experience and insight to fulfil their potential role to transform schools for the next generation, not simply replicate the working practices of yesterday’s schools.

 

References:

  • Ball, S. J. (2003) The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228
  • Billett, S (2011) Workplace curriculum: practice and propositions, in F. Dorchy, D Gijbels. Theories of Learning for the Workplace, Routledge, London (pp.17-36)
  • DfE (2015) The Carter review of initial teacher training (ITT)
  • Gibbs, S., & Powell, B. (2012) Teacher Efficacy and Pupil Behaviour: the structure of teachers’ individual and collective efficacy beliefs and their relationship with numbers of children excluded from school. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 564-584.
  • Hobson, A.J. (2013) Judgementoring and other threats to realizing the potential of school-based mentoring in teacher education, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol 2 [2] 89-108
  • Lofthouse, R., Leat, D and Towler, C., (2010)  Improving Teacher Coaching in Schools; A Practical Guide, CfBT Learning Trust
  • Lofthouse, R. & Thomas, U. (2014) Mentoring student teachers; a vulnerable workplace learning practice, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education Vol. 3 (3) pp. 201 – 218
  • Lofthouse, R., Thomas, U. & Cole, S. (2011) Creativity and Enquiry in Action: a case study of cross-curricular approaches in teacher education. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, Vol. 2(1), pp.1-21.
  • Major, L.E. (2015)  Developing Teachers; Improving professional development for teachers, The Sutton Trust

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Investing in Young People

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As part of our ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government‘ series, Professor Peter Hopkins from the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology writes about the urgent need to end the marginalisation and misrepresentation of young people.

Investing in young people

A number of recent policy changes have placed an unfair burden upon young people, particularly for those who live in the most socially and economically deprived areas. In England, Educational Maintenance Allowance has been withdrawn, tuition fees of up to £9000 a year have been introduced for those wanting to study at university, and many young people across Britain are expected to undertake unpaid internships or voluntary work to gain ‘work experience’. Young people are bearing the brunt of these policy changes unlike the generations before them. It is time to start investing in young people by providing additional youth services and funding for educational training, and to stop marginalising, excluding and misrepresenting young people.

Research has been undertaken to counter these problematic and negative representations of young people, particularly those from the most deprived backgrounds.

  • Hill et al (2006) undertook research with children and young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods and found that they hung out in groups in order to protect themselves rather than to threaten others.
  • In a more recent example, MacDonald et al (2013) searched for ‘intergenerational cultures of worklessness’ in response to political rhetoric about ‘three generations of families where no-one has ever worked’; interviews with 20 families in Glasgow and Middlesbrough who were long term workless found no evidence of intergenerational cultures of worklessness.
  • Related to this, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation noted that in 2007-08, 31% of children were in families in poverty (4 million children).
  • Recent research with students involved in the Newcastle Occupation found that the young people who participated in this social movement were politically sophisticated, astutely aware of political matters and savvy about how to have their views heard by those in power (Hopkins, Todd and Newcastle Occupation, 2012).

What is the solution?

  • Creating environments where young people can express their views, be listened to, and encouraged to foster social change with others (including with adults and older people)
  • Providing additional educational funding and paid training opportunities for young people, particularly those from the most economically and socially deprived backgrounds
  • Representing young people better in the media (consider for example, the sophisticated ways in which students engaged with political issues through organisations, occupations and marchers in protest at government proposals about the funding of education).

The evidence

  • Much of the work of the Intergenerational Foundation demonstrates clearly that young people are being treated very unjustly in many areas including education, employment and housing. Moreover, such stark inequality between the generations means that young people are continually losing out compared to older and wealthier generations.
  • Recent research with young people growing up in social and economic deprivation in the UK has found that austerity cuts have meant that services in such areas have been cut back dramatically with religious organisations being some of the only services left to support young people (see this Religion and Society resource)
  • Many churches have experienced disinvestment or have been closed, leaving young people with very few, if any, services in their local area. This is particularly challenging for young people from such backgrounds that may be experiencing family breakdown, bereavement and social isolation.
  • The protests against the rise in tuition fees in England demonstrates that young people are politically engaged and aware of their situation (as opposed to their dominant representation amongst politicians and in the media as being disengaged, apathetic and inert). Research surrounding this involved interviews with young people involved in the Newcastle Occupation (Hopkins, Todd and Newcastle Occupation (2012) Occupying Newcastle University: student resistance to government spending cuts in England. The Geographical Journal 178 (2) 104-109).

It is time to invest in young people in order to counter negative assumptions about their peer group behaviours, their engagement with work, and to minimise their experiences of poverty.

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Linking Higher Education and Local Communities

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In this blog series ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ Emeritus Professor John Goddard OBE, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle University, writes about the role universities play within their communities.Civic uni

Many communities are facing difficult times in terms of slow growth, lack of jobs and entrenched poverty, but growing numbers now have links to one or more higher education institutions (HEIs). These can be ‘anchor institutions’, contributing to local job generation directly as an employer across a range of occupations and indirectly through new business formation, providing advice to existing businesses, attracting inward investment and developing skills in the local labour market.  They also can contribute to social cohesion through work with the community and voluntary sectors, with schools in deprived neighbourhoods and within the cultural and creative sectors. HEIs, working alongside the local public and private sector, can play a key leadership role in local civil society. We define such institutions as civic universities or colleges, tackling societal challenges on a local as well as global level, such as poverty, health, environmental sustainability and demographic change.

What is the problem?

Unfortunately the national and international higher education market place within which HEIs operate does not incentivise them to operate in this way and their potential as anchor institutions may not be fully realised. For most universities the highest priority is position in the national and international league tables. These are strongly influenced by academic research ratings and student satisfaction scores. Community engagement is relegated to a ‘third mission’ after research and teaching – by definition an inferior position. Colleges may be more locally involved but are not incentivised to be part of a local higher education system complementing the work of universities. And within the rapidly evolving market place there may be financial winners and losers; some institutions will struggle to attract sufficient numbers of students, particularly full fee-paying overseas applicants. This could leave them vulnerable to bankruptcy, with insufficient resources from the Funding Council to provide assistance. This problem could be especially acute in smaller cities with a weaker economic base, highly dependent on the university as an anchor institution.  In the future, regulation of this market must be sensitive to the contribution HEIs can make to meeting the needs of different places over and beyond the current focus solely on widening participation in higher education.

What is the solution?

To mobilise the full potential of HEIs we recommend a national fund is established, subscribed to from various central government departmental budgets to which HEIs wishing to be designated as civic institutions can have access. Such institutions should be required to introduce institution wide strategies for civic engagement embedded into teaching and research based on a self- assessment with the help of peers and partners.  HEIs in receipt of this funding should have a  civic university ‘contract’ with government defined in terms of delivery of local, national and international societal impacts.

In parallel, local authorities, LEPs and other centrally funded bodies such as Innovate UK and the Arts Council should be incentivised to establish formal partnership agreements with  HEIs designed to underpin their role in local social, economic, cultural and environmental development. Central government should establish a cross-departmental group to monitor the impact of universities as anchor institutions in local communities arising from a wide range of non-geographically specific policies (e.g. science, culture, health, immigration, trade). The group should establish a national leadership programme to develop a cadre of people with the boundary spanning skills to work in this area.

There are a range of current national policies that contribute to this agenda, such as HEFCE’s Higher Education Innovation and Catalyst funds, Innovate UK’s Catapults and RCUK’s Beacons of Public Engagement, but these lack any geographical specificity. More, therefore, needs to be done to formalise the link between universities local business and civil society in order to address societal challenges on a regional and national level.

The evidence

The OECD has gathered extensive evidence based on 40 case studies of the link between HEIs and city and regional development summarised in its report Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged. This work has informed a new European Commission guide on Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, which in turn has influenced many member states in mobilising universities to contribute to the design and delivery of their national and regional smart specialisation strategies.

Until recently, the focus of evidence gathering has been on the contribution of HEIs to business development but a recent large scale survey by the UK’s Innovation Research Centre (led by Cambridge and Imperial College) has demonstrated that the bulk of academic engagement has been with a much wider range of interest groups in civil society.

This has been confirmed by a survey of the intended impact of academic research in six universities in three English cities, carried out for a book on The University and the City[1]. In- depth interviews for this book have revealed significant contributions of universities to urban challenges of environmental sustainability, public health and cultural vitality made possible by regional funding streams that no longer exist.

Recent analysis linking the potential vulnerability of universities in the higher education market place has revealed some institutions to be located in vulnerable places highly dependent on HE. But in all these studies it is clear that civic engagement is not fully recognised and rewarded. Such evidence is leading to a re-appraisal of the triple helix model of universities working exclusively with business and government and instead to propose a quadruple helix model which embraces civil society and social as well as technological innovation.

[1] Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

Notes to editors: The views stated are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Newcastle University.

Further Information

Recent Publications:

Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

 Articles in refereed Journals:

  • Goddard, J and Puukka, J. (2008) ‘The engagement of higher education institutions in regional development: an overview of the opportunities and challenges’ Higher Education Management and Policy 20, (2) p. 11-42
  • Goddard, J., Vallance, P. and Puukka, J. (2011) ‘Experience of engagement between universities and cities: drivers and barriers in three European cities’, Built Environment 37, (3), p.299-316.
  • Goddard, J., Robertson, D. and Vallance, P. (2012) ‘Universities, Technology and Innovation Centres, and regional development: the case of the North East of England’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 36, (3), p.609-627
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘Universities and Smart Specialisation: challenges, tensions, and opportunities for the innovation strategies of European regions’, Ekonomiaz  38, (2), p. 82-101.
  • Goddard, J., Coombes, M., Kempton L. and Vallance, P (2014) ‘Universities as anchor institutions in cities in a turbulent funding environment: vulnerable institutions and vulnerable places in England’ Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society  7 (2),  p. 307-325

Official reports:

  • Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged, OECD, Paris, 2007
  • Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, European Commission, Brussels, 2011
  • Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), European Commission, Brussels, 2012

Book chapters:

  • Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2011) ‘Universities and Regional Development’, in Pike, A., Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. (eds.) Handbook of Local and Regional Development. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘The Civic University: Connecting the Global and the Local’, in Olechnicka, A., Capello, R. and Gorzelak, G. (eds.) Universities, Cities and Regions. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton,L. and Marlow, D. (2014) ‘LEPs, universities and Europe’ in Hardy, S. and Ward,M,.(eds.) Where next for local economic partnerships? Smith Institute, London

 Research Reports:

  • Goddard, J. Re-inventing the Civic University  NESTA, London
  • Goddard, J., Howlett., Vallance, P. and Kennie, T. ( 2010) Researching and Scoping a Higher Education and Civic Leadership Development Programme.  Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, London
  • Goddard, J., Burquel, N. and Kelly,U. (2012) Universities and Regional Innovation: a toolkit to assist with building collaborative partnerships. Final Report of the EU-Drivers for a Regional Innovation Platform, European Centre for the Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU), Brussels
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Ideas for an Incoming Government

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Newcastle University is known around the world for its vision “to be a world-class civic university”. Our guiding principle – excellence with a purpose – helps us to focus on not just what we are good at, but what we are good for. Much of the research we do has relevance for policy and practice, and so the Institute for Social Renewal tries to help bring colleagues’ findings to the attention of policy makers and the general public. For example, in 2014 we organised an event in Westminster to showcase our Queens Anniversary Award winning work on rural economies and societies.

“Meeting colleagues from across the University and hearing about their research, I’m struck by how much of what we discover has relevance for policy, and could help inform better decisions by government,” says Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE, Director of the Institute. “We are working to find new ways in which to bring these findings into discussions about future policies, underpinning their evidence base.”

With the general election approaching, there is a heightened opportunity to contribute to public debates, campaigns and policy formulation, and to engage with voters and parliamentary candidates. With this in mind, Newcastle University academics are now taking part in a series of blogs during February and March to inform election debates and the political parties’ thinking.

Examples of work that has already made a difference can be found on the Highlighted Projects section of the NISR website.

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