'Really on the ball': exploring the implications of teachers' PE-CPD experience

Continuing professional development (CPD) is currently high on the Scottish Education agenda. Recent curriculum reform in Scotland, with the introduction of Curriculum for Excellence, places physical education (PE) at the forefront for its role in directly supporting learners' mental, emotional, social and physical well-being. This emphasis on PE, along with concerns about the health of the nation, has resulted in a nationwide initiative providing non-specialist teachers of primary PE with the opportunity to develop a specialism in the subject through government-funded CPD programmes at postgraduate level. Using Knowles' andragogical model as a framework, this paper reports data from a larger research study that evaluated a Scottish PE-CPD initiative. This paper comprises a single case holistic study investigating the impact and implications of a PE-CPD programme through the professional learning journeys, from the outset until completion, of four teachers: a nursery teacher, a class teacher, a cluster cover teacher and a PE specialist who participated in the programme. Data were collected over one academic year using two-stage questionnaire interviews and were analysed thematically with special attention given to the emerging general themes to achieve a holistic understanding of the case. Study findings endorse the positive impact of using the andragogical model of adult learning combined with the literature-supported characteristics of effective PE-CPD programmes. Teachers' perspectives on their CPD experiences, integration of acquired learning into working contexts and teaching post-PE-CPD were then examined to determine the next steps. This led to critical reflection on the implications of the findings for the teachers' ongoing professional development. We then challenged the role that university providers play in supporting teachers' lifelong learning. Instead, we suggest new school-university partnerships and alternative ways to support capacity building and lifelong learning towards a sustainable transformational change in Scotland's primary PE

Active citizenship and late-life learning in the community

In an age where the official, adult-education component of lifelong learning is dominated by the discourse of employability and performativity, reclaiming the radical agenda of critical, adult, active citizenship is not only urgent but indispensable for morally sound and democratically viable societies. The crisis in capitalism is showing us, adult educators, that unless adult education is employed to interrogate, challenge and resist the accesses of a system that privileges profit at all cost, rampant individualism and privatisation of social goods, it will reproduce asymmetrical and predatory, social economic relations. This paper problematises dominant notions of active citizenship in later life and provides a framework for an alternative view of active citizenship. It also illustrates how adult educators can facilitate learning processes where late-life learners, reflect on the impact of the neoliberal value system and on the consequences of its hegemonic practices on personal and community life, before engaging in transformative action.peer-reviewe

Teacher competence development – a European perspective

This chapter provides an European perspectives on teacher competence development

Community-based mentoring and innovating through Web 2.0

The rise of social software, often termed Web 2.0, has resulted in heightened awareness of the opportunities for creative and innovative approaches to learning that are afforded by network technologies. Social software platforms and social networking technologies have become part of the learning landscape both for those who learn formally within institutions, and for those who learn informally via emergent web-based learning communities. As collaborative online learning becomes a reality, new skills in communication and collaboration are required in order to use new technologies effectively, develop real digital literacy and other 21st century skills

War and peace in the classroom: moments of reprieve; a strategy for reflecting on – and improving – students’ classroom behaviour

In this article I intend to outline a strategy for supporting trainee teachers on Certificate in Education (Cert Ed) and Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses in developing their ability to deal with disruptive student behaviour in their classes. I describe a particular class-based, peer-reflective practice and demonstrate how this has been effective in impacting on helping trainees to deal with teaching disruptive or challenging groups. The rationale for exploring this issue, and the problematic national context in which disruptive student behaviour takes place, is outlined. I then explore a strategy for offering trainee support and peer reflection by sharing a case study of two trainees’ classes where students were particularly disruptive. I examine how this reflective strategy helped support these trainees to improve their practice. Before concluding, some epistemological questions are raised as to the problematics of how teachers know whether improvements took place

Reviews

John Stephenson (ed.), Teaching and Learning Online: Pedagogies for New Technologies, Kogan Page, London, 2001. ISBN: 0–7494–3511–9. Softback, xi + 228 pages. £19.99

Interim evaluation of lifelong learning networks

The Open University's Centre for Higher Education Research and Information was commissioned in June 2007 to undertake a formative evaluation of Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs). Research to inform the interim evaluation has been two-fold: desk research of LLN documentation and visits to and interviews with personnel involved in eight LLNs. The report's main conclusion was that LLNs are making progress in terms of encouraging institutions to offer curricula and put in place procedures that, in the fullness of time, could make a significant difference to the coherence, clarity and certainty of progression opportunities for vocational learners. However, it went on to say that it is too soon to be able to make substantive and well-evidenced statements about LLNs' overall progress on meeting this overarching objective of the LLN initiative

Embedding reflective thinking on approaches to learning - moving from pilot study to developing institutional good practice

Aim Asking undergraduates to reflect on their approaches to learning involves the individuals in effort and activity they may well consider to be an unwanted addition to their normal studies: unless the activity has clear links in their minds with their chosen subject. The same reaction is sometimes found in teaching academics, as supporting a reflective strand requires additional effort which they may be happy to give as long as it relates to their research, or is a one off pilot. There are therefore issues that very quickly arise when attempting, as this study does, to embed metacognitive thinking about approaches to learning and style into the everyday good practice of teaching staff in universities and in the routine thinking of students. Methodology This paper describes the progress of a study facilitating the embedding of one framework for developing an individual's approaches to learning into the everyday good practice of university teaching staff and the everyday learning experience of undergraduates. It is an interim report that sets out the five strands of this activity: introduction to the model for staff; first steps at putting into practice; collection of examples of activity; building a community of practice; assessing the effectives of interventions. It also describes some of the issues and challenges that arise when moving from pilot study to developing good practice within a large organisation. The basis of the initial stages is a consultative and collaborative approach to develop effective materials for informing colleagues and developing their understanding of the model whilst laying the foundations for a community of practice and empowering individuals to develop activities for embedding these ideas into their teaching and to share these along with commentary on the success of these interventions – not just within the group but also for their contemporaries to access. Finding It has previously been demonstrated that the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory, ELLI, can be an effective tool for teachers and learners, providing a framework to think and talk with students about learning and about how to grow as learners within both their formal education and informal learning. However, this is a reasonably complex model with seven dimensions of learning, and it has been developed primarily for the school context. Whilst the model has been shown to be of value within universities, the higher education context offers several challenges to the approach and these are explored. The issues relating to colleagues being persuaded to embed these ideas into their everyday practice will be discussed along with the measures required for institutional support, including the demonstration of positive outcomes to interventions. Relevance This paper is relevant to anyone considering ways in which their understandings and experience of metacognitive thinking about approaches to learning and style may benefit the student body, the teaching of their colleagues and their institutio