Resilience programmes and their place in education, a critical review with reference to interventions in Wolverhampton

This paper reviews an evaluation of two small scale “resilience” programmes carried out as part of the Wolverhampton City Council Big Lottery funded Headstart programme trial phase 2 in 2015 in preparation for a larger scale implementation in phase 3 (2017). Whilst the initial evaluation of the programmes used conventional education based impact frameworks this paper interrogates and frames the activities carried out through the lens of the capability approach in order to appraise the extent to which the programmes are potentially able to contribute to developing “valued functionings” within participants’ lives. It goes further by examining the findings from the programme evaluation against accepted definitions of resilience to show how far they might have contributed to some of the claimed attributes required for developing resilient lives amongst participants. The paper also draws on the concept of identity capital and considers the interventions from the conceptual standpoint of therapeutic governance. Wolverhampton is a City in the West Midlands region of the UK with high levels of deprivation coupled to a post industrialization backdrop with higher than average levels of unemployment. The paper questions the positioning of school based resilience and wellbeing programmes as a sole solution to mental health per se against a backdrop of increasing deprivation.Published versio

First national survey of practitioners with early years’ professional status

The first national survey of practitioners who have achieved Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) set out to ascertain: • more detailed demographic information about their backgrounds and experience • their views on their ability to carry out their role since gaining EYPS • information about career trajectories including their intentions to change setting, role or career • an overview of their professional development activities and plans • an assessment of the impact of obtaining EYPS on professional identity • their views on the difficulty of achieving change in their settings. This survey is part of a three year longitudinal study investigating the role and impact of early years professionals (EYPs) in their working environments (settings) and also investigating practitioners’ personal career development and aspirations. There are two main parts to the study: • a survey of all EYPs, asking about their career development needs and aspirations • case studies in 30 settings across the country, looking at how EYPs have an impact on the quality of education and care available to children. The survey, with slight modifications, will be repeated in year three of the study. The intention was to make the survey accessible to all who have achieved EYPS, with the aim of generating responses from approximately 10-15 per cent of respondents. The survey went live between January and February 2010 and by the close of the survey some 1,045 completed questionnaires had been generated, representing nearly 30 per cent of the total number of practitioners with EYPS. This sample was broadly representative of the total population of practitioners with EYPS based on gender, ethnicity, geographical distribution and the pathway they had followed to achieve EYPS

A modern mixture, agency, capability, technology and ‘scrum’: agile work practices for learning and teaching in schools

This paper introduces a pedagogical method derived from agile work practices, particularly the scrum method of project based working. It will discuss how this agile method can be aligned with teaching and learning in formal schooling and project based learning developing an agile pedagogical approach which can lead to: greater agency for both learners and teachers; the purposeful integration of digital tools into practice; and the development of human capability and functioning through a change in learning design. It goes further in conceptualizing the teaching - learning dynamic as a “technology for learning” in so far as technology is definable as a purposeful process of knowledge creation

Young Dad's TV collaborative impact evaluation

The Centre for Development and Applied Research in Education (CeDARE) is pleased to submit this proposal for a collaborative impact evaluation of the Young Dad’s TV project. CeDARE is based within the School for Education Futures at the University of Wolverhampton. We have an ethos of participatory research and aim to work in partnership with funders in order to produce research that can inform both practice and policy. CeDARE combine the professional experience of staff from across the university with the knowledge and expertise of highly experienced researchers in order to develop innovative methodologies and produce research outputs that impact on policy and practice.University of Wolverhampton proposal, commissioned by Young Dads TV

What’s good what’s bad? Conceptualising teaching and learning methods as technologies using actor network theory in the context of Palestinian higher education

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer in Postdigital Science and Education on 27/05/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00138-z The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This paper analyses problem-based learning (PBL) as part of an Actor Network within the (2016–2019) Erasmus Plus Project ‘Modernization of Teaching Methodologies in Higher Education: EU experience for Jordan and Palestinian Territory’ (METHODS). This project introduced a range of learning modalities into formal learning contexts in higher education settings in Jordan (4 universities) and Palestine (4 universities). The project was jointly led by the University of Jordan and the University of Birzeit, Palestine, and there were six European partner universities. The paper focuses on the positioning of PBL approaches as a socio-intellectual technology within an Actor Network through which the impacts of the project might be analysed. PBL is conceptualised as an actant in a heterogenous network of human and non-human actors that reframes the participants’ relationships with each other and the network within which they are located. Equally, through this reframing, the paper considers whether greater realisations of self-organisation and agency are enacted or evidenced within the findings of semi-structured group interviews with students and corresponding staff across a range of undergraduate courses in the arts and sciences within the Palestinian context. If a dancer stops dancing, the show is finished, no inertia will carry us forward. (Latour 2008: 37)Published onlin

A retrospective review of educational interventions and innovations using actor network theory. Creating learning designs that develop human capabilities by purposeful assembly of heterogenous actors

A thesis by publication submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.This thesis contributes an approach to learning design for education professionals which can be applied to reform or transform practice through a process of iterative development. The approach can be used by teachers with their class, in a subject area, by a whole institution or system wide, and by researchers as well as curriculum designers. The approach is contextualised, with each potential implementation being different as a result. The ‘retrospective’ approach taken in this thesis stems from agile product development, where a team looks back over recent practice to see how things were done , how they might be done differently in future iterations and what to stop doing. The retrospective was developed using actor network theory to engender reflexivity over the output time period. I adopt various reflexive positions within the text and interestingly, output 8 was instrumental in catalysing the retrospective in this form. My thesis therefore contributes as a model that others might find useful to analyse their practice. The thesis uncovers several positional transformations in my own practice. This includes a movement from tracing cause and effect to mapping wider systems giving insight into how networks are bounded, their borders drawn, power relationships established, and notions of absence, presence and othering are manifested. This wider view enabled a discussion of the purpose of education and the realisation that my practice is situated within both a neoliberal and global economy. The later papers consider ways of acting within this environment, by focusing on the capability approach to determine whether education systems either support or limit possibilities for human flourishing. Focusing on the notion of agency freedom, I connect the capability approach to agile work practices and self-organisation. The thesis concludes with a proposal that flips actor network theory from being an analysis tool to a potential scaffold for agentic learning design, alongside agile product development and capability approach. The scaffold and contribution to knowledge is formed through six principles that combine actor network theory, agile product development, iterative design, and self-organisation through a reflexive positioning. In this way, a purposed actor network can assemble to develop learning environments that recognise freedoms and constraints, but are closer to emancipatory than transmissive

Agile digital age pedagogy for teachers: ADAPT

Introduction Recent research Underwood et al,( 2010), Hadfield et al (2009) Royle and Hadfield (2012) has illustrated that the integration and use of ICT in education tends towards the enhancement of existing practices and this may account for a lack of transformation or innovation in approach at the pedagogic level. Potential drivers of educational transformation are the digital tools and related habits that are transforming how we work, learn in informal and formal spaces and socialise in daily life. This affords us new insights into how institutions can be organised, knowledge generated and created and leads to the potential for a greater range of capabilities. In a world where the use of technology can enable a more personalised and diverse approach perhaps a different way of looking at human development is required. The capability approach Sen (1992, 1999) is one such way of thinking about the manner in which human beings are able or otherwise (due to particular contexts or systems) to achieve the sort of life that they value. Sen, (1992:40) describes the approach as follows: The major constituents of the capability approach are functionings and capabilities. Functionings are the “beings and doings” of a person, whereas a person’s capability is “the various combinations of functionings that a person can achieve” Zheng (2010) notes, quoting Sen (1987:36) that: “A functioning is an achievement, whereas a capability is the ability to achieve.” Sen (1987) This means that capability is the range of possibilities open to individuals that can subsequently be converted into valued functionings. This range is dependent upon their context and the systems and processes, good and services etc. that may extend their capabilities or constrain them. With this in mind it is imperative that educators are knowledgeable about their learners and the digital systems that they engage in so that their skills are valued and capabilities converted into effective functioning. At the same time, the education system, its values and in particular its curricula must be examined to ensure that it does not constrain those that engage with it but rather that it opens a space for diversity in both learning and teaching

The characteristics of a Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Network (KEEN) project. Report 3

A report on the profiles of the knowledge exchange projects in the KEEN programme funded by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by the University of Wolverhampton

Literature Review for Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Network (KEEN) Research. Report 4

This review presents data relevant to funded business support interventions in terms of West Midlands business activity and reviews the literature relevant to the transfer of knowledge between and within organisations, as aspects which underpinned and informed the direction of the project. It contains an evaluation of appropriately selected models of the process of knowledge transfer relevant to this research into the interventions of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Network (KEEN) projects, undertaken with Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the West Midlands

Technical Data on Typologies of Interventions in Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Network (KEEN) projects. Report 6b

This technical data report is an addendum to the typology and hierarchies of intervention report, which provides an analysis of the type and range of business interventions provided through the Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Network (KEEN) programme to SMEs in the West Midlands region. There were 126 KEEN projects in total, through which a range of business interventions were provided to the participating companies. KEEN assisted around 100 SMEs through 126 projects, and provided 617 interventions overall. The projects were managed by six the university partners: the University of Wolverhampton, Coventry University, Aston University, Birmingham City University, the University of Worcester, and Staffordshire University