Learning Together: Evaluating and improving Further Adult and Vocational Education through practice-focused research

This paper argues that the relationship between educational research and educational practice cannot be reduced to the simple application of knowledge gained from research conducted by others. It contends that far from teachers being passive consumers of knowledge produced by others, often in the form of ‘blueprints’ or ‘recipes’ for good practice, teachers are in fact creators of new educational knowledge as well as potential generators of and contributors to educational theory. It asserts that the new learning involved in putting an idea, concept or theory from educational research into educational practice is a process of inquiry and therefore an important and legitimate form of educational research. The paper discusses how an approach to the continuing professional development of teachers, based upon practice-focused educational research and inquiry-based pedagogy, coupled with a programme of dedicated research support, can enable teachers to produce significant, well-theorised and systematic educational research, leading to improvements in educational practice. This paper concludes that a practicefocused and inquiry-based model of educational evaluation and improvement offers education and policy professionals in the Vocational Education and Training sector (and potentially in the schools sector) an alternative to current technical-rational, top-down approaches to inspection and improvement in educational contexts. Keywords educational evaluation, educational improvement, educational research, further, adult and vocational education (FAVE)

Creating a specialist protein resource network:a meeting report for the protein bioinformatics and community resources retreat

During 11–12 August 2014, a Protein Bioinformatics and Community Resources Retreat was held at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton, UK. This meeting brought together the principal investigators of several specialized protein resources (such as CAZy, TCDB and MEROPS) as well as those from protein databases from the large Bioinformatics centres (including UniProt and RefSeq). The retreat was divided into five sessions: (1) key challenges, (2) the databases represented, (3) best practices for maintenance and curation, (4) information flow to and from large data centers and (5) communication and funding. An important outcome of this meeting was the creation of a Specialist Protein Resource Network that we believe will improve coordination of the activities of its member resources. We invite further protein database resources to join the network and continue the dialogue

Spaces How are we creating environments for learning?

The educational spaces in FAVE are as numerous and diverse as the students. Learning environments encompass physical space, the resources and strategies you select and the way in which you use them. Equally important are ways in which relationships are shaped, the behaviours you encourage, the values you embody in the way you act and the atmosphere/culture that is created. Your subject and pedagogical knowledge, your creativity, the way you work with other teachers, beliefs about your students’ capabilities and how much you care about their education all contribute to educational environments. This chapter considers how spaces can become effective educational environments, where teachers’ agency can maximise democratic, creative and inclusive spaces and environments where education can thrive

Stories of Supervision

This article centres upon experiences of supervising practitioner-researchers engaged in the first year of a Customised Master of Philosophy (MPhil) programme of study. This pathway resides within a larger collaboration between the University of Sunderland’s Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SUNCETT) and the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) delivering a National Practitioner Research Programme (PRP) in England. It takes as its starting point how non-traditional research students from the further adult and vocational education (FAVE) sector experience entry into the programme and their subsequent development of scholarship and research skills as they pursue their studies at research degree level in higher education (HE). Using six guiding principles underpinning the PRP as a framework for analysis, illustrative stories of the experiences of supervisors and research students provide insights into ways in which supervision is enacted. Some key characteristics of supervision practice are described. These often bring to light differences between supervision on the Customised MPhil with that of conventional MPhil programmes. The most striking finding supports how the development of collaborative and cooperative practice helps to shift the customary dynamic of research degree study away from isolation towards a shared experience as members of an inclusive and active research communit

How are we managing behaviour?

How do you manage behavior in your class? If you work with adults in community settings it’s likely to be easier than with 16-18 year olds in FE settings. Student teachers are often worried in the early stages of teaching that they will be able to cope with, manage and include all of their students in meaningful educational activities. Central to this chapter is the idea that ‘good behaviour’ is most easily obtained and maintained by ensuring that all students are fully engaged in their education. If your focus is on achieving a positive climate for teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) which draws upon creative and inclusive approaches you are much more likely to prevent problems arising. This is not always easy since classrooms are complex places where unexpected events can unfold very quickly

How are we implementing the curriculum?

This chapter is a discussion of educational practice. It focuses upon the strategies that teachers use to plan and organise the ways in which teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) will take place whatever their ‘classroom’ might look like. It also considers programme planning cycles and the role of student voice within this cycle. We begin to explore how teachers can use observations and formative and summative evaluation to inform curriculum planning, curriculum development and the improvement of practice during and at the end of the planning cycle. We extend this discussion in Chapter 15. Practical strategies for planning and case study examples will be used to explore key issues. For example, we draw attention to the need to be flexible in our planning to allow for changes in response to learners’ needs and evidence from practice, which emerges during a lesson. We emphasise the need to ensure that curriculum and lesson planning is pedagogically sound and never rigid, overly bureaucratic or instrumental. We point to the importance of well developed curriculum and lesson plans which allow room for creative teaching, interpretation and the exercise of educational judgement

Evaluation of the Northumberland Raising Aspirations In Society (NRAIS) Project

This is the Final Evaluation Report for Northumberland’s Raising Aspirations in Society Project (NRAIS). A key concern in writing this document has been clarity of presentation and balance of argument. In seeking to make the report accessible and of interest to the widest possible audience we have framed our presentation of the data through a series of case studies of NRAIS schools. Through these case studies we illustrate themes from both qualitative and quantitative data strands of the evaluation. Although this is the Final Evaluation Report it is important to note that it is presented as part of a process of illumination in the light of data we have collected over the past three years. An important aspect of this process is that it aims to enable those who funded the NRAIS Project and those who participated in it an opportunity to use progressively the findings of this report to inform their work. We are aware that in any evaluation there are likely to be competing claims for any gains or losses identified and we have sought to utilise approaches and methods that will provide rich insights and understandings of the data we have collected, to identify the impact of the NRAIS Project. In undertaking this evaluation: 1. We designed methods that incorporated quantitative and qualitative data streams and endeavoured to compare the messages derived from each at key points in the evaluation. 2. We progressively structured the sample of case study schools to include those with high, moderate and low NRAIS involvement. 3. We progressively focused our research instruments upon the claims made by Headteachers, teachers and parents who had been supported by the NRAIS projects in terms of gains they attributed exclusively to NRAIS. 4. We shared and tested emerging findings from the evaluation during all three phases of the research with all of those who participated in the research. 5. We considered and drew upon OFSTED reports for each of the case study schools. 6. We commissioned additional research where returns from quantitative research instruments were less than optimal. 7. We invited NSP and the NRAIS Steering Group to comment upon the first draft of the final report. We also asked them to respond to our Report-and-Respond survey, requiring their reactions to a series of statements listing the tentative findings of this evaluation. 8. We invited all participants from the case study schools to complete the Report-andRespond survey and to comment upon our description and analysis of their school. x Evaluation of the Northumberland Raising Aspirations In Society (NRAIS) Project We asked schools who had only participated in the first phase of this evaluation to complete the Report-and-Respond survey. 9. We have drawn upon a range of research literature in relation to, ‘formative evaluation’, ‘illuminative evaluation’ and education research, to explore ways in which inquiry and feedback might be combined to provide sponsors with greater confidence in the wider validity of the tentative findings of this evaluation