Austin, Roger

Roulston, Stephen

Skinner, B

Taggart, Sammy

English

Ulster University's Research Portal

BLENDED LEARNINGAND COLLABORATIVEINTERACTIONBETWEEN SCHOOLSEvidence from the Shared Educationprogramme in Northern IrelandAPRIL  2022 AUTHORSAustin, R., Roulston, S., Skinner, B. & Taggart, S.  School of Education, Ulster UniversityWe wish to acknowledge the work of the many teachers who have shared theirinsights with us during the courses described below; their schools are listed at theend of the report.Introduction1The Repurposing Education through Blended Learning (REBEL) Erasmus Plus projecthas been exploring different ways that blended learning can cause teachers torethink core issues about teaching, learning and assessment. But in the case studydescribed below, blended learning has been used to promote a new way of thinkingabout the purpose of schooling.Blended learning, the purposeful use of both face-to-face contact and onlineinteraction, has been a strong feature of work that seeks to link schools together,often with the purpose of bringing children together who might not otherwisesocialise and learn together.In Northern Ireland, where around 93% of children attend schools that are eithermainly Catholic in ethos or more broadly Protestant, a programme called SharedEducation has been in place since 2014 with the express purpose of cultivating linksbetween children at school. It sits within a policy landscape of Sharing Works: APolicy for Shared Education in 2015 and the Shared Education Act in 2016 whichcreated the policy context for the subsequent funding opportunities for schoolpartnerships. These were the Delivering Social Change Shared Education SignatureProject (funded by OFMDFM and Atlantic Philanthropies delivered by EA 2015 –2019) and the Peace IV CASE project (Funded by SEUPB, DE and DES delivered byEA and Léargas 2017 – 2023) By 2022, some 85,767 pupils in 807 schools and 322partnerships are taking part, around 76% of the total number of schools. Althoughmost of the links are between schools within Northern Ireland, the more recent workin Shared education has included schools across the border with Republic of Ireland.This has led to partnerships between pairs of schools where both are in Ireland andothers where one school is in Northern Ireland and the other in Ireland. Most schoolsinitially started to plan their social and curricular work around face-to-face contact,either in each other’s schools or on ‘neutral’ territory. But since 2017, teachers havebeen encouraged to enroll on a professional development course to learn how toextend their face-to-face contact with online activities. The first of these coursescalled Collaborative Learning Online for Shared Education and Reconciliation(CLOSER) was taught to some 150 teachers between 2017 -2021 by staff at UlsterUniversity and colleagues in Classroom 2000 (C2K), who facilitate and deliver themanaged ICT network for the education sector in NI; a more advanced course,designed for those who had already taken CLOSER, called Deepening OnlineLearning for Collaborative Education (DOLCE) has been taught for the first time in2022. In this short summary of the work carried out by teachers we highlight sevenissues that relate to blended learning. The slides are taken from presentations thatteachers did on the final day of the course when they had completed their projects inschool.The online element of their work increases the level of interaction with theirpartner school beyond that which would be possible from the face-to-face visitsthat take place. And frequency of contact increases the degree of trust betweenparticipants. Secondly, as the pandemic showed all too clearly, moving learning online ensuredthat relationships could continue and that the partnership was able to becomemore sustainable, avoiding transport costs and damage to their environmentfrom additional use of transport. Thirdly, the focused use of ICT for interaction with their partner school helpedschools consolidate their use of digital learning by involving pupils in work for adistant audience.Blended learning can be used in many different ways to achieve a variety of goals,ranging from offering students greater access to courses that are offered in partnerschools to increasing pupil participation in class by extending classroom discussiononline ( 16-18 work available at http://rebelproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NI-webinar-report.pdf). In the case of the SharedEducation programme, however, the rationale for using blended learning is to enablepupils from different schools to be able to work together on curricular topics and inthis process, to get to know children from different backgrounds to their own. Theevidence in this paper relates to the situation in Northern Ireland but there are manyother examples, such as those in Israel or in global links between schools in the so-called developed world with developing countries (Hunter and Austin 2022).Teachers in Northern Ireland who have adopted this approach to blended learningsee three main advantages. This was the point made by teachers working on a history project inDerry/Londonderry (in Northern Ireland, the same city is referred to in different waysby the nationalist/republican population who prefer ‘Derry’ and theProtestant/Unionist population who often use ‘Londonderry’ to stress their links withEngland and the role of London merchants in the history of the city).Rationale1.2Furthermore, the presenceof this audience motivatedlearners, spurring them towrite better and toimprove their skills inoracy through listening todifferent accents in livevideo-conferencingsessions and expressingtheir own ideas.A core part of the successful introduction of this work has been the design of theTPL. It was based on partnered teachers coming together, either face-to-face oronline for an initial 2-day course which was built around three central elements. Thefirst was a demonstration of the way that other teachers had used different topics inthe curriculum as the focus for joint collaborative work; the second was practicalhands-on experience of the ICT tools that teachers could use in their project. Thethird was the expectation that teachers would draw up plans for a 4–6 weekclassroom-based project which they would implement straight after the first part ofthe course. Teachers then carried out their projects and came back together for afinal day when they presented what they had done and described what challengesthey had faced to others on the course. In that sense, the course had elements of acommunity of practice where shared education was not just about pupils workingtogether but teachers reflecting on their own professional practice.2. Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) 3Two theoretical perspectives have been used to shape the work. The first is thecontact hypothesis, a construct from social psychology that helps to pinpoint theconditions in which contact between different groups can be successful. Ithighlights the importance of the contact being cooperative rather than competitive,based on group-to-group interaction, long term rather than short term, betweenparticipants of equal status and with institutional support (rather than isolatedindividuals linked together)In practice this has led to teachers generally working in partnerships of two schools,with children of around the same age and ability and working in mixed teams, witheach team having members from both schools. In the slide below, a partnershipbetween pupils in their first year at secondary school and linked to children in aSpecial school, the 2 classes were working on the author Roald Dahl and themembers of each ‘mixed’ team were displayed in the online work area.3. Underlying Theories4The second theory behind the work was the use of constructivism in that pupilswere actively involved in creating new knowledge on a given topic and then eithersharing this with their partner school or in some cases planning the work in acollaborative way from the start. Teachers were never expected to teach specifictopics; instead, they were expected to identify common areas of the curriculumwhich were suitable for joint study and with the very clear expectation that thepupils would create an ‘end product’, whether that was a joint powerpointpresentation, a poster or more recently a co-produced ‘ebook’ or movie. This hasbeen the case for nearly all pupils from the age of 7 and above. Younger pupils haveoften made much greater use of synchronous video-conferences like the one shownbelow.Schools in Northern Ireland have the benefit of state-provided hardware, softwareand internet connectivity, previously called Classroom 2000 or C2K. Paid for througha public-private partnership, it gives all schools a core ICT provision which schoolscan supplement through their own resources. This means that teachers can rely onthe service to plan blended learning with some confidence; since schools are still farfrom having one device per pupil, teachers have had to show real flexibility in makingsure that their classes have sufficient access to hardware for ALL participatingchildren to feel involved.Software to enable pupil-pupil interaction has steadily evolved since 2016; in 2022,all schools in Northern Ireland have either Office 365 software or Google classroom.Partner schools choose one or other of these platforms and this means they can useboth synchronous video-conferencing tools and asynchronous tools such as onlinediscussion or tools that enable the pupils to create resources, and to work as a teamin this process.This process was captured by 2 teachers in the following slide which shows therange of tools that were used in Google classroom.4. The affordances and provision of technology5Many schools take the view that since the purpose of Shared Education is aboutunderstanding similarities and differences between children who may not knoweach other very well if at all, it’s important that children have space to get to knoweach other as human beings before they start curricular work. In some cases thismeans sharing personal information in a protected private space created by theirteachers and in accordance with the schools’ overall policies about safe use of theinternetThis focus on the social dimension also means that teachers encourage high levels ofinteraction between pupils using online discussion platforms. In one partnership the2 teachers had set their combined classes the challenge of responding to a questionon whether humans were destroying the planet. It provoked high levels of writtencomment in the online discussion, as evidenced below. 5. The importance of social interaction6When schools begin working together, they often start with an ‘exchange’ ofinformation about the work they are doing, even when they have been working ondifferent topics. The image below from two schools whose plans had been disruptedby COVID gives an example of this.But as the teachers get to know each other and start thinking about how to extendthe collaborative side of their work, they often teach the same topic at the same timeand break down learning activities so that mixed teams of pupils have clear plansthat they can do together. In the case below, this included using Google sites for thepupils to create their own website about the Titanic; the pupils have moved from justbeing consumers of online information to creators of online knowledge.6. Moving from 'exchange' to 'collaboration'7Teachers are asked to provide a summary of this type of work on their pupils, as inthe example below from two schools in the border counties of Ireland.  More formalexternal evaluation from Austin and Turner (2020) and Hunter and Austin (2021) hasconfirmed a wide range of benefits for both pupils and teachers.7. Impact8Using blended learning in work of this kind, even when schools are relatively close toeach other, makes it possible for contact between pupils to take place much morefrequently than face to face visits. And we know that frequency of contact is one ofthe key factors in building trust, a core outcome in intercultural education like this. But blended learning has two other advantages; first, the online element costs theschools nothing since hardware, software and wifi connectivity are all covered in themanaged service provided to schools in Northern Ireland. In this sense, linksbetween schools can become far more sustainable if funding for face-to-facecontact is reduced or withdrawn.Finally, as more schools are drawn into the Shared Education programme, includingthose that are geographically distant, the environmental impact of extra bus travel toconnect pupils can be off set by making greater use of online engagement. Teachers who have had the greatest benefit from blended learning in sharededucation are those who planned their online work and their face to face worktogether to ensure that learning activities were fully coordinated and complementedeach other.8. Conclusion9Abbot's Cross PS Abercorn PS  Ampertaine PSAshfield Boys' High School Ballycarrickmaddy PSBallymoney Model IPS Ballymore NS Ballywalter PSBen Madigan PSBlackmountain PSBlessed Patrick O'Loughran PSBloomfield PSBridge IPS Bushvalley PS Camphill PS Christ the King PS Cliftonville IPSCreavery PS Creggan PS Donaghey PS Donoughmore NS Drumlins IPS Drumrane PS Dún Dealgan NSGlencraig IPS Grange PS Groggan PS  Hardy Memorial PSHoly Cross College Holy Rosary PSHolywood PSHunt NSJones Memorial PSKingsmills PSKnockevin SS Knocknagoney PS Limavady Central PS Lissan PS Mary Queen of Peace PS Millington PS Millquarter PSMitchell House SchoolMossley PS 9. Schools which took part in the CLOSER or DOLCEcourses between 2019 and 202210Moyle PS Murroe NSNettlefield PS Olderfleet PSOrchard County PSOur Lady of Lourdes PS Portaferry IPS Roe Valley IPS Sacred Heart PS Saints & Scholars IPS Scoil Chlann Naofa Scoil Cholmcille/Murroe NS Scoil Eoin Pól Scoil Mhuire gan Smál Scoil na gcailini SN San NioclasSt. Anthony's PSSt. Bernard's PS St. Canice's PS St. Ciaran's PS St. Columba's PS Straw Draperstown St. Francis PS St. John's PS St. Joseph's PS St. Louis NS St. MacNissi's PS St. Malachy's PS       St. Mary's NS  St. Mary's PS  Mullaghbawn St. Matthew's PS St. Patrick's PSSt. Patrick's PS Glen St. Ronan's PS St. Safan’s NS Strabane AcademyUrbleshanny NSWalker Memorial PS Welchtown NS Whitehead PS   We value the partnership we have with the Education Authority and in particular the support of C2k andCASE programme staff

Blended Learning and Collaborative Interaction Between Schools:Evidence from the Shared Education Programme in Northern Ireland

https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/files/101233427/NI_Blended_learning_and_collaborative_interaction_between_schools_final.pdf

Blended Learning and Collaborative Interaction Between Schools:Evidence from the Shared Education Programme in Northern Ireland

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