HE teacher practice in an FE college – exploring connections between physical settings and pedagogic enablement and constraint

Abstract

UK College Based HE (CBHE) accounts for 1 in 10 HE students, and has a particular role in providing UG education for students from widening participation (WP) backgrounds. Whilst garnering some interest from researchers, and with an increasing number of colleges gaining/seeking to gain foundation degree awarding powers (FDAP), CBHE continues to be under-researched and under-theorised. This extends to exploring the pedagogic practices of teachers who teach HE within an FE college, where few micro-level studies have explored the what, how and why of the pedagogic practices CBHE teachers enact in their HE classrooms. This presentation discusses how a recent research study combined Practice Theory (PT) with Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT), to construct a substantive theory to theoretically best account for HE teacher pedagogic practice enactment within an FE college. Entitled ‘Taking the path of least resistance’, it includes in-depth exploration of CBHE teacher practices and experiences using interviews and multiple teaching observations. Taking notions of practice as espoused by Schatzki (the ‘site’) and Kemmis and Grootenboer (Practice Architectures), and acknowledging materiality and the potential impact of a physical context upon teacher practice, this presentation discusses the role of an FE college ‘site’ in enabling and constraining HE teacher practice. It proposes recommendations for opening up new communicative and intersubjective spaces to best facilitate opportunities for CBHE teachers to be supported to develop their HE pedagogic practices within an FE setting