It was looking like a typical end of term. Anxious BTec students ‘jumping’ you to get project work signed off. Departing uni applicants and future apprentices exchanging goodbyes and contact details. And staff sitting politely through the annual ‘pat on the back’ staff awards – why are they always held at our busiest times? But this year we left on an unexpected high – we took part in a CPD session never tried before and it’s given us real hope for the future.
In a final busy week, we met up to mark the culmination of one-year research projects carried out by every department into how they teach their subject. Each functional research project we undertook had to be tied to something we do in class and focus on what we would change to make the students more motivated, more engaged or to improve their grades in an exam subject.
The new teaching standards urge us to do this kind of exploratory work. Every month Tuition magazine carries articles offering support to teachers in their research and how they can expand their teaching best practice.
My college has bought into this research approach, so for the end of term we’d all share what we’d learned through the year in one big communal session. Everyone had done something different. The art department, for instance, had somehow embedded English and maths into the artwork it produced, while the early years department had completely changed the way they were teaching.
No subject area was left untouched. Teaching English and maths GCSE resits is always a challenge as you have to inspire students who have failed it once and think they will again. But that department simply made the subjects more relevant to their students by setting lessons in everyday, workplace settings to show them the huge benefits of having good English and maths skills.
We spent three hours just browsing round the room, sharing good practice and talking to colleagues we would normally not come across –
A-level lecturers talking to teachers of functional skills, for instance – all skills are transferrable. It proved the most powerful CPD we’d done all year. By sharing ideas, we also received.
Traditional CPD in colleges is often very low-level, almost like a level 2 qualification in CPD. Our managers will often say we’re changing this or implementing that, so please break up into small groups and talk about it. But often by the end of such sessions I think I haven’t really learnt anything.
By contrast, our research projects are one of the best innovations I’ve seen in colleges. We have developed our practice by engaging with research-based evidence. We all sit down and think about how we each teach and how do our learners learn? Is there room to change something and if so what? Then we share it. It seems the ideal way of training on-the-job, more powerful and more personalised.
The proof will be out on results day in August when we know if A-level students have done better as a result of our researches. But we are already seeing the huge knock-on effect our training has had on projects undertaken by BTec students. Not only have they achieved higher standards but they are far more engaged and motivated because they can see the point – particularly in the case of functional skills students who have engaged far more willingly in English and maths this year.
Courses have been tailored towards the individual learner – engineering students, for example, have been focusing on how English and maths would help them find and maintain a job in engineering.
One colleague teaching employability skills took his students through the top 10 skills that employers say they want to see on CVs. If students know why they need the skills, they are far more likely to attend. Next year he plans to develop the subject further and include personal, ‘growing up’ skills. The key is helping students achieve better standards and be happier, because a lot of students having to retake English and maths aren’t.
I often hear students express the sentiment: “I don't really want to do this but my mum wants me to.” But if we make college learning a more meaningful experience for them, that will be history. We’ll have done our job well.
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