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Bridgwater College - On-line teaching observation case study

 

 

 

BACKGROUND TO THE PILOT

 

Bridgwater College is a tertiary college in Somerset. We are the largest provider of full-time education and training for 16–18 year-olds in Somerset and, including adults, have a total of 19,000 students. Besides a wide range of academic and vocational courses ranging from pre-entry level to degree level, we are also involved in post-16 initial teacher training (ITT), both with a Higher Education Institution (Bath Spa University) and an awarding body (City and Guilds). The pilot was delivered by our ITT team, working closely with the University of Southampton, and it was managed by the ITT Programme Manager, who is an experienced teacher and teacher trainer.

 

Our original submission and contract envisaged three main goals:

• a framework for the role of the subject-specific mentor
• production of a learning package – ‘Locating resources for your subject’
• a framework for on-line observation of teaching practice.

 

We started work on the three goals but it was agreed by the Project Steering Group at an early stage that, because the work with on-line observation was producing some very promising results, and also because the subject-specific aspects of our original objectives were the subject of research and trials at other pilot centres, we would focus most on the results of our on-line work. Although the goals do place some emphasis on the subject-specific needs of ITT, we felt that the potential of on-line, synchronous observation of teaching (and, as we discovered, a wide range of related activities) offers the potential to make a real contribution to all three goals.

 

Key idea
"We wanted to develop a framework and detailed procedures for teaching practice and observation in ITT, with a particular emphasis on establishing ways of meeting the need for a greater degree of subject-specific training. We particularly wanted to explore observation of teaching practice through the use of on-line techniques from a remote location."