Staffordshire University - Mentoring and Observation of Teaching Pilot - Case study
About Staffordshire University and the Learning and Skills Sector ITT Consortium
Introduction
There are currently some 300 trainees in our in-service CertEd/PGCE programme. They attend sessions in an FE college once a week with some subject-specialist support already built into the programme. Trainees have individual tutorial support while their teaching is observed and assessed by generic tutors and by a subject-specific mentor who also supports their professional development during their training.
The university and the FE partners have already engaged in the development of observation systems and documentation and have worked on the integration with HR as well as on the development of subject-specific guidance on teaching, with a view to gaining as much experience and expertise in all these areas ready for the 2007 changes indicated in Equipping our Teachers for the Future (DfES, 2005).
However, a concern for all the partners since the early stages of our work together has been the essentially voluntary and opportunistic nature of the subject mentoring and of subject mentors’ observation of teaching. Mentors are not entitled to automatic remission and their existing heavy workloads often make attending training and development sessions very difficult. Although the programme has secured subject mentors for all trainees, the system depends on goodwill and enthusiasm and is, consequently, subject to variation and inconsistency.
Key Idea
"Our particular pilot sought to establish and evaluate an approach to subject-specialist observation of teaching, mentoring and support in the LSC Sector ITT that is informed by recent research and expertise in the field.
It involved two distinct but linked areas of activity:
• an increased frequency and intensity of subject mentoring and mentor observations
• the trial of ‘learning study’.
We wanted to find out whether the strategy of ’learning study’, drawing upon an approach to cognitive psychology outlined in Pang and Marton (2003, 2005), could be used as an effective model for collaborative practice to help teachers to review and develop their professional practice."
Pilot Aims and Objectives
We wanted to pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of a distinctive approach to teaching observation and mentoring practice. This had an emphasis on developing trainees’ subject-specialist pedagogies, combined with subject mentoring, subject-specialist support, staff and trainee support and with clear links to associated documentation.
Critical to our pilot were the opportunities for us to tackle the issue of subject-specialist support for trainees’ professional practice that is informed by two key sources. The first key source is that of recent research in the area. Our pilot drew on the strategy of ‘learning study’ (itself based upon an approach to cognitive psychology in Pang and Marton, 2003) and to utilise this as an effective model for collaborative practice to help trainees to review and develop their professional practice.
Learning Study
The strategy referred to as ‘learning study’ has been developed by Pang and Marton (2003), who describe its aims as being ‘to build innovative learning environments and to conduct research into innovations grounded in theory’. It also aims to ‘pool the valuable experience of teachers, while maintaining focus on an object of learning’ (p. 176). This strategy builds on the Japanese method of ‘lesson study’, in which groups of teachers collaborate to plan, teach and review lessons. The strategy adds a focus on variations in students’ understanding of particular subject areas and seeks to root teachers’ planning and analysis in the examination of student understanding based on high-quality evidence of this from lessons.
The strategy involves five steps: (i) Choosing the area of intended subject learning; (ii) Establishing students’ initial understanding; (iii) Collaborative planning and teaching of a lesson – in our case, the collaborative group consisted of the trainee and the mentor both participating in planning, observation and evaluation with the trainee taking more of a lead as they progressed; (iv) Evaluation of the lesson focusing on how differences between students’ understanding are related to observations of the teaching; and (v) Documentation of the process and outcomes. We trialled this strategy and evaluated whether it provides clear benefits for LSC Sector ITT trainees and mentors.
Subject support in our school PGCE programme
The second key source is that of the lessons learned about subject support for professional development by Staffordshire University, a Training and Development Agency (TDA) Category A provider of school ITT which is also involved in LSC Sector ITT.
The school–PGCE partnership between Staffordshire University and schools across the region is highly distinctive and is rooted in a focus on subject specialist tutors and mentors and in the provision of subject support in the University and in schools. The form of this partnership has been pivotal to the effectiveness of the programme as recognized by successive Ofsted inspections and ITT league table ratings that place the university in the top three in the country.
Clearly, learning and teaching in the school sector and in the LSC sector are different in important aspects, but we considered that there was much to be gained from taking account of the best practice in the schools ITT sector and setting this alongside high-quality LSC Sector ITT provision. We therefore considerably increased the frequency of lesson observation, assessment and feedback, as well as training and support for subject mentors, and we evaluated the effects on the trainees and their mentors.
We believe that this combination of strategies has not been previously applied in LSC Sector ITT and that it could form a firm basis for deeper and more productive engagement between higher education institutions (HEI) and LSC Sector ITT tutors, mentors and trainees. Furthermore, we see these strategies informing the already successful school ITT work, particularly in the areas of 14-19 and vocational subjects, in which the university has particular strengths and which are also key areas for ITT development.