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1 Introduction Glenys Richardson

4 Cheryl Ellams ‘Success for All’: making differentiation workable in a practical subject

12 Judith Fogg Adult Literacy: the use of Individual Learning Plans in informal Family Learning Literacy Courses

20 Sarah Hall Effectively Engaging Employers in Hairdressing

24 Emma Hinch Encourage learners to explore their own personal beliefs and prejudices in order to link theory to practice when teaching equality and diversity

31 Katie Holmes Keeping a specific group of learners motivated and engaged in a classroom setting when studying Animal Care

36 Lucy Markham Exploring learning methods to prepare learners for a team- based environment within the workplace

44 Melissa McShane Developing strategies for engaging Autistic Level One learners in Business

51 Simon Noble The future of apprenticeships after the abolition of Train to Gain and what this means to work based learning for adult apprenticeship

58 Victoria Page-Chestney Courses for horses: fitting the training course to the individual Learner in the National Health Service

65 Gaynor Purdy Active learning strategies to engage E2E Students to Numeracy 73 Alan Rayment A practical approach to developing the ability and skills required to coach people with disabilities in sport and exercise

78 Diane Remington Health and social care workforce training: is it an organisation Requirement or is it developing the workforce?

84 Ian Staples Is doing the job, knowing the job? Successfully engaging 14-16 learners in Motor Vehicle Studies classroom sessions

94 Geoffrey Wilson An investigation into Pro-Tools software and its benefits as a recording and compositional tool

101 Susan Zergi Ideas for the development of an online facility for CPD in Phlebotomy particularly looking at communities in practice and social networking sites

108 The Contributors Anthology of Specialist Conference Papers

Introduction

The papers in this collection were produced by University of Huddersfield In-Service Certificate and Professional Graduate Certificate in Education trainees, studying at North Lindsey College. They were written as a contribution to the Specialist Subject Conferences held at the University in April 2011. They are the work of practitioners who are currently engaged in the challenging issues facing post-Compulsory Education and Training, are based on scholarly research and propose interventions to improve teaching and learning. The purpose of this Anthology is to celebrate the trainees’ achievements and to disseminate their ideas. The contributors come from a range of organisations and the topics they have chosen reflects the diversity of roles and issues found in the post compulsory sector, as well as the talents and interests of the writers. Some themes recur: inspiring and motivating learners and ensuring that they are well equipped for the working world are central to many of these papers. Some of the papers tackle wider policy issues and question the assumptions and ideologies that influence education. Many of the contributors are at the start of a career in education. They come from widely varying educational and vocational backgrounds and have a wealth of experience to draw on. Their commitment to their learners shines through their work. I would like to congratulate all the contributors for their achievements and wish them luck in their future careers.

Glenys Richardson Programme Leader: Education.

This Anthology of Specialist Conference Papers has been financially supported by the Consortium for Post-Compulsory Education and Training at the University of Huddersfield. We thank them for their support

1 2 Graduates of the Class of 2011 3

Alan Rayment being congratulated by the Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, Sir Patrick Stewart Cheryl Ellams

‘Success for All’: making differentiation workable in a practical subject

In the past, differentiation was termed as ‘mixed ability’ teaching. It soon became apparent that it was not just ability that was mixed, but tutors/teachers had much more to consider in their lessons, such as learning styles, learner experience, learning difficulties and physical difficulties, to name but a few. An IFL report based on research undertaken in early 2010, states: Brilliant teachers and trainers continually listen and respond to all different types of learners, respecting their opinions, aspirations and offer a range of learning styles (IFL, 2010: p 11). I whole heartedly agree with this, and for every lesson I have taught, I make every attempt to ensure that this is followed through. Differentiation is all about helping learners to achieve their learning goal without actually doing their work for them.

In 2009, Ofsted reported that: Teachers knew their students very well, and were keenly aware of different abilities and personalities and potential barriers to progress. They were able to support and challenge students to achieve their best, in ways that were sensitive to individual students' needs and abilities. (Ofsted, 2009: p 4).

The report undertaken demonstrates the outcome from a survey of 22 colleges in their provision in arts and media. It recognizes the aspects that contribute to the high quality of work which learners produced and how those learners make good progress. I believe the excerpt above to be the way forward in ‘tackling’ differentiation within the classroom. All learners have different needs in order to achieve and courses need to be planned carefully to accommodate those needs. Without this careful planning and an effective teaching strategy, adult learners could encounter a poor learning experience, which will lead to a lack of motivation – this in turn could be reflected in the retention and achievement of the group. Within every course I have taught, I have built up an excellent rapport with my learners, they feel comfortable within the classroom environment, and this, in turn, has had a positive effect on their behaviour, motivation, and output and quality of work. They want to excel, they take pride in what they are achieving and have proven to be very productive.

4 Lau indicated that Osborn (1948) suggests an individual’s creative thinking needs a positive attitude; that negative attitudes protect them from mistakes and danger as well as forestalling them from making deliberate decisions. I believe a positive attitude encourages learners to be self-confident with enthusiasm. Starko (1995) also agreed that a positive and forward learning behaviour, a willingness to take risks, openness to experience, tolerance for ambiguity, intuition and deep emotions, are key for seeking novel and creative solutions (Lau, 2009).

Having a positive outlook on life, a love of education and a passion for learning, holds advantages for learners – the attitude is infectious! I have found that low achievers in previous subjects, lack of confidence, low self esteem and emotional problems in learners become something that can be forgotten about whilst the creative process is growing and being nurtured. The learner becomes empowered by their own success and achievement, and, I have found, it encourages them to progress to a higher level. Teachers knew their students very well and provided highly individualised support, which enabled students to achieve more than they thought they could. Much work was based on experiential learning, with the focus more on process and development than on creating an end product. (Ofsted, 2009)

This conference paper will look at how differentiation can be tackled in a practical subject, specifically dressmaking. This issue has been chosen due to a relatively small class of learners taught recently, each learner presenting their own differences, making the class the most difficult taught in a career of eight years. The aim of this paper is to reinforce the importance of differentiation in any classroom, be it a practical subject or not, and to look at ways to ensure that tutors/teachers can help to achieve “Success for All”.

Working in a sixth form college, within the adult learning section, the group of learners to be looked at, and discussed, is a group of ten NCFE Creative Craft Level 1 and Level 2 dressmaking learners. The group includes a completely deaf learner, a learner who is bi-polar with learning difficulties, a learner suffering with depression, two lively seventeen year old learners studying for University, and a learner who already has excellent skills. The remaining four learners were complete novices.

5 Differentiation is not a new word to use. Tutors/teachers have always differentiated in classes, possibly without realising at times. Teaching a single level qualification in one group of learners presents various problems due to different learning styles and current knowledge of learners, for instance. Teaching two separate levels of qualification within one class makes things even more difficult within the group, especially when a lot of those learners have diverse learning needs.

It could be argued that the most important lesson for the tutor/teacher and his/her learners is the first lesson. Not only does it give the tutor/teacher a chance to get to know the learner, but visa versa, the learner gets the opportunity to ‘weigh up’ the teacher, for them to actually ascertain if this is going to be a worthwhile learning experience for them. Within that first session, in order to establish the differentiation within the dressmaking group, it is very productive to carry out an initial assessment for each learner in the form of a specific skills questionnaire, supplemented by a creative task. In doing the two activities, this will promote discussion between the teacher/learner and learner/learner, at the same time giving the tutor the opportunity to assess abilities of each learner. Some people may feel this too time consuming but it is an extremely important part to any course.

The information gained from this initial assessment will be the first stepping stone in building up the profile of each individual, which in turn will pave the way to help plan differentiated activities to meet the learning needs of each individual. Creative subjects are fun and in a lot of ways spark the imagination of learners, perhaps taking them back to their childhood, reliving their youth. This may be one reason why creative courses tend to be popular amongst adults.

Creative work is important. It is a vital cognitive tool and a great motivator for a teacher of any subject. Petty suggests that there are three main reasons for this:  to develop our students’ ability to think creatively;  to increase motivation. Creativity satisfies a deep human need to make something and to gain recognition for this;  to provide an opportunity to explore feelings and develop skills in self- expression; (Petty, 2001: p274)

As a tutor of dressmaking, I agree with the statement, and in relation to the group of learners being discussed it is very accurate. A learner may have low self-esteem, may have learning

6 difficulties, and feel like they have never produced anything of any value or importance. Producing something for everyone to view, to actually see what the learner is capable of, can have an outstanding effect on the confidence of that learner, and make them feel valued and worthy, instead of useless and worthless.

Petty suggests that the creative process is complex and variable and can be seen as “consisting of six phases – Inspiration, Clarification, Distillation, Incubation, Perspiration and Evaluation (ICEDIP)” (Petty, 1996). These phases can occur in any order, any number of times and sometimes for short lengths in time. Most people find they are much stronger in some areas than others, for instance some people may have a lot of ideas but may not be as successful in producing the ideas they do have. Others have difficulty coming up with the ideas, but excel in the production of the idea once it has been realised. When a tutor/teacher gets to know his/her group (particularly in a creative subject), the ability to discover where the learners’ strengths and weaknesses are, is important - further effective support can be given, where necessary, in order to combat possible issues relating to differentiation and to help learners overcome potential barriers to their learning.

In any classroom environment where differentiation is self evident quite quickly, it is important to set ground rules not only with the group as a whole but on an individual basis. Everyone works at different speeds. To motivate a learner who already is more advanced than other learners, it can be beneficial and helpful to the class for that learner to act in some ways as a student mentor for the group. This also assists the tutor, allowing him/her to concentrate more within the group whilst also increasing the self importance of the student mentor.

As a tutor, I have always used handouts but in the case of the deaf learner, I introduced the use of more step-by-step drawings, illustrating procedures of how specific set tasks should be undertaken. This has also benefited those who suffer with dyslexia, or have lower than average literacy skills.

7 Organisation and structure to each lesson is paramount, at the start of each lesson giving clear aims and objectives, and also stressing the availability of individual support during the lesson. In an ideal world, in that first session there would be a focus on learning styles. Due to time constraints generally in the classroom, especially if a teacher is working his/her learners towards a qualification, an assessment on learning styles may not be undertaken. All learners do not approach their learning in the same ways and a teacher can only suit all learning styles by using a mixture of learning methods. Different teaching methods develop different skills in learners, so a teacher is able to enhance and develop a learner by not just acting on learners’ strengths and allowing them to focus entirely on what they are best at but it is imperative to remember a learner’s weakness and to build on those weaknesses. Montgomery (2004) suggests this by saying “You want to explore the options with your people, allow them to take risks, and support them in their failures as well as in their successes”.

Several theorists have written about how models of learning styles have evolved, probably the most well known of these being Kolb’s (1984) learning style model. He has been described as having provided “one of the most useful (but contestable) descriptive models available of the adult learning process”. Some, such as Phil Race (a UK staff developer in Higher Education), and Peter Jarvis (a researcher on adult education), find Kolb and other cyclical models “unrealistic, prescriptive and needlessly academic”. However, as Atherton (2005) points out “for the tutor or mentor, a major task is to “chase” the learner round the cycle, asking questions which encourage reflection, conceptualisation, and ways of testing ideas”.

As regards differentiation, learning styles need to be taken into account, to enable all learners to move forward and not stagnate and get bored with the subject. A tutor/teacher must, when planning tasks/questions for a group, ensure that there is room for development for every learner. For example – using the Honey & Mumford (1982) typology of learning styles around Kolb’s sequence – when learning how to use a sewing machine for the first time within college, a theorist might continually ask for instructions or explanations, potentially taking up a lot of the teacher’s time and disrupting the group; a reflector may get straight on with the task in hand then be stopping to wonder why something has not happened how they had expected it to; a pragmatist may not take much notice of the instruction and just

8 experiment with the machine to make it work in their own way, and an activist would keep trying every button and dial on the machine just to see what would happen.

It is argued that certain learners might be at a disadvantage as their individual learning style is not considered, and there is much debate about this. Coffield states that “instead of talking about different types of learner we recommend discussing different approaches to learning… different orientations to learning…different models of learning…and different emotions associated with learning” (Coffield, 2005: p 6). I believe that this is the case. Everyone is an individual, has their own preferred learning style and this should always be taken into account, in order to satisfy the learner needs, the learner aspirations, and to assure achievement for the learner as much as possible. Adult learning lessons which are the most successful are those with a tutor/teacher who takes the time to promote a relaxed atmosphere, who is sociable, and is sensitive to the needs of the learners and the way he/she deals with them. The tutor/teacher recognises differentiation in the learners and remains supportive, taking care to listen and to actively encourage learners whom may not have much confidence in themselves or their work. That same tutor/teacher takes the time to speak to each learner on an individual basis and to give honest, fair feedback and criticism, whilst at the same time promoting confidence, and reassuring.

Teaching methods remain varied to accommodate all learner needs with the class. Learners who need extra support, for example, could be given shorter term goals and tasks written in such a way that they can manage them in bite sizes. This will help them to see that they are making progress in their work, which will in turn, motivate them. Some of the time, this can be achieved by a tutor/teacher using his/her common sense. As in the case of the class in question and the deaf learner, speaking clearly and in view of the deaf learner would enable an amount of lip-reading to take place, the use of hand signals, writing brief notes to the learner when misunderstandings in a task has taken place, or words not understood.

Brilliant teachers and trainers continually listen and respond to all different types of learners, respecting their opinions, aspirations and offer a range of learning styles. Learners value the teacher’s willingness to engage with learners, bringing enthusiasm and creativity to learning, encouraging and acting upon feedback. (IFL, 2010).

9 I believe it is imperative for this to occur in any lesson. If a tutor/teacher appears interested and interesting to the learner, this has a positive effect on the whole group, the success of the individual lesson and final achievement of the learner as the course completes. A learner feels valued, not only as an individual but also as a member of the group. In the case of this particular group of learners, having this ‘outlook’ helped tremendously as regards differentiated learning. Each individual need of the learner was addressed, and support given, the group bonded as a whole, and potential problems were overcome before they arose. Working in this way as a tutor/teacher, links significantly to the thoughts of Tony Davis, Ofsted Art Inspector, who suggested that learners should have a thorough understanding of their subject area, updating their own skills through continual professional development; have an enthusiasm and love of their subject; differentiate within the planning of each lesson; be highly motivated, and believe in their learners and capabilities. This is demonstrated in the Hierarchy of Teaching model diagram:

and has been used by many educational establishments to “invigorate their teaching and learning culture”. (Davis, 2006)

It is important that how a subject is taught, and how learners are helped, that this is not static, and tutors take their time to get to know the learners as people, not just as a learner with a label. I believe a tutor/teacher should make every attempt to personalise learning and provide differentiation. Especially in adult education, whereby the learner generally pays, or at least contributes to their learning experience, an excellent learning experience is by each learner.

The main thing for a tutor/teacher to take heed of is that once they find an effective teaching method or strategy that they should not necessarily use it for every single group they teach, no matter how good/successful it is. It will not necessarily work in the same way for every

10 group, it may fail with some groups but not with others, so likewise, teaching methods which have not proved effective may work brilliantly with a different group. It all ‘comes down to’ individuality, the adapting/changing of learning to match the learner to learning, and the commitment of the tutor/teacher to assist in achieving the learner goal.

References Armitage, A., Bryant, R., Dunnill, R., Hayes, D., Hudson, A., Kent, J., Lawes, S., Renwick, M. (2006) Teaching & Training in Post-Compulsory Education. Maidenhead: Open University Press

Atherton, J. S. (2010) Learning & Teaching; Experiential Learning (On-line) UK; Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/experience.htm [Accessed: 2nd January 2011]

Avis, J., Fisher, R. & Thompson, R. (2009) Teaching in Lifelong Learning: a Guide to Theory and Practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press

Davis, T. (2006) Hierarchy of Teaching model. Available: www.excellencegateway.org.uk [Accessed: 28 February 2011]

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2010), Excellent Gateway: resources Available:http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?0=294333 [Accessed 15 December 2010]

IFL (2010), Brilliant Teaching and Training in FE and Skills, Understanding and Listening to Learners. Available: www.ifl.ac.uk/cpd [Accessed: 27 February 2011]

Lau, K. (2009) The Design Journal, Creativity Training in Higher Design Education. Available: http://www.bergpublishers.com/BergJournals?TheDesignJournal [Accessed 27 February 2011]

Montgomery, A. (2004) Still Learning, Still Teaching, Broadcasting and Cable, pg 76

Ofsted (2009), Identifying Good Practice: a Survey of College Provision in Arts and Media. Available: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/ofsted-home/publications-and-research [Accessed 28 February 2011]

Petty, G. (2001) Teaching Today. 2nd edition, Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes

Reece, I. and Walker, S. (2000) Teaching, Training and Learning, a Practical Guide 4th edition, Sunderland: Business Education Publishers Ltd

Walkin, L. (1990) Teaching & Learning in Further & Adult Education. Stanley Thornes (Publishers) Ltd

11 Judith Fogg

Adult Literacy: the use of Individual Learning Plans in informal Family Learning Literacy Courses

The main issue of this paper is the use of individual learning plans (ILP) in informal groups. The example that will be used throughout will be the Family Learning Early Start course which is an engagement activity aimed at young parents. Early Start is a fifteen week literacy course themed around child development. It is jointly delivered with the Early Years Team. The parents spend the first forty-five minutes with their children, an hour in the classroom, returning to their children for the last fifteen minutes of the session. This subject has been chosen because the writer feels that the ILP and the concepts of informality and engagement are at odds from the outset. The paper intends to identify flaws in the use of the ILP, to suggest alternatives and to promote readers to consider who is best served by its use.

Early Start is delivered in Sure Start Children’s Centres and primary schools. Parents are signposted onto the course by health visitors, outreach workers and preschool teachers, amongst other professionals. Early Start is optional, however it is fair to suggest there is some degree of persuasion used to enrol parents onto the course. The courses are almost always run in deprived areas. To conform to the entry criteria, and in accordance to funding rules, parents must attend with their pre-school children and must not already have achieved a level two literacy qualification. Parents have, in many cases, left school with very few qualifications. Many parents have no literacy qualifications at all. This paper will therefore question the purpose of presenting parents, who might be on the threshold of re-engagement with education, with the relentless formalities and demands of the ILP. Early Start is aimed at parents who have yet to achieve their A*-C in English. The course offers a gentle introduction to the Adult Literacy Curriculum, subtly introducing literacy exercises themed around child development. Arguably this theme has been chosen as it grounds everyone to a similar starting point. Parenthood is the one thing that all the learners have in common. The ILP is what distinguishes the learners as more than parents. Moreover they are seen as diverse people with long and short term goals and unique targets to work on and improve. Comparatively, the ILP could be seen as a threat to diversity. Its effectiveness lays in the learner’s ability to make his or her reflections and aspirations clear in writing. This takes us back to the entry criteria of Early Start; prior achievement must be below level two. Below

12 level two, learners often lack the skills needed to adequately reflect on their learning goals and progression. Previous poor experiences of education might inhibit learners to even contemplate that education could lead to positive outcomes. Often they are only on the course because someone in authority suggested they should give it a try.

This writer has witnessed Early Start learners’ individual short and long term goals that range from ‘Make friends’ to ‘Become a company director’. Equality and diversity should be key consideration when delivering Family Learning: Family programmes should be planned with due regard to equality and diversity. They should contribute to both the national and local widening participation agenda and complement other strategies for adults, children and families wherever possible. (LSC 2006, online).

Thus, we should be delivering inclusive education to families and our practice should widen participation within the community. Rather than embrace equality and diversity, however, the ILP asks the same questions, in the same language, at the same level, of all learners. There is no consideration for poor literacy or comprehension skills, English as an additional language or low self-esteem and confidence. These issues regularly present themselves in Early Start courses. These are often learners with limited experience of education. The ILP brings all that is formal about learning to an informal course. The RARPA process was never intended to be so bureaucratic. (Clark, Hussain-Ahmed 2007)

On the other hand, the ILP could be considered a way of promoting a learning partnership between the tutor and the learner, both evaluating and sharing planning of the learning experience (Werquin, 2010). However, almost always the reality remains that no matter how many times the tutor explains the concept and purpose of the ILP; the learners usually put vague comments where they are supposed to identify their progress. This is usually due to a skills shortage in this area. I have surveyed thirteen Early Start learners across three classes. I asked each learner five questions (Appendix 1). The results illustrate the problems faced when using an ILP to chart progress (Appendix 2). There is an almost even split between learners who know what to write on their ILPs and those who do not. When a learner is unable to put into words how a session has developed his or her understanding of a topic, and the impact this is likely to have on reaching his or her learning outcomes, the tutor is compromised. The tutor has to try to establish the learner’s understanding and prompt

13 reflection in the learner using language the learner is able to comprehend. This becomes a negotiation over meaning. The tutor can never then be quite sure if what she reads on the ILP are the reflections of the learner or, indeed, the tutor’s desired learning aims. The tutor is sometimes required to promote reflection for the ILP through brainstorm activities. This, again, leads to questionable comments on ILPs. Because, in Early Start, learners are not categorised by level under level two, an entry level learner might simply copy a higher level suggestion off the whiteboard. This makes a mockery of the validity of the ILP.

As a joint venture with the Early Years Team, Early Start is intended to improve the speaking and listening skills of the parents. This in turn, it is hoped, will develop the communication skills of pre-school children. This explains why a lot of the teaching time is spent on discussion, rather than writing activities. The development of the relationships between parent and child, in light of group discussions with the tutor and other parents, are recorded by the Early Years Team using photography and observations. This is evidently easier than asking both parent and child what effect their attendance at Early Start has had on their relationship.

Evidencing the benefits of discussion activities can be more problematic for the tutor. Video or audio recording of discussions would be a valuable means of assessment to both tutors and learners. The impact of discussions would be far greater if the learner was able to take home copies of recordings or photographs for future reference. Learners could compare early discussions with later ones and chart their progression. However, whilst the majority of the surveyed learners said that there could be better ways to record progress in the classroom, visual and audio recording were considered an invasion of their privacy. The only alternative that all learners agreed on was witness statements. This raises the suggestion that learners might simply want the tutor to take sole responsibility for assessment because this requires no effort on their part.

Early Start is advertised and presented as fun and informal, based on discussion and individual experiences of raising young children. Learners are encouraged to bring their wealth of parental experience to the table and share it with others. No learner is ever criticised, however good behaviour is modelled in the classroom and during the time spent with their children. This spontaneous, egalitarian learning and sharing idyll is the antithesis of the mechanics of completing the ILP. It brings the pro-activity of the discussion to a blunt

14 end. It would seem to make more sense to practise informal, fun assessment procedures throughout the whole session, not only while the children are present. This active learning is arguably far more motivational than filling in forms and could help to develop the idea that education is a priority in those who have become disengaged. Otherwise family learning courses, like Early Start, can become an extension of school, and an intrusion on the daily life of the parents (Mackenzie, 2010).

Good assessment opportunities could be lost by narrowing down to the ILP. Applying the ILP in every session can hinder the use of more varied assessment processes: …formal procedures for identifying individual learners' needs - including ILPs - are consuming amounts of time disproportionate to their value, as well as distorting the process of goal-setting and reducing possibilities for other kinds of activity. (Callaghan 2004, p7).

If another written form of assessment, for instance diary pages, is used alongside the ILP, the learner could feel that he has to repeat himself. The surveyed learners suggested three necessary points of reflection on their part; the beginning, middle and end of the course.

With the focus being speaking and listening skills, auditory and visual recordings of progress would seem more appropriate in informal education. As a complete replacement for the ILP, perhaps informal education providers should make more use of virtual learning environments and encourage learners to use web-logs. This has the added bonus of peer assessment; something the ILP lacks (Clark, Hussain-Ahmed, 2007). It could also be completed away from the classroom, at the learners’ convenience. There could be contacts online to discuss progression onto formal literacy courses. Perhaps the ILP retains its central role in informal education because assessors and verifiers do not have the time to trawl through visual or auditory evidence.

Hamilton makes the point that the ILP can be a ‘quantifiable indicator of teaching and learning’ (Hamilton, 2009, p221). It could be argued that step-by-step progress towards targets is more identifiable to the learner when an ILP is used. This paper argues that the learner’s progress, whilst portrayed as central to the ILP, is not the only quantifiable consideration. Time taken to complete targets can indicate effective teaching. Further, achievement of targets affects funding.

15 When asked, just over 70% of learners said they did not link their comments on the ILP to their targets (Appendix 2). Therefore, consideration should be given as to whose interests are being best served by the ILP; the learner or the institution. The ILP presents evidence of the standard of teaching and learning for inspection purposes (Hamilton, 2009). The Early Start programme, as an engagement course, should perhaps focus more on holistic progression than ticking boxes for government inspectors.

Perhaps we are just being lazy practitioners and it is this that leads us to the general reluctance to overthrow the ILP where its use is questionable. The ILP is a very convenient way of assessing learners. It requires nothing more of the tutor than a line of feedback in order to make the continuous link between targets and achievement. Perhaps there is a tradition of putting practicalities above the needs of the learners. There are other, more interesting and less onerous for the learner, methods of assessment that do not take too much effort on the tutor’s behalf. These rely on the imagination and technical skills of the tutor (Clark, Hussain-Ahmed, 2007). In turn, this relies on the ability and acceptance of providers to adequately train their staff.

Tutors should feel supported and inspired to try out other methods of formative assessment. The tutor is the person who best understands a group of learners. Unfortunately, the ILP takes away the tutor’s autonomy to assess in the most appropriate manner. Therefore, it could be deemed yet another attack on the tutor’s professionalism.

Thus this paper reaches the following conclusions. The ILP is not the best means of formative assessment in informal courses like Early Start. It does not suit the mixed skills of every cohort or, the fun engaging environment that the tutor is trying to create. It threatens diversity and equality. Its reliability is questionable as learners under level two, the target group, have often had no reflective writing experience. It inhibits the use of other, more enjoyable and varied formative assessment methods. In informal engagement courses, assessment should be active, motivational and engaging. It should also provide the learner with something to reflect on verbally. The best forms of assessment in family learning courses are auditory and visual recordings, witness statements using photographs and web-logs. The ILP is a one size fits all approach and, when tutors are trying to re-engage adults with education, this needs to be more tailored.

16 References Callaghan, John. Diversity, ILPs and the Art of the Possible, in: Reflect; The Magazine of The National Research and Development Centre for adult Literacy and Numeracy, Issue 1, October 2004 pp.6-8 (7)

Clark, Alastair and Hussain-Ahmed, Shubhanna. Signalling Success. NIACE (2007) pp. 2, 11

Hamilton, Mary. Putting Words in their Mouths: The Alignment of Identities with System Goals through the use of Individual Learning Plans, in: British Educational Research Journal, Volume 35, Issue 2, April 2009 pp. 221 -242 (221, 229)

Learning and Skills Council [2006] Accessed January 15th 2011. Available from World Wide Web:

Mackenzie, Jeannie. Family Learning Engaging with Parents. Dunedin (2010) p. 16 Werquin, Patrick. Recognising Non-Formal and Informal Learning Outcomes, Policies and Practices. OECD (2010) p. 48

17 Appendix 1 How Do Parents Feel About Completing Individual Learning Plans? For my PGCE research, I have decided to ask parents how they feel about completing the Individual Learning Plan during Early Start. Please answer the following questions – be honest, it’s anonymous! Yes No Any comment? For this course, it’s important to identify my long and short term goals. I understand the need for targets. I know what to write on my ILP. I link my comments to my targets.

There could be better ways to record my progress/experiences during Early Start.

18 Appendix 2 How Do 'Early Start' Parents Feel About Completing Individual Learning Plans? 11 11 9 7 6 7 6 4 2 2

Important to Understand Know what to Link comments Better ways to have goals? need for write on ILP? to my targets? record targets? progress?

Parents who answered Yes Parents who answered No

19 Sarah Hall

Effectively Engaging Employers in Hairdressing

Clearly it is important to have employer input to programs which are intended to meet employer needs and which are crucially dependant on employer support. However, effective employer engagement in the skills agenda is difficult to achieve. (LSC, 2005)

This is a problem that those who work for a work based training provider will have encountered. For me, this has come to light more recently. After being given the responsibility of updating the customer satisfaction file it became clear that there is very little response from employers. Employer engagement continues to prove a weakness and feedback is essential for the development and delivery of the qualification. But more importantly the impact the learners have in their salon placements. I teach Hairdressing at Levels 2, 3 and the 14-16 Young Apprenticeship. To date, feedback has only been gained through one to one visits and the constant issue is that of the employer taking time out from their busy schedule to complete and return surveys or questionnaires. Other barriers that have presented themselves include; lack of interest, little or no understanding of the terminology and work pressures. Open nights that have been arranged did not produce a good turn out from the employers and responses to these surveys have been very vague, providing one word answers unless probed for further explanation. This makes it very difficult to gain consistent feedback on the opinions of the employers and the support required for themselves and their learners. Regular interaction with an employer will not only benefit themselves and the learner, but the provider too. After all, as facilitators we are supposed to mould and help train these learners alongside the employers to work in society. But how can we do this, if the support is one sided?

The education and training system must respond flexibly to the needs of employers and individuals, so that it becomes effectively ‘demand driven,’ with employers afforded a key role in what is supposed to be an ‘employer led system. (DFES et al.,2003)

Hopefully, these ideas will help other teachers who work in a work based learning environment and prove beneficial to the learners’ experience.

To improve employer engagement I decided to research the strategies that other providers have used. Hopefully this would enable me to introduce a fresh approach to the benefit of all

20 concerned. “The review’s world class ambition requires increased engagement and investment from employers with higher education, to drive management, innovation and work force development” (Leitch, 2006). WVLLN (2007) interviewed Samantha Trickey who is the teaching improvement manager at Gloucestershire College; she has introduced the following employer engagement strategies:  Employers judging in house competitions throughout the year

 Newsletters showcasing the involvement employers and learners have had with the qualification

 Employer guest spots with employers carrying out live demonstrations

 Learners and employer reviews

For this particular college these have proved successful and are being used effectively by all members of staff, employers and learners. Research carried out on employer engagement from the Excellence Gateway claims that ‘employer careers guidance’ has had a positive impact. Employers can get involved in helping students understand what an employer looks for and what makes them stand out during the selection process. Sims, (2009) identified these tactics below to enhance employer engagement;  Direct mail shots and emails

 Direct telephone calls

 Face to face contact, presentations and meetings with decision makers

 Recruitment events, seminars, forums and workshops

 Referrals by already engaged employers

Based on this research, there are some strategies which are already in place, the most common one being ‘face to face contact.’ Learner and employer reviews are already carried out by all members of staff at Positive Approach every eight to twelve weeks, as are newsletters. As previously mentioned the only effective feedback we can collect is from a one to one visit. The problem is engaging the employers further to encourage participation in their learner’s qualification. After all, ‘all employers know the true cost of recruitment in terms of time and resources. “Apprenticeships give direct access to the best trained and motivated young people in your region – and why are they the best trained? Because you trained them.”’ (Habia)

Consequently I propose the following employer engagement strategies:

21 Employers judging in house competitions throughout the year I feel that this would be beneficial to both the employer and the learner. Firstly, many learners are not given the opportunity to participate in competitions, so for those who have not had this experience I feel it would inspire and motivate them, sparking their artistic flare. Secondly, this will benefit the employer because they are helping to encourage creativity. They are taking the lead role in judging the technical skills that being presented by the learners and seeing the ‘hairdressers of today.’

Employer guest spots with employers doing live demonstrations Funding is an issue with work based training providers as there is little money given, compared to an Further Education college. Therefore money cannot be spared to pay ‘famous hairdressers’ or ‘highly skilled professional.’ To visit the But is it untrue that our employers are the ‘highly skilled professionals?’ So why not encourage live demonstrations. They are being placed in the driving seat to help enhance the learner’s skills. Learners will benefit greatly from this because they are being shown a diverse range of demonstrations by the employers.

Employer careers guidance This would not only give new learners an insight into what an employer looks for but, employers could possibly share their experiences and progression routes that themselves and other have explored.

Recruitment events I feel that this would not work with our employers in particular as it has been voiced that the majority of employers prefer to interview on a one to basis in their own salons.

For these strategies to prove effective or ineffective a trial period of around six months should be given in order to collate responses. A decision would then be made to decide if these forms of employer engagement should continue. We will always be up against the day to day work pressures of salon owners not being able to commit time, but should we just sit back and do nothing? Or do we acknowledge the fact that this may always be the case and still endeavour to openly engage employers? The benefits to employers of being involved with the Apprenticeships and Diplomas are great and extremely rewarding. There is a growing demand for qualifications to become work based, so that we can meet our target of

22 ‘becoming a world leader in skills by 2020” (Leitch, 2006). The 14-19 Apprenticeships are the way forward but they will not be a success unless employers get involved and give these young learners the opportunity, to build transferrable skills in the employment sector. Qualifications work best when they are closely linked to businesses needs and employers have made an investment in making the Diploma qualification appealing for young people, to help them become their future employees – it is the ‘deal for a deal’ that the Leitch review recommended. As for responses to surveys and questionnaires, the only way I can see consistent feedback being gained is if they are taken out and completed during one to one visits. Hopefully the employers will be able to see the impact that their response and co operation can have. Finally in the words of (Leitch, 2006) ‘too many of us have little interest or appetite for improved skills, we must begin a new journey to embed a culture of learning. Employer and individual awareness must increase.’

References DFES, DTI, HM Treasury, DWP.2003. 21st Century skills: Realising our potential: individuals, employers, nation. Norwich: HSMD

Excellence Gateway (no date) Supporting Employer Engagement http://www.skillset.org/uploads/pdf/asset_4820.pdf?6 [accessed on 03.01.11]

Habia (no date) Benefits to Employers http://www.habia.org/apprenticeships/index.php? page=652 [accessed on 30.12.2010]

Leitch S. 2006 http://www.officialdocuments.gov.uk/document/other/0118404792/0118404792.pdf [accessed on 15.12.10]

LSC.2005 (Learning and Skills Council) Higher Education for Hairdressing and Beauty Sector Professionals. www.uvac.ac.uk/downloads/0401_publications/hair_lscguide.doc [accessed on 28.12.10]

Sims K.2009 Employer Engagement Strategy: 14-19 www.dcsf.gov.uk/14- 19/documents/Employer_Engagement_Strategy_ReBER.pdf[ accessed on 03.01.11]

WVLLN.2007 (Western Vocational Lifelong Learning Network) Admissions to HE Hairdressing; Interview with Samantha Trickey. http://www.wvlln.ac.uk/information- exchange/further-education/admissions-to-he-hairdressing.[accessed on 15.12.10]

23 Emma Hinch

Encouraging learners to explore their own personal beliefs and prejudices in order to link theory to practice when teaching Equality and Diversity.

This paper will consider different pedagogical approaches that might be taken towards teaching equality and diversity, review research that has taken place and introduce resources that have been developed for use with learners.

I teach on health and social care courses in both FE and HE in North Lindsey College, Scunthorpe. I teach a broad range of social sciences within the umbrella of health and social care. I teach across a spectrum of academic levels in health and social care (from foundation learning tier through to Level 4) and I have groups that are a combination of 16-19 learners and mature learners. As well as preparing them for the workplace when they finish with us, most of our learners spend some of their college week in work placements. We have a responsibility to prepare them for that experience and equip them with the theoretical knowledge for them to be able to behave in an appropriate manner whilst they are there.

The very nature of the sector that I prepare learners to enter is practical. Having said that, it has relatively recently been subject to a professionalization and acknowledgement of the theoretical basis of the practical actions taken in the workplace. Increasingly, those working within health and social care are required to hold academic qualifications and undertake reflective CPD to demonstrate the application of theory to practice. Our learners need to have both a theoretical knowledge base (for example, knowledge of legislation and anatomy) and a practical skills-base (for example, how to safely move an immobile service-user). It is, however, important for those entering the health and social care sector to have developed further to allow them to further carry out their roles. Cuthbert and Quallington (2008: p3) discuss the need for learners to develop appropriate ‘values and morals’ for social work. They contend that learners must review their “moral beliefs, principles or rules of conduct that guide our social interactions and human relationships”. Within the health sector, there has been increasing importance placed on ‘personal knowing’. “Personal knowing is the discovery of self and others, which is arrived at through reflection, synthesis of perceptions, and connecting with what is known. It is captured through retrospective accounting of an interaction” (Jacobs, 1998: p 25). Preparation for the workplace should involve the knowledge-base, the skills-base, and the personal ability “to advocate, to empower, and to

24 develop empathy and respect for the unique lives, beings, and saliency of each unique client and their supportive families and circles” (Wilson-Thomas, 1995).

We live in an ever-increasingly diverse society. The implementation of new legislation (The 2010 Equality Act) reflects the importance of equality of opportunity in all aspects of public services, but especially within education, health and social care services. Within the 2010 Equality Act the following are defined as ‘protected characteristics’: age; disability; gender reassignment; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex and sexual orientation. As part of the new legislation, as of the 5th April 2011 Section 149, the new Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), came into force. The PSED is intended to ensure that public sector organisations have “due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations across all of the protected characteristics”. Broadly speaking, it calls for positive action against ageism, disablism, sexism, racism and homophobia.

Equality and diversity should be embedded across the curriculum in all disciplines, but it is of specific importance when preparing learners to enter the public sector. There is emphasis on reflective consideration of personal values and beliefs from the industry and increased emphasis on equality and cultural cohesion through policy. Whatever discipline we teach, a tutor’s role involves encouraging learners to explore issues of equality and diversity, but if the learners I teach are successful in their studies, they are likely to go and work with the most vulnerable members of society. The people they work with are likely to be ill, and/or have need of care. They are quite likely to belong to one or more of the protected categories recognised in the 2010 Equality Act and it is vital that they receive quality care, without their carer’s negative prejudices leading to discrimination.

Learners begin their course (as we all do) with values, attitudes and life experiences, which have the potential to lead to discriminatory practice in the work place. Our attitudes and values are not neutral. According to social learning theory, they are the combined result of our upbringing, the attitudes of our parents, or guardians, our friends and, to be honest, every social interaction we’ve ever had, or even witnessed.

Despite the fact that learners in my department are embarking on a career in the so called ‘helping professions’ I have found that they have widely-held negative attitudes. Dovidio and

25 Gaertner (1999: p101) have found that due to changing norms and protective legislation, overt prejudice has generally declined, but there are persistent “negative feelings and beliefs that underlie contemporary forms of prejudice”. Although many of my learners would not readily identify themselves as racist, ageist, sexist, disablist, or homophobic, there seems to be a pervasive discriminatory culture which shows itself through the everyday language used by the learners. The statutory and professional need for equality and non-discriminatory practice and the emphasis on ‘personal knowing’ and development of appropriate ‘values and morals’ means that the discriminatory culture that the learners’ personal beliefs and prejudices must be explore and reflected on if they are to apply theory to practice.

Even within the health and social care sector, diversity training is often regarded as a ‘necessary evil’ and rather tedious subject. It is relatively weighty in terms of legislation that learners need to be familiar with and it requires consideration of often uncomfortable issues. The traditional approach to equality and diversity education has been a multicultural model, usually involved attempts to enhance knowledge and develop appreciation of other groups. It is a common sense belief that people are afraid and threatened by things they do not understand, and it is this common sense assumption that knowledge leads to understanding and tolerance that has led equality and diversity education for the last thirty years. It is hoped that through appreciation of the rich variety of cultures in society that learners will embrace diversity. Traditionally there is an emphasis on the unacceptable nature of discriminatory practice, as modelled by the lecturer, emphasised in the ‘symbolic curriculum’ in college (Gay, 2002), and through transference of the knowledge-base of legislation and regulation. There is limited success with this model though. There have been criticisms of it being tokenistic, focusing only on the positive, shying away from controversy and ultimately being ineffective in dealing with the underlying values and beliefs behind prejudice.

Of course, within health and social care, equality and diversity education needs to look at far more than cultural diversity. Learners must consider all the protected characteristics of the 2010 Equality Act (age, disability, gender reassignment, sex and sexual orientation in addition to race, religion or belief) and, although it is not included within the legislation, professional guidance encourages consideration of social class as well.

Alternative approaches to dealing with prejudice have developed Allport’s (1954) Intergroup Contact Hypothesis which suggested that, if contact between groups is carefully arranged and

26 managed (including equal group status and a common goal to work towards), that prejudices could be reduced between the groups. Co-operative learning is a pedagogical approach that provides learners with concrete experience and allows them to develop a wide range of skills. There is a wealth of research that supports the use of contact theory to reduce prejudice (Rothbart & John, 1985; Pettigrew, 1998). Thomas (2006, cited in Ashmore et al, 2010: p 69) has found success through ‘meaningful direct contact’ between groups to encourage community cohesion, (which is perhaps the intention behind section 149’s duty for the public sector ‘foster good relations’ between protected characteristics). Arranging activities from groups made up of protected characteristics to interact with my learners to develop a common identity may well go some way towards dealing with prejudices held by my learners, but it is not an easily managed process or a practical solution to a teaching challenge.

The geographical area I teach in is not a made up of a particularly varied cultural mix. The groups I teach are largely white and of British decent, belong to the same age group, are (with two exceptions) non-disabled and are predominantly made up of females. Although I routinely use co-operative learning within my groups (making the most of what little diversity I have within my groups), contact theory cannot be easily applied to my learners.

Learners come into the classroom with a bank of beliefs and values that have been shaped by their previous experiences. Some of their experiences may well support negative views they hold and prejudices they have against groups of people. Even if it is uncomfortable, we cannot afford to disregard their previous experiences if we hope to encourage them to address their prejudices. Development and application of Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory suggests that people bring their previous experiences to any new learning situation and assimilate new knowledge and understanding with their previous experience. Experiential learning seems to be the logical choice in order to encourage learners to explore their values and beliefs and realise the effects these can have on service provision. Experiential learning can include a wide range of activities which are practical in nature, but must be followed up with reflective analysis for it to be effective. Caution must be used in experiential learning of this sort though, because sometimes learners are quite surprised by their reactions to activities. It is important that the learners feel safe and supported at all times and so ‘ground rules’ need to be set down in advance of activities that learners may become uncomfortable with (e.g. emphasise the learning intent and to allow learners to withdraw from participation in the activity if they feel too uncomfortable).

27 A large stumbling block for some of my learners is the fear of using the wrong word and seeming to be prejudiced. Awareness of the language they are using is an interesting area for myself and the learners. On the one hand, the learners are worried about using the wrong word to describe a non-white person, yet feel completely comfortable using the phrase “That’s so gay!” to voice their derision for something. As Ashmore et al (2010: p 71) asserts, “Such language is so pervasive that most people think it is ‘natural’ and do not recognise that it is abusive”, nevertheless, it is not acceptable for health and social care workers to use this kind of language and I would argue it reveals a culture of prejudice that many are unaware of and accept as the norm. For this reason it must be challenged. Replacing the word gay with the name of the learner or something important to them – like the name of the local football team – and repeating it back to them in the same tone is an effective way to draw their attention to it.

There has been lots of concern and misunderstanding over political correctness and language usage. There are stories about ‘political correctness gone mad’ in the press periodically and learners will cite political correctness as unfair and an example of the erosion of the British culture. Gaine & Gaylard (2010:p 9) assert that it is important not to let worries over being regarded as the ‘word police’ “diminish our awareness of how language constantly changes and the role that it can play in changing (or reinforcing) attitudes.” An open discussion about what upsets the learners about political correctness can be very interesting. Humour can be used to consider some issues to do with language (disability lends itself to this for me, but I may be slightly advantaged in this area). A social constructionist perspective can be taken to look at the development of language associated with a group and highlight to learners how the language changes reflect the social changes that have taken place.

Before we can begin to encourage learners to explore their own beliefs and prejudices it is important to explore our own. Learners will not admit to negative feelings if we are not prepared to do the same. It often helps to begin by discussing stereotypes, feelings and beliefs about groups who are not covered by legislative protection. Discussing stereotypes about young people and students is often a good start, but groups like ‘posh people’ could also be a starting point in these sessions.

Case studies can be used to help learners make a personal connection with the impact of prejudice and discrimination. Putting theory in practice within health and social care is very

28 much about empathising with service users and case studies can help to encourage this. Case studies can either be ‘fully fleshed’ with lots of detail for the learners to deal with, or they can be skeletal case studies that learners have to go away and research for themselves. To be effective though, the case studies do not always involve very positive or very nice people. Case studies need to realistic. Using case study scenarios to highlight the need for legislation can be a very effective way to make learning about policy palatable and relevant.

Role play is also useful in exploring learners’ beliefs and prejudices. Jane Elliott’s (1968) famous ‘blue eyes/brown eyes’ exercise was a pseudo-scientific experiment to illustrate discrimination within the classroom. An adapted version of this exercise works quite well to open discussions with learners of hierarchy, stereotypes and discrimination. Rather than use eye colour I prefer to use hair colour. The minority hair colour I choose tends to reflect the hair colour of the most confident group members (it has not been red so far). I physically split the group up according to hair colour and allocate the minority group a smaller space in which to work. I actively teach the majority group and pay little attention to the minority group unless they voice concern or complaint (which they usually do, or a member of majority group tries to work with them). In a relatively gentle and controlled way my learners experience victimisation and can reflect on how it feels to be in the in-group or the out-group.

Beyond experiential learning, however, there is scope for e-learning and technology to be used to challenge learner’s views and prejudices. Gay (2002: p 108) argues that “for many students, mass media is the only source of knowledge about ethnic diversity; for others, what is seen on television is more influential and memorable than what is learned from books in classrooms”. With this in mind we cannot ignore it as a pedagogical tool. The internet gives learners access to lots of research material, although they need to be guided to use it effectively. A very useful way to kick start a session on equality and diversity is to open with a video clip to introduce the issues. Although news footage or an excerpt from a documentary can be very moving and illustrative, comedy clips often capture the learners’ attention and provide a comfortable starting point for a discussion.

This paper has highlighted the need for health and social care learners to explore their own beliefs and prejudices and reflect on the implementation of theory in practice to provide a non-discriminatory service. It has considered pedagogical approaches that may be taken in

29 order to address learners’ prejudices and introduced some methods and resources that can be used to do so.

References Allport, G. W. (1954) The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley

Ashmore, L. et al. ‘Equality and Diversity’ in Avis, J, Fisher, R & Thompson, R. (ed) (2010) Teaching in Lifelong Learning: A Guide to Theory and Practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press

Cuthbert, S. and Quallington, J. (2008) Values for Care Practice. Exeter: Reflect Press

Dovidio, J. & Gaertner, S. (1999) Reducing Prejudice: Combating Intergroup Biases, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol 8 No 4 pp101-105

Elliott, (1968) source http://www.janeelliott.com/

Equality Act 2010. London: The stationery Office

Gaine, C. & Gaylard, D. (2010) ‘Equality, Difference and Diversity’ in Gaine, C. (ed) (2010) Equality and Diversity in Social Work Practice. Exeter: Learning Matters

Gay, G. (2002) ‘Preparing for culturally responsive teaching’, Journal of Education.Vol 53, No 2, 106-116.

Jacobs, L. (1998) Personal Knowing in Cancer Nursing. Nursing Forum, 33(4), 23 - 28.

Kolb. (1984) Experiential Learning: experience as the source of learning and development New Jersey: Prentice-Hall

Pettigrew, T. (1998) ‘Intergroup Contact Theory’. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 65-85.

Rothbart, M. & John, O. P. (1985) Social categorization and behavioural episodes: A cognitive analysis of the effects of intergroup contact. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 81–104

Wilson-Thomas, L. (1995). ‘Applying critical social theory in nursing education to bridge the gap between theory, research and practice’. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 21, 568 - 575.

30 Katie Holmes

Keeping a specific group of learners motivated and engaged in a classroom setting when studying Animal Care.

One issue that has arisen when teaching on the NPTC Level One Diploma in Animal Care is keeping the learners motivated and engaged when working in a classroom setting. Motivation and learner engagement does not seem to be an issue when working in a practical animal care situation; however it can be an issue when working with the Level One group in the classroom setting. The learners seem to much prefer their time spent with the animals therefore when in the classroom this motivation drops and the learners often do not meet their full potential. The teaching assignment guide (2010, p14) for this course stipulates; Most assignments for optional units also include a task of underpinning knowledge questions and answers, which are designed to sample the underpinning knowledge of the unit.

Therefore to gain this underpinning knowledge and achieve their full potential, the learners must spend time in the classroom learning the theory of the husbandry topics. This paper will begin by examining the reasons behind the lack of motivation in the classroom and then consider techniques to raise the motivation and learner engagement. The Level One Diploma group often has a relatively mixed ability level and a number of learners with varying additional learning needs. Could this be the underlying reason behind the lack of motivation? The learners that have the additional learning needs and also the learners that may struggle in an academic situation can often lack self confidence in their ability which can in turn lead to non participation during sessions. By not participating, the learner may feel that they are less likely to be judged by their peers then they could be if they answered a question incorrectly or did not understand the work. This low self confidence could easily be mistaken for lack of enthusiasm in the subject. Non participation through low self confidence seems to present in a different way with some learners, with them rebelling in the classroom. The class rebel may assume that by acting the class clown or interrupting the lesson by battling with the tutor will gain respect from their peers. A respect that may not be gained if it becomes apparent that said rebel was actually using diversion tactics to avoid admitting that they are having difficulty in completing the work. Examining motivational and engagement issues from the point of view of a more academically talented learner within the Level One group, perhaps the lack of motivation has different beginnings. These learners often seem to be the ones that ask what the point of an

31 exercise is and why is it relevant? The classroom sessions are very relevant for the learners wishing to progress into the Animal Care industry after completion of the course. The Animal Care industry is growing and the demand from employers and businesses for employees that have already achieved an Animal Care qualification is high. A Lantra Animal Care Survey (2005, p2) advises: Although many people working in the industry have high levels of experience and skill, this is not always reflected in formal qualifications, for example only 34% of employees held an animal care qualification when they started their current job.

Leading on from this statement, the survey (2005, p2) continues;

 11.5% of establishments reported they had skills shortage vacancies, for example the applicants did not have the required skills and qualifications to fulfil the post.  22% of employers reported skills gaps amongst their staff.  The most common skills that employees were lacking were providing information and advice to customers, animal health and welfare, handling animals, communication, customer relations and planning and organisation.

This research only confirms the importance of the classroom sessions to help the learners to achieve their full potential, gain the skills that are in high demand in the industry and leave the course as more employable individuals. Is it a genuine lack of inspiration from the more academically talented learner or is the learner simply bored? Often the talented learners become forgotten when teaching the Level One group. These learners do not need constant assistance to complete a task. Delivering the lessons at a level that is understood by all members of the group can inadvertently offer less challenges to stimulate the more academic learner. Tomlinson (2006, p151–84) stated; Modifying instruction to draw on students interests is likely to result in greater student engagement, higher levels of intrinsic motivation, higher student productivity, greater student autonomy, increased achievement and an increased sense of self-competence.

The modifying of the delivery of sessions successfully should therefore solve the classroom issues relating to motivation and learner engagement. How could this be successfully accomplished when teaching the Level One Animal Care group? The common theory that seems to be becoming apparent through research is that by giving the learners a sense of individualism and independence over their learning can motivate them to succeed. It is apparent that learners who are given some sort of sense of control or ownership over their learning and classroom activities are more likely to engage and achieve. On asking the question of how they would like their classroom lessons to be

32 delivered, the group of Level One learners make it overwhelmingly clear that long lessons centred on apparently sleep inducing PowerPoint presentations is not the way forward. Varying lessons that are differentiated and broken down with differing tasks is the residing recommendation. The mere suggestion of less regimented lessons seems to evoke curiosity amongst the Level One group. This curiosity sees the slight rise in motivation and learner engagement. Clifford (2007, p 218–24) advises: ‘Constraint gives a person the desire to escape; freedom gives a person the desire to explore, expand and create.’ By constraining the learners to adhere to regimented lessons that deliver facts and information, as tutors are we stopping the learners from exploring their own ideas and thoughts on a subject or topic?

Research leads to a teaching staff Toolkit entitled “Innovative Teaching”. The toolkit looked at varying methods of delivering innovative lessons; gave examples of a wide range of resources that could keep learners motivated and engaged. The resources suggested could be used widely in the delivery of classroom based Animal Care lessons. Card games could be produced for a number of different topics; for example, the handling and restraint of animals. Half of the cards could be pictures of different species displaying varying behaviours such as aggression or fear. The second half of the cards could show pictures of different handling and restraint equipment that could be used when working with animals and it would be the task of the learners to match the selected species picture with a suitable piece of handling and restraint equipment. Motivation could be increased in the learners by the sense of competition. Which team can complete the task correctly in the shortest time?

The use of video clips during PowerPoint presentations breaks down the delivery for the learners whilst at the same time relating the lesson in hand to the workplace or real life situations. This gives the learners a valid reason for completing the classroom lesson, as they are learning about the care of the animals in a realistic situation, therefore relating their learning to real life. The use of smartboard activities to assess learning or recap lessons could be extremely useful. The smartboard has a vast array of resources from interactive games to random name selectors that chooses learners from a register list to complete a task. Timers displayed on the smartboard could keep the learners more engaged and on task during activities rather than simply telling them that they have fifteen minutes to complete, the learner can see the timer counting down and seem to become motivated to beat the clock.

33 Innovative lessons that are well broken down with varying tasks and activities could go some way to help in keeping the learners engaged; however it could take time to take full effect on increasing the motivation. Surely a learner’s low self confidence cannot be solved overnight simply by introducing diverse lessons. Teaching methods as well as resources must also impact on the learners attitudes in the classroom? To give the learners a confidence boost during classroom lessons, surely praise is the key. Sanacore (2008, p40-44) stated: Whether we are teaching or learning, we all benefit from support. Reluctant learners, in particular, thrive on a balance of being praised for specific accomplishments and challenged to attain high expectations.

To keep the motivation high in classroom, praise would be vital. By using praise throughout the lessons with the Level One group, the confidence of the learners will rise giving them a reason for wanting to achieve therefore keeping the learners engaged in the classroom. Praise could be directed through verbal feedback during delivery and also by written feedback on work completed by the learner.

The use of questioning techniques could assist in the confidence building of the learners. A learner faced with interrogational questions at the end of a lesson surely going to withdraw and lack the confidence in their own ability. A method that could be introduced could be peer questioning. This could be accomplished by giving the learners a few minutes at the end of the lesson to think of one question, about the topic covered in the lesson, to ask their peers. This technique could make the learners feel challenged, without being detrimental to their confidence.

To summarise the findings from the research undertaken it has become apparent that there are many factors that could increase motivation and engagement in a classroom setting with a Level One Animal Care group. By drawing all of the suggested techniques and resources together in lessons, the confidence and interest of the learners will improve, helping to increase the motivation and engagement in turn. To conclude, there are three issues that remain: 1. Taking into consideration the time constraints that tutors have and the large amount of paperwork and marking, when will the time be found to produce the diverse, interactive lessons with an abundance of different resources that the learners enjoy? 2. Will the learners eventually tire of the innovative, diverse lessons?

34 3. How else can we as teachers improve classroom lessons even further?

References City and Guilds (2009) NPTC Level 1 Award, Certificate and Diploma in Land-based Studies (QCF) (0361)

Butcher J. (2004) Developing Effective 16-19 Teaching Skills.

Clifford M. 2007. Students need challenge, not easy success. In Kaleidoscope: Readings in education, ed. K. Ryan and J. Cooper, 218–24. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Huddleston P. Unwin L. (2008) Teaching and learning in further education. Routledge Lantra (2005) Animal Care Survey [online] Available at http://www.lantra.co.uk/getattachment/247fe2ab-8097-4c25-ad94-53ba5d3a9fc8/Research- LMI-factsheet---animal-care.aspx [Accessed 6th April 2011]

Margolis H. and McCabe P. 2004.Self-Efficacy, A Key to Improving the Motivation of Struggling Learners. In The Clearing House Vol.77 No 6, 241-249. Heldref Publications.

Sanacore J. 2008. Turning Reluctant Learners into Inspired Learners. In The Clearing House Vol.82 No 1, 40-44. Heldref Publications.

Tomlinson, C. 2006. Differentiating instruction for academic diversity. In Classroom teaching skills, ed. J. Cooper, 151–84. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. VetNet LLN (2009) Available at: [Accessed 1st April 2011]

35 Lucy Markham

Exploring learning methods to prepare learners for a team-based environment within the workplace.

I teach on the BA (Hons) Applied creative Design: Fashion or Costume and the Foundation Degree in Design and Interpretation at Hull School of Art and Design. My specialism in teaching is Pattern Cutting and Garment Construction. The aim of this paper is to explore the issues and ideas behind preparing learners for industry to enable them to work to realistic deadlines and to ensure their work is relevant and accurate.

If learners work in an environment that mirrors the industry surely the experience they will gain will be relevant for them to take to the workplace when they have graduated. The learners need to be ready for the workplace and the importance of being work ready will give an advantage over other graduates when applying for a job. As the course that I teach on prepares the learners for industry my paper will be based around active learning using group work and collaborative learning to raise learner awareness of manufacturing in fashion. It is vital that at each stage of the process is understood. This will then enable the process to run smoothly and the garments will be made accurately. The live projects that were completed in the 2009/ 2010 academic year were situated around group work and collaborative learning. The learners worked to a client brief to design a garment for a museum exhibition. I will discuss further the issues behind this and why it needed to be modified, I will also discuss how it was modified and after looking at grades and student feedback, what we have put in place for this academic year 2010/ 2011.

I would like to explore how and why the format of learning was changed and how it has improved the learner’s awareness of the manufacturing process, which will eventually progress with the transition into the work place. I intend to look into Industry Collaborative Projects to see if they enhance learners work. I will also look at collaborative learning and how it relates to learning in higher education and how the teaching and learning process will prepare learners for the work place. Linking to this is active learning and constructivism which are two elements that are used in higher education for learners to develop their individual skills. I hope to look at the effectiveness of assessment methods and how this can prepare students for a team-based environment within the workplace. To improve on this and

36 to embed these teaching strategies into the student’s work, learners work based learning projects will be based around group work.

Last year 2009/ 2010 the Fashion department included group work in to the structure of the course in the work based learning module. We intended for this to supply some experience of working in industry. We used the BA (Hons) Applied Creative Design group for this; we split the group up into teams of four and ensured the groups were at the same levels. The learners had to work together to create a design from collaborating primary research, make a pattern for the garment and construct the garment. The learners worked well overall in their groups but struggled slightly with doing every step together as a group of four, which in some groups caused tension. The reason why this needs modifying is that it is not reproducing how the industry works. We have given the option of group work and learners have adapted well to this. In industry there are different stages to designing and making a garment, and each stage has a certain skills set. For assessment we could not really see who needed more help as each stage was done together. The work presented to us at the end was a collaborative project and we could see who had done what.

There have been a number of studies in to Collaborative Industry Led Projects (O’Brien, 1997; Williams and Owen, 1997; McLarty, 1998) which have investigated the use of live projects in the teaching of undergraduates. The focus of the studies explores the challenges of using live projects as a teaching and learning tool. The studies have been carried out to determine precisely what skills employers want to see in the graduate profile. The studies found that the skills that are most sought after by employers are:  Communication, problem solving;  Personal and interpersonal skills;  Responsibility; and  Organisational ability.

These skills are referred to as meta-skills, over-arching skills transferable to the world of work (Dickinson, 2000). Communication is the most important skill for learners to develop throughout the learning experience, being able to communicate in a valuable and suitable way for the situation. Problem solving and initiative are closely linked and interchangeable within the development of skills. Students exposed to real world problems develop their critical thinking skills. Employers state that they require both team players and team leaders

37 (Holmes, 1995; Nabi and Bagley, 1999; Dickinson, 2000). One of the purposes of higher education is to prepare learners for employment and incorporating these skills within undergraduate courses will indeed prepare learners for the workplace. Due to recent growth in student numbers and the pressures to expand the curriculum, student learning needs to be identified and developed effectively. We encourage our learners to shift from dependence in learning to independence in learning; this independent learning should produce creative, adaptive, autonomous, self-confident individuals. This will then benefit both industry and higher education.

The studies show that live projects provide valuable experiences. Industry gains fresh ideas, students enhance their portfolio of skills, lecturers can keep up to date with industry knowledge and also have the opportunity to build a wider client base. Real-world problem- solving projects allow students to improve their essential skills, which the government and industry state they need to see when graduates enter the work place. This is through the development of skills such as problem solving, teamwork communication; and organisational skills. With these skills, learners will make a contribution to their employer’s organisations when starting employment In Higher Education collaborative learning is very effective due to the learners receiving less direction from the lecturer.

King (2006) puts forward the notion that Collaborative Learning is based on students working in groups to solve a problem, create a product or complete a task. The idea of collaborative learning is that learning occurs through the social act of talking. During Collaborative Learning learners are actively engaged, the learners face challenges to process and create information rather than remembered and repeated. Learners create a framework and meaning during intellectual discussion in a social environment and within this conversation between peers, learning flourishes. In the collaborative learning environment, the learners are challenged both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are required to articulate and defend their ideas. In so doing, the learners begin to create their own unique conceptual frameworks and not rely solely on an expert's or a text's framework. (Hari Srinivas, 2010).

In relation to the BA (Hons) Applied Creative Design, all work is studio based and discussion is encouraged as it creates a good working environment and the learners work autonomously. Learners need to rely on one another to accomplish their objective. If some learners do not take part then the whole group will suffer. All learners are responsible for doing their share of

38 the work and of the material they learn. Collaborative Learning gives the learners the confidence to build and develop skills in trust-building, conflict management, decision- making, communication and leadership.

Through my experience in the fashion studio I have also found that group dynamics work better if the learners are involved in active learning. We essentially learn by doing. Active methods ensure that we can make our own meaning and therefore can mentally formulate our own idea of what we are learning. Lecturers do not often use Active Learning as they frequently teach how they were taught. Lecturers tend to know a lot and enjoy explaining how things work. Looking at the research it is proven that Active Learning works and lecturers should make more time for active learning to be used. We physically make neural connection during the process of active learning. However, during inactive learning, such as listening, we do not make these neural connections as the activity of listening does not require us to do so, therefore we do not conceptualise our learning. Consequently, we use our brain differently for each process.

Looking at Hattie and Marzano’s study of Active Learning, (Petty 2004) they have used careful statistical methods to average the findings of many thousands of the most precise studies on Active Learning. Thousands of students are divided between, an ‘experimental group’ which is taught with active methods and a ‘control group’ which is taught the same material without active methods. The groups are made up so that they are equal in their blend of social background, ability, etc. The groups are taught for the same amount of time, by the same teachers, and the students are tested to see which group has learned best. They found that active learning produced much better learning; that if a learner was placed in the experimental group then they would achieve a grade and a half more than a learner placed in the control group. Active methods of learning that work best are tasks that involve students to make their own meaning of what is taught, which will lead them to practice important skills. The activity needs to be highly relevant to goals, an open task and challenging.

39 Fig 1

Active Learning is an important part on the BA (Hons) Applied Creative Design. Learners are forced to think and to make sense of what is being taught to them. Sometimes over explanation is not always best and at this level it is better for the learners to make their own meaning. Active Learning on the course enables the learners to develop their thinking skills such as analysis, problem solving and evaluation. The learners also use their learning in realistic and useful ways, and see its importance. Active learning also helps the lecturer; it gives feedback on which learners understand and who needs help. It also gives the lecturer a bit of a rest!

Following the same thought process of Active Learning is constructivism; learning involving actively constructing our own meaning, not learning but passively receiving and then remembering what we are taught. Keeping this in mind, it is important to use teaching methods that enable learners to form their own meaning or interpretations of what is being studied and allow both teacher and learner to identify misreading, mistakes and blunders in learning and correct them. Learners require time to process the information that is given to them. They need activities which will allow them to make personal sense of the information and build their own meaning. Meaning is personal and unique; it is built up on prior learning and experience. There is no one way to learn something and everyone learns differently therefore a variety of tasks and experiences need to be available to meet individual needs.

40 Care needs to be taken when putting learners into group. It is more desirable to work in mixed groups so weaker learner can learn from stronger learners. With assessment on group work it might be a case of one learner not pulling their weight which will affect the grades of the group. It could be that a weaker learner is carried on the backs of the stronger learner. Which brings the question how will group learning be assessed? Is it better to assess collaborative learning as a group mark or mark learners as individuals?

When choosing assessment methods it is wise to have an eye on the immediate task of assessing student learning in the module and another eye on the broader aims of the program and the qualities of the learner. So rather than assessing learners in a group or individually, grade the learners both ways so as to assess their part in the group, the product made and the process of getting there.

The BA (Hons) Applied Creative Design learners work based learning project for 2010/ 2011 to design and make a garment for a museum exhibition was based around collaborative learning and constructivist learning. The learners were put into groups of three. They each had one job to do; 1. Research/ Design/ Technical Drawing 2. Pattern Drafting/ Cutting and Toil 3. Construction/ Finishing

The learners were told which stage they would be completing. The aim of the project was to mirror the way the manufacturing process works in industry. Each stage has its own skills set and each learner has to ensure that they complete their work accurately to a tight deadline, make sure that their work communicates clearly and is finished to a professional standard ready to pass to the next learner. The learners worked well completing this project; some of the weaker learners did struggle with the process as they were put under pressure to complete their stage autonomously. The stronger learners did recognise the struggle and as they knew that they would be graded together and not individually they worked together to problem solve and form a solution.

I think the process of collaborative learning benefits the learners; this approach enables learners to deal with the problems they need to solve. Some of the learners excel when they are given tasks to complete where they have to make their own meaning. Some learners even

41 at BA (Hons) Level struggled with this sort of project; many factors could have affected learners such as lack of sleep, food or water (Maslow, 1943). It does point out that some of the learners may lack knowledge of the subject, hence it is difficult for them to build on their previous knowledge. This type of learning is an excellent way of ensuring learners are at the right level and if not, they require more help or a different method of learning or/ and teaching. Feedback from learners state that mirroring the industry process of manufacturing would possibly work better if the brief was set physically by the client, this way the learners would know who they were working for. Also the feedback states that if the studio was run more like it is in industry with standard blocks and set times that are stuck to, this would be more beneficial for the learners. The structure of the group work was not commented on so this obviously worked well for the learners. To develop the work based learning projects to mirror the industry more for 2011/ 2012 these comment will be taken into account, I think the way that the project could possibly work better, from looking at the grades and feedback from the last two years, is that the structure from 2010/ 2011 worked the best but there wasn’t much communication between the learners in the group. Therefore learners should be able to be put into groups and then between them decide what stage they want to complete. The learners can work together throughout each stage to learn collaboratively and any problems that arise can be solved together as a group.

References Carpenito-Moyet LJ 2003, "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs-Revisited", Nursing Forum, Vol. 38, No. 2..

Cowan, J. (2010) ‘Assessment technologies, methods, and applications in higher education’, British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 41, No. 2.

Dickinson, M. (2000), "Giving undergraduates managerial experience", Education+Training, Vol. 42 No.3.

David Elkind 2004, "The Problem with Constructivism", The Educational Forum, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 306.

Gross-Davies B. (1993). Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams. Available: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html.

Hattie J. (1999). Influences on student learning. Available: http://geoffpetty.com/downloads/WORD/Influencesonstudent2C683.pdf.

Hattie, J.A. (2009) 'Visible Learning a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement'. London: Routledge

42 Hendry, G., Frommer, M. & Walker, R. 1999, "Constructivism and Problem-based Learning", Journal of Further and Higher Education, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 369-371. King, Elizabeth M. (2006). Studio Classrooms and Student Centered Learning in Traditional Microscopy Courses. Available: http://nagt.org/nagt/jge/abstracts/sep06.html. Last accessed 19th Jan 2011.

Marzano R. Pickering, D. Pollock, J. (2001) “Classroom Instruction that works” Alexandria: ASCD

McLarty, R. (1998), Using Graduate Skills in Small and Medium Enterprises, University College, Suffolk Press, Ipswich.

O’Brien, G. (1997), Graduates and Management Development in Small to Medium Enterprises, University of Sheffield, Sheffield,

Petty G . (2004). Active Learning Works. http://www.geoffpetty.com/activelearning.html.

Petty, G. (2009) 'Evidence Based Teaching' 2nd Edition. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes learning. Available: http://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/c-learn/what-is-cl.html.

Thomas S. and Busby S. ( 2003) ‘Do industry collaborative projects enhance students' learning?", Education & Training, Vol. 45, No. 4/5.

Walsh, J.A. & Vandiver, D.M. (2010), "Assessing autonomous learning in research methods courses: Implementing the student-driven research project", Active Learning in Higher Education, Vol. 11, No. 1.

Williams, H., Owen, C. (1997), Recruitment and Utilization of Graduates by Small and Medium-sized Organisations, DfEE, London,

43 Melissa McShane

Developing strategies for engaging Autistic Level One learners in Business

Not everything that steps out of line, and thus ‘abnormal’ must necessarily be ‘inferior’. Asperger (1938)

This academic year (2009/10), I started to deliver units within the new BTEC Vocational Studies programme at Level One. Prior to this I have had experienced teaching level 2, 3 and 4 in Business related subjects and if anything though it would be a time I would enjoy developing more creative and interactive lessons for the learners. This has been the case; however from the first session with the learners I began to recognise that it was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be for learning to take place and for them to achieve the assessment objectives without just reproducing and copying information from a PowerPoint or handout. The initial area for development was understanding the different learning disabilities within the group and being able to successfully engage the learners through strategies they needed. Previous to these sessions I had only worked with a couple of learners who had Dyslexia and with them being on a level 2 or 3 programme, apart from providing handouts in different colours, helping with spelling and grammar and allowing additional time to complete activities and tasks the teaching techniques used were unaltered. Within the group at least half had been diagnosed with an Autistic spectrum disorder. The intention of the paper is to discuss the disability and the impact it can have on teaching and learning. From research completed and reviewing techniques that have been used in sessions it will also explain techniques that have been adopted and used to enable learning to be more successful in sessions.

Autism is a lifelong development disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people and the environment around them. It was first referred to as a spectrum condition by Ling in 1981 in her article Psychological Medicine. It is referred to a as spectrum condition as although people with autism share certain areas of difficulty, their condition will affect them in different ways. For instance some people with Autism will not like bright lights and colours whereas others with Autism will like them a lot. (Jackson, 2002) Asperger’s Syndrome is a form of Autism, but is more of a ‘hidden disability’ as it is sometimes not obvious from the person’s outward appearance. People with AShave difficulties in three areas including: social communication, social interaction and social

44 imagination, also referred to as ‘the triad of impairments’ but may not have a delay in language development or additional learning disabilities that people with Autism have. (National Autism Society, 2011) ‘It is estimated that 1 in 100 people have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the UK’. (Alleyn, 2010). With this in mind and the growing number of learners having been diagnosed with an ASD entering into mainstream FE it is important as part of our role in promoting equality and inclusion, an understanding and differentiated strategies are developed to further promote inclusive learning.

A key area of difficulty is communication and this is varied between different learners. Some struggle with non-verbal skills while others struggle with verbal communication and using it correctly within the context. They also have difficulties in comprehending verbal information, following long verbal instructions and remembering sequences of instructions. Some people with ASD have difficulties’ in establishing relationships and have limited social interactions. This difficulty links back to communication skills as people with Autism as mentioned can find it hard to process verbal and non-verbal communication. They may not notice important social cues and may miss necessary information, and they typically have an impairment in their own use of non-verbal skills that would help regulate social interaction. People with ASD are not able to understand the perspective of others or understand that other people’s perspectives could be different from their own.

A predicament in teaching is social interaction and following rules; a person with Autism will not understand that they have upset someone through their actions as they are not upset themselves. I have one particular learner who has tendencies to upset others; this did bother me in the first session as the person was completely unaware of the impact their remarks was having and at the time I actually though he was happy he was upsetting others. It is only now I more fully understand the reason for his behaviour – the learner was happy. Instead though now I do approach the outbursts better. Instead of saying – don’t say that, I sit next to him, when he is getting on with his work and explain that was not a very nice remark to make. I then follow this though with a positive remark about his work or something he has done well. From experience he is more responsive to me and the outbursts and remarks are becoming less frequent over the course of the unit.

From initial sessions with the learners it was evident learners would not be responsive to note taking, reading case studies and providing answers to questions relating to business

45 situations. I did find they enjoyed the interactive smart board and completing activities on it. A key area of difficulty for me was keeping them engaged for 2 hours. Through discussion with tutors on the programme I decided to split the session into 2 sessions. This then also allowed me to complete different activities from one session to the next. A key difficulty I did find was switching from one activity to the next. I also found it very important to let the learners know exactly what we would be doing at the beginning for both sessions. Within other sessions I would discuss the objectives but not in a much detail. Whereas with the level one learners I found they responded better by clearly saying what we would be doing for each session objective and the activities that they would be completing. The learners also responded well to reviewing the objectives in the session and before moving onto the next objective, ticking the previous objective off from the board. From experience this also helped the learners to be able to move from one objective to another and become more focused on what I want them to do.

Each learner has a folder which they keep their work in. Realising the group would not complete work at home as with level 2 and 3, initially the folders were more for me to ensure the learners did not lose work that had been completed. What I have found since is that they enjoy using the folder and looking at work produced and within some tasks I have asked them to refer back to work in their folder to help and this has proved beneficial too. In some cases it has become in a sense a part of their personal belongings and one particular learner became upset I had picked up their folder to look through without asking. From this I now make sure when I want to look in the folder I ask for their permission first. When questioning learners I am very careful about how I word questions as some learners do take it very literally. For instance if I asked one learner if they knew what a sole owner was, their reply would be ‘Yes’. In their eyes they have answered what I have wanted them too. I also have started to use the learners name at the beginning of a question to ensure they know I want a reply from them. In other sessions I would be able to ask a question and through eye contact the person would know I wanted them to reply. But within this session I have found that when I look at some learners their instance response is to look away. Initially instead of changing my strategy I would ask again and it is only through research I have found that some Autistic learners do not like eye contact. In this situation the original technique I used would have made that particular person feel more uncomfortable. Using the learners name though now, although a simple technique ensures without eye contact that they know I want a response from them.

46 What I have also found during questioning is that Autistic learners are unable to answer questions when they are worded differently to how it was worded the first time. During planning a session, I will look at how I asked questions and ensure this is then followed through in the next session. I have found it can throw some learners and they become confused and unsure what I am asking them. However once I ask the question they had originally heard, they are able to respond effectively. An example could be: ‘Sam please give me an example of a retail channel’. On the board is ‘Examples of Retail Channels’ too using the same key words as the question asked. On the next session if I asked ‘what is a retail channel’ this would throw the learner. However if I asked the first question and had the smart board slide on there as per the last session the learner would be able to give me an immediate response. The learners are able to relate better to the question and recall the response I am looking for.

One area of the unit I have found difficult for the learners to understand is why shops differ in size due to their location. A key area of the unit is for learners to recognise that retail outlets will differ depending on their ownership and location. I have created an activity whereby the learners will place different shops where they are found i.e. Tesco and B&Q at a retail park but they do still not understand the reasons behind location and types of shops you will find in different locations. To help I am in the process of arranging trips to Meadowhall and the local high street and I am hoping through visually looking at the range of outlets this will help with their knowledge further when back in the classroom. From discussions with the learners it is noticeable that some have not been to a large shopping centre before and as a result are unable to use their own experience. As they have not been there, they find it difficult to understand and except someone else’s ideas or perspectives. Hopefully through their visual experience and following through with activities in the classroom they will begin to then develop their ideas and responses and be able to describe the difference between two retail outlets and how location can be important.

Jones, 2002, p 55 states: ‘The most strongly recommended approach to teaching learners with Autism is to use visual aids’. Students often demonstrate relative strengths in concrete thinking, rote memory and understanding of visual-spatial relationships. (British Columbia, 2009). Within sessions learning materials have been developed and there is less focus on written information and instead visual images have been used to help aid discussion. For

47 example while discussing retail channels instead of listing or writing the learners responses I placed images on the smart board and within the discussion the learners used the pictures to help. This helped to develop their communication skills and also for lower ability learners helped them use the cues on the board to join in with the discussion. This further helps the learners develop their social interaction skills. I also found during recap the learners are unable to answer a question or remember back to what was said within the session through the use of verbal questioning. However when they were presented with the images and visual clues their recap on the topic is evident and this has not just been successful within the same session but when recapping previous sessions this has proved to be very successful, allowing the learners to remember and show their knowledge. When instructions for tasks are provided I have also incorporated particular images to link with the actions I want them to carry out, for example to write there is a pen and to discuss there is a mouth to allow further visual instructions and prompts to be given and enable the learners to know what I want them to do.

A key area this year I have found beneficial to aiding learning with Autistic learners is the incorporation of IT into the classrooms through the use of a virtual learning environment. Murray (1997) explains that the computer is a bridge into the real world and it offers Autistic learners therapeutic qualities - the automatic features of ICT enable learners to perform mundane and dull operations quickly and easily and so in effect focus their attention on the main purposes of learning. Within sessions I have developed activities on-line for learners to complete and hand-outs for assessments instead of being provided in paper format are also on-line. What I have noticed is that the learners without being asked to at home are accessing the activities and session input that has been placed on their for them. When providing instructions I have used visual images on the board and within the task sheet placed on Moodle I have also made sure that the same instructions are given for them to refer back too. I have also found that when the learner is on the computer completing activities and engaged, some are more willing to communicate with me. The computer has become a third party in a respect, keeping their concentration and helping them to feel safer in communicating with me. In a study on the virtual learning environment and Autism, Cobb (1998) explains that a virtual learning environment can create a controlled and safe learning environment. Strickland (1996) explains that a virtual learning environment can partially help to replace time-consuming, routine teaching sessions, it they are properly integrated into the curriculum and the teaching methods used in the schools.

48 This year is the first time the Business team have used the virtual learning environment with level one learners but it has proved very effective and is now being embedded into all sessions with the unit tutors. The virtual learning area we have established for our level ones is now being used as an example throughout other curriculum areas of how it can effectively be used within sessions to make learning more interactive and give learners the opportunity to still take part at home outside the classroom. Jackson (2002 p. 32) explains that ‘learners do relate better to computers, and by providing a laptop or word processor it will enable them to work faster’. Whereas when learners with Autism are writing instead of concentrating on what it is they are writing about, they instead focus on writing the word. The words written can also look strange to a person with autism as it is not what they thought it would look like before they write it on the paper. As a result learning is stopped in the process and it becomes similar to a primary lesson in a school; practising writing skills and trying to get the word perfect on the paper as they had imagined it would be. Peeters (1997 p. 110) states that in order to help learners on the AS spectrum, teachers should be developing different educational strategies, using more visual aids and more coordination between school and home, a specially adopted environment. With this in mind and from the benefits I and the learners have gained, could the virtual learning environment be the safe adapted environment needed and be a compliment intervention method for AS learners in education further helping to support and promote inclusive learning.

To conclude when asked to teach level one learner’s I thought it would be easy. I presumed the higher the level the more complex the information and the more time-consuming the preparation and planning would be. This though has not been the case. Teaching learners especially learners with Autism, makes you examine all the good techniques that you have used successfully in teaching other learners. ’Why are they not responding’ is a question I asked and it can be a very frustrating experience, especially when initially your own judgments and senses are telling you that the person is just being difficult or naughty. For me it was hard initially to see how they view the world, but from adapting techniques and taking my own skills back to basics for example using the learners name and releasing eye contact was not necessary and images instead of brightening up a presentation in themselves become the words to help learners engage and learn, I am steadily noticing the difference in their responsiveness to me and the session content. The intention now is to continue with developing pedagogy strategies to help promote inclusive learning for learners of all abilities and to continue developing the use of the virtual learning environment and collaborating with

49 my team and other departments to further develop and promote differentiated learning techniques.

References

Jackson L. (2002), Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Jones G. (2002), Educational provisions for Children with Autism and Asperger Syndrome: Meeting their needs, London: David Fulton Publishers.

Ling (1981), Psychological Medicine in Jackson, L. (2002), Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Murray D. (1997), Autism and information technology: therapy with computers in Hardy, C. (2002), ‘et al’Autism and ICT: A Guide for Teachers and Parents: London, Fulton Publishers Ltd.

Peeters T. (1997), Autism: From theoretical understanding to educational intervention, London: Whurr Publishers Ltd.

On-line Resources

Alleyn R. (2010), What is Autism?, (On-line), available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7815039/What-is-autism.html, [Accessed: 2nd January 2011].

British Columbia, (2009), Teaching Students with Autism: A Schools Guide, (On-line), available from: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/specialed/docs/autism.pdf,[Accessed: 4th January 2011].

Cobb S. (1998), Desi gn Issues on Interactive Environments for Children with Autism, (On-line), available from: http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:vzjjcQcWCdUJ:scholar.google.com/ +Virtual+environments+can+be+designed+as+learning+environments+(e.g.+Cobb+et+al, +1998)&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1, [Accessed: 4th January 2011].

National Autism Society, (2002), What is Aspergers Syndrome?, (On-line) available from:http://www.autism.org.uk/About-autism/Autism-and-Asperger-syndrome-an- introduction/What-is-Asperger-syndrome.aspx, date accessed: 16 February 2011

Strickland D. (1996) Design Issues on Interactive Environments for Children with Autism, (On-line), available from: http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:vzjjcQcWCdUJ:scholar.google.com/ +Virtual+environments+can+be+designed+as+learning+environments+(e.g.+Cobb+et+al, +1998)&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1, [Accessed: 4th January 2011].

50 Simon Noble

The future of apprenticeships after the abolition of Train to Gain and what this means to work based learning for adult apprentices

In April 2006, Train to Gain was launched to attain the skills the United Kingdom (UK) workforce needed to be competitive in the global economy, from recommendations within the Leitch Report. Funding became available to train staff to achieve level 2 and level 3 qualifications, with over 143,000 businesses being helped and almost 1 million people achieving qualifications. But what value has this had for employers? I first began delivering Team Leading and Management specialism training in the days prior to Employer Training Pilots (ETP) that subsequently became Train to Gain, where I gained the appreciation of the importance of meeting not only the learners needs but in more cases then not, what the employer required.

Train to Gain has been criticised for failing to effectively address higher level skill shortages and for not providing training, merely demonstrating the competences by confirming what employees can already do. During the peak delivery of Train to Gain I became far more involved in the delivery of apprenticeships and for the first time in many years, I actually identified with a training methodology that added significant value to the business and the learner. From that moment I realised apprenticeships were the way forward, if the UK was to ever reach its commitment of becoming ‘a world leader in skills by 2020’ (Leitch, 2006).

This paper will examine the future of apprenticeships for Adult Learners with budgets being redirected from Train to Gain, specifically exploring new teaching strategies that will motivate learners who would previously circumvent formal post 16 training and adapt apprenticeship delivery models to meet employers demanding requirements. Owing to the familiarity of delivering extensive employer responsive training and education, this paper is concerned that apprenticeships will become the new Train to Gain by means of many employers simply opting for a training programme that they can acquire fully or partially funded. And therefore potentially lose their value.

Why apprenticeships? As a result of the October 2010 Spending Review, it was announced that Train to Gain was to be abolished, but Chancellor George Osborne promised to double the number of apprenticeships for over-19s. This clearly follows on from previous initiatives to improve the

51 skills of the UK workforce and to ensure that businesses have skilled employees needed to steer growth. The Coalition has stated that by ‘2014/15; they will spend up to £250m creating another 75,000 apprenticeships for adults in the workplace’ (BIS, ‘Investing in skills for sustainable growth’, Nov 2010). With increased focus and drive, the emphasis on apprenticeships should surely be the next incentive for employers to increase the skill levels of their workforce? However despite this momentum, there still remain insufficient employer places to meet the demand from potential apprentices.

Although criticised for not providing additional skills to employed status learners, Train to Gain has been hugely successful in reaching learners who previously would have steered away from obtaining a qualification and has, in many cases, resulted in not only the learner, but also their family achieving their first accredited certificate. Perhaps this in itself should be seen as a success where the seed of learning and aspirations have been planted. We see links to ‘Hertzberg’s two factor theory’ with this level of attainment, where the learner judge’s intrinsic sources such as achievement, recognition, work itself and advancement and growth more often than extrinsic factors including supervision and status (Hertzberg, 1968). But there lies the problem in addressing the skills shortage, as many employees are placed on programmes by their employers and not provided with the on-the-job skills and focus to attain a qualification, regardless of what any initial assessment outcomes may highlight. Often learners would try their best to avoid completing their Train to Gain programme openly admitting they ‘don’t have the abilities to complete the programme’. So when Train to Gain, with the NVQ only element is being perceived as little more than an ‘audit of the nation’s skills’ (Carley Consult, 2010), how can we successfully deliver 75,000 additional apprenticeships with functional skills and both knowledge and competency based elements in the workplace? This paper reverts to the sub-title, ‘Why apprenticeships’? Quite simply, apprenticeships challenge learners to look beyond their day to day practical tasks. They encourage learners to ask the question ‘why?’

Apprentices have a thirst to learn and extract as much information as possible. Investment in staff is the logical approach for businesses that wish to be best placed and take advantage of the market when the economy improves, it will also be the most rewarding for businesses to do and one that shows the most return.

52 Delivering Apprenticeships

Although colleges are well-known for successfully delivering apprenticeships, this paper identifies that Colleges are not especially efficient in traditional vocational areas such as engineering. Colleges historically follow their FE academic year and expect employers to follow this plan: but what if an employer does not want to wait until the start of the next academic year? Or realises that during the period following New Year, they have increased demand for their products and require new exciting staff to join the business in the form of an apprentice? If told, ‘sorry, you’ll have to wait’, the employer will seek alternative providers. The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills white paper Investing in Skills for Sustainable Growth confirmed that, from August 2011, there will be a minimum contract level (MCL) threshold of £500,000 for training providers contracted to the Skills Funding Agency. Consequently it is not only the provider that may lose out in the future, but also the employer and apprentice. Therefore strategies to develop alternative delivery models need to be addressed now to enable the UK workforce to be skilled and therefore facilitating economic expansion.

Many businesses will always consider the day to day operations to be far more important than training, which places providers in a dilemma: An understanding of workplace learning means recognising its complexities, its competing interests and the personal, political and intuitional influences that affect it. (Boud and Garrick, 1999).

It is evident that to complete an apprenticeship the employer has a huge time commitment that sometimes is harder to manage than financial contributions, so the necessity to meet these demands must be observed when developing curriculum design in support of delivering apprenticeships to adult learners.

Education in the eyes of most employers is to get results and therefore the ‘product’ curriculum model will correspond to what the majority of employers require. Employers interviewed for this paper want and need, due to competition, precise outcomes. Often they themselves provide the ultimate outcome and being linked to Kerr’s ‘Planned experiences’, (Kelly, 1983: 1999) the employer stipulates the learning required. Educationally this can be easily achieved through specific and precise examination and/or assessment, where Train to

53 Gain fits perfectly. However, this does not address the imminent problems in delivering apprenticeships to adult learners. Apprenticeships follow a structured learning strategy providing both off-the-job knowledge based skills enabling learners to maximise their understanding of business operations and the recurrence of on-the-job skills. This is amalgamated with key or functional skills that allow learners to effectively apply Maths, English and ICT in a working environment. The objective is to develop a highly skilled employee who not only can physically do a job, but also understands why that job is being done, what are the consequences of not performing effectively and can add value to business operations.

Research for this paper has shown that as a rule, potential adult apprentices are sceptical of the additional learning with employees asking, ‘what can it do for me? ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ and ‘I’ve being doing this job for years’ This poses problems when trying to educate an experienced worker in evaluating why they are doing certain tasks. However, in reality employees over 19+ assigned to complete an apprenticeship have one enormous fear; ‘Key/Functional Skills’. The Leitch report acknowledges research from additional investigations regarding basic skills levels of the UK workforce. DFES Skills for Life Survey (2003) identified that ‘16% of the UK workforce had lower than level 1 literacy skills and 46% had lower than level 1 numeracy skills’ (HM Treasury 2006 p43). With lower levels of essential skills added to the initial fears of the employees identified by this paper, all delivery models for adult apprenticeships must encompass empathy, support, flexibility, sincerity and guidance.

Overcoming barriers This paper identifies that as educators, we must take the lead and be honest with employers and ensure a partnership is developed in order for adult apprenticeships to be successful. This paper recognises that traditional day release models will not always work in industry, especially with 19+ learners that already add value to the business. A selection of employers stipulated day release models, as they can effectively manage and implement succession planning in order to cover the employees attending College. This paper found that in the main, new approaches need to be implemented to be attractive to employers and structured differently from standard FE delivery to account for the needs of employees. Work-integrated learning for adults is supported by Knowles’ theory of androgogy which highlights the fact that adults are 'self-directed' and are motivated by making their own decisions (Atherton,

54 2003). To deliver effective adult apprenticeships the perspective acquired by this report was that Colleges must offer ‘on site’ delivery, blended learning with both online/e-learning and traditional sessions. Weekly attendance should be flexible and not inhibit operations. Registering on an apprenticeship needs to be accessible all year round and not limited to academic years. Therefore this report acknowledges modularisation of framework components where learners can commence any aspect of the framework with a syllabus that is fluid and will take account of all criteria on a rolling process.

This paper identified a ‘fear factor’ from 19+ employees regarding key/functional skills; consequently comprehensive initial assessment must be carried out. Where entry levels are low, sign-posting must be transparent for both employee and employer to identify progressions routes back onto acceptance on an apprenticeship. Where learners enter the apprenticeship framework, key/functional skills should be front loaded to enable the trepidation to be conquered. This system would eradicate the prolonged thought that the transferable skills will avert completion of the framework. The partnership theme is a prerequisite to guarantee effective learning that will preclude employers removing staff mid- way through training programmes to resolve operational difficulties.

As employers compete in an ever increasing technological world, Colleges need to replicate that progression to support learning. This paper finds the College would manage this with ‘Moodle’ (Virtual Learning Environment) where adult apprentices can access support materials, tutor feedback, assessment standards and group shared experiences at convenient times. To enhance the College’s VLE system this paper identifies the need to utilise additional e-learning systems, including Web 2.0 sites such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ to provide discussion opportunities with peers through social networking. Delivery should also consider what ‘Nunes et al’, (2009 p107) called ‘M Learning’ through the application of portable media devices and mobile phones which has the advantage of popularity and ownership by the Apprentice. The facilitation of group interaction including group forums and personal reflection would be uncomplicated. Tynjala and Hakkinen (2005) state ‘Adult learning theories should form the basis for the design of e-learning practices for work environments’

Competency assessment will continue to be assessed in the workplace, with supplementary and supportive information from supervisors and managers regarding the practical application

55 from each adult apprentice. This paper finds this approach would cement the partnership between employer and provider, where occupational expertise is valued. Students will be using their workplace experiences as a basis of their higher education learning and this should help to promote a high level of self-motivation (Talbot, 2003).

Train to Gain has successfully helped employees demonstrate their competences to employers and stakeholders; it has assisted employers to meet customer audit requirements. But in reality has failed to provide higher level skill sets that the UK workforce requires to be competitive in the global market. The commitment from the Coalition government regarding apprenticeships is a clear indication that industry needs knowledgeable and proficient staff. For that reason Colleges need to delivery efficient and effective learning that meets the needs of employers and employees. Colleges will need to accept that ‘change’ is imminent, and that if they choose to honour traditional FE roots, they will be left in the wake of smart, exciting and vibrant private providers who will dominate workplace learning. This will leave experienced FE colleges to fight it out to be a sub-contractor trying to obtain small funding allocations left from the £500,000 minimum contract level (MCL) threshold, which the private provider will have successfully tendered for, and secured. This paper would like to reaffirm its statement made on the opening title page, ‘this paper is concerned that apprenticeships will become the new Train to Gain, with many employers simply opting for a training programme that they can acquire fully or partially funded? And therefore potentially lose their value’. This paper recommends that it is in everyone’s interest not to succumb to another quick fix programme just because the funding is there. The essence of adult apprenticeships will fail, leaving the UK workforce with increasing further voids of lower skilled employees.

56 References Atherton, J. S. (2003) Learning and Teaching: Knowles' Andragogy [On-line] UK http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/knowlesa.htm [Accessed 2nd January 2011]

Boud, D. Garrick, J. (1999) Understanding learning at work. Routledge, London

Carly Consult, http://www.carleyconsult.co.uk/news/?p=327, The Outlook for Train to Gain and Apprenticeships [accessed 10th January 2011]

Department for Business Innovation & Skills (2010). Skills for sustainable growth: executive summary

Department for Children, Schools and Families (February 2009) Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE)

The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/06/train-to-gain [Accessed 3rd January 2011]

Herzberg, F. 1968, "One more time: how do you motivate employees?", Harvard Business Review, vol. 46, iss. 1, pp. 53–62.

Leitch, A. (2006) Prosperity for All in the Global Economy – world class skills, Norwich:HMSO.

HM Treasury (2006) Prosperity for all in the global economy- world class skills (The Leitch Review of Skills; final Report). Norwich, HMSO.

Kelly, A. V. (1983; 1999) The Curriculum. Theory and practice 4e, London: Paul Chapman.

Learning and Skills Council (2006), Implementation of Train to Gain Yorkshire and the Humber Briefing for Colleges and Training Providers – Issue 1

Nunes et al (2009), The use of e learning in the workplace: a systematic literature review, Impact: Journal of Applied Research in Workbased learning, 1(1), pp. 97-112

Skills Funding Agency http://readingroom.skillsfundingagency.bis.gov.uk/sfa/ttg_funding_requirements_2010_11- v2_october.pdf (Accessed 3rd January 2011)

Talbot, C. (2003) Studying at a distance, a guide for students, Open University Press

Tynjala and Hakkinen (2005), E Learning at work- Theoretical underpinnings and pedagogical challenges, The Journal of Workplace Learning Vol 17 no5/6 2005 pp 318-336

57 Victoria Page-Chestney

Courses for horses- fitting the training course to the individual learner in the National Health Service

In The Hidden DNAs Shananhan (2007) rightly suggests that not only does the National Health Service (NHS) have a problem with DNA (did not attend) within out- patients clinics and GP surgeries, but also within its own training provision for its staff. Whilst much has been done to reduce the former, little has been put into practice to reduce the latter. Certainly within the training department discussed in this paper, little has been done other than informing managers of non attendance. This paper seeks to look into why learners do not attend and what can be done to improve this. When suggesting training is one the commitments that staff feel can be sidelined when something more important occurs Shananhan was focussing on IT training. The author of this paper feels this is also true of all training including the NVQ, even though it is a requirement of the learners contract of work to complete the award.

The author of this paper teaches in an NHS Trust in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. The healthcare assistants who work within this Trust are required as part of their contract to compete a relevant NVQ within 18 months of commencement. The NVQ course that the author tutors on has learners undertaking seventeen different health related NVQs, both at level two and three. The nature of the candidates’ work places means, that between them, they are required to take a vast array of units. It has also been a problem over the recent years getting the learners released from the work place for a thirteen week long course. Added to this the increased pressure of cuts in staff numbers in the NHS has put pressure on the traditional course that had been run by the training department resulting in poor attendance, low motivation, increased despondency in the learners and a decreased rate of completion of the awards within the contracted period. This paper looks at the reasons why the learners were not attending training and why completion times were lengthening. The paper looks at two different proposed solutions to the above issues, how one of these was put into action and the resulting outcomes of this.

58 Previous provision All learners attended the thirteen week NVQ course, attending the training department for one half day training session a week, before continuing to complete the award with their ward based assessor with usually minimal input from the staff in the training department. The first training session was an introduction to NVQ and instruction on how to generate evidence for their award. This induction session was followed by twelve unit based sessions for level three and nine for level two with three workshop sessions for level two to make up the training hours. The same sessions happened for each cohort regardless of where the candidates worked and what units they were they were taking. This meant that many candidates attended sessions that had little meaning to their job role and no meaning in relation to their qualification; leading to many being disheartened.

Many of the learners did not have sessions provided for all of the units they were taking, which left them at a disadvantage. The thirteen week system also meant that if a ward or department had several learners starting on one cohort that they would all be away from the shop floor at the same time. This meant that the nurse in charge of the shift was often left with the choice of leaving the ward dangerously understaffed or preventing at least one of the learners from attending the session. This was often compounded by staff being off sick. All of which led to patchy training for the students. This finding is backed up by many writers, for example, Unwin et al (2005) states that ‘performance targets and the NVQ requirement affect organisation of work, but that this is heavily influenced by the nature of shift work.’ It has also been the subjects of research and government reports: in Managing Curriculum Change the JLSC (2009) suggest that mature and work based learners have different needs than those who are studying on a campus based course and that they experience the subject matter in a different way and that we must provide them with as valid a course as those at college or university.

Research undertaken by Keep (2000) shows that training of higher ranked members of staff is often given the priority over that provided for those of lower grade staff. These lower grade staff are often older and often work part time and many do not hold any formal qualifications, all of these points led to a problem with motivation to access training and confidence to request it. This is certainly the case within the author’s work place. Lyon et al (2007) stated

59 that ‘the NHS is a human system which works best when humanity and connection are included’ and goes on to suggest that this applies equally to staff as it does to patients. Temple (2010) suggests that junior doctors’ training must be planned and focused on the doctors’ needs, it could also be said that this applies to the training of all staff groups within the NHS. The author would also agree with statements by Temple (2010) Jones and Anderson (2001) and the JLSC (2009) suggesting that in order for curriculum change to be successful, learners and managers should be involved in the change; it also suggests that for the course to be successful then the curriculum should meet the diverse needs of the students. Both these points have been taken into account when the NVQ course at the NHS Trust was redesigned. When considering redesigning the NVQ course the author questioned current students, those who had recently completed the course, and those who had recently completed their award - asking them why they had not attended all of the sessions, if they had had difficulty completing their units and what the reasons for this, in their opinion was. Questions asked were based on some suggested when undertaking a curriculum audit by Duckett (2005).

The reasons for non attendance were ward/department too busy, sickness (their own and their children’s), school holidays, annual leave,, feeling that it was all too much and could not face another session as had not had time to complete the work from previous sessions, and not feeling that the session relevant to them so could not see point in attending. This is backed up by Temple (2010) and many other writers who suggest that training that is relevant to the learners’ performance targets should be the priority. The main reasons given for not completing units in a timely manner were not knowing what was expected (no session on that unit or not attending the session), not understanding what the standards for the unit were asking of them (due no session on that unit or not attending the session), and not being able to complete work from one session before next one, feeling of it all piling up on them-this is backed up by Shananhan (2007)

The ward/department managers were also interviewed to find out what problems the course was causing them. Their answers included the following: difficulty with maintaining staffing levels on ward if more than two are on training at any one time -Temple (2010) and Varden as cited in ‘How to ensure a culture of training (2008) both suggests that this can be minimised by giving the manager prior notice of each learners training dates the author suggests that this can be furthered by also taking into account times of year when staffing

60 levels are low due to annual leave- Christmas, summer holidays and all school holidays; all learners on ward trying to gain practical assessments of the same task at the same time as all doing same unit at same time, time taken by trained nurses to assess the knowledge base was taking them away from their ward work, which is being compounded by staff cuts, difficulty in rostering learner off of ward for half a day each week for thirteen weeks straight. They also stated the following as having an impact, trained nurses having to take on tasks traditional performed by junior doctors, due to changes in juniors doctors’ terms and conditions as brought about by the working time directive, as discussed by Temple in Time for Training (2010), this has had an impact on the skills and knowledge now required by healthcare assistants as they have now taken on a number of tasks previously only performed by trained nursing staff, and hence now needs including in the NVQ course. This has been addressed as an issue in many healthcare trusts within the United Kingdom as suggested in Lyons et al (2007) and Devaney and Outhwaite (2005) In Curriculum Theories, Borders (2006) suggests that students’ study can be affected by work life, home pressures and socio-cultural pressures. Many teachers fail to see the impact this can have on learner’s progress. This is backed up by the above survey.

Options proposed Although many papers and journals have highlighted the issues few if any have come up with a workable solution. After discussion with the learners, their managers and other members of the training team the author devised two proposed new training schemes: 1. Cohorts based on awards and job roles (maintaining 13 week structure) 2. A rolling programme

Option 1 Option one proposed that each award had its own cohort, rather than mixing awards as before. Candidates would be in groups with those from the same or similar job roles and could share experiences with those who worked in similar situations to themselves, however they would lose out on gaining shared experiences from people who work in other work areas, which although not directly relevant to their own job role, would be transferable to their own role and give an insight in to how multi-disciplinary working benefits the patients. This would in reality mean that some awards would run several times a year, whilst others would only run once every few years. This would necessitate that some learners would be held up from starting their qualification and would prevent them from fulfilling the terms of

61 their contract. This would also provide an inequality of training for some staff groups. However running cohorts in this way would ensure more of the sessions were relevant to each learner.

Option 2 Option two proposed that all learners, regardless of job role or award to be taken, would commence in one of three cohorts a year, as they had always done so. However instead of then attending for thirteen weeks one after the other they would attend thirteen sessions over a period of a year, with several weeks in-between each session to enable them to complete the work started in each session prior to attending the next. Each learner would be given an individualised timetable, which includes only the sessions required to cover the units they were undertaking. Each session would be provided at least twice a year, which allowed those wards or departments who had multiple learners to spread the attendance, reducing the pressures of staff being away from the shop floor. The repetition and flexibility of the time table also allows those staff with children to avoid training during school holidays and to avoid absences due to annual leave these factors could be highlighted prior to commencement and those dates avoided. The new time table also enabled learners to catch up on sessions if they had to miss a session for any reason. This option also allowed students from different work environments to share experiences, as this is shown both in the authors experience and in journals such as Smith (2000), which states that “the students bring to the class a varied and valuable experience of life, and in consequences the method of education is largely that of a valuable experience of views “ this is also backed up by Schaap et al (2009) also suggests that adult learners engaged in work based learning based on competency and underpinning knowledge such as the NVQ learn from participating in groups of learners with mixed experiences and backgrounds and that learners also need to incorporate attitudes into this learning process in order to make the best use of the learning experience. Both options were discussed with the other members of the training team, and then presented the findings and options to the joint staff consultancy committee (JSCC), who has overall say of all matters pertaining to staff working in the NHS trust.. Following consultation with the JSCC it was decided to trial option two for a year at two sites and leave the other site running the older system for the year with view to changing after this period, enabling them to be used as a control group. The trail was commence in September 2009

62 Results and improvements The trial period is now completed and on the whole has proven to be quite successful. There is still some degree of DNA and when the absentees were questioned as to why, the reply given was sometimes that they were too busy. However the most common answer was ‘I forgot as I did not look at the time table’ or that ‘forgot as time table given many weeks in advance and gaps between sessions meant that I was not in the habit of coming’. This could be improved by ringing to remind a week before hand as suggested by Shanahan (2007). There has been a marked improvement in completion rate and in attendance on training sessions. The author has spoken to ward and department managers who have reported that they have found this system easier to accommodate on the shift rotas. Learners have reported they feel less stressed about attendance as they have had a hand in generating their own individualised timetable, allowing them the control over length of time between sessions and when these sessions will happen. This allows them to complete the course around home and work commitments. The control group at third hospital site continued to report the same issues as all learners had before commencement of the trial. The results were fed back to the JSCC and it has been decided that all sites will follow option 2, but that this will be delayed till May 2011 when the training department will commence the new QCF diploma awards that are replacing the NVQ at the start of 2011.

63 References

Boarders T. (2006). Curriculum Theories. Available: http://cnx.org/content/m13293/1.9/. [accessed 01/01/11].

Devany A and Outhwaite H. (2005). Learning resources needs of the UK NHS support staff. Health information and libraries journal. 22, 253-261

Duckett I (2005). Curriculum design, development and change at key stage 4. London: Learning and skills development agency. 1-4.

JLSC (2009). Managing Curriculum Change. Available: http://jlsc.ac.uk.[Last accessed 30/12/10]

Jones C.A and Anderson M (2001). Managing curriculum Change. Learning and Skills Council: London

Keep E (2000). Learning organisations, lifelong learning and the mystery of the vanishing employers. Warwick: University of Warwick.

Lyons et al (2007). NHS Staff Learning, training and education in circumstances of complexity and uncertainty. International Futures Forum: NHS Education for Scotland.

Schaap H. et al. (2009). Students' personal professional theories in competence based vocational education: the construction of personal knowledge through internalisation and socialisation. Journal of vocational education and training. 61 (4), 481-494.

Shanahan N. (2007). The hidden DNAs-training in the NHS. Available: http://www.trainingsynergy.com/blogs/2007/june/the-hidden-dnas-training-in-the-nhs.[Last accessed 15/12/10].

Smith M. (2000). Voluntary organisations and adult education. Available at http://www.infed.org/archieves/e-text/1919report.htm [Last accessed 09/11/10].

Temple J. (2010). Time for training- a review of the impact of the European working time directive on the quality of training. London: Medical education England.

Unknown. (2008). How to ensure a culture of training. Available: http://www.nursingtimes.net.librouter.hud.ac.uk/how-to-ensure-a-culture-of-training.[Last accessed 16/11/10].

Unwin L. et al (2005). Worlds within worlds: The relationships between context and pedagogy in the work place. Leicester: Centre for Labour Market Studies University of Leicester

64 Gaynor Purdy

Active learning strategies to engage E2E Students in Numeracy

Entry to Employment (E2E) is a government funded program and involves delivering basic skills, including my numeracy specialism, social and employability skills, as well as vocational qualifications. The levels taught are from Entry 3 to Level 2 and undertaken by 16-19 year olds trying to gain employment or access to a mainstream college course by enhancing their employability and social skills and gaining further qualifications.

Many of the students have low concentration levels, often due to disabilities such as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and autism, and a significant number of students had previously been excluded from school. The students receive monetary benefit in terms of EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance) by attending the course giving the primary incentive for their presence. Hence, engaging and keeping the students interested in numeracy sessions, which they believe has no relevance to them, is a difficult task, and one which is going to be addressed in this paper.

Motivating factors, and teaching methods to try and engage the students, as well as relevant topics and emerging technology to try and capture their interest, will be explored and analysed. A solution to enhance concentration in all the students as a group will be addressed, as well as those for specific difficulties such as ADHD and autism. With the introduction of functional skills to adult numeracy from September 2010, any impact this may have on teaching to these students will be assessed.

Research will be undertaken with current students to try and find effective methods of numeracy teaching. Recent publications, giving evidence related to effective engagement, and personal motivation of learners, will be used to back up any findings. In conclusion the most useful teaching methods and most relevant technology found will be scrutinised.

The Entry to Employment (E2E) curriculum has guidelines through the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), now replaced by the Skills Funding Agency and the Young People’s Learning Agency, and involves delivering three strands: basic skills (including my specialism numeracy), social and employability skills, and vocational qualifications, according to the

65 individual needs of the student, show in E2E Entitlement Curriculum Issue 2 by Learning and Skills Council (2006). Appropriate qualifications are selected according to how they benefit the individual learners.

E2E learners are diverse and many have barriers to learning including low self-esteem, a history of offending behaviour, unsatisfactory educational experience, low or underachievement and /or health, family and accommodation issues. Hence it is important for teachers to emphasise the value to the students of developing their skills and putting teaching activities into context for them. Therefore the introduction of Adult Functional Skills, as part of the Government’s reforms of adult education in September 2010 helped give relevance to some students, particularly where it was incorporated into the vocational subjects taught. Although numeracy, literacy and vocational subjects are still taught separately within my teaching, we have tried to overlap the subjects to emphasis relevance to the individual students.

Self motivation factors for learning in E2E students tend to be low, often due to bad experiences at school. While the motivation of money in the form of EMA has an effect on attendance, the willingness to learn is usually not increased. The incentives for achievement may be increased by an extrinsic motivation factor, this is done in my teaching, when a student achieves an agreed qualification the accrued EMA bonus of five pounds a week is released. EMA is being abolished by the new coalition government in September 2011 and so far has no replacement, as this is initially the main motivating factor for students, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, we will have to wait and see what effect this may have on the education of these young people.

Although this monetary incentive is enough for a few students, the wanting to learn for self fulfilment and advancement of one’s self is something we aim to instil in the students and is a stronger never ending desire when acquired. Intrinsic motivation is engaging in an activity for its own sake, and according to Smith (2011), ‘can be enhanced by providing students with learning which is challenging, engages curiosity, where they have a degree of control and where there is a game-like or fantasy dimension’.

To try and engage the students in this way increases their self motivation and in my teaching I have attempted to do this by varying the learning methods within each lesson, and having small chunks of learning to try and keep the interest and concentration throughout. The

66 majority of my students have kinaesthetic learning styles, so I rely on a lot of hands on practical and fun activities. As well as quizzes and board games, I have investigated the use of recent technology such as internet, video and hand held games.

Mathematics is not seen as fun, though it has a lot of practical use and is part of everyday life, but getting this across to students is difficult. However, playing games can reinforce mathematical principles and every game of strategy; skill and chance, from pool to baseball to checkers use these in practical applications. (Russell, 2009). Board games may also assist students with autism and may help to learn social, language, problem solving, motor and maths skills in a fun way. As people with autism like following rules, board games are an ideal tool and they respond well to them. (Scott, 2009).

Games were experimented in during numeracy lessons and those that proved useful include darts, which helped with mental addition, subtraction and multiplication facts; and a betting game which used ratio and money. Online games were also trialled including those for improving mental arithmetic, which could be played solo or against people all over the world. Some useful websites are listed after the references and include Worldmathsday, which is an online international mathematics competition; BBC Skillswise, which enables adults to improve reading, writing and number skills and Moveon, which is a national project aimed at helping adults to brush up their skills and gain the National Certificate in Adult Literacy or Numeracy.

Quizzes involving mathematical methods taught or mental arithmetic have been used to induce healthy competition in my numeracy sessions and have been played in teams or individually. Groups are often used to produce team building skills and if the groups have mixed abilities the questions can be chosen according to ability, these have proved successful and often help with peer bonding. They may also be used as an assessment after covering a number of topics or module, giving the teacher an idea of understanding attained by the students.

Many of the students like quick tests and these can be given at the beginning or end of a session, creating competition against peers or self improvement and serves to cement knowledge or ascertain recall. Competing against one’s self is preferable for some students: depending how it is used, competition can enhance or reduce motivation, as it may produce

67 few winners and many losers (Theroux,1994), while competing against one’s self means everyone wins.

With a number of students diagnosed with ADHD in many E2E classes, anything energetic where the students are allowed to move around and air their views are preferable. I found students with ADHD enjoyed group work, quizzes and practical classes and this is backed up by Hogan (1997), who suggests utilizing group work and encouraging teamwork, problem solving and cooperation for students suffering from ADHD.

Online quizzes such as Mathsmillionaire have also used been and proved popular especially when a prize for a group or individual is involved. Any practical topics such as measuring heights, liquids, and dimensions, or making something, increased students’ attention span. Even utilising computers for exam questions proved more popular than paper based tests and for some students suffering from dyslexia a marked improvement in grade was found for computer based tests, due to ease of readability.

The hand held gaming devices, Nintendo DS Lite brain training games was trialled in my numeracy sessions. I found that about 80% of my students already had these devices and about 50% of them had a brain training game. However, few of my students were quick at mental arithmetic due to the over reliance on calculators, (available via their mobile phones). The DS Lites were used in class with brain training games and proved effective in improving mental arithmetic and promoting competition. Where appropriate they were also used to set individual targets to improve mental arithmetic in student reviews.

Lord Putnam said ‘Increasingly video games are being recognised as a powerful tool for learning. Yes of course they are entertaining and a lot of fun, but they’ve also the ability to inspire and motivate’, while launching the report by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, (ELSPA 2006, online), examining computer and video games in the United Kingdom. The report goes on to say:

‘research has shown that videogames can provide educational benefits and some are being produced with a direct focus on education. Also many types of videogames can provide educational and developmental benefits in terms of the skills and attributes they nurture and by delivering a stimulus that other educational formats do not provide’.

68 McVeigh (2001) observed that from Professor Kawashima’s research, renowned for his brain mapping expertise, not all computer games were beneficial. While those with arithmetic content stimulated both right and left hemispheres of the frontal lobe, associated with learning, memory and emotion, most computer games stimulated parts of the brain associated only with vision and movement. The frontal lobe development helps keep behaviour in check, which suggests that playing only those games stimulating vision and movement may stunt the developing mind which controls behaviour.

JISC TechDis HEAT project investigated the use of the Nintendo DS Lite and Brain Training software as an assistive technology tool for students requiring help with numeracy in 2006 and found that it offered an enjoyable learning experience that was positive from all students, providing encouragement and making a difference to numeracy levels. They also found it was quick and easy to deploy and little support was required after deployment. (Pulman, 2006).

Edutainment is a form of entertainment designed to educate as well, some examples of these being television, museum exhibits and computer software. According to Heidelberg (2008) digital technology, simulation and gaming is an effective educational and training tool which is the reason why the US government has spent billions on research through the Defence Department and NASA: and is why it is effective in higher education teaching. The teaching methods described using DS Lites, online software and internet sites are all examples of edutainment, and many more can be included such as the interactive whiteboard, gaming platforms like the Wii and Playstation, mobile phones and ipods to name a few.

The E2e curriculum is very flexible and adapted to the individual giving equality and diversity. There is a continual change in the numbers of students, being a roll on roll off programme, and there are a wide range of abilities in the students as well as challenging barriers to learning. The variety of the curriculum in terms of teaching methods, assessment activities, with the use of functional skills and vocational topics, has allowed E2E courses to succeed with some of the young people that schools failed. The smaller class sizes and more practical subjects coupled with individual targets have allowed many students, excluded from school, to thrive. Within my organisation the use of technology and games has added to the variation of the curriculum and aided these achievements.

The E2E programme, like the majority of courses, has targets to meet to gain funding. These targets are around achievement and progression; hence a number of the subjects taught are

69 geared to passing qualifications, my own specialism numeracy being one of these. By making the lessons fun and practical with a good variety of games, and by including emerging technology such as the internet and hand held devices, intrinsic motivation can be increased and assist in hitting some of these targets.

In my experience, by varying lessons, having small manageable chunks of learning and incorporating new technology, especially fun games and quizzes, has enhanced the students learning experience and helped to engage the students longer, increasing their intrinsic motivation, and producing higher achievement levels. Hand held gaming devices can be successfully used as a resource in the classroom and for home study, though it is only advised to be part of a balanced and varied course.

Edutainment is the future of higher education, (Heidelberg, 2008), and offers learning that is student centred and tailored to individual needs, enabling education to be fun, collaborative and democratic. Using a variety of this technology along with more traditional methods in my teaching has engaged the learner far more than traditional methods alone and has appealed to the wider variety of learners encountered upon in the E2E programme. In conclusion I recommend the use of these technologies and strategies as part of a varied and flexible curriculum in order to engage the students not just within E2E, but in all numeracy teaching, as it increases concentration and attention levels, and improves student participation.

References

ELSPA (2006). Unlimited Learning – Computer and Video Games in the Learning Landscape [online] http://www.elspa.com [accessed 21.01.11]

Heidelberg, C. (2008) Edutainment and Convergence Research. [online] http://edutainmentandconvergenceresearch.typepad.com/blog/[accessed 22.01.11]

Hogan, D. (1997) ADHD: A Travel Guide to Success. Childhood Education. Spring 1997, Vol. 73, No. 3.

Learning and Skills Council (2006) E2E Entitlement Curriculum Issue 2- August 2006 Coventry, UK

70 McVeigh, T. (2001) Computer Games Stunt Teen Brains. The Observer, Sunday 19 August 2001 Newell, S. & Jeffery, D. (2002) Behaviour Management in the Classroom- A Transactional Analysis approach Abingdon: David Fulton Publishers

Pulman A.( 2007) Can a Handheld Gaming Device be Used as an Effective Assistive Technology Tool? Institute of Health and Community Studies, Bournemouth University. http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=2_1_7_9 [accessed 22.11.10]

Russell, L. (2009) Suite101: Teaching Math with Online Math Games: Internet Games for Learning Math Skills and Practicing Mathematics http://www.suite101.com/content/online-math-games-for-teaching-math- a127835#ixzz1BcCYYQ4G [accessed 20.01.11]

Scott, E. (2009) Board Games Help Teach Children with Autism Develop Social, Language, Math and Motor Skills in a Creative Way. [online] http://www.suite101.com/content/board-games-help-teach-children-with-autism- a98219#ixzz1BcF5W5dI [accessed 20.01.11]

Smith, A. (2002) The Best on Motivation and Learning. England: Alite Ltd

Theroux, P. (1994) Strategies for Enhancing Motivation [online] http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/motivation.html [accessed 21.01.11]

Visser, J. (2003) A Study of Children and Young People who Present Challenging Behaviour. School of Education. The University of Birmingham.

Websites Used www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/ www.move-on.org.uk/ www.worldmathsday.com/ www.skillsworkshop.com/

71 Alan Rayment

A practical approach to developing the ability and skills required to coach people with disabilities in sport and exercise.

The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness and to provide skills for fitness instructors and coaches who work with people with disabilities. The definitions of disability can include physical mobility, a hearing or sight impairment or a medical problem that can affect a person’s ability to complete a task or skill. I currently work in a secondary college teaching a level 2 & 3 NVQ Diploma in exercise and fitness. I teach units on how to deliver gym inductions, learning new techniques and skills and how to use cardio vascular and resistance equipment. In the course of each induction individuals are given a demonstration and shown how to use the equipment, during which we follow the acronym NAMET; name, area, muscle, explain and teach.

As part of the course each learner must complete units that ensure that they work with people with all types of disability. At our college we have put a strategy plan together to enable our learners to work with disabled people, so they can learn new skills and methods that they can take into the workplace. Over the last few years we have found it difficult to encourage outside groups to come and use our gym, due to cost and transport. Local schools have visited us but struggled to staff the sessions; as a result of this our level 3 learners now visit schools to deliver activities as part of their Higher Sports Leader Award. Some facilities charge for the use of their gym up to £3.50 per session but we wanted to try and remove the cost thus breaking down another barrier. A further issue is to provide an appropriate number of instructors since we work on a one to one basis to ensure each person is using the equipment correctly: we also understand that some people rely on the help from the instructor when getting on and off the machines or to pass certain pieces of equipment. For example, some could struggle to reach the bar on the Lat Pull Down machine.

The reason for this topic is that the majority of people who use gyms have no disability at all. We have a range of members at our gym from the age of 13 to 78, both male and female and our learners have the opportunity to work. One of the first questions asked on an induction is ‘have you ever been to a gym before’? This identifies the level the induction has to be delivered at. For example, if the person has never been to a gym before and has no idea of muscle groups or coaching points, the instructor must explain them. If the client has been a

72 member at another gym, the instructor would ask the person to show them how they would use the equipment and correct them if necessary. The level 3 learners’ were really challenged by this; whilst they could induct an able bodied person, could they induct a person with a disability? The answer is yes; they just needed a practical approach and knowledge as to how they can adapt. Ultimately, it is no different coaching an able bodied person from a person with a disability. We wanted to give all learners the opportunity to work with disabled people, so we have now invited different disabled groups to the fitness centre; groups that already attend college on a Life Vocational Personal Studies course. As the group were already attending college to complete their course, this removed the barrier of transport issues. As our level 3 learners were gaining valuable practical skills and it was helping them complete their course, we decided to offer the sessions free of charge, again breaking down one of the barriers to participation.

Being a wheelchair user myself I feel very passionate about gyms and similar environments being accessible for all and that fitness instructors and coaches have the required skills to be able to coach and instruct disabled people to achieve their goal or to enjoy sport and activities. In my previous job I was an inclusive fitness activator working for the Inclusive Fitness Initiative. It was my role to go out into the community and help disabled individuals and groups access local gyms and sporting activities. It was identified by the IFI that gyms were not accessible and that there was a stigma around them not being inclusive. For example, machines not being accessible for wheelchair users and staff not being trained to work with people with disabilities. As part of the criteria for the IFI, all staff had to receive at least level 1 disability awareness training and we now deliver disability awareness training for all sport learners and members of staff in the college. It is delivered by the college Disability Advisor and myself which has also helped me, as part of my personal development, to be able to teach in a classroom environment.

Over the last few years I have become a gym instructor, triathlon coach and teach various fitness classes that are all inclusive. Learning from my own experience of fitness classes, instructors didn’t really know what to do with me; they had no idea of how to adapt exercises and they seemed scared to ask for any advice. As part of my teaching I wanted to bring in different disabled groups to give our learners the opportunity to work with them so they could learn ways of communicating and interacting and working on a one to one basis. This would then help their future development as fitness instructors and give them experience and skills

73 to work with such people. It would also hopefully eliminate the experiences I had when attending fitness classes.

The tutors of the groups that attend the sessions have seen a very positive outcome for all learners. Some were very nervous and did not know what to expect, but once in the environment enjoyed it. One of the groups that attend has learning difficulties and it is their choice to attend the session which is linked with part of their course for healthy eating. The tutor in charge told me that the individuals feel that coming to the gym makes them feel ‘grown up and mature’; they are collected by our level 3 learners so they feel they are in an independent environment, free from adults. All they talk about the day before is going to the gym which they say is fun and energetic. Some had never been to a gym before and some parents did not want their children to take part in activities. It has been my role to try and change their perception to let their children attend by explaining the physical and emotional benefits each person could receive by taking part. The sessions are usually split into two parts, 30 minutes in the gym and 30 minutes in the activity studio in order to account for concentration levels and the physical demands on individuals. Some would spend hours on a treadmill if you let them, not recognising dangers or fatigue.

In our gym we see delivering an induction as a key area for skill development in our learners as it is very important in terms of teaching safe and correct techniques. Depending on the individual’s disability, the equipment may not be accessible and this is where the instructor needs to be able to offer adaptation or alternative exercise. For example, since a person in a wheelchair may not be able to access some of the resistance machines this is where we would use resistance bands so the individual can sit in their wheelchair and complete the required exercise. Once the induction is complete it is time to have a personalised fitness programme written by one of our learners under the supervision of myself and other colleagues. The programme will then be completed over the next 6-10 weeks so each learner has the opportunity to get to know their client and help the person progress.

The level 3 learners complete theory in a classroom environment teaching them about communication skills including disability awareness training, how to use the correct language and terminology. Each learner in the group has to research a different disability and share their findings with rest of the group. The learners also complete a Higher Sports Leader Award whereby learners have to go out into the community to coach children and adults with

74 disabilities. Our learners take their new skills to a local school to teach circuits and fun games. Adapting different styles of sports is essential; for instance when playing wheelchair football, a core stability ball could be substituted for the football, giving wheelchair users an advantage in reaching the ball.

We recognise that to be able to work with people with disabilities you have to break learning into small step. We have provided and encourage the use of diagrams and pictures so people with learning disabilities can recognise pieces of equipment. When we split the session into two, we play fun games and provide different activities. We also take part in circuit training, where for 30 to 60 seconds one exercise is completed. Photo cards are a key element in the session. The card is held up for all the class to see they can see so they have the picture in their mind. A level 3 learner also demonstrates the exercise and rest of the group follow; again they have then seen a picture and somebody doing it so this helps them and could be one of their learning styles. I used this recently when teaching a Core Stability Class: as I could not demonstrate as I can’t sit on a core stability ball I held up a picture for the class to see. I then gave coaching points, demonstrating that the cards are an excellent way to give information and not just for use with people with disabilities. Each of our learners must have an understanding of issues related to disability; we ensure learners have the ability and confidence to communicate with individuals using the correct language and terminology.

The benefits to this process does not only benefit the learner but also the person being inducted, not just by saving cost of the induction or the session but also through the benefits of taking part in activity or exercise. Some of the people have either done little exercise in a gym environment or none at all and we have seen and recorded some great success stories from people who have attended the sessions; they have enjoyed it so much they have joined the gym as a full-time member. Physical activity is a key component to maintaining a healthy lifestyle for all individuals. It has been well publicised that the government has been encouraging the UK population to become more active and there are many benefits, social and economic, from a boost of self confidence to improving everyday life The government has policies in place to ensure equal opportunity; the Equality Act 2010 aims to protect disabled people and prevent disability discrimination. It provides legal rights for disabled people in the areas of: employment, education also services and facilities including private clubs.

75 I have researched disability sports dating back to the first Paralympic Games in 1952 at Stoke Mandeville. From the late 1960s several political campaigns led by disabled people’s groups emerged across Europe and North America. (Barnes and Mercer, 2003) The campaigns were to challenge the medically informed assumptions about disability and the perceived status of people with a disability as second class citizens. Over the last few years we have seen a great improvement in access to disability sports; it has now been included in mainstream schools and further education. One problem that has been identified is that PE teachers or other sports coaches sometimes do not have the resources to coach people with disabilities For example: if an individual wanted to access wheelchair racing they would have the cost of race chair and specialised gloves to account for, before the knowledge and understanding of the coach is considered.

We have moved a long way from where people with disabilities felt excluded. Local authorities, governing bodies even politicians have sought to include disability sports in mainstream school and further education. The disability rights movement pressured mainstream society to provide reasonable accommodations so people with disabilities could participate more. The movement included a push for more rights and opportunities in sport (Silvers & Wasserman, 2000). There is still a lot of work to be done on making environments inclusive not only in terms of access but also equipment. Working with people with disabilities is no different from others; you have to adapt and change so as to be more inclusive. I believe every gym should be accessible and that people with disabilities should receive the same opportunities as other people. There are many National Governing Bodies working with local partnerships to increase participation and delivering workshops on how to coach disabled people. There are also talent ID days for disabled people to attend to try and attract them to disability sports, especially with London 2012 only a year away. We now have some excellent role models in disability sport such as Tanni Grey-Thompson and David Wier. We have also seen an increase in television coverage since the 2008 Beijing Paralympic games. I have coached and trained with adults and children who want to take part; I have witnessed what taking part in sport can do for people in terms of the enjoyment, achievement and pride. I have helped set up different clubs specifically for disabled people; I have a passion for sport for all and hope to bring an excellent topic to the conference.

76 References

Hayes, S. and Stidder, G. (2003) Equity and Inclusion in Physical Education and Sport.

Howard L. Nixon (2007) Constructive Diverse Sports Opportuntities for people with disabilities. Journal of Sport Social Issue [online] 31, p.419. Available from: Accessed 3rd January 2011

Thomas, N. and Smith, A. (2009) Disability Sport and Society an Introduction. Abington, Routledge.

77 Diane Remington

Health and social care workforce training is it an organisational requirement or is it developing the workforce?

Within health and social care organisations there is a continued requirement and responsibility to equip the workforce with high quality skills and knowledge. This ensures the safety and welfare of the service user and that the care they receive is of a high standard. It also ensures that the organisation meets its legal and regulatory responsibilities and requirements (Health and Safety Executive (HSE), 1999; Department of Health (DoH), 2000; DoH, 2003; Skills for Care, 2011; Care Quality Commission (CQC), 2011).

My current teaching role is involved in the delivery of workforce development training and this is provided predominantly to a range of health and social care organisations. The courses delivered are varied and range from health and safety to first aid to customer service and are a mix of bespoke and accredited courses. They are seen as meeting a mandatory requirement for the workforces employed and therefore there is an expectation on the workforce to attend. A benefit to the organisation by demonstrating that their workforce has attended training is increasing their rating with the regulatory bodies. This subsequently promotes them as a safe and effective organisation and can result in them reducing any additional costs they may incur through facing litigation claims and ensures that their business continues to thrive (DoH, 2003; CQC, 2011). However my experiences of delivering this type of training is that the learner’s attending have varied attitudes and motivation levels towards the session which has caused me some problems in motivating and engaging the learners during these sessions. It has also appeared through discussion with the learners that the majority of them have felt obliged to attend, are attending on their days off and feel that they know everything that is going to be taught to them as they have attended the session previously. This has led me to believe that the training being delivered by myself and my colleagues possibly does not develop the workforces attending but is a tick box exercise for the organisations to meet their regulatory and legal obligations. Therefore the purpose of this paper is an attempt to prove that the training being delivered does have the benefit of developing the workforces attending as well as meeting the organisations obligations.

To assist in proving this theory the evaluation sheets from my teaching sessions will be analysed and discussed against the literature available stipulating the organisations

78 obligations and motivational theories. This is in an attempt to identify why the learners are attending the sessions, their learning experience and how this affects the learning that takes place and if the learners feel that any learning took place during the session. It is hoped this analysis and discussion will assist in identifying strategies that can be used by me and my colleagues to promote a deeper engagement with the learners attending, maintain their interest throughout the session and ensure they can utilise the learning that has taken place in their workplaces.

The regulators of health and social care identify a set of essential standards for quality and safety that all service users can expect when accessing care services. Within these standards there is also a requirement to ensure that the employees within health and social care organisations are competent to undertake their role and are properly trained within the roles they undertake (DoH, 2003; CQC, 2011). There are also common induction standards relating to those people entering social care which they are expected to achieve when commencing in employment, a strategy for individuals to continue to develop professionally within which ever role they are employed and a training strategy to identify and analyse the skill needs of the people working within health and social care. National Occupational Standards also further highlight the knowledge and skills required by health and social care workforces to ensure safe and effective care is provided (TOPSS, 2000; Skills for Care, 2011).

With regard to the workforces trained in accordance with health and safety practices there is health and safety legislation which requires the organisations to identify the training requirements of their workforces and to subsequently provide this (HSE, 1999). Also one of the main purposes of developing workforces is to ensure safe and effective care is provided to the service users, reduce errors occurring and increases the rating of the organisation which subsequently influences the funding they receive, how they are regulated and ensures the organisation continues to provide the service required. An additional benefit is to provide the workforce with the skills and knowledge required enhancing their performance within the workplace and hopefully improve the standard of care received (CQC, 2011; DoH, 2003; Skills for Care 2010). Therefore from the literature reviewed it can be seen that there is an organisational requirement for health and social care organisations to develop their workforces. This could be argued not only for the benefit of the organisation and the service users but also ensures the workforces continue to adapt and change to the changing

79 environment and roles within health and social care settings. This is further supported by the fact that the majority of the learners attending the training sessions stated on their evaluation sheets that they were attending because they had to. However some learners did state that they had attended because they were interested in attending or wanted to keep the qualification they had already obtained. The sessions where the learners tended to state they had to attend were also generally those that were deemed mandatory by their organisations. Whereas the sessions where the learners stated they were interested or wanted to keep their qualification were subjects such as first aid, customer care and those not deemed as mandatory. These sessions are also not generally attended as frequently as the mandatory training sessions therefore it could be argued that the learners feel more inclined and interested to attend.

The learners attending the sessions are all adult learners working within health and social care settings and it is therefore likely some of them may have insight into the learning process and generally want to utilise the learning they have acquired into their job role. It is also likely nowadays that during their working life they have changed their careers on several occasions. Therefore they may have experience of been trained and attending training which may impact on their attitude towards the training been provided. As adults we are also generally able to think of attractive ways in which we could be spending our time rather than attending training. In addition to this there is the argument that if we are not motivated we will and cannot learn. Therefore it can be argued that the emphasis on a teacher is to not only ensure engagement with the learners attending their sessions but that we are able and have the ability to keep refreshing their motivation to learn (Petty, 2004; Rogers, 2007).

What motivates us to learn can be described in terms of what are called extrinsic motivators. These are the motivators that are demanded by the learner’s situation. For example they may be motivated to learn so they can obtain a qualification which allows them to change their job or entry into a new job role. Alternatively they may need to attend training so they can maintain the level of knowledge and skill required to remain employed in the job role they are currently undertaking (Rogers, 2007). From the evaluation sheets analysed it is possible to identify the extrinsic motivators that motivate my groups of learners. The majority of the learners stated they either had to attend the session to comply with their organisations requirements or had attended to keep the qualification they already had. However this in itself may not be a sufficient motivator for learning to take place for all the learners attending. As

80 from my experiences some of the learners attending have appeared to not want to engage with myself or the other learners or participate within the session. Also the comments made on some of the evaluation sheets regarding their learning. From Therefore it could be argued that although extrinsic factors motivate some learners for others there are other motivators to learning and a consequence of this is that it has required me to identify other strategies to ensure engagement with all the learners attending and to ensure learning takes place within the sessions for everyone and not just a select few.

Alternatively a different view is that some learners are naturally enthusiastic about learning but many of them need or expect their teachers to inspire, instruct and stimulate them and maintain their motivation to learn. This requires the teacher to maintain the interest that brought the student to the course in the first place. In this case many factors affect the learner’s motivation to learn including the subject matter, perception of its usefulness, desire to achieve as well as improving their self confidence and self esteem. The difficulty for the teacher in this case is that not all the learners attending are motivated by the same values, needs, desires or wants. Researchers have identified ways that teachers can enhance their learner’s self motivation and these include assigning tasks that are achievable, giving frequent early positive feedback and creating a classroom atmosphere that is open and positive. Most students respond positively to a well organised lesson taught by an enthusiastic teacher who has a genuine interest in their learners and what they learn. Ways this can be undertaken in the classroom is by making the students active participants in the learning, asking students to evaluate the session and what made it more or less motivating, been enthusiastic about the subject you are teaching and by getting the learners to determine the goals they want to achieve (Gross, 1993).

Based on this viewpoint a strategy employed within my sessions has been to ask the learners at the beginning to write down one thing they want to achieve by the end of the session and to share this with myself and the other learners. This helps me identify if the objectives of the session are similar to those of the learners attending and if they will meet the requirements of the learners. It also allows the learner at the end of the session to identify if they have achieved their individual goal as well as the course objectives at the end of the session. An additional benefit is that it also allows them as an individual to identify any further areas that require development. My experience of implementing this with my learners are that generally the course objectives and the learners requirements match and it provides the learner with a

81 sense of achievement at the end thus motivating them to attend the next session. However another observation is that generally they have only been informed they are attending within less than twenty four hours of the course date so have not had sufficient time to think about what they are going to be learning and how it will impact on them and the service they deliver. Therefore this may have more benefit if contact was made with the learners in advance providing them with the course outline and, asking them to identify how it relates to their work role and to identify an individual outcome they wish to achieve by the end of the session.

Another strategy employed to motivate the learners within my sessions has been to utilise teaching methods which are more learner participant. For example the feedback received from the learner’s evaluations regarding the health and safety course was limited and from my observation of the learners there appeared to be apathy and disengagement with some of the learners attending. Originally the course was predominantly a power point based delivery and required very little participation from the learners. A change made by myself to this session was to give them a health and safety scenario for them to discuss. This appears to have increased the discussion within the group and the feedback received has been more positive. This is also supported by the feedback from the learners on the other sessions delivered by myself stating that the aspects of the session they enjoyed were the ones where they were involved in the learning process. With regard to the theory that the teacher been enthusiastic about teaching and the subject been taught increases the learners motivation this has been supported by the comments made by the learners. Where sessions have being delivered by myself and my subject knowledge base and experience is vast the comments received have included trainer made it interesting, trainer made it easy to understand and enjoyed the interaction between group and the trainer. However on the occasions where my enthusiasm has waned then there has been little or no feedback made regarding my input and interaction with the learners.

As discussed and from the literature reviewed it can be seen that there is an organisational requirement for health and social care organisations to train and develop their workforces. This is also further supported by the learner’s reasons for attending provided on their evaluation sheets. In relation to whether attendance has developed the learner’s knowledge or skills this is difficult to ascertain has although some learners have stated they have learnt a lot, refreshed the knowledge they already have others have not provided any information as

82 to what they have learnt during the session. Therefore it could be argued that some of the learners attending have developed or maintained their knowledge and that it has not just merely about attendance and organisational requirements. However it is difficult for me to ascertain if this learning is actually taken into the workplace as I purely provide the training for the learners and provide no supervision or monitoring of them within the workplace. Although on occasions where I have returned to an organisation learners who have attended previous sessions have come and told me that they have had a situation where they have put the knowledge and skills they have learnt into practice. Consequently it could be argued that workforce development training in health and social care organisations not only meets the organisational requirements but does also develop the workforces within them. Additionally this paper identified different motivators for learners attending and ways as teachers we can continue to motivate our learners and although it appears our learners come with their own individual motivators we as teachers have a responsibility to promote a classroom environment that continues to promote this motivation.

References Care Quality Commission (2011) [online] available at http://cqc.org.uk accessed on 21st January 2011

Department of Health (2000) Care Standards Act [online] available at http://doh.gov.uk accessed on 21st January 2011

Department of Health (2003) National Minimum Care Standards 3rd Edition The Stationery Office London

Gross D.B. (1993) Tools for Teaching Josses-Bass San Francisco

Health and Safety Executive (1999) Health and safety training – what you need to know Suffolk

Petty G.(2004) Teaching Today – a practical guide 3rd Edition Nelson Thornes Ltd Cheltenham

Rogers J. (2005) Adults Learning 5th Edition Open University Press Maidenhead

Skills for Care (2011) [online] available at http://skillsforcare.org.uk accessed on 21st January 2011

Skills for Care (2010) Keeping Up The Good Work – a practical guide to implementing continuous professional development in adult social care workforces Leeds Training Organisation for the Personal Social Services (TOPSS) (2000) Modernising the social care workforce – the first national training strategy for England England

83 Ian Staples

Is doing the job, knowing the job? Successfully engaging 14-16 learners in Motor Vehicle Studies classroom sessions.

This paper will attempt to address the issue of how best to engage and motivate 14-16 learners in motor vehicle studies classroom sessions. This paper will also investigate why learners of this age group are attending Further Education (FE) colleges and what institutions are doing to accommodate learners within this age group. During my short teaching career I have found that the numbers of 14-16 learners applying for a place on a vocational course in an FE college are constant, and due to national league tables, schools are demanding that most learners are enrolled on a level 2 qualification in order that their college achievement can be included in the important A-C category. It could be assumed that learners from this age group will always attend FE colleges, but often schools do not appreciate that in order to achieve a level 2 qualification in motor vehicle studies, learners will have to spend a reasonable amount of time within a classroom setting and because of the strict grading criteria set by an awarding body, it would be difficult to satisfy this by practical assessment alone. The problem that this creates and the one I am going to address is that the learner who is interested in motor vehicle studies is normally a pragmatist and has a kinaesthetic learning style and will not produce work of the required standard without intervention and motivation. Within this paper I am going to focus on one specific problem I encountered whist delivering on the subject of differentials and final drives to learners undertaking Edexcel Level 2 BTEC First Certificate in Vehicle Technology.

Many FE colleges developed partnerships with schools in the 1990s, but under a Labour government and after the white paper Schools, achieving success, and the green paper Schools, building on success, were published in 2001 the increased flexibility programme was launched This gave schools the opportunity to forge close links with FE colleges and other institutions to offer their learners a greater choice of subjects, and different ways to learn. The recommendation and subsequent implementation of the green paper was to create new pathways for learning, stating ‘young people will be able to study vocational and technical education as part of the normal school programme. High standard vocational options will be available to students across the ability range.’ (DFEE, 2001) The increased flexibility programme also offered attractive funding.

84 Funding of up to £100,000 per partnership was available from 2002, with its allocation decided locally among the partners. The amount covers the cost of part-time vocational placements with further education/training providers. (Ofsted, 2004)

The institution in which I work at is a medium sized FE college, it has had links with schools in the local area since 1976. In 2001 it enrolled approximately 120 learners on vocational courses and in 2002 the college formed a partnership with the local education authority to take advantage of the benefits offered by the increased flexibility programme. Following this the number rose rapidly to over 800, which caused significant problems within the traditional vocational areas (catering, construction trades, hairdressing and motor vehicle studies). The problems were mainly due to staff not being suitably qualified or experienced in meeting the needs of learners within the 14-16 age group. Some problems did stem from schools allowing unsuitable learners access to college and various behaviour and health and safety issues followed.

The colleges solution to these problems was to build the John White Skills Centre, an idea put forward by college governor John White; a dedicated centre with permanent staff and fully equipped vocational areas for the sole use of school link learners. The number of learners was also limited and have now stabilised to around 440 enrolments. The Skills Centre offers level 1 and level 2 motor vehicle based programmes to meet the needs of nearly all types of 14-16 learners, if learners are working towards level 2 (or close to it) in other school subjects learners are offered a place an our level 2 course which is a traditional vocational related qualification. To explain the difference between the two different qualification levels I use the analogy; level 1 generally covers what something does and level 2 is more about how something works. We all could conclude that stating what something does is much easier than explaining how something works.

My problem of engaging learners in classroom sessions came to a head with a group of rather vocal learners following a level 2 qualification The learners had settled in at the Skills Centre but were still in their first year, they were not actively engaging in the classroom sessions citing reasons of boredom, due to work being not interesting enough and the coursework folders too difficult to follow. The entire content and teaching method for this qualification was assessed and evaluated and some solutions to these problems were identified. One of the first solutions was to re-design the coursework assignments as the assignments in use at that

85 time were versions used for post 16 learners, which were in hindsight vague and required a large quantity of written work by the learner and a large amount of support from the tutor. The characteristics of the pragmatic learning style that many learners attending the Skills Centre are, have little interest in basic theory or principles, but have lots of interest in practical tasks and are keen to test things out in practice. I was mindful of this as I considered new material to include in the curriculum.

The assignments were re-designed to become easier to read, and incorporate more practical tasks and investigations which could be carried out inside or outside the workshop, because a key feature of cognitive theory is that knowledge is constructed through interaction with the environment, I thought that this would satisfy the learners needs much better than written work alone. A problem I found during the design stage was to write the assignment to meet the awarding bodies grading criteria; Edexcel is very prescriptive in its standards using adjectives such as describe, explain, identify, produce, compare and justify. Due to the use of these words in the qualification specification the assignments have to be written to fully satisfy these criterions. One of the first assignments I wrote was to satisfy the grading criteria, “P2 describe the operation of a power train system.” (Edexcel, 2008.) The grading criteria are very vague but the guidance notes go some way to give examples of what may be included.

With the new assignment written, I still wanted to provide the learners with a meaningful experience in the classroom sessions in the hope of them being more deeply engaged, better behaved and have more enjoyment in learning. I started investigating methods known to increase the retention of learned material and to increase the enjoyment of learning. Jarvis, Holford, & Griffin, (2004) states: Education is fundamentally cognitive whilst training is skills based. Such arguments, which were convincing to many at the time, failed to recognise the integrated nature of knowledge and action. Now, perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too much away from the cognitive. Even so, as it became necessary to combine these phenomena, a new term had to be discovered – and this became learning. (Jarvis, Holford, & Griffin, 2004: pg.4-5)

This statement began to help me better realise that a link between theory and practical needed to be much more focused and simultaneous, the work of Brookfield (2006) summed this up in a much more concise manner. ‘As a general rule every new concept that is introduced into the

86 curriculum should be accompanied by at least three practical illustrations from the teacher followed by the students attempt to provide a fourth.’ (Brookfield, 2006: pg.166).

I researched many ideas to improve my teaching and increase the engagement of my learners, but one particular article Active Learning Works by Petty (2004), described my own teaching style and the reason I was using this style ‘we tend to teach in the way we were taught ourselves, rather than in the way that works best.’ (Petty, 2004.) After reading this particular article I had made my mind up to use an active teaching style. The article included practical examples and showed evidence that active learning could actually increase the amount of learning over a given time, which was very attractive. Active teaching is described as using discussion, games, film clips, problem solving activities, group work, real life items, practical activities and interaction as resources within your teaching practice. The first opportunity I got to try this new style was as my learners were approaching the topic of differentials and final drives, one of the questions I had posed within an assignment was; describe the need for a differential in a motor vehicle. To enable my learners to answer this question, I had devised a whole group experiment which could be carried out within a workshop, classroom or other space.

To determine if this experiment required any more development and for comments about its impact on my learners I arranged for one of my teaching observations to be carried out during the duration of this experiment. The experiment was designed to be carried out entirely by the learner, I had simply given two groups of learners an envelope containing written instructions and a selection of materials, including string, a tape measure, some masking tape, pens and pencils. The experiment involved the learners mapping out the path the wheels of a vehicle would make as it was carrying out a u-turn on the classroom floor, (the learners used masking tape to achieve this), then using some small wheels the learners counted the number of turns each wheel would make should it follow the path of the vehicle, obviously one wheel made less turns than the other and to further reinforce this difference I connected both wheels together and showed they would not follow the drawn out path. I was very impressed in the way the learners had engaged in this problem solving experiment, it seemed to give some of the learners insight, “insight learning applies the laws of perception to learning. It refers to that sudden flash of inspiration that we have when we suddenly see the solution to the problem.” (Armitage, et al, 2007 pg.73). The session was finished with a thorough question

87 and answer session, where the questions had been devised to further reinforce the learning which had taken place.

I believe that the preferred learning style (pragmatist) of these learners greatly impacted on the success of this experiment. The learners had no problem answering the assignment question some even included results from the experiment to further explain their point, which was very encouraging. Fisher, (2001) explained problem solving activities will stimulate and develop skills of thinking and reasoning. They utilise and make relevant the child’s knowledge of facts and relationships. Getting results helps develop confidence and capability. (Fisher, 2001: p.98).

The way I approach developing these active resources is to first identify the purpose, outcome or problem your session is going to solve, then simplify this and consider the needs of the learners, next consider the grading criteria and could you use the results of your session to satisfy these? Then think about the content of the lesson, could you make your register interactive? Is there a short film clip you could use? How could you develop excitement or purpose to what the outcome of the session should achieve? I have found that lots of paper resources are not as effective as one or two memorable problem solving activities, video clips or games. There are many creative teaching books and website for ideas, not all your ideas and resources will work, but in my experience the learners will let you know what has been particularly good and what has not.

The object of this paper was to identify strategies to best engage and motivate learners in the 14-16 age group. The problems I have assessed and evaluated stemmed from two distinct areas: the characteristics of the preferred learning style of many of the 14-16 learners presented to FE colleges to study vehicle technology, means these learners are not interested in theory and basic principles, which lead to the learners becoming disengaged whilst studying these theories in a classroom setting, and the standards set by awarding bodies require learners to describe theories and basic principles in a degree of detail, which is a distinct contrast to their learning style characteristics.

An active style of teaching, will vastly improve the quality of the learning experience, enable learners to retain knowledge and if lesson objectives and assignments are written as an integrated part of an active teaching model, these objectives will be much easier for the

88 learners to achieve. The added bonus of having better engaged, better motivated learners is that the all important, retention, achievement and success rates will definitely improve. I have found that the use of games, film clips, problem solving activities and bringing the workshop into the classroom, through the use of real objects and short experiments does engage learners, improves behaviour and really does improve results. A disadvantage of following this style is that the learners expect every lesson to be filled with active resources, but not every lesson lends itself to this style and developing resources can be time consuming. I would not consider returning to my former teaching style, which was very tutor led and not entirely effective, I enjoy innovating classroom resources and I feel that the learners I am teaching get a enjoyable, relevant and memorable experience, and the question I used for the title of this paper; Is doing the job, knowing the job? Can be answered, using active learning techniques; Doing the job is knowing the job.

References

Armitage, A., Bryant, R., Dunnill, R., Flanagan, K., Hayes, D., Hudson, A., Kent, J., Lawes, S. & Renwick M. (2007) Teaching and training in post-compulsory education. Third edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Brookfield, Stephen D. (2006). The Skillful Teacher on technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom. Second edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Department for Education and Employment. (2001). Schools Building on Success. Norwich: HMSO

Edexcel Limited (2008) Edexcel level 2 BTEC First certificate and BTEC First diploma in Motor Vehicle Technology. BF017275 specification, 67.

Fisher, R. (2001). Teaching Children to think. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes

Jarvis, P. Holford, J. & Griffin, C. (2004). The theory and practice of Learning. Second edition. London: Routledge Falmer.

Office for Standards in Education. (2004). Increased flexibility programme at Key Stage 4: Evaluation of the first year. Document reference number: HMI 2074.

Active Learning Works: the evidence. Geoff Petty. [Online] (2004) [Accessed on 23-11-10] Available from: http://www.geoffpetty.com/downloads.html

89 90 91 92 Geoffrey Wilson

An investigation into Pro-Tools software and its benefits as a recording and compositional tool.

I have been teaching Music production techniques in various colleges for over 3 years. The courses that I have taught so far at these various colleges have been, Tec National Diploma Level Music Technology, Foundation Degree in Music Technology, BA (Hons) in Creative Music and currently BA (Hons) Music Production and Sound Recording. Also I facilitate workshops in Music Technology, Composition and Performance working with young people from various backgrounds and learning needs (special needs). The degree courses aims are to provide the learners with a high level of academic theory and practice knowledge and develop skills they have already acquired through previous learning e.g. BTEC National Diploma. The main area of my specialist teaching on these courses has been sound recording, composition, arrangement, music technology, and production techniques. Currently I am teaching introduction to recording and music at the University Centre Barnsley. The object of this assignment is to look at technology in music composition. Why? Because when technology is used for composition, it opens up a whole new universe of sound and when applied into teaching practice will also embed the various skills required for professional work within the music industry, or for further academic study? Should all colleges and schools invest in the appropriate digital audio workstations and software (Pro-Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase) that the music industries currently embrace? What obstacles that need to be overcome e.g. funding, government policy, schools, colleges, universities, and awarding bodies.

Music has been at the forefront of technological advancement, with educators recognising its potential long before the arrival of digital technologies. The pace of change in these technologies has been rapid, with yesterday’s technology quickly becoming out of date and being replaced by new ones. The combination of music and ICT (music technologies) has become to be viewed by governments and the managing agencies as a primary catalyst for change, these technologies are considered to be the drivers of change inviting frontier change and boundary breaking. (Finney and Burnard, 2007 p 12) Pro-tools is a digital audio workstation platform for apple Mac OSX and Microsoft Windows operating systems, which was developed and manufactured by Digidesign, which is now a division of Avid

93 Technologies. Pro-Tools has long been the leading industrial standard software in the professional studios of today since 1991. In 2002 Digidesign introduced an official Pro-Tools training curriculum and certification programme, with related courses in music and postproduction. Accredited colleges and universities around the world and the UK deliver this curriculum. The benefits for institutes to become Digidesign certified are many, with yearly administration fee discounts for hardware and software, site software licensing which will reduce costs for software additions, free software updates and instructor training, technical support, provide certification to students on completion of courses and discounts on their online store. The down side to pro-tools are the initial outlay costs, which are expensive such as the HD systems, even with the discounts on offer. Schools and colleges who are not accredited can still use pro-tools but the cost would be expensive depending on how many computer systems they would like the software to be working on.

Pro-tools can also develop and improve ICT skills and help learners to identify the components of a computer and their function to audio, use of the mouse, standard menus’, and keyboard commands. Be able to locate, move and rename files and folders, open, save, and close files correctly. Other skills developed would be audio and midi concepts such as disc based, random access audio recording and playback, multi-tracking, basic mixing and signal routing. Learn and understand how digital audio concepts: sample rate and bit depth, midi controller connections, data types and signal flow are used. With this in mind, Pro-Tools can be incorporated into any music technology curriculum. The group of students I am teaching this year have come from various backgrounds and have achieved the necessary qualifications. Through the interview process it became apparent that colleges and schools, are all using different types of software, learners although have achieved the grades required for the course, the standards are not always the same.

Music technology resources around the UK are inconsistent between schools and colleges and are usually dependent upon the knowledge and experience of the music teachers. Even though these music teachers are highly qualified and experienced musicians, that musical experience might not always extend to knowledge and experience within music technology. Resources within the classroom usually consist of a computer workstation with a MIDI keyboard connected to a MIDI interface, with the software choice being more appropriate to music publishing (Sibelius) or what the music teacher can afford from the budget available (Cubase, Garageband). Even so, some syllabuses should address key attributes within the

94 software, such as Instruments, Effects, Dynamic processing, Equalisation, Synthesis (Synthesiser) and Sampling. Music technology can offer everything in composition and recording; learners are not being directed in the creative use of these technologies, so I ask, is creativity really being taught to its full potential? As someone who wanted to be able to understand more about the technology I use (Pro-Tools), and develop my understanding and skills. I attended the training courses 101-110 by Digidesign, so that I could incorporate this knowledge into my teaching practice of music technology and composition.

Music technology has brought another dimension into teaching and learning; software such as Pro-Tools has helped create multiple forms of music pedagogy, where inspiration and creativity can come from the student and tutor. Music educators can develop new strategies that go beyond making new tools ‘fit in’ to current ways of working (Burnard, 2007). In my sessions I found that I needed to approach various pedagogy’s and adapt them to meet the learners needs, so that they could make best use of the technology available to them. The sonic possibilities these technologies can bring to their compositions, go far beyond the traditional notated frameworks of electric and acoustic instruments, they have learned previously. Integrating Pro- Tools into my sessions I am able to create pre-recorded tracks (songs), which I use to demonstrate the use of mixing techniques, instruments available to them within the software, the use of Beat Detective, MIDI, Equalisation, Dynamic Processors (compressors, limiters and noise gates), Effect Processors (Reverb, Delay, Chorus, flanging, Pitch shift, Sampling, etc) and how to manipulate and refine sounds in composing (Audio & MIDI).

The Pro-Tool session I have created can be loaded onto multiple computers the learners will use; this makes the session more inter-active where the learner can participate continually throughout. After I have demonstrated a particular technique, learners can then put that knowledge into practice from tasks given to them, I can then check and assess each learner’s progress and adapt to their needs. To help reinforce learning, I use handouts with diagrams that show the techniques and explain how to use and implement them. These they can use to refer to when they are doing tasks and other activities. The handouts have proven popular with the learners, because they can use them and learn at their own pace in and out of the teaching sessions. The session is projected onto a large screen so that all users can see how I am demonstrating techniques in Pro-Tools. I encourage all learners to take notes and I

95 continually ask questions throughout the session to check learning is taking place and so that I can differentiate and support each learner.

All my teaching sessions are student centred; this is achieved through individual and group activities that involve various practical tasks such as, inputting new sounds via a midi keyboard, manipulating sounds with the processors and effects. The sessions are formative so I can continually observe and assess learners and adapt to individual needs, and support each learner as required. I encourage learners to think and experiment with Pro-Tools and the sounds they are using, take risks and consider different types of sounds, including manipulation techniques to create new sounds for their compositions. This process encourages learners to start asking their own questions, and promotes discussion and debate within the sessions, and challenges them to think how they approach recording, composing, and creativity. Software such as Pro-Tools helps promote this because of the diversity it brings in its sound scope, instruments and various processing and effect tools it offers.

The Cognitivist school of learning looks at the thinking process of when we learn, and aims to teach understanding with new learning and incorporate with previous learning. This means they believe that learning by doing, you set challenging questions for the students, which will help make sense of what they are learning and make use of their learning in real life. Music students tend to be cognitive learners, because of the process of learning an instrument or technology to create music. When we look back at Dewey’s research, he defined learning, as ‘learning to think’ meaning the learner would not just learn by doing a task of some form, but would reflect and also learn from it, by fitting this into their own learning structure. With this type of learning we can look at Bloom’s taxonomy and set tasks that develop gradually, setting goals for the learners, which build and become more difficult as they progress in their learning. This is the type of theory practice I use in all my sessions, and incorporate it with other theories, such as Behaviourist and Humanist. The activities I use, have clear technical and expressive aims which allow the students freedom to make decisions for themselves, learners gain knowledge and skills through this process which encourages creativity and self- expression that focus on the process of discovery, experimentation, problem solving e.g. recognizing and identifying issues within the composition and mix, and being prepared to take risks. This happens from accomplishing tasks and reflecting on what they have learned (Diary) and achieved, what they could do better next time and how they intend to accomplish this, then implement the knowledge and skills into their own compositions.

96 Other resources that accompany the music technology in my sessions are the SMART Board, PowerPoint, and Internet, visually, and as interactive tools, they are excellent for presenting information, quizzes (to test new knowledge learned), and give the opportunity for learners to have a more involvement in the sessions, with their own learning. Today teachers and learners can incorporate music technologies and software to manage their own learning in creating and producing music. Learning goals can be adapted to how learners like to work musically, with the correct learning environment and resources; this would encourage creativity within the learning sessions: Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much by just sitting in the classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they ate learning, write about it, relate to it past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves. (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) Pro-Tools is a very versatile tool and with the various activities required to operate and create music, with computer-based technology, this helps meet the Auditory, Visual and Kinaesthetic learning styles of the learners. This is done through the use of the computer screen for visuals, listening and evaluating their composition through monitor speakers (Auditory), using the computer keyboard, instruments, keyboard, microphone (Kinaesthetic). Literacy and numeracy are developed through mathematical equations such as setting thresholds and ratios in processors and effects. Boosting and cutting frequency parameters used in equalization. Programming software within Pro-Tools and the use of samples and creating them. When students are working on assignments either as a group or on their own, and need to solve a problem out of college hours. Pro-Tools has an embedded manual in its software, and also support in the form of online help and video tutorials. They can also access Blackboard for support materials, videos, post music they have composed for others students to listen, and get peer assessment from other learners and tutor feedback.

Jonathan Hill’s letter (2010) to Les Walton states; I believe that every young person should aspire to further education at the age of 16, whether that is on a full time course in a college or school sixth form, or in training supported by their employer in their first steps to a career path. That is why we were able to confirm, as part of the recent spending review, our commitment to funding full participation amongst 16 and 17 year olds by 2015.

Since the coalition government came to power, there have been some major reforms in education policy. Universities have lost major funding from the government and this has

97 brought a major dilemma for them. The Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance 2010 have been restructured to implement cost cutting measures and increase in the financial contributions from graduates. The Russell Groups submission to the review show there is a need to increase funding for universities to compete with leading universities worldwide. With this in mind the government should re-evaluate its policy, especially funding of technology within media. We have seen in the media that some universities want to implement the maximum cost of £9000.00. This does make it more difficult for learners from a more disadvantaged background to afford a place at university. Other universities are not in such a privileged position to charge extortionate fees and with the rising cost for students to go to university; this could be the end of many courses. The lack of funding is across the board in education, music itself over the years has fallen out of favour in the classroom, and is in danger of just being just an out of hours activity in schools and colleges.

There are many music educators in schools colleges around the country, who are inspirational in their teaching practice, but unfortunately there is no continuity throughout the UK, this has been mainly through lack of funding. Universities will now look more to businesses for funding, but in these difficult times, not many businesses are in the position to invest in educations future. The Henley report shows that in the last five years the government has invested in music education the provision of funding has not resulted in uniformity of provision across the country. So this makes the issue of schools, colleges and universities using the same software a difficult proposal.

There does not seem to be any continuity as to what constitutes as ICT (Music Technology) in schools and colleges and the software used. Training opportunities in music technologies for tutors could be explored further, so that is taught more effectively in the curriculum. Pro- Tools and other similar music technologies, offer an over whelming opportunity for creativity which is often never realised by the educators delivering music technology. Music technologies offer an abundance of instruments and effects for creating music. What is being taught around the country and the standards applied by moderators differ. What is regarded as a pass/merit/distinction differs greatly from area to another, even though they follow the same guidelines, and Awarding Body. Resources will always be an issue as music and music technology takes a back seat in the curriculum, government funding cut backs are now a major factor with schools, colleges, and universities finding it increasingly difficult to invest

98 in new music technologies such as Pro-Tools. But invest they must, so that learners can acquire the necessary skills they will need, to stand them in good stead for employment in the wider world.

The UK is one of the world leaders in music and media and lack of funding and investment for the right resources in music education could undo all this. The dilemma that has come about for universities is, how to use the funding they will receive. Should they invest in the arts and media courses? Or, concentrate on the sciences and more highly skilled courses that will attract funding from government in the future. Colleges and universities are businesses in the end, the management and funding of them is dictated by how many learners are on the course, results and retention of learners. All this has a major impact on how funding is distributed within these establishments. These music technologies can bring endless possibilities in creativity, learning and teaching, groundbreaking thinking from tutors can develop new pedagogies into their teaching practice, together with their learners they can explore the endless sounds and possibilities that they can bring into composition and the classroom.

The issue of music technologies such as Pro-tools and how they can be effective in composition need users to understand how they could be used creatively. Embracing this ideology with music technology can challenge composers, educators and learners imaginations and creative thinking and how they will use them effectively in music making. The desire for education institutes to be seen operating in line with the music industry standards. Pro-Tools has long been widely accepted as being the industrial standard studio recording technology. As creative perspective Pro-Tools is a powerful software, which as Savage and Challis (2001) have observed, is also intuitive for children as young as nine years old to work with creatively and independently. The boundaries within the various disciplines of music and technology are becoming smaller as artists move between the various disciplines. The music industry has gone through many changes and has struggled to compete and change quickly enough with the technologies the consumer uses to listen and purchase music. Illegal downloads have been a major headache and has cost the recording industry millions in lost revenue. With demise of the larger recording studios and the industry itself artists have had to learn new skills. This also applies to education so that it can provide the skills students will need for employment or further academic study.

99 References

Avis, J., Fisher, R. and Thompson, R. (Eds.) (2009) Teaching in Lifelong Learning: A Guide to Theory and Practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Bargeron, D, Grudin, J, Gupta, A, Sanocki, E. (2002) Journal of Management Information Systems: A Synchronous Collaboration around Multimedia Applied to On-Demand Education, Journal of Management Information Systems, 18(4), pp. 117-145. [online] Available at: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=820722. [Accessed 22nd April 2011]

Berkley, R. (2004) British Journal of Music Education: Teaching composing as creative problem solving: conceptualising composing pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 239-263, [Online] Available at: http://www.music-ite.org.uk/resources/secondary- ite/teaching-composing-creative-problem-solving-conceptualising-composing-pedago [Accessed 24thFebruary 2011]

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. and William, D. (2003) Assessment for Learning. Maidenhead: Open University Press. BIS. (2010) Progressive Plans for Higher Education. [Online] Available at:http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx? NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=416343&SubjectId=2 [Accessed 24thFebruary 2011]

Bolter, J. Grusin, R. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Boyatzis, R. E, Stubbs, E. C, Taylor, S, N. (2002) Academy of Management Learning and Education: Learning Cognitive and Emotional Intelligence Competencies Through Graduate Management Education. 1(2), pp.150-162. [Online] Available at: http://www.jstor.org/pss/40214147.

Savage, J. Challis, M. (2001) ‘Dunwitch revisited: collaborative composition and performance with new technologies’, British Journal of Music Education, 18/2, pp. 139-49. Cambridge University Press. [Online [Available at:http://journals.cambridge.org. [Accessed 1st March 2011]

Swanwick, K. (2001) “Musical technology and the interpretation of heritage,” in International Journal of Music Education, Sage Publications, 37 pp. 32- 43.

100 Susan Zergi

Ideas for the development of an online facility for CPD in phlebotomy particularly looking at communities in practice and social networking sites.

I teach a two day level two phlebotomy course which is delivered to a wide variety of learners ranging from Doctors, Midwives, Nurses and Health Care Assistants to university researchers and alternative therapists. Learners can also include those with no previous healthcare experience, together with Nurses and Doctors coming to this country from abroad. The course is educationally accredited by NOCN and is one of very few accredited qualifications available in phlebotomy. The course is delivered on a self-employed basis on behalf of Phlebotomy Training Services Ltd, a private training company established about four years ago. CPD (Continuing Professional Development) is quite simply a means of supporting people in the workplace to understand more about the environment in which they work, the job they do and how to do it better. It is an ongoing process throughout our working lives. (University of Plymouth, 2010)

CPD helps practitioners to maintain current knowledge of changes in practice, legislation and technology and in using up to date knowledge enhances skills and increases efficiency, confidence and effectiveness within the workplace. This can result in personal gain, improved career prospects and is sometimes a requirement of professional bodies and associations. CPD activities can be shown to be useful and beneficial for both the practitioner and employer alike.

Traditionally phlebotomy skills have been passed on informally in the form of a one day study session or one to one workplace training. More recently the training is beginning to become more formal however there is as yet no professional requirement for any registration or continuing professional development (NHS Careers, 2010) both within the phlebotomy and healthcare assistant roles. This can lead to out dated methods and knowledge being perpetuated with some practitioners having had no updated knowledge or skills since their original training, which may have been many years ago. Whilst this in itself is not necessarily a problem, it is generally dependent on the quality of the original training and the practitioner themselves (Ernst, 2005). This does sometimes lead to learners challenging my teaching role. A learner who has been practicing for many years, or who has trained in another country, can

101 sometimes be hostile to new ideas especially if they are attending, in their own opinion, to merely formalise a skill they already possess. These learners generally appreciate their updated skills and knowledge once they realise that the course is based on clinical evidence and occupational standards. It would also be interesting to have some form of follow-up to check if their new knowledge and skills are put into practice or whether they simply revert to old techniques once they have their certificate.

Phlebotomy is generally a large part of the Health Care Assistant role, especially within primary care and there is increasing pressure towards this role becoming regulated (Nursing Times, 2010), this in turn should lead to a continuing professional development requirement in all aspects of a Health Care Assistant’s role including phlebotomy.

Whilst a need for CPD is being established, methods of delivery remain uncertain. Gill (2007) suggests that age and previous learning experience should not be allowed to be a barrier to learning. This, together with the opportunity for a learner to work at their own pace, will allow the learner to gain recognition for their achievement, which in turn will lead to improved knowledge, confidence and job satisfaction and ultimately improved patient care. There are various methods for the delivery of CPD including study sessions, courses, e learning, communities in practice and social networking including facebook and twitter. Probably the most common method of CPD is in the form of study days/sessions during which new ideas and methods can be introduced together with the reinforcement of existing techniques and knowledge. CPD benefits patients and the clinical environment, however being able to encourage staff to attend courses or study sessions that are not mandatory can be difficult (Gill, 2007), more especially if they are held outside of normal working hours. There are also the difficulties of releasing staff during normal working hours during periods of staff shortages due to holidays and sickness. This can sometimes mean that sessions are missed or postponed. It is important to acknowledge that CPD also helps staff to keep up to date with any new developments and should allow them to demonstrate this at no cost to themselves other than time. Within my teaching role the e-learning could be used as a way of extending the course beyond the two days, requiring the completion of various on line activities possibly not dissimilar to those we have undertaken leading up to the Specialist Conference. By analysing and criticising, the learner is made to think about the practice of others and should then make the link to their own practice. Whether the learner will look at his or her own practice objectively would remain to be seen. It is widely recognised that the

102 manner in which learners process and retain academic information gives foundation to the belief that learners have distinct learning styles e.g. visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (VAK) and as such should be divided and taught according to these styles. (Coffield et al.,2004). E learning would be able to address all learning styles depending on how it is delivered on screen. This could be in the form of a mixture of text to read and digest, pictures and diagrams to complete and activities to progress through.

It is amongst these constraints that e-learning can be introduced as a useful tool. In June 2010 the Nursing Times launched online courses that nurses and healthcare workers can access at their convenience in order to improve and update their skills. Various online units are offered and once completed contribute two hours of CPD and a certificate is also issued which can be included in a practitioners portfolio as evidence of study. (Nursing Times, 2010). Each unit starts and ends with an assessment and frequent feedback is given using case studies, scenarios and related questions during the unit. The unit may be repeated until the pass mark is achieved. Each unit also contains information of further reading and links to other key documents, which may be useful to enable further study in greater detail.

The Royal College of Physicians offers a CPD diary on line that is used to record or log qualifying study. It is a requirement of this scheme that all CPD events are approved in order to ensure they are of an appropriate standard. Events are also given CPD credits that relate to the duration of the event and the hours of study completed.

Both of these examples from the Nursing Times and The Royal College of Physicians show that online CPD is already in use and could be easily adapted to suit phlebotomy. Online CPD allows practitioners to work at their own speed and at a time to suit the learner. Gill (2007) has shown that CPD improves staff confidence and knowledge and also improves patient care. A continuing requirement for certification would allow the teacher to be sure that the learner has retained the current and up to date skills and knowledge and not reverted to old habits. It is important to remember though that it must be traceable and verifiable to be of any substance, but this can be said of any CPD learning. Having access to online CPD study can enhance a practitioner’s skills by providing and reinforcing valuable underpinning knowledge to their existing practical skills. Until a requirement for CPD is introduced into phlebotomy this will not necessarily have an impact on my teaching. However within the sessions learners are always encouraged to constantly self evaluate and think of ways to

103 improve their skills and learning especially after the course has finished. By providing a tool to help them in this, my teaching and encouragement can be extended to beyond that of the classroom. This would probably lead to me having a longer relationship with the learners and would help those that feel daunted by their new skills until their confidence builds.

Roberts (2006) refers to Wenger’s definition of communities of practice. This suggests that communities of practice (CIP) have four main purposes. These are identity, meaning, learning and negotiation. One of the primary focuses of a CIP is the interaction of the members, who then form relationships based on these interactions. The members also have a sense of common purpose and will eventually develop shared resources evolving from shared experiences, stories and language. These CIPs will in time evolve and develop as new members join and some others leave.

An online example of a CIP could be in the form of a discussion forum. These are available on the Internet for practically every subject imaginable, therefore in order to be of value a CIP in the form of an online discussion forum would ideally be launched and moderated by a regulating body or professional association. In the case of phlebotomy this would probably be the National Association of Phlebotomists (NAP), a national association run by an executive committee of phlebotomy managers from the NHS and practitioners from both within the NHS and private providers. The NAP already provide regular updates for members and actively promote the standardisation of training, together with maintaining relations with the Department of Health on issues relating to phlebotomy. The main drawback is that membership of the NAP is voluntary and until registration or regulation of phlebotomy and phlebotomists becomes a legal requirement will remain so. One of the benefits of such a forum or CIP is that the regulating body could initiate topics for discussion, which are then put out into the public domain. This should generate lively debate and sometimes disagreements, but as described by Wenger (1998) this would be an ideal example of a CIP. By interacting within a moderated forum, the learners can be developing their own knowledge and skills within a regulated area. This also ensures that all information is correct and up to date. The NAP used to run a very basic forum with questions and ideas regularly being posted. This gave the practitioners direct access to a wealth of experience and knowledge and allowed them to ask questions, share dilemmas and gain feedback and ideas before discussing potential problems and improvements in the workplace. It can also give less

104 confident practitioners more confidence when they realise that their knowledge is at least equivalent to other colleagues. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are capable of reaching large numbers of users very quickly and efficiently and can be seen to initiate and encourage debate and the sharing of knowledge. The Centre for Phlebotomy Education uses Facebook as a discussion and information tool. By posting interesting facts, or posing questions, discussion is easily forthcoming, however the group is readily moderated so that any incorrect or dubious information posted by users is not only noticed but also corrected promptly. This group is an extension of phlebotomy.com run by Dennis Ernst, a recognised expert and published author not only in the American phlebotomy field but worldwide. The group regularly post videos from online communities such as YouTube, where practitioners have shared videos of themselves in practice, These are usually posted as ‘spot the mistake’ activities and can highlight bad practices and show examples of what can go wrong.

Twitter is another social networking site that can link users from all over the world with a common interest. Learning and Teaching Scotland (2009) used Twitter before, during and after an event to keep in touch with delegates and by including keywords within all posts or tweets were able to ensure that all interested parties who had opted to follow the posts, were kept informed.

Whilst FaceBook and Twitter are increasingly useful tools within the modern online world, it is difficult to say how this can be adapted to become useful and verifiable CPD. However as an information resource and a method of reaching a maximum amount of people with appropriate and current information on skills and theory it is likely to prove difficult to beat. What remains paramount is the quality of the information and knowledge and the reputation of official and trustworthy sites.

With regard to online CPD, it is probable that the e-learning provided by regulating bodies, associations and journals will continue to be of more value and more easily logged and tracked for CPD purposes. The introduction of online CPD diaries and logs can only make the introduction of CPD easier to manage.

To consider how this can relate to teaching within phlebotomy is not straightforward. Until a standardised teaching and training programme is introduced there will always be regional

105 variances in practice and whilst are not necessarily dangerous or incorrect, it would make it difficult to implement a CPD programme. Ideally practitioners would be required to update their skills and knowledge annually and competency documentation could reflect this by including a valid until date included. E-learning such as offered by the Nursing Times could easily be adapted to include phlebotomy, including the assessments before and after the unit. Some of the drawbacks of this type of learning would be on the practical aspects of phlebotomy, which can only be properly assessed by observing the procedure. Also all practitioners would need to be able to use a computer using basic IT skills to access the information. Support should also be readily available for those learners who encounter problems. A swift resolution is key to maintaining interest and a ‘can-do’ attitude especially with those less confident in their It knowledge.

In conclusion, social networking may play a part in CPD but will generally be difficult to assess and verify, however e-learning with selectable units available on line at any time will always play a useful and accessible role in CPD both in phlebotomy and other areas of healthcare.

References Calkin, Sarah (2010). Nursing Times [online]. [Accessed 03/01/2011]. Available from:.

Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E. & Ecclestone, K., (2004) Learning Styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: a systematic and critical review (London, Learning and Skills research Centre),

Ernst, D., (2005), Applied Phlebotomy. Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, New York.

General Pharmaceutical Council [online]. (2010) [Accessed 01/01/2011]. Available from: .

Gill, Anthony (2007). E-learning and professional development - never too old to learn. British Journal of Nursing [online]. 16, [Accessed 20/12/2010 ], p.1084. Available from: .

Morris, Con (2009). Learning and Teaching Scotland [online]. [Accessed 04/01/2011]. Available from: .

106 National Association of Phlebotomists [online]. (2010) [Accessed 04.01.2010]. Available from: NHS Careers [online]. (2010) [Accessed 04/01/2011]. Available from: .

Nursing Times [online]. (2010) [Accessed 04/01/2011]. Available from: .

Nursing Times [online]. (2010) [Accessed 04/01/2011]. Available from: . Roberts, Joanne (2006). Limits to Communities of Practice. Journal of Management Studies. 43, Issue 3, pp.623.

Royal College of Physicians [online]. (2010) [Accessed 04/01/2011]. Available from: .

University of Plymouth [online]. (2010) [Accessed 04/01/2011]. Available from: .

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

107 The Contributors

Cheryl Ellams

I have worked at John Leggott College for the last 11 years, and am currently the Teaching Cover Coordinator. I started teaching adults in 2002 after successfully completing the City and Guilds 7307, Stages 1 & 2. After almost 4 years of teaching IT, I diversified due to lack of recruitment in that area, and started teaching dressmaking. Since completing my 7307, I had always had the intention of studying for the Certificate in Education, but it wasn’t until September 2010 that I was able to do so.

Working at John Leggott College has kept me in an ideal position to gain further experience within the classroom, and there has always been lots of advice and guidance available when I need it. With the added advantage of studying for the Certificate in Education, the lessons have provided opportunities to interact with other students and exchange ideas. This has left me feeling better prepared and confident when taking my own classes. The support from the experienced teachers of the course, especially the university lecturers, was invaluable. The unforgettable days spent at university, and the eventual graduation ceremony, certainly made all of the hard work worthwhile.

Judith Fogg

Once I completed my English and History degree, it seemed natural to share my learning with others. I wanted to make a difference, to encourage others to pick up books and change their lives as I had mine. I started working as a Learning Support Assistant with the local authority and began my PGCE.

The PGCE has developed my understanding of teaching and learning, helping me to become a more skilful practitioner. I now fully appreciate the importance of regular assessment and of reflective practice. The course has made me more aware of the value of building good working relationships with colleagues. I have learned that teaching is a lot easier when you don’t try to do it all on your own.

108 Presentations and micro-teach sessions during the PGCE encouraged success and positivity, the sharing of ideas and practical solutions to problems that all teachers face. The course gave me two years of constructive feedback and support.

I am now a Tutor teaching literacy to adults for two local authorities. I also deliver literacy embedded family learning courses in children’s centres and schools. I am currently studying for my Subsidiary Diploma in Teaching Literacy at Selby College and intend to go for Qualified Teaching and Learning Status in the autumn of 2012.

Sarah Hall

My name is Sarah Hall and I currently teach Hairdressing at Oasis Academy in Immingham. I have taught Hairdressing for four years and I have been in the industry for a total of six. At the start of my first year on the Certificate in Education course I was employed with a work based learning provider, teaching the 14-16 Young Apprenticeship qualification and NVQs level 2 and 3. After finishing my second year of the Cert Ed I was then employed by Oasis Academy, teaching Hairdressing to school students ranging from Years 9-12. This course has given me so many opportunities and opened so many doors for me including new employment with this school. I have also gained further knowledge and understanding about teaching in Post Compulsory Education and I have thoroughly enjoyed researching, analysing and debating the different concepts and theories. One of the main highlights of this course was attending the specialist conference at the University of Huddersfield as this gave me the chance to network with other subject specialists.

Emma Hinch

Emma teaches on health and social care courses in both Further Education and Higher Education at North Lindsey College. Emma’s conference paper was considered to be outstanding by her Specialist tutor at Huddersfield.

109 Katie Holmes

Katie teaches animal care at North Lindsey College. Katie is particularly interested in motivational theories and their application to learners studying on vocational courses. After successfully completing and being inspired by the Certificate in Education, Katie is now a student on the BA(Hons) Education and Professional Development.

Lucy Markham

Lucy teaches on the BA(Hons) Applied Creative Design: Fashion or Costume and the FdA in Design and Interpretation at the Hull School of Art and Design. Lucy’s specialism is Pattern Cutting and Garment Construction. Lucy is particularly interested in preparing her learners for industry and has used her research whilst studying on the PGCE to develop innovative teaching practices that reflect the demands of industry.

Melissa McShane

I am currently the course tutor for the BTEC Level 3 in Business, A key benefit of completing the PGCE is the confidence in teaching and learning I have gained. It allowed me for the first time to look at my role as a lecturer and my strengths and weaknesses and through completion of the PDP and lesson observations, focus on key areas for improvement. The course enabled me to collaborate with peers and discuss and share good practice and although the course has ended, the links still exist with my peers. During the course a key area I identified as a weakness was my use of ICT in the classroom. Through the projects completed and targets set over the two years, I have been able to develop these skills and now share the skills and knowledge gained to other colleagues at the college through 1:1 support and toolkits.

I found the professionalism module very interesting as it provided me with a greater insight into teaching and teaching as profession, it enabled me to reflect on my own role and the importance of being seen as a dual professional.

110 Simon Noble

Simon is the Apprenticeship Co-ordinator at North Lindsey College. Simon’s research interest relates to the future and implementation of Apprenticeships for adult learners. Simon uses this current research, identified whilst studying on the course, in his present professional role.

Vicky Page-Chestney

I have been working in my present role, as an NVQ/QCF Diploma Tutor working within the NHS, for nine years. As part of my job role I teach learners from many different job roles within the Health service. I currently have the responsibility to develop and deliver training packages for seventeen different NVQ/QCF Diploma qualifications as well as for the Assessors and Verifiers awards.

Prior to taking this job role I held various job roles, both within the training sector and within healthcare. I started my working life as a Physiotherapy and Occupational therapy assistant. From there I went on to train as a nurse, working in many different departments in the hospital. I spent a considerable period of time working in paediatrics; this was followed by several years working with the elderly, undertaking a management role both in the public and private sector.

As part of my continuous professional development, I have undertaken many different post registration qualifications as well as teaching qualifications and assessing. The most recent of those being the Certificate in Education, which I completed in 2011. I am currently following that up with the BA (Hons) in Education and Professionalism.

Gaynor Purdy

Gaynor has since left full-time teaching in order to concentrate on her Garden Centre business. However, she does use the practical skills and the theoretical underpinning knowledge gained on the PGCE to train and develop her own staff.

111 Alan Rayment

I became a wheelchair user in 1997 after having my left leg amputated due to leg ulcers. I then had my right leg amputated in 1998 due to MRSA. I was a truck driver at the time and did not really know what life had in store for me. I went back to work for the same company as Transport supervisor and in six years I was Transport Manager. I completed my A levels in Sport and Recreation and become a coach in many sports including Triathlon. Over the last three years I have concentrated on the Education side of sports, teaching NVQ level 2 & 3 at North Lindsey College and in 2009 I enrolled on the Certificate in Education course, which I successfully completed in 2011.

I have recently gained the post of Sports Centre Manager and have utilised the academic writing skills gained on the course to good effect by writing a successful bid for funding. I have also been appointed as an Olympic Sports Maker, as part of a nationwide programme linked to the London 2012 initiative. I found the application process required me to focus on many aspects that I had covered in depth in my Certificate in Education course. I will be promoting the Olympic and Paralympic values and hope to inspire others with my story.

Diane Remington

I have a nursing background spanning 25 years and my subject specialism is Health and Social Care. For twenty of those years I was involved teaching in the NHS. I currently work for a private provider assessing and training health and social care apprenticeships at level 2 and 3 in residential nursing homes.

When I started the PGCE I was in the process of developing my teaching abilities and the course helped me to identify those areas that required further development. The PGCE has given me additional knowledge and understanding, particularly in relation to motivational theories and how these factors have an impact on learners in my sector. This has resulted in me moving into a new professional role and to pursue other avenues in my subject specialism.

112 Ian Staples

I work at North Lindsey College, in the John White Skills Centre, which is dedicated for learners in the 14-16 age range, my specialism is motor vehicle technology. I completed the Certificate in Education in 2011 and over the duration of the course I developed a large range of skills which have had a positive impact on my teaching practice and professionalism. Relevant research and academic writing were some of the first key skills I developed and with the help of university and centre staff, I was able to access a wide range of resources and publications. This enabled me to write a paper which was themed around active learning, constructivism and cognitive theory. This paper included many topics, theories and practices which I had studied within Cert.Ed.

Research for my paper had answered so many questions and given me lots of inspiration which has enabled me to become much more innovative within my practice. This has been proved, since completing Cert. Ed. I have been awarded a grade 1 (excellent) lesson observation profile.

Geoffrey Wilson

Since completing the PGCE I have now been able to gain employment at the University Campus Barnsley (Huddersfield University). I teach composition on the Music degree and tutor students from Year 1 to the final year. The PGCE has helped me to develop my teaching practice and for me to recognise how important my own continual professional development is.

The PGCE course has expanded my knowledge of the various learning styles I needed to know and has helped me be more proficient in how I plan and deliver my lessons. It has also given me great insight into my own learning and professional development needs.

113 Susan Zergi

After completing my PTLLS in 2008, the next logical step was to undertake the Certificate in Education. This made me analyse how I was teaching and also the teaching methods that were prescribed to me by my employer, a private training company, something which they didn’t appreciate. I also evaluated and reflected more than I ever have. I didn’t enjoy the entire course but in general it has made me a better teacher and has given me an understanding of learners and all the issues surrounding education that I didn’t have before. Ironically I’m not teaching at the moment, but instead I’m concentrating on gaining professional qualifications so that I can move forward with my teaching in the future when already having completed my Certificate in Education will place me in a good position on which to build my teaching.

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