Quality Improvement Fund 2010

Quality Improvement Fund Final Report

Activity Title Planning Effective Learning: Innovating, Sharing and Embedding Active Learning Strategies using the supported experimentation model

Name of Coleg Cambria, formerly Yale College Organisation Key Words Teaching, learning, supported experimentation, learning technologies, planning effective learning Background and Yale College was a large further education college based in Wrexham with over Activity Description 3,500 full time learners studying FE vocational and A level programmes and over 3,000 work based learners and adult community learners. On August 1 st 2013 the College merged with Deeside College to form Coleg Cambria, serving the whole North East Wales region. The project undertaken covered Yale College staff and learners. The impact of the merger on this project was minimal, but does now provide an opportunity to take the best practice forward and further develop it outside the frameworks of this QIF funded project across the whole of the new institution.

Over the last three years, the College has been developing a model which enables teachers to plan their teaching sessions more effectively. The traditional area of need for teaching and learning development in the College was to develop more active learning opportunities within teaching and learning and to move away from more traditional didactic delivery. As a response to this the College developed a ‘Planning Effective Learning Model’ and at the start of the project was trying to share this across the College and embed it into all planning of lessons. This project worked on enabling teachers to do this by developing the model further to include a range of activity support materials, called ‘teaching takeaways.’

The objectives of this project were

 To extend the range of teaching and learning strategies that teachers use within their teaching, including ILT  To develop the understanding of how active learning can develop underpinning literacy skills and embed teaching and learning techniques to improve learning  To develop improved assessment for learning practices via active learning strategies  To develop improved metacognition via active learning activities  To increase the level of challenge in teaching and learning, and build more opportunities for independent learning at Levels 2 and 3

The College also used this project to further develop how ILT could be used pedagogically to support the elements of the planning effective learning model. Many of the active learning strategies used also developed underpinning literacy skills. The work undertaken by teachers was formulated around the supported experimentation model, where teachers identified a problem or issue which they wished to work on and then were guided to try an active learning strategy, following the ‘planning effective learning model’. These strategies also fitted into the effect size theoretical frameworks developed by Marzano and by Hattie, and many focussed on peer learning, improved assessment and metacognition. Teachers were supported in their experimentation by advanced practitioners and by the learning technologies team.

Activity Outcomes The activity has been successful in its development of active learning strategies and the embedding of more participative teaching and learning activities across Yale sites. The planning effective learning model was particularly helpful in enabling teachers to have a framework to structure their learning pedagogically and to be able to reflect on the elements of learning within sessions and their effectiveness. The effect of this project can be seen in the grade profile for teaching and learning, which increased significantly over the time of this project, with 90% good and excellent observed sessions (from a total of 106 observations) in 2012- 2013.

The two Estyn inspections of 2013 also provide a useful triangulation of positive outcomes. In the 2013, LFE inspection with provider Yale College (Sport and PE) Estyn reported that ‘Tutors plan lessons well. They have comprehensive schemes of work and effective lesson plans, with clear objectives. There is a good balance of theory and practical training which is well matched to the training programme. Tutors use a wide range of very good teaching resources, such as IPODs, smart phones, flip charts, good quality informative hand outs and the virtual learning environment (VLE). All tutors have a good rapport with apprentices and understand their differing needs and abilities well. Apprentices enjoy their learning, particularly the practical sessions.’ And in the Yale Consortium Work Based Learning inspection of June 2013, Estyn awarded the College with an ‘excellent’ judgement for teaching, the first in the sector, stating that ‘the consortium has developed outstanding quality in teaching, training and assessment’. Estyn also remarked that: ‘All staff use a wide range of effective teaching and training methods’ And that ‘teaching staff use ILT highly effectively to enhance teaching, learning and assessment. In the best cases, devices such as notepad computers and mobile phones are integrated into classroom and workshop activities. Teachers make good use of applications which allow, for example, instant assessment and feedback, links to further information resources using QR codes (Quick Recognition) and instant video replay to give feedback on practical tasks.’

Many of the technological innovations stated above were implemented as a result of supported experimentation during the QIF project. The outcomes from the QIF project were achievable and sustainable because implementation of new methods and technology was practical and did not require teachers to ‘write up’ their experimentation academically. There was very little paperwork but high levels of practical support, especially from the learning technologies team and teaching and learning support. This approach was the most sustainable as it took the burden from the trialling and experimenting and focussed on enabling teachers. The case studies produced have been written up later by those supporting the teachers. This was also important as a record of practice to share across the College and beyond where new approaches had worked. Softer outcomes for this project relate to changes in culture. This project has enabled teachers to develop more creative and innovative approaches to their teaching and learning and to learn to collaborate more with other teachers to share best practice. This project has been an important step forward in breaking down subject silos and encouraging cross college working by teachers.

Activity Outputs Experiment output(s):

A google site containing:  A planning effective learning model to be used by all teachers and embedded in session planning (paperwork and model produced for dissemination, plus training materials.)  A resource bank of active learning teaching activities used by teachers and structured around the planning effective learning framework, with ongoing sharing around these activities via ratings  A suite of active learning training materials based on using active learning strategies to develop literacy skills  A suite of learning technologies materials to aid implementation of technology pedagogically  A set of case studies with the impact of supported experimentation in subject areas Innovation and sharing practice events.  Deeside College, Yale College and Glyndwr University via teacher development day sharing and showcasing supported experimentation  The College shared the Planning Effective Learning Model nationally via three Colleges Wales regional events in March 2013, and this has since been adopted by Grwp Llandrillo Menai and by Gower College.  The results of the implementation of the planning effective learning model and teaching and learning developments were shared at the National Teaching and Learning Conference, Swalec Stadium in October 2013.  JISC RSC Wales Summer 2013 Conference: Encouraging Innovation  National Digital Learning Event and Awards 20th June 2013

The video vox pop has not been achieved as teachers were reluctant to film and there were complications in photographic and public sharing permissions relating to video materials.

Strengths and This project has been very successful in enabling large scale implementation of Weaknesses supported experimentation. The College undertook the following steps to ensure success: Stage 1: Scoping Initially the project leader worked with Directors to identify areas willing to take part. These teams would be ‘seed groups’ and included both more and less successful subject areas. The project asked for teachers to explore what areas they wished to develop via the planning effective learning model. A group of teachers formed a technology group. This also became a ‘seed group’ and they were given ipads and other devices to experiment with, with support from the learning technology team. Strengths: Clear direction of travel to the process Weakness: teams were initially identified, rather than self-directing

Stage 2: Initial Support of Seed Groups At this stage it became apparent the teachers needed more guidance on the types of things that they could try to implement. So, the teaching takeaways were developed to enable teachers to have ‘recipe card’ activities to try out. Teachers were also given physical resources, including lollipop sticks, mini whiteboards and traffic light plastic cards to experiment with. Strengths: resources provided invaluable support for teachers to get started. See group for technology worked particularly well Weakness: resource management of technology – developed expectations from other teachers not initially in the technology group Stage 3: Developing Wider Pedagogical Understanding Part of this project was to enable teachers to engage with broader ideas, other than purely the planning effective learning model. As such, the College enabled three teachers to attend Habits of Mind Training, with a view to developing supported experimentation around learner motivation and habits of learning. Unfortunately, two of these staff left the College for new career opportunities. This did reveal a potential weakness to the original project, and on reflection showed that it was better not to be too broad in the pedagogical approaches, and that staff preferred to have one model to focus on at a time. Strengths: Scoping in new ideas and approaches Weakness: Over reliance on individual staff to implement new ideas, high risk in terms of this, which proved correct as two staff left

Stage 4: Using Training to Develop Wider Engagement Over a term, a rolling programme of training on literacy, drip fed the teaching takeaways as activities for literacy to the staff being trained. This led to a large uptake of supported experimentation on a wider College level. Staff saw the teaching takeaways as easy routes to implement new approaches, and were able to see the benefit of these quickly. The technology teacher group also acted as an important seed group which quickly spread ideas of best practice and fuelled high demand to try new technology and new devices. This needed management, both in terms of resources and in terms of teacher expectations, as implementing technology can take time and training to effect. Strengths: Enthusiasm created for supported experimentation. Using training as the hook enabled teachers to see the practical implementation of active learning and the benefits of this to supporting literacy Weakness: created high expectations and the seed group developed high demand for technology (at the expense of teaching takeaways and other highly effective traditional methods)

Stage 5: Peer Sharing - Good Practice Events These were done at Directorate level and cross colleges via a shared teaching and learning innovation event with Deeside College, Yale College and Glyndwr University teaching department. The events enabled staff to share innovative approaches and to discuss these together as peers. These events worked really well and will be implemented regularly as staff development events after this project’s end. As a result of these events more staff have trialled creative approaches, replicating those they saw at the events, and trying new things, mainly ILT related, with support from the learning technologies team. Strengths: developed wider interest for supported experimentation and the benefits of active learning Weakness: organisation and timing of events Recommendations Clear project management is needed Work from small manageable ‘seed groups’ at first, don’t be overly ambitious Manage expectations of those involved. Some supported experiments may not work and may take development time. Not everyone can get an ipad. Clearly ring fence your resources and manage the expectation of teaching staff. Make sure that there are resources for staff to use. Some staff struggle with blank open ended creativity. The frameworks provided enabled teachers to frame thinking and reflections on their pedagogy more effectively. Don’t overly rely on learning technologies. They are one solution and route, but there are many very effective low cost teaching and learning tools and methodologies which are incredibly effective. Utilise every opportunity to share both the ideas for supported experimentation and the resources. Don’t get hung up on the writing up or the action research element to supported experimentation. This can dampen all enthusiasm and creativity. The value of supported experimentation is in the activity not the science of effect size, and the ability to determine impact is unscientific at micro-levels. Record and capture the effect of the supported experimentation via case studies. Enable teachers to reflect on their usage and put resource into this, e.g. the advanced practitioners doing the case studies. This will keep the energy of trialling new approaches alive. These case studies are a record and can be shared to help other teachers implement their practice. Do undertake regular peer sharing events. These are one of the most powerful and cost effective ways of breaking down silos in colleges and getting teams to meet each other and share best practice. Supporting Google site QIF teaching and Learning Cambria Documents https://sites.google.com/a/cambria.ac.uk/qif--teaching-and-learning-cambria/

Information on The Google site listed above will enable the reader to access the teaching supporting takeaways, the planning effective learning model, plus other useful resources on documents technology for learning and active learning methodologies. Next steps The next steps for the College are to use the learning from this project to inform supported experimentation and teaching and learning innovation going forward. This project has developed an energy for new approaches to teaching and learning which the new College will maintain and increase further. Contact Details For further information, please contact:

Name: Carys Davies Job Title: Director of Teaching, Learning and Professional Development Telephone: 01978 311794 E mail Address: [email protected]