Transcript Slide 1

Teacher Education Research Network
Developing Teacher Education Research
Capacity in the North West of England
Launch
Liverpool John Moores University
5th November 2008
TERN Project Team:
Marion Jones, Pat Mahony, Olwen McNamara, Ian Menter, Jean Murray, Grant
Stanley
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WELCOME
Professor Diana Burton
Pro Vice Chancellor
Liverpool John Moores University
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North West Universities’
Education Federation
(NWUEF)
• Federation of H E teacher education
• Promotes mutually beneficial
partnerships in HE
• In existence for 15 years
• Formalised as a federation with mission
statement in 2007
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NWUEF
Regional Strategy
2007 - 2012
Regional Strategy for the Education and
Training for all involved in the whole
school and children’s workforce
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Purpose
• To develop the profile and presence of the North
West Higher Education providers
• To ensure that their contribution to the national
scene in the education and training of the whole
school and children’s workforce is recognised,
encouraged and nurtured
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Vision
• Education is critical to the future economic success and
social stability of the region
• Our responsibility is to work collaboratively to provide
cutting edge education and training for the school and
children’s workforce
• We will ensure that a full contribution is made to the
national context for education through continued
dialogue with policy makers in education
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Strategic Objectives
• (i)NWUEF will develop a federation across providers of
education and training for the school and children’s
workforce in the region
• (ii)NWUEF will make a major and proactive contribution
to the national agenda in all aspects of the education
and training of the whole school and children’s workforce
• (iii)NWUEF will contribute to the development of a high
quality learning environment for all learners within the
North West, whether these are within schools, HEIs or
other contexts
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(iv)NWUEF will nurture links between all professional
communities involved in the education and training of the
whole school and children’s workforce within the region
(v)NWUEF will identify some elements of a common
curriculum within initial teacher education and continuing
professional development
(vi)NWUEF will facilitate a debate relating to applying the
best aspects of the change management and
remodelling agenda with HEIs
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NWUEF Partnership Research Strategy
• Relationships are fundamental to ITE partnerships
(trainees, mentors, tutors, schools, HEIs)
• Models of professional learning and teacher
development have grown up organically and differentially
partly as a consequence of these relationships
• An advantage of ITE partnerships is their fertile ground
for research
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Regional Teacher Education
Research Examples
• NWUEF has attempted to launch regional
research projects investigating ITE but funding is
a problem
• OU/MU/LJMU project looked at ITE impact,
producing published papers
• Liverpool City of Learning (Edge Hill, LJMU,
Hope, UoL) conducted nearly £500k of research
into learning networks and professional issues
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Aims of TERN
• To pilot a strong and sustainable model for
research capacity-building in teacher education
• Across a collaborative network of seven regional
universities
• To test the potential of this model for building a
coherent research infrastructure on a larger
scale across England
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The separation of research and teaching is no more keenly
in evidence than in the NW where only two HEIs receive
QR funding
NWUEF considers TERN to be fundamental to:
• Raising the profile of the quality of teacher education in
the NW
• Strengthening NW research partnerships and creating a
springboard for grant applications
• Involving school-based colleagues in collaborative,
ground-breaking projects
The National Context
for Research in and on Teacher
Education
Professor Olwen McNamara
University of Manchester
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Capacity building in education
Challenges facing the sector:
• politicisation of professional learning
• bureaucratisation of professional learning
• increase of research selectivity
• bifurcation of research and teaching in education
departments
• sustaining the teacher education workforce
TERN Increasing Research Selectivity
1992
5/5*
4
3a
12
15
13
17
17
14
19
19
3b
2
1
total
19
7
77
20
24
13
104
22
8
1
83
24 (3)
(1s not
funded)
1996
(1/ 2 not
funded)
2001
(1-3 not
funded)
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Education Departments in 2001 RAE
No core QR funding
(1, 2, 3b, 3a)
Core QR funding
(4 , 5, 5*)
% Research active in
2001
50%
50%
% staff entered in
education department
35%
70%
% education research
grant income
20%
80%
focus
Schools
curriculum,
assessment, policy
and inclusion
audience
teachers
researchers and policy
makers
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Education and the social sciences
Education
‘Other’ Social
sciences
Size
5000
2000
Research active in
2001 RAE
42%
60%
PhDs
25%
64%
(psychology)
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Sustaining a research active workforce
Challenges include:
• Age demographics
• Staff need QTS & pay differentials between HEI and school
are sizeable
• Making the transition between cultures is challenging:
• Vast new range of knowledge and skills
• Research and scholarly activity
• Heavy workload and long teaching year
• Drive for increased research selectivity
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Initiatives to increase research
quality and capability
• BERA has introduced:
- Teacher Education SIG
- bursaries for teachers to attend conference
- refereeing of abstracts to increase quality
• HEFCE’s ‘Research Informed Teaching’
• TLRP’s ‘Meeting of Minds’
• Scottish Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS)
• Welsh Educational Research Network (WERN)
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Initiatives to increase research
quality and capability
If
Capacity = expertise x motivation x opportunities (Desforges)
Then
WERN’s activities… have given researchers in Wales the
“motivation to engage in research by providing an
opportunity to develop expertise in a supportive co-learning
environment”
(Davies and Salisbury, 2008: 9)
TERN Project
Overview
Professor Jean Murray
University of East London
The TERN Project
What were the origins of the TERN project in
the North West?
• Research capacity building nationally and
regionally
• TLRP capacity building resources and Teacher
Education Group work
• Why the North West?
The TERN Project
Objectives of TERN
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to foster institutional networking in the North West,
ensuring collaboration between research-intensive and
teaching-intensive universities
to contribute to building the institutional research
capacity of the participating universities
to provide a research development programme to
enhance existing regional provision and institutional
and individual research capacity
in so doing, to develop a) a network sustainable
beyond the life of the project and b) an effective model
for capacity-building which can potentially be applied
more broadly across England
The TERN Project
Research & teacher education
Argument that the TERN project is building research
capacity in and on teacher education
in teacher education through working with the education
staff in the participating universities
on teacher education because the final proposals will
have a substantive focus on research about the
education / professional learning of teachers and related
professionals
The TERN Project
Funding and timescales
• Funded by the ESRC (with additional
funding from ESCalate) – use of funding
• ESRC & Teaching & Learning Research
Programme (TLRP) associated project
• Dates: September 08 – August 09
• Limitations around funding & timescales –
continuation beyond 2009
The TERN Project
Who benefits from the project and how?
TERN project participants:
Research Colleagues,
Research Mentors,
•Broader: all education staff in the participating universities
Institutional Research Leads,
Steering Group
All education staff in the
participating universities
The TERN Project
Elements of TERN
• Governance and ethics
• Initial mapping / baseline for project
• Planned research development programme,
with face-to-face and virtual elements (42+
research colleagues + mentors)
• Broader research enhancement (colloquia and
communal seminar / events programme)
• Mediation / communication of previous
research resources
• External and internal evaluation
The TERN Project
TERN project participants:
Central activities
Extended activities for
research colleagues
The TERN Project
Central benefits for TERN Research Colleagues
• Professional learning and career enhancement
from participation in research development
programme
• Working with research team and with senior
colleague as mentor to develop research bids
• Access to the expertise of other senior
researchers / research support staff in
developing expertise
The TERN Project
The Research Development programme
• Five workshops:
• Indicative foci for each workshop - fine tuned by results
of Mapping Exercise
• Workshop 5 disseminating work to date and receiving
feedback
• Virtual Research Environments (VREs) for further
collaboration between each face-to-face meeting.
• Teaching & Learning Research Programme / BERA
Virtual Research Environments in use already
• Use of existing resources for research development,
including the Teacher Education Group mapping.
The TERN Project
Workshops and VREs
Workshop 1
Group VRE 1
Workshop 2
Group VRE 2
Workshop 3
Group VRE 3
Workshop 4
Group VRE 4
Workshop 5
Group VRE 5
Work to
date…
Further work
in VRE
Fine tune
proposal
between
early July
and end
of August
The TERN Project
Extended possibilities for Research Colleagues
• Further opportunities for supported participation
in conference presentations, nationally and
internationally
• Publication opportunities in international, peer
reviewed journals (planned Special Issues etc.)
• Publication in professional journals etc.
• Involvement in other aspects of research
capacity building nationally (e.g. other ESRC
project)
The TERN Project
Research Mentors
• Modelled on TLRP Meeting of Minds mentoring
programmes
• Adapted to small groups and ‘blended learning’
through the workshops and on-line activities
• Extended benefits and opportunities for institutional
research capacity building & research leadership
• Key roles in facilitating and guiding the activities of
the Research Groups
The TERN Project
Broader opportunities for all education staff
in participating universities
• Participation in communal seminar / events
programme
• ESCalate colloquia and planned BERA SIG events
• Internal dissemination of TERN. Benefits from RCB
focus within university and from resulting strengths in
research culture
• Further exploration of issues around research in and
on teacher education
The TERN Project
Working definitions of teacher education
research
Teacher education research is taken to include:
• Initial Teacher Education and continuing
professional learning / development of
teachers and the broader education workforce
in the primary & secondary sectors.
• Research on both policy and practice
• The challenges of working as an academic /
teacher educator
The TERN Project
The negotiated research themes
The broad themes will need to have:
• a clear focus on research about professional learning and /
or teacher education
• relevance for professional learning and / or teacher
education
• relevance for research capacity building in the region and
nationally
• significance and interest for the individuals in the Research
Groups
• and the work will clearly need to draw on individual and
communal expertise.
The TERN Project
Working groups 1
1. Key issues in research on teacher education and professional learning
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What do you think are the key issues about research in and on
teacher education and professional learning nationally?
Are there are particular regional (NW) issues about these areas of
research?
Are there particular institutional issues about these areas of
research?
2. Under-researched areas in research in and on teacher
education
•
What significant issues for Teacher Education do you consider to
be under-researched nationally?
•
Do these have regional significance? If so, how would you like to
see these being addressed in the region?
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TLRP Virtual Research
Environment
Richard Procter
Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies
University of Cambridge
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VRE Basics
• Online collaboration tools, announcements, schedule, email lists,
discussion, chat, file store, wiki, rss news
• Works in a browser, nothing to download
• Access controlled space (username, password)
• Public and Private sites
• My Workspace (your private online space)
• Roles
– Access
– Contribute
– Maintain
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•
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•
Summary
Not hard to use. But will take some getting used to.
Remember your username and password.
Try to agree how your worksite is structured, File store.
This will not replace email and other tools you use.
If you download something and edit it you need to
upload it again.
• Wiki is the most powerful collaborative tool but need to
learn to drive it.
• Don’t be afraid
Thank you
• Email: [email protected]
• Further Reading
– Laterza, V., Carmichael, P., and Procter, R. (2007) The Doubtful
Guest? A Virtual Research Environment for Education,
Technology, Pedagogy and Education 16(3) pp.249-267. Online
at http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/14759390701614363
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The Teacher Education Group
(TEG) Annotated Bibliography
TEG Steering Group:
Anne Campbell, Ian Hextall, Moira Hulme, Marion Jones,
Pat Mahony, Ian Menter, Jean Murray,
Richard Procter and Karl Wall,
in collaboration with
Steve Baron, Mary James and Andrew Pollard
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Objectives of the initial research
activities set within a broad
framework (TLRP initiative)
•
To construct a literature mapping
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To draw on this mapping to analyse what it revealed
about existing research activities in the field
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To develop a series of ‘walkthroughs’ to be placed
on the TLRP website and to serve as a pedagogical
tool for new researchers
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Funded by BERA, ESCalate and UCET
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Selection of articles
•
Each issue of 49 journals checked for articles relevant to the
objectives of TEG
•
Retrieval of full text copies (PDF files) via Athens for each item where
abstract appeared to fulfill the inclusion criteria
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Initial screening of 8,000 articles
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Exclusion criteria:
Studies not conducted within the UK and Republic of Ireland
Articles published before 2000 and after 2006 (Update 2007 and
2008 in progress)
Articles with a specific curriculum or pedagogic focus
•
Production of ‘short list’ of approximately 300 articles
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The Teacher Education Bibliography page:
http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/teg/
The on-line resource
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The TEG database
• Currently consists of 278 citations
• Citations have been classified by the TEG
group in various ways.
• To search these citations various filters can be
applied to the list of citations
• The list of citations is organised alphabetically
by author name
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What is in a reference?
Total number of resources
being displayed
Full
reference
Full
Abstract
Extended
Core
methods
Extended
Core
Topics
Live weblink to
journal source
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The online resource - available at: www.trlp.org/teg
The search menus available include the following filters:
• Author
• Year
• Core Topics
• Core Methods
• Journal
The abstracts have been classified by:
• ‘Themes’ (extended topics)
• ‘Categories’ (extended methods)
A word search is also available
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Thematic and methodological categories for
coding of articles (filtering mechanism)
Core topics
Core methods
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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•
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Professional learning
Partnership
Regulatory frameworks/policy
Curriculum and assessment
TE professional development
National context
Equity issues
Ethical issues
Qualitative / Quantitative / Mixed
Practice-based
Interviews / Questionnaire
Longitudinal
Survey
Small-scale / Large-scale
Reflection
Political economy
Case study
Action research
Literature review
Content analysis
Quasi-experimental
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Ways of filtering results (sorting)
Search by a specific author name e.g.
Avis
The grey number (5) shows the
number of citations featuring ‘Avis’ as
an author
Search by year of publication e.g.
2004
The grey number (28) shows the
number of citations in the database for
‘2004’
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More ways of filtering results (sorting)
Search by a ‘Core Topic’
e.g. Equity issues
The grey number (39) shows the
number of citations identified as
relating to ‘Equity issues’.
Search by ‘Core Method’
e.g. Case Study
The grey number (53) shows the
number of citations identified as
using a ‘Case Study’ approach.
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Further ways of filtering results (sorting)
Search by Journal name
e.g. British Journal
of Educational Studies
The grey number (5) shows the
number of citations in the
database taken from the journal in
the period 2000 - 2006’.
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A multiple filter - name and year: e.g. Davies
and 2005
Produces
1
result
Here ‘Davies’ is the
second author in the
citation
The numbers in
grey confirm that
there is only 1
identified citation
The tick in the
box shows you
which filter you
have used
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A multiple filter – core topic and core method
e.g. ‘Equity issues’ and ‘case study’
(1) Click on Equity issues: citation list
changes to show filtered results
(2) Click on Case Study: citation list
changes to show filtered results
39 citations related to
‘Ethical issues’
7 citations related to ‘Ethical
issues’ and ‘Case study’
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A multiple filter – core topic and core method
e.g. ‘Equity issues’ and ‘case study’ : Results
Seven citations result
sorted by topic and
method
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Use a ‘Walk-through’ – another way into the
database!
Offers an
introductory
‘overview’ and
a way into the
issue
Gives ‘Starter links’
to key resources
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The Walkthrough
A pedagogical tool for building capacity in research
•
Purpose: To facilitate a journey of exploration which may result in the
acquisition of knowledge and skills in research
•
Aims:
- to provide a stimulus for those wishing to find out about or study or
research a particular topic by identifying and briefly mapping the chosen
field or topic and by selecting key ideas and issues that introduce the
reader to the topic or field
- to provide connections to a selection of relevant key literature, web
resources and examples of policy, projects and practice through
‘jump out’ links, including the TEG resource itself and the TLRP
resources and capacity building materials.
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•
•
•
•
Future developments
Expanding and updating
Development of further walkthroughs
Variation in policy across the UK
Capacity building in education research,
especially teacher education
• New pilot schemes in England
• Auditing teacher education research in the UK
The TERN Project
Working groups 2
• What research themes do you think it might be
important for the TERN project to address and why?
(What would be the regional / national significance of
these themes?)
• Do these research themes relate to
a) institutional agendas and
b) individual / small group expertise that you know about
in the region?
• If so, how?