Transcript Document

How do I know I’m doing a good job?
Professor Emeritus Lin Norton
Liverpool Hope University
Discussion point
With person sitting next to you discuss the single most important
issue that you are currently concerned about in your teaching
and/or assessment
Share
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Outline
1. Identifying your issues
2. How do university teachers teach and how do students learn?
3. The role of reflective practice in university teaching
4. Aids to reflective practice
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•
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Student evaluation
Peer observation/mentoring
Action research
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Stages in teaching development
Three main stages of development as university teachers (Nyquist
and Wulff,1996):
1.
‘Self/survival’ stage: issues related to ourselves e.g. Will
students like us? Will we be sufficiently knowledgeable?
2.
‘Skills’ stage ; concerned with our teaching and assessment
methods.
3.
‘Outcomes’ stage: are our students learning anything.
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Conceptions of teaching
Two main categories (Kember, 1997):
1. Teaching as information transmission- a teacher
centred/content-orientated approach where the role is seen
as knowing your subject and effectively imparting that
knowledge to your students
2. Teaching as supporting student learning- a student-
centred/learning orientated approach where the role is seen
as facilitating the process by which students actively
construct meaning and knowledge for themselves
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Implications/Suggestions
We need to think of ways of facilitating the learning of our
students using curriculum content and materials that are
sometimes not our own
We need to focus on what our students are learning rather than
on what we are teaching.
How do we know our students are learning?
• Angelo & Cross (1993) ‘the one minute paper’
• Communicubes/PRS/clickers
• Student talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYrKPoVFwg&feature=relat
ed
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How students learn: approaches to
learning Marton and Saljo (1976; 1997)
Deep
cSurfacee
Focus is on “what is signified”- the
essential meaning
Focus is on the “signs” (or on the
learning as a signifier of something
else)
Relates previous knowledge to new
knowledge
Focus on unrelated parts of the task
Relates knowledge from different
courses
Information for assessment is simply
memorised
Relates theoretical ideas to everyday
experience
Facts and concepts are associated
unreflectively
Relates and distinguishes evidence and
argument
Principles are not distinguished from
examples
Organises and structures content into
coherent whole
Task is treated as an external imposition
Emphasis is internal, from within the
student
Emphasis is external, from demands of
assessment
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What is it like to be a student at
university?
Barnett (2008) talks about uncertainty not just out in the
world but inside ourselves- students feel uncertain, anxious
but also exhilarated.
He argues that ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ is the foundation of what
it means to be a student and likens it to a bunjee jumper
where the pedagogical situation should provide exhilarating
(but safe) spaces to take those risks and confront those fears.
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What affects student retention?
1.
Over 50% had difficulty in coping with the demands of HE
2.
33% found academic work harder than they had expected
it to be,
3.
38% found difficulty in balancing academic and other
commitments.
(Yorke & Longden 2008)
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And what do students want from
Universities?
•
Increasingly, many (but not all) students see a degree as a
passport to a good job
•
Increasingly, some (but not all) see themselves as
customers or consumers not students
•
Most hold down jobs and many have other commitments
•
Some are strategic: ‘Tell me exactly what I have to do to get a
first and I’ll do it’
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Reflective practice in teaching
Bolton (2005) argues that deep reflection ‘is not a thornless
rose bed’
‘Deep reflection and reflexivity for development involve:
• Authority and responsibility for personal and professional
identity, values, actions, feelings;
• Contestation
• Willingness to stay with uncertainty, unpredictability ,
questioning’
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Reflective practice: the influence of
John Dewey 1859 - 1952
• Reflective thinking being caused by some difficulty, uncertainty
or doubt.
• Reflective activity should include some form of testing out
ideas derived from reflective thinking.
• Underpins concepts of practitioner –based enquiry and
pedagogical action research.
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Reflective practice: the influence of
Donald Schön (1983)
Schön in his book The reflective practitioner placed reflection right at
the centre of professional practice, challenging the techno-rationalist
approach
Schön’s thinking developed from earlier work with Argyris on the
distinction between
• ‘Espoused theories’ which characterise the profession
and
•
‘Theories in use’ which characterise the day to day work of the
professional
Reflection-in-action (thinking on our feet) and reflection-on-action
(thinking after the event)
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Discussion Point: Bridging the gap
between beliefs and practices
‘Espoused theories’ are supposed to characterise the
profession
Q1. What are your beliefs about teaching Biology or Psychology
at university? Where have these beliefs come from?
‘Theories in use’ are what characterises day to day work of
the professional
Q2. What do you actually do when teaching Biology or Psychology
to your students? Do these practices differ from your espoused
theories and if so, why?
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The role of reflective practice in
developing teaching and learning
Postareff (2007) argues that a reflective teacher compares her or
his teaching against:
1. Experience
2. Knowledge of educational theory (pedagogical literature)
Hammersley-Fletcher & Orsmond (2005) argue that a reflective
practitioner uses experiences to consider:
1. Their pedagogical philosophy
2. Their practice
In other words, this involves your own personal thinking about
teaching and learning, your values, your beliefs, rather than simply
evaluating the teaching itself
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Teaching and learning as a system
Biggs (1994, 2003) argued that theories of learning and teaching are often
based on a deficit model:
1. Student-based theories
2. Teacher-based theories
3. Process based theories
What a deficit model does is apportion blame and pose simplistic solutions
but a systemic model acknowledges that not only do students and
teachers interact with each other they do so in the context of a
disciplinary and institutional framework. Change one element of a
system, all the other elements must change
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What are the influences and
pressures on an academic?
Fanghanel’s (2007) framework:
1.
The macro level which includes the institution, external
factors, academic labour and the research-teaching
nexus
2.
The meso level incorporating the department (or
equivalent) and the subject discipline
3.
The micro level meaning internal factors affecting the
individual lecturer
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Using student evaluation in our own
reflective practice
“Collecting data isn’t the same thing as improving or judging teaching”
‘…evaluation is best conceptualised not as something that is done to
teachers by experts wielding questionnaires and computers…
…but as something that is done by teachers for the benefit of their
professional competence and their students’ understanding.’
(Ramsden, 1992, p.217)
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What are some of the problems
with student course evaluation?
1. End of module evaluation too late to change teaching
2. Questions sometimes tend to be too general (Norton et al,
1997)
3. Student ratings can be affected by:
• Preferred approaches to studying (Entwistle & Tait,1990)
• Lecture charisma (Shevlin et al, 2000)
• The ‘Dr Fox’ effect (Naftulin et al,1973)
• Learning styles (Sprinkle, 2008)
• Assessment grades
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Evaluating during teaching: some
suggestions
1.
Angelo & Cross: the one minute paper
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2.
Angelo & Cross: the muddiest point
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3.
Describe what you don’t understand and suggest what you think might help
Catherine Fritz: testing in class (could be done with PRS/ communicubes
system)
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4.
What is the single most important thing I have learned in this session
What is the single most important question that has not been answered in
this session
Asking questions and eliciting answers, calling information to mind,
practising the skill of learning
Suggestion box: students put in their suggestions
for improvements
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of each class session
Self evaluation: the reflective
practitioner
Reflective practice – sometimes contested (see for example Knight,
2002) but what does it mean?
To aid reflective practice we need some evidence so where might we get
it?
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From our mentor
From student evaluation
From assessment /student academic performance
From pedagogical action research
From peer observation
Anything else?
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Pedagogical action research:
an overview
Bass (1999) makes the distinction between a research problem
which we celebrate and investigate and a teaching problem which
we hide away. He suggests changing the status of the problem…
…In pedagogical action research, this is exactly what we do:
The teaching ‘problem’:
Psychology students don’t use enough journals in their essays
The teaching problem translated into a research problem and a
research hypothesis:
A multi-layered intervention (librarians’ input, revised formative
assessment, exemplars ) will increase the use of journals in an
essay (Norton, Norton & Thomas, 2004)
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Definition of action research
“Action research is action and research in the same process. It has
twin, aims of action for change in an organisation or community,
with research to increase our knowledge and understanding. It is
not action for research (doing in order to increase understanding),
nor research for action (increasing knowledge in order to be applied
at a later time), but a coming together of two purposes in a single
project or process.
Action research is not a research method, as many methods of data
collection may be used in action research projects. It is, rather, a
way of doing research and acting to change situations at the
same time.” (emphasis added)
(Hughes, 1997)
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Carrying out pedagogical action research:
an easy step by step approach
ITDEM’D
adapted from Norton (2001)
Identifying a problem/paradox/ issue/difficulty (your research focus)
Thinking of ways to tackle the problem (your chosen method)
Doing it (your collecting of data)
Evaluating it (analysing, interpreting your findings)
Modifying future teaching (how will you improve your students’
learning?)
’Disseminating research findings (opening your work up to peer scrutiny
and critique)
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Discussion point: How am I doing?
To model the one minute paper
In small groups agree the following;
1. The single most important thing you have learned from this
workshop
2. The single most important question that is still to be
answered
3. Share
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