EVALUATING THE USE OF ACTION LEARNING SETS TO DEVELOP REFLECTION ON A FOUNDATION DEGREE
Authors - Susan Graves
Dr Marion Jones
Liverpool John Moores University
I M Marsh Campus
Barkhill Road
Aigburth
Liverpool
L17 6BD
Tel 0151 231 5273
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Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Warwick, 6-9 September 2006
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the use of Action Learning Sets to facilitate the delivery of a work based learning module on a part time Foundation Degree (FD) in Educational Support at Liverpool John Moores University and two local FE colleges. The FD is delivered over five semesters to students who are in full or part time paid work as Teaching Assistants, both in Primary and Secondary mainstream schools. The module is ongoing this academic year.
Developing as a reflective practitioner is a central theme on the programme and developing the ability to relate theory to practice and to learn through and at work is a pivotal component of attaining this reflective stance. The workbased learning module presents an opportunity to make this link explicit and Action Learning sets have been used to facilitate and develop students’ reflection on practice within their own work setting and to make the links between theory and policy and their own institution. The current education landscape in schools is one of rapid change particularly in terms of, for example, the development of Integrated Children’s Services, the Remodelling Agenda and Workforce Agreement . Developing a reflective stance against such a changing and uncertain practice backdrop presents both students and staff with many challenges both educational and emotional.
Introduction
The Foundation Degree (FD) in Educational Support at Liverpool John Moores University and two local FE colleges is delivered over five semesters to students who are in full or part time paid work as Teaching Assistants* in maintained schools in England. The work based learning module, which is the focus of the action research project for this paper, is being delivered during academic year 2005/06.
This is a level one 24 credit module in which the students are required to research their workplace in terms of National and Local Policy. The research centres on the use of Action Learning Sets and reflective dialogue to enable students to make the link between propositional knowledge learned in the HE classroom and the realities of their own professional practice within their schools.
The research is located within the social constructivism paradigm, which recognizes that learning takes place within a particular situated context for individuals. It is informed by theoretical perspectives which relate to concepts of reflective practice (Schön, 1987), professionalism and professional knowledge (Eraut 1994) and power in the workplace (Dewey, 1916) and the use of Action Learning Sets (Revans, 1980). It aims to explore the concept of “andragogy” (Knowles, 1980) and ideas around useful teaching and learning strategies for adults in the classroom (Rogers, 1969) and Belenky et al’s (1986) notion of separated and constructed knowing.
CONTEXT OF NATIONAL POLICY
The development of support staff in schools is a key feature of the Government’s Remodelling Agenda with the twin aims of enhancing learning within the classroom and ensuring that the changes to teachers’ contracts, designed to enhance their work/life balance and provide time within the school day for preparation, planning and assessment, are implemented within every school. This was set out in the National Workforce Agreement (DfES, 2003) which was signed by ministers, local authority employers and some school workforce unions on 15th January 2003 giving statutory contractual conditions under which teachers are employed with a view to a progressive reduction in teachers’ overall hours. A timetable for implementation was included which gave deadlines for instigating a concerted attack on unnecessary paperwork and bureaucratic processes, additional resources and a national change management programme and reform of support staff roles (DfES, 2003).
The changes to teachers’ contracts mean that support staff and Teaching Assistants now have to undertake some duties which were previously part of the teachers’ wider role, for example administrative tasks associated with school trips, displaying student work, examination timetabling etc. The limit on the number of hours teachers can cover for absent colleagues and the guaranteed 10% of normal timetabled time to be set aside for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) for teachers, has impacted on how schools use Teaching Assistants and many are now using Higher Level Teaching Assistants to cover classes.This has impacted on those of us working in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) departments within HEI’s as we now have to consider what we need to develop in terms of programmes of study which will meet the needs of the emerging role of the Teaching Assistant within schools and how best to develop learning and teaching strategies which can utilise and take account of changes in the workplace.
CONTEXT OF HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNING
Professional Education Perspective
For us as educators of teachers we are used to working with the dominant model for professional education, which consists of:
1. Period of academic/theoretical study (at university)
2. Opportunity to apply knowledge (ie teaching practice)
3. Period of practicum (ie Probationary year)
Learners move from a position of inexperience to expert professional.
For teaching assistants it looks more like:
1. Practical skills and knowledge obtained through practice (often on voluntary basis)
2. Acquiring vocational/practical qualifications through work based learning (eg NVQ’s)
3. Period of academic/theoretical study including work based learning (eg FD)
Learners move from a position of experienced practitioner to expert professional, which requires the development of reflection and ability to adapt to change.
This presents challenges to us as educators and to the development of curriculum suitable for those in work at an advanced stage in their practical professional learning. They are often well versed in what Schön (1987) describes as “professional artistry”, their experience enables them to deal with the unique, the unanticipated, the uncertain in a way that a new entrant to the occupation would not. For this group of students the applied aspects of professional practice are usually well embedded with behaviours and assumptions entrenched, their capacity for “knowing-in-action” (Schön, 1983) are well rehearsed. In developing a model for Teaching Assistants education the aim is to develop a professional education programme appropriate to an epistemology of practice based on reflection-in-action (Schön, 19 87). This reflection asks students to be open to new interpretations, which may challenge their worldview, ideas of their own professional identity and that of colleagues and the place of their own institution within the change process. Learners experience learning as a social and embodied process involving emotions, practical actions and identity (Hodkinson, 2005) and for these students this is particularly evident as the process they go through as mature, “non-traditional” entrants into HE often involves a reassessment of their own and others perceptions of their ability and potential.
Programme Development FD Educational Support
In developing the Foundation Degree the concept of “andragogy” (Knowles, 1980) a learner-centred approach was used, as opposed to the more teacher-centred transmission model (Kember, 1997) commonly associated with Higher Education teaching. Andragogy seeks to develop a learning environment more suited to adult learners by adapting a learning strategy which takes account of their experiential learning – viewing the learner as resource-full rather than resource empty. It also draws on the work of Rogers (1969) whose experiential, self-directed approach to learning would seem to suit these mature students particularly. Rogers emphasises the significance of inner autonomy when he states:
“The individual who sees himself and his situation clearly and who freely takes responsibility for that self and for that situation is a very different person from the one who is simply in the grip of outside circumstances” (Rogers, 1969 p271)
This is what we wanted for our students whose role within a changing work environment was being shaped by external policy drivers. Specifically the strategy seeks to develop an heuristic model which included the following:
1. Self-directed enquiry – enabling the students to make the link between classroom learning and workplace practice
2. Mutuality – building relationships of mutual trust between learners to enable them to become a learning resource for each other
3. Active Listening – encouraging students ability to support each other through attention to quality of their listening skills
4. Self-diagnosis of good practice – enabling the student to interpret experience and tacit knowledge and recognize it as basis for future learning
5. Self-directed planning – developing the students ability to plan independently and take responsibility for their own learning
6. Self-evaluation of learning – providing a framework for students to evaluate and identify or “re-diagnose” what they need to do to meet criteria
7. Acknowledgement of experiential learning – a valuing of students own, often very substantial, work and life experience as the basis for future learning
8. Acknowledging the teacher as co-learner – creating an atmosphere of co-enquiry in which the practice knowledge brought by the learners and the propositional knowledge brought by the teacher are equally valued.
Aims of the programme
In a rapidly changing work environment our aim is to equip students with the tools needed to develop ‘meta-cognitive’ abilities, to “learn to learn” .We are attempting to provide an environment rich with ideas relevant to their own work situation and interaction in the group to enable a learning experience to take place (Knowles, 1980). This is in contrast to a traditional Higher Education approach which would provide a body of academic knowledge via the traditional transmission of a lecture to be discussed via an essay at an abstract level. Our aim on a wider level is to equip students to cope with the transformatory nature of their work and the workplace, our goal as educators being the facilitation of change and learning (Rogers, 1969). There is also commitment on the programme to the concept of co-learning, creating an atmosphere in the classroom of mutual enquiry between academics and students who are practitioners. In this way the teacher can become learner and vice versa, to create a spirit of mutual enquiry and support (Dewey, 1916) which also indicates to students that the “knowing how” (practice) is as valued as the “knowing that” (theory) – (Brockbank & McGill, 1998).
Brady and Dentith (2001) propose a postmodern feminist pedagogy which promotes fluidity by; engaging with student experience; creating safe spaces where students can speak feely about their experiences; giving students opportuntities to explore complexities of difference and relationships between power and agency; encouraging students to recognize social, cultural and economic difference in order to ‘refigure existing social boundarfies’; and providing a language of critique and possibility (2001 p69).
Learning Srategies
In developing a learning strategy which fits with the aims of the programme and the concepts and approaches described above, it would seem that a model based on Action Learning principles would be useful. The development of the Action Learning approach to problem solving and learning was pioneered by Professor Reg Revans who used the concept in organization settings after the second world war. It has only been introduced into higher education settings relatively recently (McGill & Beaty, 1995) and links between the development of reflection, the reflective practitioner and the action learning process are just starting to be explored in higher education (McGill & Brockbank, 2004). For students on the Foundation Degree using an Action Learning Sets (ALS) approach (Revans, 1980) can give them the space to develop the reflective dialogue to enable them to link theory and practice.
The action learning model provides a structured process and space for students to articulate and reflect upon their existing knowledge, how this knowledge relates to situations both new and emerging and the wider context within which this is taking place. McGill and Beaty (1995) describe it as:“…a process of learning and reflection that happens with the support of a group or ‘set’ of colleagues working with problems with the intention of getting things done”.
McGill and Brockbank (2004) emphasise the importance of using reflective dialogue techniques in action learning. They distinguish this from the more didactic dialogue or discussion approach usually associated with HE teaching in seminars and group work for example. Belenky et al (1986) use the concept of connected and separated knowing; separated knowing uses dialogue which simply reports one’s ideas; whereas connected knowing builds rapport with those in the group connecting ideas with others to create a synergistic experience. In other words connected knowing means suspending one’s own opinion to really understand the other, not necessarily to be persuaded or accept the other opinion, but to gain a deeper understanding of the other perspective.
The aim is to enable students to see on their own behalf and in their own way what they most needed to see (Schön, 1987) – the enormous changes resulting from national and local policy and the impact on their institution, their own role and practice. Furthermore, we are attempting to develop their capacity for critical reflection in an organized setting as a way of delivering deep, transformational learning. Through the use of Action Learning Sets it was intended that a dialectic process would develop through the reflective dialogue enabling the students to reflect both introspectively, on their own practice, and also from an organizational perspective. The role of the tutor in this process is to act as a facilitator to create the learning climate within which students will feel enabled to share their experiences. It is the facilitator’s role to guide reflection and review of set meetings and of the process after a period of time and to balance individual set members’ needs and the needs of the overall group (Brockbank & McGill, 1998).
By giving students procedural knowledge and the opportunity to engage in reflective dialogue with peers, we are encouraging them to change ‘practice’ (habitual or customary action) into ‘praxis’ (informed, committed action) – (Carr 1987, Zuber-Skerritt 1992).
Using Action Learning Sets can provide students with a supportive environment in which to undertake some of the exploratory work needed to develop a reflective stance in order that they may conceptualise their own role and institution within a national policy framework. Action Learning uses reflective dialogue to enable participants to share ideas, discuss strategies, challenge received wisdom and interact productively with other professionals. Often for Teaching Assistants working life offers few opportunities for shared reflection. Using action learning sets brings life experience and professional knowledge to the fore and acknowledges learning as a social process and the learner as a model of “abundance” rather than “deficiency” (Brockbank & McGill 1998). Including employers in this process can further embed the connection between classroom and workplace.