We had two frank and interesting discussions this week on our recent HMIe experience.
We started the discussions by acknowledging some of the broader points made in Norman Lucas’s piece which highlighted concerns about the distorting influence of external inspections in further education (see EDDG blog post “HMIe: How was it for you?” 17 Nov 2009)
At Monday’s meeting Fiona Gunn gave a brief overview of the feedback from the HMIe. Their general message was that there are no major concerns and that we are doing good work. However, they did not feel that there was anything particularly innovative in what they witnessed in terms of learning and teaching.
On Thursday Jordi Pitarch-Marquino came along to talk about his experiences of being observed. He said that, as a languages lecturer, he was quite used to being observed, so the experience wasn’t too daunting. The inspector stayed with him for about an hour and they had an extensive discussion afterwards. Jordi found the inspector to be courteous and genuinely interested in his teaching.
However, one of the points that came out of the discussion was that Jordi’s experience was not by any means consistent across all observations: some people had no “professional dialogue” after the observation; in other observations the inspector didn’t stay quite so long; and, finally, the post-lesson “profession dialogue”, for others, focussed less on learning and teaching and more on the college culture.
I put quotation marks around “professional dialogue” as some lecturers felt that it was more like an interview than a dialogue.
The discussions highlighted some concerns about the validity and usefulness of the process and, in some instances, the lack of credibility in some of the HMIe team. The point was made that it is important for the inspectors to have current knowledge of the subject area and teaching in order for our teaching staff to enter into a meaningful dialogue.
One or two people suggested that the subject-specific reviews (the subject aspect reviews as they’re called) have more credibility with college staff. However, it is also important that the inspectors involved with that process are seen to have relevant and up-to-date skills and experience in the subject area.
Some people felt that there was a sense of the review being more of a “lighter touch”. In fact, there was some concern that the inspectors didn’t give the staff that they met at various meetings the opportunity to talk about examples of innovative developments and effective teaching methods in their area. On a related point there was a comment made that the inspection lacked rigour.
However, some people felt that the inspectors that they talked to were approachable and willing to listen.
Quite a number of people talked about HMIe inspectors asking frank questions about the culture, governance and leadership of the college. These discussions, it was reported, were frank and open. There was some concern that the content of these discussions were diluted in the initial oral feedback from the inspectors. It was pointed out that some staff made some brave comments to the HMIe at various meetings on this issue. The point was made that staff would have little trust or respect of the inspection process, and of HMIe in particular, if such comments were ignored or lost in ambiguous language of any future report.
It was noted that HMIe seemed to be interested in the role that individual staff play in the development of college-wide strategies, policies and resources. In a sense, this was something very positive to come out of the experience – there is a recognition that the direction of the college needs to be defined by staff and learners through meaningful and continuing processes of engagement.
Linked to that, the inspectors also, it seems, brought up the subject of communication systems within the college. They were interested in how, and how well, we communicate with each other.
There was some discussion about the distorting function of inspections. Most people felt that unannounced HMIe visits would be a good thing. It would be interesting to know what the feeling of all staff is on this. Unannounced visits might offset some of the distortion that, it was suggested, can go on in the weeks and months up to a HMIe inspection. This point tied in well with some of comments made by Lucas in his article.
There was also some chat about who reviews the HMIe and it was claimed that the HMIe have recently stepped back from a process where they had invited tenders to review their own effectiveness.
To conclude, there was a general feeling, by many, that the process was a bit of a “non-event”. There was some disquiet with a snapshot process which evaluates and makes broad judgements and statements on our teaching and the college as a whole.
So, what did we learn? Well, one answer was that we learned a little bit more about how the HMIe inspection process itself. But how does that help our learners or enhance our teaching? I suppose it helps us prepare for future HMIe inspections.
On a more positive note, I think another thing we learned was that HMIe are, rightly, interested in learner and staff engagement in the culture and governance of the college.
But maybe that most important thing we learned, or need to learn, is that we should trust our own professional judgement about what we do. We are probably the most critical of judges of our own practice.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The customer is dead; long live the learner – a reflection on Scotland’s Colleges Next Practice Conference.
Scotland’s Colleges held their Next Practice and Innovation annual conference today in Glasgow. It was entitled “Moving on up” and, yes, they had the song to guide and motivate us in and out of the conference hall.
The aim of the conference was to look at the impact of colleges in the community and in the economic spheres.
It was an odd conference in a way as it seemed, on arrival and in the early stages of the day, to be aimed at people working at higher levels of management both within the college context and associated bodies.
There were lots of suits.
A quick glance at the delegate list revealed that there were very few lecturers present. Strange indeed for a conference on “Next Practice” – where were the practitioners?
Anyway, the community bit, which came first, ended up sounding very economic as there was a lot of talk about how colleges can, or should, put an economic measure on their impact on society.
The Principal from Perth College talked about the promotion of Public Value Principles and how these principles have beneficial outcomes for business. These principles, it was claimed, should reflect the core values of colleges. We did ask the question about who had control of defining these principles. However, the answer didn’t quite synchronise with the question.
I have to say that sentences emanating from the platform such as “There are financials associated with values” made me scratch my head and shudder at the same time.
The economic bit of the conference was very employer-focussed and there were lots of references to the “employer voice”.
Government officials popped up at various points to add to the gloom by reminding us that things will get worse in terms of public service funding.
At this stage, to be honest, I was a bit depressed as I thought that the Scotland’s Colleges was, through this conference, reaffirming the primacy of the business model of further education in Scotland. There was little mention of learning – never mind teaching.
Of course, myself and Karen did our best to overturn a cart and gave our perspective on things when we facilitated a round-table discussion on the College’s Learner Engagement project. That, if I say so myself, seemed to go quite well and there may be some other colleges interested in getting involved.
After refreshments, we went back to the conference hall for the keynote speech from Sandy Shugart, President of Valencia Community College in Florida.
We had high hopes that Sandy from the Sunshine State would guide us out of the gloom.
He did not disappoint us.
Sandy started his talk with a song. The gloom started to lift. As he put down his guitar, he seamlessly entered into a discussion about the differences and tensions between institutions which, he claimed, are rooted in modernist ideals and students, who, he argued, inhabit post-modern ideological spaces.
His general point on this was, I think, that the hard edges of institutional thinking and processes is not a good match to the less rationalist perspectives of post-modern learners.
This was interesting, but there was more of interest to come. Sandy talked about the business model of education. “The consumer is dead”, he said and added that it was an “impoverished model of learning”. It was refreshing to hear such thoughts coming from the man in charge of one of the largest and most successful community colleges in America.
This keynote speech, it was turning out, was adopting a very different tone and position to everything else that came before it in the day.
Sandy went on to talk about the importance of students developing their own stories. He talked about the importance, above all else, of the personal and the social dimensions of learning. He argued that institutions are not configured to deal adequately with the highly personalised relationships which represent learning.
Sandy left us with a song and as we headed out into the dark, wet Glasgow evening our spirits had been lifted again by the thought that the consumer may indeed be dead.
Long live the learner!
The aim of the conference was to look at the impact of colleges in the community and in the economic spheres.
It was an odd conference in a way as it seemed, on arrival and in the early stages of the day, to be aimed at people working at higher levels of management both within the college context and associated bodies.
There were lots of suits.
A quick glance at the delegate list revealed that there were very few lecturers present. Strange indeed for a conference on “Next Practice” – where were the practitioners?
Anyway, the community bit, which came first, ended up sounding very economic as there was a lot of talk about how colleges can, or should, put an economic measure on their impact on society.
The Principal from Perth College talked about the promotion of Public Value Principles and how these principles have beneficial outcomes for business. These principles, it was claimed, should reflect the core values of colleges. We did ask the question about who had control of defining these principles. However, the answer didn’t quite synchronise with the question.
I have to say that sentences emanating from the platform such as “There are financials associated with values” made me scratch my head and shudder at the same time.
The economic bit of the conference was very employer-focussed and there were lots of references to the “employer voice”.
Government officials popped up at various points to add to the gloom by reminding us that things will get worse in terms of public service funding.
At this stage, to be honest, I was a bit depressed as I thought that the Scotland’s Colleges was, through this conference, reaffirming the primacy of the business model of further education in Scotland. There was little mention of learning – never mind teaching.
Of course, myself and Karen did our best to overturn a cart and gave our perspective on things when we facilitated a round-table discussion on the College’s Learner Engagement project. That, if I say so myself, seemed to go quite well and there may be some other colleges interested in getting involved.
After refreshments, we went back to the conference hall for the keynote speech from Sandy Shugart, President of Valencia Community College in Florida.
We had high hopes that Sandy from the Sunshine State would guide us out of the gloom.
He did not disappoint us.
Sandy started his talk with a song. The gloom started to lift. As he put down his guitar, he seamlessly entered into a discussion about the differences and tensions between institutions which, he claimed, are rooted in modernist ideals and students, who, he argued, inhabit post-modern ideological spaces.
His general point on this was, I think, that the hard edges of institutional thinking and processes is not a good match to the less rationalist perspectives of post-modern learners.
This was interesting, but there was more of interest to come. Sandy talked about the business model of education. “The consumer is dead”, he said and added that it was an “impoverished model of learning”. It was refreshing to hear such thoughts coming from the man in charge of one of the largest and most successful community colleges in America.
This keynote speech, it was turning out, was adopting a very different tone and position to everything else that came before it in the day.
Sandy went on to talk about the importance of students developing their own stories. He talked about the importance, above all else, of the personal and the social dimensions of learning. He argued that institutions are not configured to deal adequately with the highly personalised relationships which represent learning.
Sandy left us with a song and as we headed out into the dark, wet Glasgow evening our spirits had been lifted again by the thought that the consumer may indeed be dead.
Long live the learner!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
HMIe: how was it for you?
As the HMIe ride off into the sunset to write their report and as we all catch our breaths after last week’s inspection, we felt that we would use the next meeting of EDDG to reflect upon the experience.
Feedback is slowly trickling back from the HMIe and Fiona Gunn will be at the Monday meeting to give us some sense of what will appear in the final report.
However, we are more interested, at EDDG, in our own evaluation of the inspection.
We hope that the discussion will be an open and honest one about people’s experiences and feelings about the process.
It would be helpful for the discussion to have a few people who were observed last week. It would be interesting to hear what it was like for them? What was their evaluation of the observation process?
I suppose the big question is: did we learn anything from the experience?
Below you’ll find an extract from a piece by Norman Lucas, Senior Lecturer in Post-Compulsory Education at University of London’s Institute of Education. His article was part of a wider review of the Further Education sector in England and there are, I believe, general points which are relevant to our context.
In this extract from a longer document, Lucas raises some questions about the purpose and impact of external reviews in FE.
“All inspections alter behaviour yet also have limitations on quality improvements depending upon institutional circumstances. There is also an inherent danger in any nspection system that because inspections are so important, providers model quality improvement on the inspection framework itself. An example is in the preamble to the DfES revision to the CIF (DfES 2004). It states that the proof of the support for the framework is that colleges have adopted it for self-inspection. This may be the case, however, it may equally be true that they have adopted it because that is the framework upon which they are inspected. The problem with all inspection is that it can become rather self-defining and closed, providers tell regulators what they want to hear and the inspectorate inspects their own advice. This can lead to a situation where inspection makes colleges compliant and risk averse. In the present political climate inspection reports are often accepted and used uncritically by policy makers and regulators, and any critical discourse by colleges or others has become synonymous with not being committed to high standards. This is an unhealthy situation; what else do we believe and read without questioning? An open debate and dialogue between inspectors, providers, and the research community would be more productive because it would lead to a shared understanding of best practice, teaching and learning, management and leadership. However perfect an inspection framework any evaluation of quality or what represents ’good practice’ requires a large element of professional judgement. Such judgements are not infallible and often what falls outside of the ‘frame’ of ‘good practice’ can suffer in inspection. In practice open and productive dialogue does take place when Ofsted produce survey or national reports that focus upon the quality of the curriculum and structural issues. For example, the Ofsted (2003) survey on initial teacher education and the recent publications, ‘Why colleges succeed’ and ‘Why colleges fail’ (Ofsted 2004). Such documents have lead to a continuing productive and useful dialogue between the inspectorate and professionals in FE and represent a counterbalance to the focus upon the accountability of individual colleges."
Lucas, N (2005). Foster review of FE think pieces: purpose role and mission: the impact of incentives on College behaviour [online]. Available from: http://www.dius.gov.uk/further_education/fe_reform/future_role_fe_colleges/~/media/publications/I/Impact_of_Incentives_Norman_Lucas1 [Accessed 17 November 2009]
-------------------------------------------------------
Some relevant links from the HMIe:
FAQs on new HMIe process: http://www.hmie.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/8CEF13C9-6B5A-46A3-B756-334C047A5961/0/FAQsGenericevaluationoflearningandteachingJanuary2009.pdf
HMIe guidelines for new process: http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/eqafsc..pdf
-------------------------------------------------------
As always, please feel free to use the comment function on the EDDG blog to have your say ...
Feedback is slowly trickling back from the HMIe and Fiona Gunn will be at the Monday meeting to give us some sense of what will appear in the final report.
However, we are more interested, at EDDG, in our own evaluation of the inspection.
We hope that the discussion will be an open and honest one about people’s experiences and feelings about the process.
It would be helpful for the discussion to have a few people who were observed last week. It would be interesting to hear what it was like for them? What was their evaluation of the observation process?
I suppose the big question is: did we learn anything from the experience?
Below you’ll find an extract from a piece by Norman Lucas, Senior Lecturer in Post-Compulsory Education at University of London’s Institute of Education. His article was part of a wider review of the Further Education sector in England and there are, I believe, general points which are relevant to our context.
In this extract from a longer document, Lucas raises some questions about the purpose and impact of external reviews in FE.
“All inspections alter behaviour yet also have limitations on quality improvements depending upon institutional circumstances. There is also an inherent danger in any nspection system that because inspections are so important, providers model quality improvement on the inspection framework itself. An example is in the preamble to the DfES revision to the CIF (DfES 2004). It states that the proof of the support for the framework is that colleges have adopted it for self-inspection. This may be the case, however, it may equally be true that they have adopted it because that is the framework upon which they are inspected. The problem with all inspection is that it can become rather self-defining and closed, providers tell regulators what they want to hear and the inspectorate inspects their own advice. This can lead to a situation where inspection makes colleges compliant and risk averse. In the present political climate inspection reports are often accepted and used uncritically by policy makers and regulators, and any critical discourse by colleges or others has become synonymous with not being committed to high standards. This is an unhealthy situation; what else do we believe and read without questioning? An open debate and dialogue between inspectors, providers, and the research community would be more productive because it would lead to a shared understanding of best practice, teaching and learning, management and leadership. However perfect an inspection framework any evaluation of quality or what represents ’good practice’ requires a large element of professional judgement. Such judgements are not infallible and often what falls outside of the ‘frame’ of ‘good practice’ can suffer in inspection. In practice open and productive dialogue does take place when Ofsted produce survey or national reports that focus upon the quality of the curriculum and structural issues. For example, the Ofsted (2003) survey on initial teacher education and the recent publications, ‘Why colleges succeed’ and ‘Why colleges fail’ (Ofsted 2004). Such documents have lead to a continuing productive and useful dialogue between the inspectorate and professionals in FE and represent a counterbalance to the focus upon the accountability of individual colleges."
Lucas, N (2005). Foster review of FE think pieces: purpose role and mission: the impact of incentives on College behaviour [online]. Available from: http://www.dius.gov.uk/further_education/fe_reform/future_role_fe_colleges/~/media/publications/I/Impact_of_Incentives_Norman_Lucas1 [Accessed 17 November 2009]
-------------------------------------------------------
Some relevant links from the HMIe:
FAQs on new HMIe process: http://www.hmie.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/8CEF13C9-6B5A-46A3-B756-334C047A5961/0/FAQsGenericevaluationoflearningandteachingJanuary2009.pdf
HMIe guidelines for new process: http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/eqafsc..pdf
-------------------------------------------------------
As always, please feel free to use the comment function on the EDDG blog to have your say ...
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