Our first discussion was based on Frank Coffield’s article ‘Just Supposing Teaching and Learning Became the First Priority’.
The 3 key questions nominated for discussion at the meeting were:
· is teaching and learning a first priority within this College?;
· do you or you colleagues have a definition or theory of learning that you use to influence your teaching;
· How relevant to your work are the 10 principles of effective teaching and learning identified by Frank Coffield in “Just suppose teaching and learning became the first priority…”
It’s not my intention to summarise the entire discussion but list some of the issues and action points.
Overwhelmingly teaching and learning or ‘learning and teaching’ was considered as a priority by individual lecturers/ tutors but was often felt not to be a priority within the college. It was accepted that this wasn’t necessarily through deliberate design by the college management but the outcome of a business model of education. This tension had been explored in a lecture given by Mark Murphy from Stirling University a few years ago, and Karen agreed to see if there was a record of this.
It was suggested that if Associate Principals did a small amount of teaching this would help in keeping learning and teaching as the focus of college activity. The AP present at the meeting was in agreement with this suggestion.
Discussions focussed on:
Why retention was so poor after the first 9 weeks. We need to consider whether there are issues around appropriate selection for courses, and finding out why students leave. It’s also important to ascertain the benefits students have gained from their time at college.
How to help students develop reflective learning as well as being self-directed in their learning. It was agreed to that a workshop could focus on this. Karen to organise this.
The importance of students feeling valued by lecturers (and others). It was suggested that we look at Paul Martinez research focussing students’ experience in further education. There are several interesting articles written by Paul Martinez but the following may be a good starting point : http://www.ulster.ac.uk/star/resources/lsda_report.pdf
Alan McLean’s work on students and motivation. Could look at his work or invite him to a meeting/workshop. Andree do you have info on this?
How do we get feedback from students ? Some issues around objective and subjective criticism which would be good to explore in further detail. This will be developed in a workshop. Karen to organise.
How do we give feedback? Discussion around ‘assessment is for learning’. Karen to organise a workshop, possibly in conjunction with SFEU (Scotland’s Colleges).
Research: Alma gave about a paper about FERN and will discuss the role of FERN at the next meeting.
Discussed some of the 10 principles of effective teaching but agreed that this would be good to discuss in team meetings, faculties or on a learning and teaching development day.
There was general agreement that teams did discuss different teaching strategies, but perhaps we didn’t all have a clearly defined theory of learning which we quoted on a daily basis! This could be developed in teams.
Next Meeting: Wednesday 5th November in room 810 @12.15. Please bring your lunch including coffee/tea etc. I’ll bring the chocolates!
Karen Lawson
Bibliography
COFFIELD, F. (2008). Just suppose teaching and learning became the first priority. London, Learning and Skills Network. https://www.lsneducation.org.uk/user/login.aspx?code=080052&P=080052PD&action=pdfdl&src=WEBG
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