trainee teachers and impact learning roy barton terry haydn school of education uea
TRANSCRIPT
Trainee teachers and ‘impact’ learning
Roy Barton
Terry Haydn
School of Education
UEA
Outline of the presentation
Introduction and context – Terry What doesn’t work – Terry Data from trainees in the study – Roy Interview data – Roy Key findings at this stage – Terry & Roy
Sadler, P. (1994)
‘If you are going to teach something, you have got to think about how to do it effectively.’
Gravity
Before teaching After teaching
Teachers’ predictions
Actual Teachers’ predictions
Actual
25% 30% 60% 15%
Planetary motion
Before teaching After teaching
Teachers’ predictions
Actual Teachers’ predictions
Actual
25% 20% 70% 8%
‘We each of us receive a constant and varied stream of experiences throughout our waking moments, each one of which can potentially give rise to learning, yet most of which apparently vanish without trace from our mental lives.’
Fontana, D. 1993 Psychology for teachers, London, Macmillan: 125.
Audit?
Progress?
Yes (it would be surprising if they did not make progress).
But what interventions to they find helpful and what do they find unhelpful?
Throwing information at the problem?
38 kilos Hundreds of competences (4/98) Thousands of pages and web pages LEA building programmes to house strategy
documentation Cookery books Bookmarking websites
Naughton, J. (Observer 22 March, 1998)
‘It’s not every day that you encounter a member of the government who appears to understand the Net. Most politicians (Clinton, Blair, Blunkett, to name just three) see it as a kind of pipe for pumping things into schools and schoolchildren.’
Annex B?
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101520253035404550
v.helpful nv.helpful
primary
secondary
Online ICT skills test?
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
v.helpful nv.helpful
secondary
primary
Comments
‘Very, very, very unhelpful’ ‘Insulting’ ‘Pointless, pathetic and utterly ridiculous’ ‘Futile’ ‘A waste of time; another hoop to jump
through’ ‘Unrelated to subject or to common sense’ ‘Unhelpful and patronising’
Did you read the information about ICT?
Trainee A: (laughs and shakes head) ‘did anyone read right through them? No just too much to take in…. not much use really.’
Trainee B: ‘No, there’s just too much to read…. It needs condensing or summarising more.’
Trainee C: ‘Not really… I did glance through it but there was too much to take in- perhaps if it had just been 2 pages but it was quite off-putting.’
Trainee D: ‘Not very… a bit dense really.. off-putting, too much to take in.’
Trainee E: ‘I don’t think I even looked at it.’
What did have an impact then?
Working in groups?
‘You felt you were all learning together.. gradually getting to grips with things.. things like the session on making web pages… how to write code, step by step. I was with J.; he knew how to paste clip art into slides… it was just an easy and relaxing, non-threatening way of quickly picking things up, sharing expertise. You could make mistakes or not know things together and it didn’t matter.’
‘Working as part of a group? It helped for me working in groups, I learned loads from R.; prefer that to struggling on your own.’
But….
‘One of the problems was that the group I was in had someone who was really good at ICT, but they went too quickly… you just got lost.’
‘Working as part of a group? Depended on the composition of the group, if you were all about the same it worked well, if you were with one of the stronger ones, they tended to do most of it…..’
Seeing someone doing something you wanted to be able to do
‘When you showed us that picture where you could blow bits of it up using PowerPoint.’
‘When X came in and showed us how to make a web page in HTML… when you say it change from code to a screen.’
‘When we used PowerPoint and the net to do presentations on significance- good fun and easier than you thought it would be.’
Data from all trainees in the study
Sample :-
47 Science & 24 History PGCE trainees
At the start of the course :-
All but one owned a computer
All were e-mail users
88% had Internet access at home
Positive initial attitude to ICT
Using the scale:1=strongly disagree: 2=disagree: 3=neither agree or disagree:4=agree: 5=strongly agree
I like to use computers for studying and/or recreation: av. score = 4.1I find it easy to learn how to use new software: av. score = 3.6I find I can learn effectively when using a computer: av. score = 3.5I am looking forward to using computers in the classroom:av. score = 3.6I think computers are important teaching tools: av. score = 4.1
(Similar scores for History and Science trainees)
At the start of the PGCE course…
Attitude to use of ICT in subject teaching
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Negative Sceptical Open-minded
Fairlypositive
Verypositive
Nu
mb
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f re
spo
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Series1
End of first school placement
No significant differences between Hist. & Sci. for data on this slide…
Very high levels of use of ICT by trainees97% created resources 79% taught using ICT
Comparison with staff teaching using ICT(more than 28% about same 63% less than
9%) Discuss ICT with mentor – 86% Felt there was a role model in dept. – 53%
Barriers identified
Lack of resources
(Science 1st 22 times – History 1st 7 times)
Limited access
(Science 1st 5 times – History 1st 7 times)
Many other factors identified
(complex and context dependent situation)
Helpful factors
Much larger number of factors identified and no clear favourites identified
Attitude and experience of teachers (significant for both sets of trainees)
Useful software (significant for both) Data projector - (significant for both) Specific web sites – (History) Large number of other factors identified
(complex and context dependent situation)
Key factors identified by mentors
Story about access – trainee timetabled in an ICT lab
impact of trainees buying their own laptop
Story about a role model – watch my presentations and then produce their own
Story about good intentions – lots planned but nothing happened yet
Focus group - Why do some trainees make more progress than others?
Some not being able to see the link between what they are to teach and ICT…
How can I apply ICT to what I have to teach?
Role of mentor in relation to ICT…
Making it available – even if they don’t know how to use it themselves.
Show us what they have.
Practicalities…
Need to be shown – these are the CD-ROMs - these are the web sites…
Need to encourage you a bit more… and early on in the placement.
Need to be shown how to use it…
It just didn’t come up – you had to ask
Need help with setting up
No one to show me - they didn’t use it - yet they were very well equipped
Supportive framework…
Depends on your confidence…I could have done with a more supportive framework…It was the very opposite in my school…I didn’t see a single teacher doing anything…
It worked really well…
I never expected to be doing this…
I can’t even work the video at home…
I’m quite proud of being able to do that…
Role for HEI based training…
Give us examples – make us more confident…Show us what is possible…Less sceptical after seeing examples – more open to the idea of using it…
Key findings at this stage…
TerryHarm done by information overloadSeeing something they wanted to be able to doModes of use- within ‘ordinary’ classroom
teaching (data projector not ICT room)RoyKey area is the trainee/mentor relationshipNeed to identify core activities for the mentor Trainees need to see models of ICT in use
