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Title: Being a teacher in higher education
Description: This article reviews the task of being a teacher in higher education through changing times.
Description: This article reviews the task of being a teacher in higher education through changing times.
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Research in Post-Compulsory Education
Vol
...
2, July 2008, 163–172
Being a teacher in further education in changing times
Martin Jephcote*, Jane Salisbury and Gareth Rees
School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK
jephcote@cardiff
...
uk
MartinJephcote
0
200000June 2007
13
2008 & Francis
Original in Post-Compulsory
1359-6748 Francis
ResearchArticle
10
...
sgm
Taylor and (print)/1747-5112 (online)
As with other sectors of education, further education seems to be locked in endless
change with policy unable to resolve what have become to be regarded as intractable
problems
...
Evidence suggests that they expend much emotional
labour and employ a range of strategies, but on the whole, while not ignoring the
demands of other stakeholders, they privilege the needs and interests of learners in their
adoption of an ethic of care
...
Moreover, in both sectors, there is more research into and
accounts of initial training and early years’ experiences, a growing literature on further
education (FE) about ‘professionalism’, but much less about the working lives of experienced teachers
...
It draws on the data generated
by the project and specifically sets out to look at the ways in which further education teachers negotiate their practices and construct their identities
...
We devised a multi-method qualitative approach
to track the lives of an initial sample of 27 FE teachers over a two-year period based upon
qualitative methods sensitive to the social context in which data are produced (Mason 2002)
...
Each of the teachers was involved in an in-depth
semi-structured interview at the start and end of the project; the regular completion of structured learning journals; and extensive first-hand ethnographic observation of learning in a
variety of settings including classrooms, open learning centres and workshops
...
The initial interview with teachers took a life history approach, asking them to reflect
across their wider life experiences, their entries into and experiences of teaching and their
*Corresponding author
...
ac
...
1080/13596740802141287
http://www
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com
164
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thoughts on classroom teaching
...
Unlike some other forms of journal writing, both students and teachers were asked
to respond to broad thematic questions that were constructed as the study developed
...
Out of
this, what we want to draw attention to is that responding to and coping with change are
taken-for-granted skills that teachers acquire and display, but are indeed skills that they do
deploy in classrooms with learners and with college managers
...
FE works somewhat on a deficit model of provision, that is, compensating
for gaps in learners’ prior education, and in basic and vocational skills
...
For example, in Wales, 25% of adults are
economically inactive compared with the UK average of 20%; 25% of 16 year olds did not
achieve higher than a grade D GCSE; and adult illiteracy is higher than in the rest of the
UK
...
Thus, it
is those who work in the FE sector who are expected to fulfil the expectations of a host of
stakeholders, whose interests sometimes but not always coincide and consequently generate
competing pressures and seemingly endless change
...
External influence and control over FE is not new and we might remind ourselves of, for
example, the Industrial Training Boards introduced in the 1960s, the Manpower Services
Commission set up in the 1970s, the Technical and Vocational Training Initiative in the
early 1980s and the launch of the Training and Enterprise Councils in the late 1980s
...
There was the widespread introduction of targets,
originally emanating from the employer-led National Advisory Council for Education
and Training Targets (NACETT), the rise and decline of the General National Vocational
Qualification, the Dearing Report in 1996, the ‘Curriculum 2000’ review and ongoing
adjustments to GCSEs and A levels, the introduction of vocational A levels and then stepped
introduction of diplomas
...
Consequently, there was the possibility of having
distinctive policies and systems for FE in England and Wales, but it would be true to say
that the widening gap was as much because of the rapid pace of change in England, in effect,
accelerating away from Wales, than it was because of any specific actions in Wales
...
Even though there were growing differences between Wales and England,
during the time of our study teachers’ accounts of working in FE in Wales were strikingly
similar to those in England (see, for example, Gleeson 2001; Gleeson et al
...
2006)
...
2006), these were
exactly the same pressures reported to us by teachers in our own study
...
As Finlay et al
...
Both these
shifts in emphasis and power are further underpinned by the new discourse of the labour
market provided by Leitch (2006), that is, the importance now attached to employers’ needs
and to ‘economically valuable’ (3) and ‘demand-led’ (4) skills
...
Priority is given to supporting those learners who want to improve
their skills and vocational qualifications and resources are switched away from other areas
of learning
...
Theoretical and conceptual framework
Our intention here is not to rehearse in any detail the growing literature on FE, but to use
our limited space to present our own findings
...
Following
teachers (and their learners), the study was conceptualised as following a ‘learning journey’
both in the formulation of research questions and in the design of an appropriate research
methodology, we recognised and took into account existing theory and research evidence
...
We wanted to produce a contemporary and illuminative
account of FE in Wales
...
What our teachers told us
Teacher participants included full- and part-time staff from vocational and academic
curriculum areas whose ages ranged from mid 20s to late 50s
...
Jephcote et al
...
Many teachers had experienced chequered educational histories
at school, were late developers and suggested that their own employment careers and late
entry into the teaching profession made them powerful role models for their students (see
Salisbury et al
...
Our work with teachers pointed to the importance of their own personal experiences of
learning that often strongly influenced the conceptions they had about learning and teaching, and often underpinned how they distinguished between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ teachers or
‘good’ and ‘bad’ learning and teaching
...
When faced with pressure to change what they do, to change classroom practice,
what they ‘know’ and believe, they called on their own rationales and legitimising rhetorics
to accept or reject, to get involved or not
...
Virtually all participants claimed that
further education gave learners more time, recognised the needs of individuals and offered
more individualised help
...
Whereas the need for students to obtain
accredited qualifications drove much of the learning and teaching, the majority of teachers
attached more importance to what is now commonly termed ‘the wider benefits of learning’
such as gaining confidence, an increased awareness of work futures, space for students to
mature and take more control over their lives, and to developing greater self-awareness
...
Students’ accounts and our observations powerfully reminded us that for them, being at
college was only a part of their wider lives
...
On a more routine basis there were numerous interruptions
from mobile ‘phones and texts relaying, for example, the heart attack of a student’s mother,
the news of an absent classmate’s positive pregnancy test
...
One teacher described ‘horrendous personal situations which she would rather
not know about’ including alcoholic parents, the murder of a student, sexual abuse, attempted
suicide and attempted murder
...
In turn, teachers were acutely aware of both the need to strive for improving
students’ results and to cater for and scaffold the wider realities of their learners’ lives
...
2006)
...
At interview and in their learning journal entries,
teachers described the emotional struggles and range of emotions they experienced, providing
evidence of the complex relationship of teaching and caring: irritation and frustration with
students who arrived late, were ill-equipped, had not brought in their coursework or missed
submission dates; sadness about those who dropped out or experienced tragedy, health scares
Research in Post-Compulsory Education
167
or personal, domestic difficulties and joy at how individuals responded to encouragement and
demonstrated achievement or progress
...
Akin to the ever-smiling cabin crew
attendant, at times they had to grit their teeth, fix their smile and respond calmly even in the
face of rude and crude behaviour
...
Teachers gave accounts of their work intensification, increasing workloads, longer
working hours and more challenging students and, in turn, how this impacted on their roles,
their classroom strategies and their own wider lives
...
This entry was made early in the Spring term
and it was evident that the pressure was on to get students ‘up to speed’ with coursework
submissions
...
She reproduced a section from her
contract of employment which listed 22 different responsibilities including teaching 23
hours per week
...
Listening to students problems is a time consuming part of an FE teachers’ life (see
Clow 2005), and as we found with many of our teachers, attending to students’ personal
problems was an integral part of the job
...
Like Fiona she pointed to a lack of engagement on the part of some students:
… they show little interest in homework, and think that the end of the course is forever away
and show this through their attitude to attending lessons, haphazard, and disappearing half day
...
She thought that she and other staff had ‘bust a gut’ to achieve their grade one Estyn report
but were still left feeling ‘demoralised and undervalued’
...
Typically, days were long, full and
168
M
...
extended well into the evening, with teachers either staying in college or taking work home
...
Many teachers reported feeling stressed by the volume of
work and indicated how their workloads impacted on their own wider lives
...
In
some of the journal entries and in interviews it became apparent that half-term ‘holidays’
were sometimes used to catch up on marking or for teachers to compile coursework and
other assessments for courses that they were engaged in
...
Extended classroom observation revealed that the ‘professional identity’ of teachers engendered a commitment to highly
supportive pedagogical strategies that, in some ways, paralleled their willingness to engage
in seemingly ubiquitous pastoral work
...
However, for the most part, teachers strove for a
much more facilitative mode of pedagogy
...
Some sessions, especially in
courses leading to professional and craft qualifications were structured around demonstrations, although, even here, some teaching was based on guided discovery as, for example,
in social care and animal care programmes
...
Strikingly, across all programmes and levels was the high volume of
one-to-one teaching both inside and outside timetabled sessions, and many students valued
this sort of ‘special attention’ as a crucial determinant of their learning
...
Certainly, for example,
some teachers alluded to the relatively low status they saw being accorded to vocational
programmes, reflected in the locations in which they were taught and the facilities provided
that restricted the scope for adopting innovative teaching approaches (although other vocational programmes enjoyed ‘state-of-the-art’ facilities)
...
Somewhat paradoxically, given the nature of teachers’ ‘professional identity’, it was
also clear that some teachers held strong expectations about their students’ performance,
based upon their beliefs about their social backgrounds and, in particular, the localities in
which they lived (see Jephcote et al
...
As one teacher put it:
The lads living in the valley areas have a different, different culture to those who live in … the
city
...
(Evan)
Moreover, such labelling was reported to have impacts on pedagogical strategies
...
Much more significantly, however, students were themselves proactive in shaping the
character of learning processes
...
Teachers appeared, for the most
part, to acquiesce in this, irrespective of their own views about the importance of a balance
between different aspects of the curriculum
...
On
occasion, of course, this simply reflected the pedagogical strategy adopted by the teacher
...
An extended extract from fieldwork
notes illustrates this
...
[…] ‘So do you think the parents of this child want her
treated as sick or as normal as possible?’ ‘If you were the nursery manager how would you brief
your staff?’ ‘Would you explain the situation fully or respect the parent’s wishes?’ Six short
vignettes of scenarios of sick children at a nursery provide the stimulus for discussion
...
Apart from girls
taking turns to read one out aloud there is little engagement from the majority of them
...
After about 15 mins Kayley interrupts and asks boldly, ‘Can we work in pairs on this and then
you come and check that we’re on track?’ There is a chorus of general agreement and assertions
‘Yeh, we can make notes for our files as we discuss and then share ideas later!’ Marjory the
responsive teacher appears relieved and complies with the request though within five minutes
the pairs appear to be off task and she is engaged in one-to-one dialogues about how the discussion work will build up into an assignment
...
Instead, there was a skirting around some of the
interview questions and a tendency to displace this topic with more pressing narratives
about students’ problems or their responses to college and national policies
...
At the micro-level of the college, we found many teachers critical of initiatives such as
attempts to impose learning styles inventories and to urge them to take consequent action in
classrooms
...
We were told by teachers that college
work was ‘driven by the numeric data’ with middle managers having to regularly undertake
‘curriculum area audits by subject’
...
Some teachers explained how they were compelled
to ‘break down the raw figures to show the truth’ and better illustrate the ‘if and when’ of
participation, completions and qualification patterns
...
What seemed like never ending changes to programme contents, to assessment requirements,
and the embedding of the Welsh baccalaureate were but a few of the challenges listed by our
teachers
...
Jephcote et al
...
Commitment to their learners was such that the majority of teachers worked with students
well beyond the allotted course timetabled hours
...
Teachers established nurturing relationships, chased up missing students via texts and
‘phone calls and generally felt that the emotional labour they undertook, although draining,
was part of being an FE professional
...
Without exception, pedagogical expertise, which in large part was
about forging supportive relationships with students, was considered more important than
expertise in subject matter
...
Thus, being a teacher was a case of being pushed and pulled in different
directions so that teachers had to constantly make decisions about when to comply and when
to subvert institutional mandates
...
2007), such as being
asked to teach classes in which they had no subject expertise
...
In
the wake of the ‘Leitch Review’ (2006), in Wales there was the ‘Webb Review’ (2007), and
the ‘Skills that Work for Wales’ publication
...
The ‘Skills at Work for Wales’ was a
WAG consultation document published in January 2008
...
That said, the border between
Wales and England remains porous, especially in respect to the messages conveyed into
Wales through the bi-lateral policy process, evident in the ‘Leitch Review’, a product of
the Whitehall Treasury, and in the decision to operate the Further Education National
Training Organisation (FENTO) and more recently adapted Life Long Learning UK (LLUK)
professional standards
...
John Roberts was a member of the
research team
...
His particular research interest is in
the area of post-compulsory education and training with a focus on policy making and implementation
...
Research in Post-Compulsory Education
171
Jane Salisbury is a senior lecturer at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, where she teaches
sociology of education, education policy and qualitative research methods to undergraduates and
postgraduates
...
She has undertaken
ethnographic research in adult education programmes, schools, professional training contexts and,
more recently, further education colleges funded by the ESRC as one of the TLRP research projects
in Wales
...
Riddell and ‘Clients, claimants, learners? The new deal for 18–24 year
olds’, Journal of Education Policy 19
...
He is also
an associate director of the ESRC Research Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE), which is based jointly in Cardiff and Oxford Universities
...
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Title: Being a teacher in higher education
Description: This article reviews the task of being a teacher in higher education through changing times.
Description: This article reviews the task of being a teacher in higher education through changing times.