The Lifelong Learning Sector: Reflective Reader

Susan Wallace

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781844456345
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Adult Education

This book provides an overview of the Lifelong Learning Sector while also helping students engage with professional writing. Each chapter in the book is presented as an independently authored ?paper? concentrating on a key theme, including professionalism, reflective practice and how previous experience can shape teaching. Guidance and discussion notes follow to help the reader evaluate the writing and approach, and activities are included to develop the readers? own professional skills in reading and writing. This is an invaluable text for all those working towards QTLS, covering key content, demystifying academic writing, and encouraging reflective reading and practice.

1

How previous experience can shape our teaching

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The aims of this chapter are to provide:

• a discussion of the place of learning styles and teaching styles;
• examination of the teacher’s experiences and how they influence their initial teaching style;
• an overview of how the issue of learning styles influences a teacher’s approach;
• thought-provoking discussion around the notion of the ‘comfort zone’ in a teacher’s practice.

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What to look for

• Note the style and tone of this paper, including the use of the first person, ‘I’, and the way the author refers to his own professional experience.
• Use the suggested steps provided to help you to audit your own teaching style and preferences.

Author details

Neil Stott is currently a lecturer in education studies at Nottingham Trent University where he is the Programme Leader for In-Service Professional Graduate/Certificate in Education (LLS). He worked in FE for 22 years as an engineering tutor, teaching craft and technician levels including Computer Aided Design and Quality Assurance. Having a professional and personal interest in curriculum development, he became responsible for the development of various courses outside of engineering and was latterly a Curriculum Area Leader for Management, Education and Training – with particular responsibility for In-Service and Pre-Service Lifelong Learning Sector (LLS) Teacher Education.

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How previous experience can shape our teaching

Neil Stott

Abstract

This chapter introduces the concept of preferred ‘teaching styles’ and how these often arise from our own previous experiences of education. It explores how we might extend our range of teaching styles, moving ourselves out of our comfort zone; and why this might be desirable. It also questions whether there is a significant connection between ‘teaching style’ and ‘learning style’.

Introduction

Over the last two decades there have been many changes in the adult learning curriculum within the LLS. One has only to track, for example, how the sector has been variously described during that time – Further Education, Post Compulsory Education and Training and, most recently, Lifelong Learning – to see how external forces have sought to change perception and emphasis. Yet at the core of this diversity lies a conundrum: What exactly is an LLS teacher and how should one teach?

Teaching in LLS is a very diverse profession and LLS lecturers may teach in any of the following settings: general or specialist FE colleges, tertiary colleges, sixth form colleges, HM Prisons, armed forces education centres, company training centres, and diverse private training organisations (DfES, 2004).

Consider, by way of a case study, a certain engineering craftsman who worked hard in industry and was in possession of a full technical certificate, gained over a decade. This craftsman worked independently and also had an important yet informal role in the training and care of apprentices. This was an unrecognised and under-valued role yet it was traditional, accepted and formative for the trainee. There was no formal training involved for this position; it was often down to an intuitive judgement by a junior manager and, to some extent, a question of the luck of the draw when decisions were made over ‘who trained who’.

This unstructured and somewhat arcane method of training for apprentices ran alongside formal off-the-job training followed by ‘day release’ at a local technical college or ‘tech’, with little connection or communication between employers, on the job trainers and, most importantly for this chapter, those teaching the apprentices one day a week in college.

Let’s ‘fast forward’ then to the scenario of that same engineer, now recruited to a college where he will be teaching within his own vocational area. How did he start, what did he do and how successfully did he do it in this first phase of his career? Perhaps almost inevitably there was a tendency to default to the way he himself had been taught. This was in a largely didactic way, with the linear and constrained syllabus being somewhat unimaginatively interpreted. We shall leave him there for now and see how he progresses.

Since our fictional engineer began his teaching career, the LLS curriculum has changed considerably, reflecting the subsequent decline of manufacturing and other traditional industries and sectors. However, the staffing needs of colleges and other LLS employers mean that they still need to recruit experienced individuals from thriving vocational areas to take on an effective teaching and learning role. While a sizeable minority do enter the LLS teaching profession after following a full-time Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), Professional Graduate Certificate in Education (Prof GCE) or Certificate in Education course, the main entrants are still ‘career-changers’ drawn through similar routes taken by our fictional engineer; and this is still widely held to be a career advancement for those individuals. In other words, the LLS still needs to convert vocational experts to teachers; and this cannot be done effectively without due consideration for the changes of attitudes, motivations and skills required in transforming the professional identity of these skilled individuals from practitioner to teacher in a relatively short space of time. Moreover, given the period of change and the instrumentalist nature of the LLS, the new reality means that teachers within it are, more than ever, obliged to take into consideration the attendant demands of increased learner expectation, institutional requirements and pressure on institutions to raise ‘success rates’ within the Quality Assurance (QA) standards laid down by the external agencies involved with the funding and governance of the sector.

Learning style and teaching styles

Following the recent changes within the standards for the training of teachers in LLS, teachers are now more than ever encouraged to consider students’ individual preferences for, and responses to, different ways of learning. Indeed, much is made of ‘learning styles’ in general and particularly the model based on Kolb’s (1984) work, which has been developed by Honey and Mumford (1992). This has been used widely – if not always wisely – in FE colleges and across education and training; and there is much debate and discussion around this aspect of initial assessment of learners. Coffield et al (2004) conducted wide-ranging research into the pedagogical implications of the use – and misuse – of learning styles across the sector and their study indicates the controversy surrounding their deployment. Indeed they suggest that:

For some, learning styles have become an unquestioned minor part of their professional thinking and practice, which allows them to differentiate students quickly and simply; for others, the same instruments are considered both unreliable and invalid and so they do not use them in practice.

(Ibid, p44)

This suggests that teachers should investigate the efficacy of learning style surveys with a critical eye before making pedagogical decisions based on their use. Far less attention, however, is given to what we shall term ‘preferred teaching style’. In practice, information about their students’ learning styles is most useful to teachers when considered side by side with an honest and open appraisal of the teacher’s own preferred style of teaching.

Remember that engineering teacher in our case study? He did not have any idea about learning styles or teaching styles. He formed his own idea of how to teach based on his own experience of being taught, and on his experience of being a workplace trainer. This meant that much of his early development as an FE teacher was through trial and error. As a consequence, his initial transformation into a teacher was a difficult one and his learners were, perhaps, poorly served as a result.

What exactly is a teaching style?

Naturally, individual teaching styles reflect diverse elements driven by the psychological make-up of teachers, their formative experiences both as vocational and/or academic practitioners and, often importantly, their attitude to their learners. Indeed, a definition of teaching style could well be implicit in the relationship that exists between teachers and their learners – the feasible options for teaching and learning activity that are available in the complex interactions between the teacher’s behaviour and that of the learners.

Mosston and Ashworth (1990) contend that teachers should not rely on a single style but should consider options based on observed styles of learning (beyond simple screening and categorisation of students) and design structures based on decisions made during dialogue with learners. They suggest that the spectrum of styles differs in terms of both teaching and learning behaviour and that they range (11 in all) from control by the teacher – command style – to learner autonomy within a style which Mosston and Ashworth define as self teaching.

As most FE colleges currently include higher education (HE) study within their curriculum, there is now potential for learners to progress from modest levels of study within the National Qualification Framework (NQF) up to entry level HE, such as Higher National Certificates/Diplomas and Foundation Degrees – and even franchised first degree courses. More importantly, for the theme of this paper, it also means that many FE teachers may find themselves teaching HE level courses. Biggs (1999), writing principally for the university teaching sector, identifies a four-level process where students construct meaning from what they do to learn. The teacher constructively aligns planned learning activity and assessment with the learning outcomes. Biggs suggests that learners should be encouraged to take more responsibility for learning as they develop – and this has huge implications for the practice and style of teachers in post-compulsory education. Considered alongside Grasha’s (1996) typology of teaching styles – Expert, Formal Authority, Personal Model, Facilitator and Delegator – the converging trend is towards more learner autonomy the further the individual progresses to higher levels of education and training, or the higher their own ability level rises. Clearly this has important implications for the styles of teaching necessary to support learning as it progresses.

Direct teaching style

Often referred to as instructional or direct instructional style, this is a way of teaching that relies almost entirely on the teacher being the expert in the topic and sole arbiter (within the constraints of the syllabus or programme specification) of what should be learned at the time of the instruction. Direct teaching styles have an important place in the area of teaching skills but may be less appropriate for learning at higher cognitive levels or in the affective domain.

Of course this does not mean to say that direct teaching is in some way a lesser technique compared to others, but simply that it can be misused or misplaced – perhaps by default.

Returning to our case study once more, perhaps there was an initial temptation for this newly appointed teacher to default to the way he himself was taught and, given the vocational area in which he was trained over many years, this may have been a ‘safety-first’ position.

Observation and experience would suggest that some teachers new to the LLS – and some who have not developed their style over time – tend to favour the direct style. One disadvantage of this approach is that it tends to encourage passivity in learners rather than motivating them to engage actively with their learning, and places most of the burden of responsibility for learning on the teacher. On the other hand, direct styles of teaching can work very well indeed when combined with other, more open and learner-centred approaches as part of a learning continuum.

Indirect teaching style

A gradual shifting of responsibility for learning to the learners themselves may re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 How previous experience can shape our teaching
• 2 The origins and implications of the professional standards for teachers in the Lifelong Learning sector
• 3 Are lesson plans important?
• 4 Teaching for inclusion: pedagogies for the ‘sector of the second chance’
• 5 Responding to learners’ numeracy and literacy needs
• 6 Assessment 14–19
• 7 Professionalism and reflective practice
• 8 Belonging and collegiality: the college as a community of practice
• 9 Mentoring in theory and practice
• 10 Institutional issues: the college of further education as a twenty-first century organisation
• Appendix 1: Coverage of LLUK Professional Standards for Teachers
• Appendix 2: Professional skills for reading and writing
• Index