25 February 2005

White Paper: White Elephant?

Well it's finally here. In the wake of Mike Tomlinson's reports and his recommendation of an overarching structure for 14-19 qualifications the Government have published their new White Paper on 14-19 Education.

I've yet to read it - I've just printed the introduction - but the media reports suggest that Tomlinson has been sidelined and we are back to the same old Academic stream for the bright & "skills for everyone else".

More once I've read & digested it...

23 February 2005

Teaching Thoughts

Working through the online assessment system for our Cisco Network Academy Programme has made me realise how much more thought tends to be put into online delivery systems for the student experience than for the administration of the system. It takes my stdent a couple of clicks to open an assessment and then it's all point & click. To enable the assessments and, even worse, to change them is a task of mamoth proportions.

A current debate raging on the instructors site is whether to increase the maximum allowable time for online module tests from a day to something sensible (for those of us that use them as formative assessments) like a week. The split seems to be along the lines of shools vs adult ed - schools want the exams restricted to class use, proctored exams whilst anyone using the academy in adult/further education want to be able to let the students use them as and when they like to reinforce their learning and understanding. A classic clash of Pedagogy meets Androgogy and never the twain...

Understanably those school teachers that use the exam for summative assessment want secure "uncheatable" exams. That obviously clashes with the adult educators who don't care if the students check to see the answers as long as they are learning from them. The problems occur when students from the latter model choose to post cheat sheets for those students in the former regeime.

The answer would seem to be the same as for those teachers that complain that the internet allows pupils to chet at essay questions - adapt your assessment model to one that precludes such practices. Adopt some of the features of Androgogy - make your pupils responsible for their learning and find some alternatives to replace the module tests that show research skills and the ability to think critically, synthesis information and to produce interesting solutions to problems using good methodology. Possibly a radical approach and may involve more work in the short term, but isn't it more rewarding for pupils and teacher than ticking boxes?

22 February 2005

Another Start

Well this was supposed to be a lived learning journal beginning last semester, but due to the death of my father, the Christmas holidays and the the manic run up to my wedding in February nothing much happened on the diary front. I'm not sure how much happened on the learning front either and I've got a fair backlog of reading to get through, but that's just a pretty good example of how life-long learning needs to fit into people's lives and not vice-versa.

That's possibly the biggest lesson that the Government should be taking onboard about life-long learning. Unlike children, who's entire lives revolve around education (should be learning, but not sure that it is), adults have lives already crowded with responsibilities, activities, families and formal learning has to find a space in that. Instead all the current administration seem worried about is that we all have a level 2 qualification in Literacy and Numeracy, though not English and Maths anymore, which raises a question about those that are perfectly literate in a community language: does that count Mr Blair?

Anyway, having begun once and failed, this semester seemed like a better choice from a teaching and learning point of view. The next MA module begins on Thursday (no I've done nothing about the last one Tony - this is it!) though yet again it wasn't the one I wanted to do, but I had a pretty limited range of choices anything on a Tuesday or a Thursday due to my current teaching and music commitments. We're back to learning fitting in! So "Management in Post-Compulsory Education" it is then; this has become the year of adult ed modules for me after a year of school modules last year - fitting I suppose since I have a foot in either camp.

This semester I'm also attending the Apple Teacher Institute in Cheltenham for the 3rd year running which is a four day workshop based learning opportunity on Digital Media and other ICT school technologies. This may contrast well with the MA course in terms of learning and teaching styles and methods.

In addition my two CCNA courses are fairly well bedded in with the pilot course down to a core of three tenacious students and the second course holding steady with 9 students who all seem largely committed to completing the course - interestingly it's the internal staff that don't seem to let things slip a little.

So teaching and learning all happening. All I have to do is to keep updating this on a daily basis.