How do I know I’m doing a good job?

1. How do I know I’m doing a good job? • Professor Emeritus Lin Norton • Liverpool Hope University

2. Discussion point With person sitting next to you discuss the single most important issue that you are currently concerned about in your teaching and/or assessment Share HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

3. Outline • Identifying your issues • How do university teachers teach and how do students learn? • The role of reflective practice in university teaching • Aids to reflective practice • Student evaluation • Peer observation/mentoring • Action research HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

4. Stages in teaching development Three main stages of development as university teachers (Nyquist and Wulff,1996): • ‘Self/survival’ stage: issues related to ourselves e.g. Will students like us? Will we be sufficiently knowledgeable? • ‘Skills’ stage ; concerned with our teaching and assessment methods. • ‘Outcomes’ stage: are our students learning anything. HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

5. Conceptions of teaching Two main categories (Kember, 1997): • Teaching as information transmission- a teacher centred/content-orientated approach where the role is seen as knowing your subject and effectively imparting that knowledge to your students • Teaching as supporting student learning- a student-centred/learning orientated approach where the role is seen as facilitating the process by which students actively construct meaning and knowledge for themselves HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

6. Implications/Suggestions • We need to think of ways of facilitating the learning of our students using curriculum content and materials that are sometimes not our own • We need to focus on what our students are learning rather than on what we are teaching. • How do we know our students are learning? • Angelo & Cross (1993) ‘the one minute paper’ • Communicubes/PRS/clickers • Student talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYrKPoVFwg&feature=related HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

7. How students learn: approaches to learning Marton and Saljo (1976; 1997) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

8. What is it like to be a student at university? Barnett (2008) talks about uncertainty not just out in the world but inside ourselves- students feel uncertain, anxious but also exhilarated. He argues that ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ is the foundation of what it means to be a student and likens it to a bunjee jumper where the pedagogical situation should provide exhilarating (but safe) spaces to take those risks and confront those fears. HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

9. What affects student retention? • Over 50% had difficulty in coping with the demands of HE • 33% found academic work harder than they had expected it to be, • 38% found difficulty in balancing academic and other commitments. (Yorke & Longden 2008) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

10. And what do students want from Universities? • Increasingly, many (but not all) students see a degree as a passport to a good job • Increasingly, some (but not all) see themselves as customers or consumers not students • Most hold down jobs and many have other commitments • Some are strategic: ‘Tell me exactly what I have to do to get a first and I’ll do it’ HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

11. Reflective practice in teaching • Bolton (2005) argues that deep reflection ‘is not a thornless rose bed’ • ‘Deep reflection and reflexivity for development involve: • Authority and responsibility for personal and professional identity, values, actions, feelings; • Contestation • Willingness to stay with uncertainty, unpredictability , questioning’ HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

12. Reflective practice: the influence of John Dewey 1859 - 1952 • Reflective thinking being caused by some difficulty, uncertainty or doubt. • Reflective activity should include some form of testing out ideas derived from reflective thinking. • Underpins concepts of practitioner –based enquiry and pedagogical action research. HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

13. Reflective practice: the influence of Donald Schön (1983) • Schön in his book The reflective practitioner placed reflection right at the centre of professional practice, challenging the techno-rationalist approach • Schön’sthinking developed from earlier work with Argyris on the distinction between • ‘Espoused theories’ which characterise the profession • and • ‘Theories in use’ which characterise the day to day work of the professional Reflection-in-action (thinking on our feet) and reflection-on-action (thinking after the event) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

14. Discussion Point: Bridging the gap between beliefs and practices ‘Espoused theories’ are supposed to characterise the profession Q1. What are your beliefs about teaching Biology or Psychology at university? Where have these beliefs come from? ‘Theories in use’ are what characterises day to day work of the professional Q2. What do you actually do when teaching Biology or Psychology to your students? Do these practices differ from your espoused theories and if so, why? HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

15. The role of reflective practice in developing teaching and learning Postareff (2007) argues that a reflective teacher compares her or his teaching against: • Experience • Knowledge of educational theory (pedagogical literature) Hammersley-Fletcher & Orsmond(2005) argue that a reflective practitioner uses experiences to consider: • Their pedagogical philosophy • Their practice In other words, this involves your own personal thinking about teaching and learning, your values, your beliefs, rather than simply evaluating the teaching itself HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

16. Teaching and learning as a system Biggs (1994, 2003) argued that theories of learning and teaching are often based on a deficit model: Student-based theories Teacher-based theories Process based theories What a deficit model does is apportion blame and pose simplistic solutions but a systemic model acknowledges that not only do students and teachers interact with each other they do so in the context of a disciplinary and institutional framework. Change one element of a system, all the other elements must change HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

17. What are the influences and pressures on an academic? Fanghanel’s (2007) framework: • The macro level which includes the institution, external factors, academic labour and the research-teaching nexus • The meso level incorporating the department (or equivalent) and the subject discipline • The micro level meaning internal factors affecting the individual lecturer HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

18. Using student evaluation in our own reflective practice “Collecting data isn’t the same thing as improving or judging teaching” ‘…evaluation is best conceptualised not as something that is done to teachers by experts wielding questionnaires and computers… …but as something that is done by teachers for the benefit of their professional competence and their students’ understanding.’ (Ramsden, 1992, p.217) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

19. What are some of the problems with student course evaluation? • End of module evaluation too late to change teaching • Questions sometimes tend to be too general (Norton et al, 1997) • Student ratings can be affected by: • Preferred approaches to studying (Entwistle& Tait,1990) • Lecture charisma (Shevlin et al, 2000) • The ‘Dr Fox’ effect (Naftulin et al,1973) • Learning styles (Sprinkle, 2008) • Assessment grades HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

20. Evaluating during teaching: some suggestions • Angelo & Cross: the one minute paper • What is the single most important thing I have learned in this session • What is the single most important question that has not been answered in this session • Angelo & Cross: the muddiest point • Describe what you don’t understand and suggest what you think might help • Catherine Fritz: testing in class(could be done with PRS/ communicubes system) • Asking questions and eliciting answers, calling information to mind, practising the skill of learning • Suggestion box: students put in their suggestions for improvements at end of each class session HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

21. Self evaluation: the reflective practitioner • Reflective practice – sometimes contested (see for example Knight, 2002) but what does it mean? • To aid reflective practice we need some evidence so where might we get it? • From our mentor • From student evaluation • From assessment /student academic performance • From pedagogical action research • From peer observation • Anything else? HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

22. Pedagogical action research: an overview • Bass (1999) makes the distinction between a research problem which we celebrate and investigate and a teaching problem which we hide away. He suggests changing the status of the problem… • …In pedagogical action research, this is exactly what we do: • The teaching ‘problem’: • Psychology students don’t use enough journals in their essays • The teaching problem translated into a research problem and a research hypothesis: • A multi-layered intervention (librarians’ input, revised formative assessment, exemplars ) will increase the use of journals in an essay (Norton, Norton & Thomas, 2004) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

23. Definition of action research • “Action research is action and research in the same process. It has twin, aims of action for change in an organisation or community, with research to increase our knowledge and understanding. It is not action for research (doing in order to increase understanding), nor research for action (increasing knowledge in order to be applied at a later time), but a coming together of two purposes in a single project or process. • Action research is not a research method, as many methods of data collection may be used in action research projects. It is, rather, a way of doing research and acting to change situations at the same time.” (emphasis added) (Hughes, 1997) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

24. Carrying out pedagogical action research: an easy step by step approach ITDEM’D adapted from Norton (2001) Identifying a problem/paradox/ issue/difficulty (your research focus) Thinking of ways to tackle the problem (your chosen method) Doing it (your collecting of data) Evaluating it (analysing, interpreting your findings) Modifying future teaching (how will you improve your students’ learning?) ’Disseminatingresearch findings (opening your work up to peer scrutiny and critique) HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012

25. Discussion point: How am I doing? To model the one minute paper In small groups agree the following; The single most important thing you have learned from this workshop The single most important question that is still to be answered Share HEA STEM Postdoctoral workshop Keele University 10.01.2012