Streamlining practice-based monitoring: a solution for staff, students and placement mentors

1. Streamlining practice-based monitoring: a solution for staff, students and placement mentors Sue Sentance & Philip Howlett

2. Overview • Background: working in partnership • Trainee teachers and measuring progress • Trainee progress online database • Initial trials • Full implementation • Wider use of tool

3. Working in partnership Mentor weekly meetings Lesson observations Weekly grades to university Any areas of concern Tutor – school visits University tutorials Assignment preparation Academic sessions

4. Monitoring progress • Assessing learning regularly in order to facilitate progress is a key part of any higher education course (Yorke, 2003) • We need an approach that makes it easy for external partners to participate without adding to their workload. • We gather information on a continual basis about trainees, including placement progress, tutorials, visits, modules, concerns and results.

5. Why collect data at all? • Ofsted requirements • Self-evaluations requirements • Trainee support requirements

6. Placements Overview • Placement pattern for PGCE Secondary Initial Teacher Training • What happens on a PGCE Initial Teacher Training placement?

7. Monitoring trainees Current practice • Data recorded about each trainee throughout PGCE (teacher training) • Uses a spreadsheet • Includes weekly grades, module results, enrolment information – everything! Problems • Spreadsheet has 73 columns of data(!) and is awkward to complete/view • Data is repeated/redundant (problems of 2D flat file) • Complex searches are not easy • Is only accessible on J: drive (not online)

8. A database offers… • Student data stored once with multiple occurrences of • Weekly grades • Visits • Tutorials • Modules • No error-prone repetition of data • Web access to professional tutors (reducing data entry needed by administrators) • More complex search facilities

9. The storyso far … • Learning and Teaching Project has financed the development of a database • Our Trainee Progress Database (TPD) has been implemented in PHP/MySQL • Available at http://angliapgce.net • Password entry – 2 levels of access (school and university) • Pilot taking place with 3 schools (7 students) • User manual produced

10. Monitoring database

11. Student lists

12. Individual student view Removed from presentation because contained personal data

13. List of placements Removed from presentation because contained personal data

14. Professional tutor interface (capacity to input weekly grades online) Removed from presentation because contained personal data

15. Future Developments • Development of a primary TPD • Use of database for more advanced monitoring of trainee progress (e.g. a matrix of competency towards the Teacher Standards) • Work with schools’ requirements to give them access to historical data about trainees’ weekly grades • Move to web hosting provided by the university

16. Summary • Our Learning and Teaching Project award has enabled us to develop an online system to track and assess trainees’ progress whilst involving their placement schools in this process. • Other university courses using placements which need to be regularly monitored may benefit from this approach.

17. Sue Sentance & Philip Howlett (Learning and Teaching Fund project, supported by Anglia Learning and Teaching)