More innovation needed: offering a part time PGCE programme to practicing teachers

1. More innovation needed: offering a part time PGCE programme to practicing teachers Carol Bertram, Nonhlanhla Mthiyane and Tabitha Mukeredzi School of Education and Development, Faculty of Education, UKZN

2. Purpose of the study • Post Graduate Certificate in Education is a one-year professional teaching qualification for those who have an under-graduate degree. • Since 2006, offered part-time over two years to professionally unqualified teachers, who are already in classrooms. • Curriculum not changed – only the times of delivery. • Purpose of the study – to explore the experiences and perceptions of a sample of part time students regarding their learning and acquisition of professional knowledge through the PCGE. • Research question: What do practicing teachers say that they learn from the PGCE programme? • What does this mean for our practice?

3. Part time PGCE curriculum

4. Teacher knowledge/ learning • Key questions that inform teacher education: What kinds of knowledge(s) do teachers need to acquire, and in what ways do they learn? • Distinction between procedural or practical knowledge (knowing how to teach) and propositional knowledge (knowing about teaching and learning). • Both are important for the development of professional knowledge. But they are learnt in different ways: • Codified, propositional, epistemic knowledge usually learnt formally. • Practical, craft knowledge is often learnt informally in the school classroom or created in the situated practice of teaching. • Here we are concerned with learning from the formal PGCE programme.

5. Methodology Cohort is 2009/2010 students. Interviews with 20 students who volunteered to take part = = 5

6. What do practicing teachers say they learn from the PGCE? • Foundational education knowledge: policy, learning theories, history of education, barriers to learning. • Learn to think differently about teaching • Teaching strategies and pedagogical content knowledge • Learn to do things differently in their classrooms • Develop a professional identity – becoming a ‘real’ teacher • Develop confidence. • BUT there are also unmet expectations, and knowledge that they expected to learn, but did not….

7. Foundational education knowledge • For most PGCE students, the field of education is a new field of study. Thus they learn new content regarding learning theories, barriers to learning, policy, history. • “I’d say the theories...they are like the key, they are like the psychology of how a learner’s mind works...Like understanding how a learner learned, like help me prepare my lessons (B.Sc., 3 yrs exp) • The different learning barriers... We now have the ability to research it and to come up with good solutions. It really helped me...I never realised that one of the pupils in my Grade 5 class, she has got poor reading skills and now I know different methods and reading recovery (B.Sc. 5 yrs exp)

8. Pedagogical or practical knowledge • Students mentioned a range of pedagogical knowledge that they learned, such as assessment techniques, teaching strategies, classroom management strategies • Before the PGCE, I would just give the learners a test and think it was a good test but now I think about what type of assessment to do. I did not know about the types of assessment, I was only using one method of assessment. (BA Hons, 3 yrs exp) • Classroom management I didn’t know, you know, like class rules, how you manage a child, how you see that the child does not understand, communicating with the parents… (B. Paed, 13 yrs)

9. Think about teaching differently • Only 3 of the 20 mentioned they registered in order to learn to be a better teacher. All did so for job security, to become a ‘real’ teacher, get the qualification, improve salary… • However, many said it changed how they think about teaching. • It opened up a whole new world realising that there is so much to teaching. I mean… you think anyone can do it because you have been through it, but I didn’t expect there would be so much to it. • It made very clear some of the things that I sort of knew…that I was vague about. It clarified it for me, which was nice.

10. Changed their practice • Thinking differently about teaching also led to many of them doing things differently. • I just imitated my teachers, I was teaching in the way that I was taught. Now I check their level of understanding…I changed my way. I read the learners, I apply the theory I learnt. • When I left University, right, I had this lecturing idea…I was teaching the way I was being taught at school, where I stand and talk and ask the questions, you do the work. But the PGCE completely changed the way that I was teaching and interacting with my kids… (B.Sc. 6 months exp)

11. Gaining confidence, developing professionally • Many of the respondents mentioned that they gained confidence in a range of areas, such as having more knowledge about teaching and assessment methods. • ‘ It gave me unbelievable confidence, not only in teaching, because I'm actually a shy...when I left my Science degree, shy, quiet, wouldn't speak a word unless spoken to….So the whole PGCE course the way it was structured for me, I don't know for everyone else, but for me it helped me come out of my shell (NN, B.Sc)

12. Unmet expectations • 3 students in the sample were teaching in schools for learners with special needs – but this is not a focus of the PGCE. • FP students expected to learn more about how to teach reading. • Wanting practical solutions for dealing with pressing social needs (eg child-headed households, hunger, poverty etc). Not applicable to the full time students. • Those with PG degrees (eg MA) expected a higher level of academic engagement with education theories etc.

13. Implications for the programme: • Need to recognize and cater for diversity • PT PGCE students come with a wide range of qualifications (from Bachelors to PhD) and experience (2 – 15 years teaching experience) – to be catered for in teaching and assessment. • Some students referred to the course as ‘not challenging’, ‘boring’, etc. • Everything’s repeated to you over and over again, I mean its reaching the stage where I think somebody or the same material is handed to me in a slightly different format, I’m beginning to feel insulted. I’m beginning to think they must think that we’re all really stupid

14. Practical constraints of being a part time student • The timing of lectures • Afternoon classes tended to be very problematic – many taught in schools that were very far from either PMBurg or Edgewood • This challenge has since been addressed – since 2011 all part-time students attend on Saturdays and in block sessions during the holidays • We still have pipeline students though. • Lecturers need take cognisance that they have both full time and part time students in their class – draw on the experience of the practicing teachers.

15. Improving communication and admin support • Poor communication proved to be a sore point with the majority of students • We don’t know what’s happening….we’re not here…..we are teaching so we can’t always look at notice boards, we can’t you know….If a lecture gets cancelled we drive all the way down for a cancelled lecture which I understand happens sometimes, its one of the things but an e-mail or something would have been nice or an sms…. • Not being supported administratively • “…you come to try and sort things out here and you cannot find the person you’re looking for, they’re not available on their phone, they’re not available on their email and so where is your voice then at the university where you’re meant to be really listened to before you go out in the world… so you loseyour voice here…”

16. Quality of the learning experience varied • Students’ experiences across the Teaching Specializations – very diverse • Some are very well structured and address the needs of students, while students see some as a “waste of time”. • There appear to be overlaps between some modules. • A need for specialisation lecturers to talk and to share best practice and assessment tasks.

17. Clarifying the purpose of the PGCE • Some student expectations are not in line with the purpose of the PGCE e.g to be taught school content • PGCE assumes that students have the disciplinary knowledge • Conclusion • A useful process to get student voices and to reflect on the programme in a more structured way. • A need to disseminate to the rest of the Faculty of Education.