@PIoE NEWS AND VIEWS
May 2016
from Megan
This month’s newsletter is a sit down with a cup of cocoa read, as there is so much going on. Please do read through, and I look forward to sharing of practice and research at the Development Day in June.
Celebrating recent PIoE birthdays
Education lead the way in eSubmission by Ed Bremner
Assessment is now in full swing and for PIoE, this is almost exclusively being done by eSubmission. I realise this has lead to some frustration as you battled your way through the technological hurdles of Moodle and the vagaries of the eSubmission process, but I thought now might be a good time to just congratulate everyone on how well eSubmission has largely gone. OK, It is true that we have bumped head long into lots of problems, but by and large we have hopefully been able to sort most of them out and those we havn’t have gone on to shape our best practice.
You may not realise, but this year, only two schools across the whole university (PIoE and HPA) adopted a blanket policy, where possible, of having all submissions made anonymously online. Although there were some challenges, we did it, and this year PIoE will have 82.2% of its submissions online, a rise from 14.6% in 14/15. This is an incredible achievement and considerably higher than any other school/faculty in the university has managed. (The nearest is HPA with 65% and FoB with 57%). Although the Faculty of Business originally piloted eSubmission, it is now PIoE that is leading the university in integrating eSubmission into our general practice.
I hope this also reassures you that at those times, when we tried to stretch the system; to accept group submissions, or upload videos, or peer assessment or whatever, we were often breaking new ground and having to learn as we went. If there were problems, they were rarely down to you guys and normally exacerbated by our germinating understanding of how everything worked. Next time it will be easier!
Finally I would like to thank all of you for working with Dan, myself and the other ASTI LTs on eSubmission and providing us with so much feedback and evidence of what did and did not work; it has been a big help.
I look forwards to the next challenge!
Ed Bremner – Learning Technologist for PIoE and FoAH
Faculty Advisory Forum by Rod Parker-Rees
On Wednesday May 11th Megan, Cath Gristy (for Tom Cowan) and I attended the Faculty Advisory Forum, a termly meeting of senior managers and elected representatives from each school which receives briefings on Faculty business and provides a ‘consultative forum and sounding board’ to advise Faculty leadership on strategic issues. At each meeting we receive brief reports from the Dean (now Steve Butts as Acting Deputy Dean), Associate Deans, Heads of School, Faculty Business Manager and others, including student representatives, but the bulk of the meetings is then given over to discussion of one or two prearranged topics. The topics for the May meeting included ‘How good an experience do we give our students and how would we/they know?’ and ‘What do you think other institutions do better than we do?’.
I can’t give a detailed report on these discussions here but it was interesting to see how issues are perceived in other parts of the faculty. We agreed that it is very difficult to talk in general terms about the experiences of different students on different programmes in different schools but there was agreement that valuing students (and showing this by actively seeking to establish a ‘meaningful connection’ with individuals) was a feature of what we aim to offer. We also talked about the challenge of ‘breaking the pattern’ of the passive learner role – an expectation which can be carried over from secondary education and which may combine with a ‘consumer model’ to lead students to expect that they will be ‘provided’ with a university experience rather than that they will have an opportunity (and responsibility) to contribute to the quality of each other’s experiences. There was a general feeling that students tend not to think about their experience in terms of ‘the university’ or even ‘the faculty’, because so much of what they do is focused within their programme and school. Staff also feel unable to make general comments about what happens across the university since our own experience may be focused mainly within a relatively small circle of colleagues. It was agreed that it can be useful to find out a bit about what students are offered (or promised) at other universities, both by attending open days ourselves and by gathering feedback from others (e.g. family members who are choosing a university). Another way for students to ‘get a feel’ for what PU can offer is contact with existing students. Polly McPherson (3D Design) talked about how she invites prospective students (attending open days) to join a 3D design Facebook group, even before they have chosen Plymouth, where they can engage with current students and share images of their work. This obviously requires a considerable commitment of time but Polly explained that it is worthwhile because it is so important to secure sufficient numbers of students.
You will probably not be amazed to hear that the discussion about what other institutions do better than us focused on timetabling but also the tightness of our regulations (a strange companion to our focus on valuing students), the separation between professional services and academic management and the quality of our online and distance learning materials.
In future I will circulate the topics for discussion ahead of the FAF meetings so that anyone who has something they really want aired can pass this on to me, Tom or Megan.
EdD awarded by Nick Pratt
Pete le Gassick successfully defended his EdD thesis in his viva recently and was awarded his EdD with only the most minor of changes to make (now completed). His thesis title, and the abstract, are as follows:
The Employment of Ex-Military as Teachers: The Military, Masculinity and Moral Regulation
Abstract
This doctoral research has analyzed the employment of ex-military as teachers from a perspective of identity and culture. Using a single case study approach, including focus groups, interviews and observations, the research has explored a military academy within 'College', a further education institute in the south of England. Focusing particularly on the experiences of four teachers who had recently left the British Armed Forces, the analysis employs Pierre Bourdieu's habitus, field and capital to understand the macro, micro and subject level influences that shape field practice.
It is proposed that, at a macro level, moralizing discourse regarding undesirable working class youth has been positioned against an idealized masculine military power identity. This has overlaid existing discourse regarding the feminized nature of teaching and the marketization of education. This can be viewed as an ideological tension between a pervading centre-right perspective of education as a tool of social order and preparing the young for employment, dominating a broader liberal egalitarian ideal of education for comprehensive social reform. At a micro level, the construction of military identities was accomplished through capital exchanges regarding military experience and relational processes of differentiation with feminized 'others'. Student identity work used processes of imagination, constructing imagined social capitals through storytelling, symbolic interaction and ritualized performance. It is proposed that socialization with idealized military types, providing conceptualized forms of idealized vocational habitus, provided access to powerful imagined capitals on which students were able to draw in the construction of new identities.
The research indicates that there are both positive and negative outcomes to this identity work. The data shows that the identity work through the differentiation of feminized ‘others’ can lead to behaviours that could be viewed as aggressive or abusive. The research also argues that this identity work can have a motivating effect on students who want to join the Armed Forces, leading to successful educational attainment where identity narratives supported academic practice. With respect to the ex-military teachers themselves, the research witnessed the most successful transitions being made by the youngest members; the oldest member struggled to change to the new field conditions, his cultured military habitus disposing him to military practice, resulting in him positioning himself professionally through the capitals of his past.
Congratulations go to Pete, and to Jocey Quinn, his DoS and Peter Kelly, second supervisor.
BA Education Studies SSTAR Successes!!
BA Education Studies has had yet another successful year with the UPSU SSTAR awards. Having won at least one SSTAR award every year since their inception in 2011, this year is indeed EDST’s best ever. Dr Emma Macleod-Johnstone has been awarded three faculty awards, namely:
· Faculty SSTAR for Inspirational teaching
· Faculty SSATR for Outstanding personal tutor
· Faculty SSTAR for Most innovative use of teaching materials
On top of this Education Studies student representatives- Mark O’Carroll and Sophie Godwin- were awarded two of the five University Student Voice Gold Awards!
Emma, Mark and Sophie- we are very proud of you!
For further information and to read some of the wonderful comments students have shared about their work click on the following link.
http://www.upsu.com/news/article/6013/UPSU-SSTAR-Awards-2016/
A SSTAR in our midst
We are delighted to congratulate Jo Lock Smith from the Secondary PGCE team for winning the SSTAR award for Most Effective Feedback in Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the ceremony on 14th April. The other nominations were from larger programmes, so it is very pleasing that PGCE Programme was acknowledged. Well done Jo!
Annual Cooperative Education Conference
Julie Anderson and Cath Gristy travelled to Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU ) on the 21 April to attend the annual Cooperative Education Conference. They gave a paper with local cooperative college colleague and PIoE EdD student, Tracey Downes. Discussing their collaborative university and schools project which has been active for nearly a year now, the three shared a narrative about the overarching project using seven reflections from colleagues currently in the group. A paper on the work has also been proposed to JET.
UKLA research grant awarded
Clare Dowdall has been awarded a UKLA research grant to explore a new project: Children’s ‘writing’ in the 21st century: composition, crafting and design.
The project aims are as follows:
· To explore how three groups of teachers and trainee teachers currently conceptualise children’s ‘writing’ and the processes involved in it.
· To identify how curriculum and accountability measures are impacting on the teachers’ and trainee teachers’ practices as they aim to develop children as ‘writers’.
· To identify examples of playful, exploratory, creative classroom practice that support notions of writing as crafting and design in a 21st century digital textual landscape.
For details of how to apply for research funding from the UKLA, please follow this link: https://ukla.org/research
PIOEBLOG
Blogging has emerged as a new genre in academic writing and an effective means of public engagement. Although it has been claimed that ‘never has so much been written by so many, to be read by so few’ (Katie Hafner), blogs have the potential to draw large audiences and can provide writers with valuable feedback on their thoughts. We have recently established an official blog for the Plymouth Institute of Education, and we intend to promote this widely in the coming months. We now need good content to establish an audience and gain some impetus for the blog. This is an invitation to all staff to submit relevant articles (opinion pieces, short research articles, policy commentary, general news about the work of the Institute) of between 300-500 words, for publication on the blog. You are also invited to submit hyperlinks to associated reading/resources, video and audio links and images/photographs to accompany your article.
Writing to it
With Jonathan Wyatt (University of Edinburgh) Ken Gale is presenting a keynote at the Writing Development in Higher Education (WDHE) Conference keynote taking place at Plymouth University on 27-29 June 2016
The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Spaces and Places to Write’. Each of the conference streams focus on aspects of our pedagogical practice which support engaged learning and student success in (academic) writing.
Ken and Jonathan’s keynote is entitled: Writing to it: creative engagements with writing practice in and with the not yet known in today’s academy.
Meet our Alumni
Just a little line to share this alumni case study.
www.plymouth.ac.uk/alumni-friends/alumni/meet-our-alumni/education-teaching/alice-potter
Plymouth Institute of Education
Location: Nancy Astor Building, Plymouth University, Drake Circus, Plymouth, United Kingdom
Phone: 01752 585300
Twitter: @plymioe