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Teachers in the Post Compulsory Sector work with students of all ages, all backgrounds and all levels of ability .. often during the course of one week of their working lives ! What do they feel about their experience, and what research is there about the work and lives of teachers in the sector. This section tries to bring you readily accessible examples of work abut teachers in the sector.
Biographies, values and practice: trainee lecturers' constructions of teaching in further education - Bathmaker, Ann-Marie; Avis, James; Kendall, Alex; Parsons, John. This paper is one of three inter-related papers, which examine the experience of trainee FE lecturers, their perceptions of the FE sector, and their orientations towards teaching and learning, drawing on a study of trainees on a full-time FE teacher training programme in 2002. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002379.htm
Coping with endless change: the impact on teaching staff in the learning and skills sector. Edward, S., Coffield, F., Steer, R., Gregson, M. (2005) This paper explores the range of reactions to policy changes within the post-16 sector from tutors and managers in 24 colleges, adult community education and workplaces. The analysis takes account of the diversity within the group: managers and practitioners; college-based and community-based staff; new entrants to the profession and those with decades of experience; subject or vocational tutors and those trained primarily to improve literacy and numeracy. The last three to four years have seen rapid growth in college, community and work-based provision, accompanied by changes in funding arrangements, new targets and increased accountability requirements. In adult basic skills education, for example, the drive to meet targets and to maximise numbers taking national literacy and numeracy tests has brought in many new staff, while experienced staff find that their jobs have changed considerably. Whereas some staff are enthusiastic about new areas of activity, others have raised concerns about the needs of their traditional client groups. Managers are highly aware of the need to meet targets, but tutors vary, not only in levels of awareness of targets, but also in responses to them and in willingness to allow them to drive their classroom practice. The paper raises wider questions about the management of change and about the capacity of professionals to embrace, absorb, comply with, resist and, occasionally, subvert imposed change. Available at: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/151502.htm
FE colleges: the frontline under pressure? a staff satisfaction survey of further education colleges in England A worrying report about staff morale in FE, which makes many good points. Download here (pdf 400k)
Listening to Staff 2001 Davies, P and Owen, J (2001) LSDA - This book contains the results of the Learning and Skills Development Agency's survey of staff opinions about their jobs in colleges. Although there is dissatisfaction, the results clearly show that staff genuinely want to be involved in planning improvements, setting targets and working to improve education in the learning and skills sector. It is now up to senior management teams to harness the undoubted and widespread commitment that exists. This is a fascinating glimpse into staff views which all staff working in the sector should read. Download here (pdf)
Listening to staff 2002 Owen J and Davies, P (2002) London LSDA
The Learning and Skills Development Agency's staff satisfaction survey
gives colleges the opportunity to measure levels of staff satisfaction
and obtain feedback from staff on issues within the college whilst
maintaining the confidentiality of individual staff members. This
publication is based primarily on the 2002 survey results from 100
participating colleges, from which almost 13,000 completed
questionnaires were received. Results are a little more positive than
2001 Download here (pdf)
Managing to Lead - women managers in the further education sector - Farzana Shain - Keele University. This paper reports on work in progress from the ESRC funded project Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in Further Education. The research concerns the impact of the 1992 FHE Act on the local level of FE with particular reference to the perceptions of teachers and managers in five case study institutions. The paper is primarily concerned with understanding the ways in which female 'senior' and 'middle' managers interpret the changing environment and ethos of FE, in terms of their personal and professional work identities. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001196.htm
"Now we look through the glass darkly": a comparative study of the perceptions of those working in FE with trainee teachers - Parsons, John; Bathmaker, Ann-Marie; Avis, James. This paper examines lecturers' understandings of their role, their own capabilities, and those of other colleagues, within the pedagogic, curricular, and policy context in which FE is placed. The research explores the views of three distinctive groups. A group of intending lecturers undergoing a full-time teacher training course orientated to further education; centre tutors who are responsible for these students' teaching practice in the college setting and finally a group of in-service lecturers undergoing a part time teacher training course. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001786.htm
Coffield, F., Finlay, F., Gregson, M., Hodgson, A., Spours, K., and Steer, R. (2007) 'The heart of what we do': policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector Journal of Vocational Education & Training; 59:2, 137-153
Abstract: One of the stated aims of government policy in England is to put teaching, training and learning at the heart of the learning and skills system. This paper provides a critical review of policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector over the past five years. It draws upon data collected and analysed in the early stages of an ESRC-funded Teaching and Learning Research Programme project.1 Using evidence from policy sources, we argue that despite policy rhetoric about devolution of responsibility to the 'front line', the dominant 'images' that government has of putting teaching, learning and assessment at the heart of the learning and skills sector involves a narrow concept of learning and skills; an idealization of learner agency lacking an appreciation of the pivotal role of the learner-tutor relationship and a top-down view of change in which central government agencies are relied on to secure education standards. download (pdf)
Transitions: the journey from chalk and talker to Innovatively Communicating Teacher - Le Gallais, Tricia. In an increasingly audit/efficiency orientated educational world the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) as a vehicle of curriculum delivery is lauded for its potential to achieve greater teacher efficiency and effectiveness (Laurillard, 1998). Expectations abound of ICT facilitating the transition from the traditional image of a chalk and talk approach to a high tech delivery, which speaks the language of the 21st century learner. However, in the midst of such hype about cutting edge technology enhancing teaching and learning stand the practitioners, who are all too often expected to make this transition smoothly, effortlessly - and independently. The journey before them is often not of their choosing, one for which they feel ill-prepared and the final destination of which remains shrouded in the mists of someone else's vision. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002439.htm
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