WoLF - Work Based Learners in Further Education
Lead Contact: Lucy Stone, lstone@lec.ac.uk
JISC Programme: JISC e-Learning Capital Programme
Lead Institution and Partners: Leicester College, University of Leicester
Project Dates: April 2007 - December 2008
This case study illustrates Learning Teaching; Assessment; Work-based Learning; professional bodies; education
Background & Context
What is the background to the e-portfolio initiative?
Ensuring that all Teaching Assistants are professionally qualified to Level 3 is a priority for national government and the local Learning and Skills Council (LSC East Midlands, 2007). A Foundation Degree in Educational Studies is the main route for Teaching Assistants wanting to gain HE qualifications.
The WoLF project is about complementing the core activities of JISC's e-Learning Capital Programme, focused on meeting the needs of learners in a work-based learning environment. The project contributed to creating a personalised learning experience enabling learners to reflect on their practice in a number of locations, for example, at College, home or in the workplace. The mobile device provided the students with the opportunity to capture stills, video and sound to enhance their written work and to put into context what they were learning.
Prior to the project the students were using Blackboard to access documents and resources and occasionally participating in a forum discussion.
Teaching Assistants often work in hectic classrooms within their chosen early years setting (Primary Schools, nurseries and special educational needs environments), often relying on recording instances that occur with paper and or on a laptop as they do not have desks with available technology. Due to technological advances, there are now many devices that provide the facility to take still images, video clips, Dictaphone recordings and digital note taking. These pocket-sized devices are easily accessible to the Teaching Assistants to record a moment that could be used later for their portfolio of evidence, to refer to when reflecting on their practice or to share with their tutor or peers in a face-to-face lesson.
This is a transferable model that complements other types of peripatetic, work-based learners for example, chefs, construction workers and nurses.
What were the aims and objectives of the initiative?
WoLF addressed two challenges directly concerned with Teaching Assistants' ability to learn.
First, systematic recording of classroom activities and developing a portfolio of evidence are key aspects of Teaching Assistants' (TAs) learning which occurs in primary school classrooms. TAs rely on pen-and-paper because it is too awkward to use laptops in a hectic classroom. WoLF examined how Pocket PCs can open up new opportunities for TAs to develop their portfolios and thereby promote reflection in practice.
Second, TAs learn in many different spaces: for example, factual and conceptual learning in weekly face-to-face sessions with tutors; through practice and observation while at work; and private studies at home, in the Learning Resource Centres and elsewhere. Varied learning activities occurring in these spaces should knit together so that TAs can map their learning in one space onto their learning in the other spaces. Access to the VLE on a mobile device will help the TAs to have all their learning resources in their 'briefcase', enabling them to integrate learning occurring in all the spaces and to record their classroom observations.
How was the initiative implemented?
WoLF followed an action research methodology - WoLF is primarily about improving practice and bringing about change hence this approach best suited its aims.
Data was gathered qualitatively from multiple sources adhering to ethical guidelines. Semi-structured one-to-one interviews with Teaching Assistants/project staff:
- Tracking TAs' use of project VLE both content and discussion
- Visits to classrooms to observe TAs at work in schools
- Focus group discussions with first year students
- Analysis of evidence included in portfolios
Owing to the sensitive nature of going into an Early Years setting two processes had to be completed prior to interviews taking place or devices being used. The first was a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check of the Researcher to enable him to go into the schools, nurseries and SEN establishments to carry out interviews. The second was a letter to all heads of the establishments asking if the taking of images and sound recordings was permissible and how and when this information would be shared with the community.
Data analysis was carried out using cognitive mapping, a data analysis methodology founded on George Kelly's theory of personal construct to help structure, analyse and make sense of accounts of problems.
