This case study concerns a one-year part-time training course for new lecturers at a polytechnic. The lecturers select eight modules from a list of fifteen on topics such as lecturing, using computers in teaching and assessment. Each module lasts three weeks and involves a total of twelve hours work. There is the opportunity for a three-hour meeting each week. The lecturers also undertake two projects which involve a practical development in their teaching on a topic of their choice. These lecturers spend most of their time over the year teaching or doing research. They tend to be academically oriented.
The course aims to influence the ways the lecturers teach, and to pave the way for a career of self-improvement as teachers. The main opportunities for learning about teaching happen outside the course during the lecturer's everyday work and the course is designed using experiential learning to link theory with practice and to make the best use of the lecturers' everyday experience. Experiential methods are employed in four main aspects of the course:
Modules
Each module provides a theoretical input, in the form of a specially written learning package and other resources, and requires lecturers to try out new ideas in the context of their own teaching. Each three-week module takes lecturers around the experiential learning cycle as illustrated in the diagram below. Everything above the bold horizontal line in the diagram involves the lecturers' experience of teaching, while below the line involves meetings as part of the course.
On the module on lecturing, this process has the following elements:
| 1 | Lecturers arrive with their existing experience of lectures, their existing teaching skills, beliefs and assumptions. |
| 2 | Their experience of good and bad lectures they have attended is drawn out and reflected upon and recurring themes highlighted. |
| 3 |
Evidence about the effectiveness of lectures and problems with lectures are explained in a mini-lecture, and new techniques to tackle these problems are provided in a book: "53 Interesting Things To Do In Your Lectures". The mini-lecture demonstrates many of these techniques. |
| 4 | Lecturers choose one of the techniques from this book and try it out in their next lecture during the following week.... |
| 5 | ...gaining the experience of seeing what happened. |
| 6 | In the third week the lecturers meet to compare notes on what happened when they experimented with new techniques. |
| 7 | Further generalisations about lecturing are generated, leading to.. |
| 8 | ...plans for further informal experiments in their lecturing techniques and... |
| 9 | ...further experiences in their lectures. This experimentation can also lead on to more extensive project work later in the course. |
Self-assessment of modules
Eight modules have to be 'satisfactorily completed' for lecturers to pass the course. Lecturers assess themselves, being in the best position to decide whether or not they have met the module requirements satisfactorily. They submit a self-assessment form after having completed sections which ask: "What have you done on this module? " and "What have you not done?" The learning package for each module is quite specific about what tasks are to be completed. It is common for the lecturers to do more than required, but not necessarily the same tasks as specified. This review of their achievements gives them the evidence on which they base their decision to pass themselves, fail themselves or refer themselves. It is not all that common for lecturers to fail themselves outright, but they quite frequently refer themselves, specifying what further activities they should undertake before they could pass themselves. When they have completed this extra work they resubmit the self-assessment form.
The use of self-assessment in this way has had two main consequences:
Contracts in project work
Lecturers have to complete two projects involving modifications to their teaching. Practical projects of this kind have great potential for learning by doing but this potential is not always realised. There used to be problems at three stages in this project work:
This unsatisfactory situation was due in part to the lecturers not taking sufficient responsibility for the establishment of goals and criteria at the outset or for implementing these criteria on completion. They were insufficiently involved at the stage of planning for their project activities or in reflecting upon them afterwards, and this reduced the learning potential of the projects as well as causing practical difficulties. This tutor-centred assessment system was replaced with a learner-centred system with two main features:
Project agreement forms
After discussion with the whole group and the tutor, the lecturer completes a project agreement form containing two main sections entitled: 'What I intend to do' and 'What the product will look like'.
This agreement is signed by both tutor and lecturer as a 'learning contract' (see Section 4.1.6) on the understanding that if it is fulfilled then the lecturer will pass the project. Any amendments to the project have to be agreed by both the tutor and lecturer and added to the form.
Self-assessment
When submitting the completed project, lecturers accompany it with a self-assessment form which lists:
Strong features of the project............
Weak features of the project............
Ways the project could be improved..........
What I would like comments on.............The tutor reads and comments on the project in the light of this information and returns it. The lecturers then pass themselves, fail themselves or refer themselves, specifying what they would need to do to justify subsequently passing themselves. They use their own self assessment comments and the tutor's comments to justify the decision they have taken.
This process involves the lecturers in more analysis of what learning tasks will be undertaken and what will constitute an acceptable outcome and then involves them in reflection and judgement about the outcomes of their project work. In practice lecturers started to set themselves unrealistically ambitious goals, well beyond the expectations of external examiners, which the tutor had to negotiate down to something more manageable. Lecturers were also more honest, analytical and rigorous in their self-assessment, freeing the tutor to concentrate on giving useful feedback instead of trying to justify a pass or fail decision.
Personal development contracts
Once the one-year course is over the lecturers receive far less help and support in developing their teaching. A system of personal development contracts was therefore introduced in an attempt to maintain the momentum of learning by doing which had been built up over the year.
At the end of the year lecturers review their teaching through brief exercises and checklists and draft a list of development goals for themselves for the following year. Then the lecturers from the previous year's course are invited in to review the progress they have made in achieving their own development goals from a year ago, and the group listens to these reports. The lecturers then discuss their draft goals, suggesting changes and additions to each other. Finally they write out a full 'contract' in the form: "I contract with the group to " . The tutors join in this process as well and share their personal goals with the group. These contracts have taken various forms but usually contain the following headings:
Teaching
Research/consultancy
Scholarship/reading/conferences
Learning/skill development
Administration
Personal style
Home/personal
The tutor types up these contracts and circulates them round the group. The following year the lecturers attend the last course meeting of the year to review their achievements while the new lecturers attending the course listen .
The lecturers take this process enormously seriously. They report keeping their contract with them and referring to it frequently. They say they feel a strong commitment to the group and this is evident in the way they report back after a year. They commonly bring evaluation reports, handouts and other supporting material with which to demonstrate what they have achieved. They invariably lack any other context within which they can set personal learning goals and check up on their achievement in a supportive rather than a threatening way.
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