HE teachers’ professional identities in FE Colleges

Putting the I into Identity

A collaborative project supporting academic writing HE Learning Partnerships CeTL and ESCalate Subject Centre

Overview

• Expansion of HE in FE• “Measures” of Professionalism in HE & FE• HELP CETL - Award Holder Scheme• Been an HE professional

– Scholarly Practices

• Writing as an HE professional• Award Holder Scheme Writing Group

– Fears & Success– Future Plans

Expansion of HE in FE• Dearing (1997); Future of HE (DfES, 2003)

– Advocated an era of partnership working– Widening Participation & Lifelong learning– Foundation degrees

• Bridge the academic-vocational divide– Professional, technical or vocational focus– Freedom to design courses

Implications for Practitioners• FECs expected to create an environment for

HE– Investment in infrastructure, resources and staff

• Opportunities for HE related staff development– Including Scholarly Activity & Research

• Identified need for scholarly activity & research related to: – Assisting staff in developing an HE identity– Limited research into HE in FE, college staff ideally

position to take this forward: Parry & Thompson (2002)

Professional Currency• HE sector (Child, 2009; Elton 2001)

– Researcher and Lecturer – employment based on subject expertise/research profile

– Publication of papers, attainment of research funds

• FE sector (Child, 2009)– Teacher and Facilitator of learning – employment based on

previous vocational expertise– Student recruitment, retention & attainment / Ofsted

• For HE in FE a challenge for FE teachers moving into HE and needing to acquire new professional currency

HELP CETL / UPC• University of Plymouth College – largest

provider of HE in FE in South West England

• HELP CETL 2005 – 2010– Award Holder Scheme– Recognised & rewarded UPC practitioners

contributions to T&L– Provided opportunities/support for scholarly activity

& research

Award Holder Scheme• Competitive application & review procedure

– Prestige

• Grassroots initiative – promote autonomy– Scholarly investigations into practice

• Provided a supportive environment

• Brought together lecturing and support staff

• Provided development opportunities to explore HE practice & identity

Scholarship• Holistic definition informed by Boyer (1990) &

Hefce good practice guide (2003)

• Professional enquiry

• Values and relationships

• Communities

• Critical perspectives

• Production and genres

• Application in teaching (cyclic L & T and R)

Perceptions of university academic• Conduct research / develop knowledge

• Operate with professional autonomy & recognition

• Belong to wider academic communities

• Present at conferences…

…write for scholarly publications

Barriers to overcome to achieve this:

Barriers / Challenges…?• Fear & Exposure

“This is all about exposure. Exposure of my body…….my body of knowledge of course.

Writing my first academic article feels like it’s equivalent to dancing around naked. I’ve got all this way on my HELP CETL journey but I can’t

somehow just take that step and show the whole world my body (of knowledge) and hold it

up for scrutiny.”

Barriers / Challenges…?• Belief

“My journey as an Award Holder began with an awareness that I was entering unfamiliar territory and

had maybe embarked on something that would involve more time and commitment than I had anticipated. At the time I was a part time lecturer and NVQ assessor

searching for a direction to satisfy my questioning mind yet hesitant to leave the safety zone I had

developed for myself over a number of years. Had I reached the pinnacle of my ambitions already? What

if I was out of my depth?”

Barriers / Challenges…?• Confidence

“Although I don’t regard this report as successful I did have success with speaking: University Subject

Forums, conferences, the University of Westminster WBL International Symposium. Why one area

(speaking) was successful and one wasn’t (writing), I think, was because I am confident when speaking in front of people. Although my attempts at turning the report into a paper suitable for an academic journal

resulted in submitting a paper to the new online HELP CETL journal I still think I am not as fluent and productive as I would like to be in this area.”

Barriers / Challenges…• Sense of belonging / isolation

“As a part-time lecturer in HE within a predominately FE college there can be a sense

of being slightly detached from the larger community. HELP CETL provided an

opportunity of participating in a number of different communities including approaching my

own college from a different perspective. Joining a group of researching practitioners

gave me a sense of identity that enabled me to approach research and my practice in a new

way.”

Agenda for the retreatDay One

Walk

Lunch

Talk

Write

Dinner

Day Two

Breakfast

Talk

Write

Lunch

Talk & Depart

Writing Retreat• Isolation from the outside world

– No emails / mobile phone zero reception!

• Pressure – should I write?

• Freedom – you don’t have to write!

• Expectations – determined by the group

Writing Retreat• Supportive & in steps

– Sharing writing - optional– Discussion, debate & reflection– Autonomy

• Loose guidance• Format for writing self determined…• Staff team members also wrote and read to group

Doing the Writing• Collectively determined an area to focus upon:

– Experience of working within HE in FE– Experience of engaging with scholarly activity &

research

• Fixed timeline & length– Two months

• Peer review

• Reflect/draw in the knowledge of peers

The unexpected…

The writing…

Personal & reflective:

“My early life, growing up as the daughter of Irish migrants in an English city, sensitised me to issues of hegemonic power, ‘otherness’, and hybrid identities. These issues have come to

seem relevant to working in the FE in HE sector.”

Maureen Mason

Personal, reflective & scholarly:

“I was not brought up to be an ‘academic’; am not particularly bright, being from the ‘wasted pool of talent’ (Ball, 1995) of the failed 11 plus brigade of the 1960s, and certainly never intended to be a teacher. Yet here I am several years later, involved in ‘scholarly activity’, reflecting on how an interest to find out why things happen has developed into a research project and subsequently a full-time career in education. This is the story of how it happened.”

Alison Banks

“Hunt (2006) refers to ‘way markers’ providing guidance through unfamiliar terrain and the HELP CETL Award

Holder Scheme has provided a series of ‘way markers’ for my development as a researcher. Just as I set out on a walk with a group of other Award Holders and the

company of a couple of them took me towards my goal, making me realise it was achievable, so the Award Holder Scheme has supported me in my

journey towards my doctorate.”

Liz McKenzie

• Professional validation & recognition

“We can construct a sort of educational hierarchy of status and satisfaction. FE in an FEC, HE in an FEC, HE in an HEI,

teaching or research time. The grass is always greener with each of us feeling conditions are better somewhere else. My

experience of the HELP CETL is that is has provided me with a constructive way forward to consider my professional identity. It

has also allowed me to begin to explore how to develop and support a robust “third way” of HE in FE, i.e. a model of thinking

and working that is not FE or HE.”

Janet Bardsley

• Sense of belonging & acceptance

“…the room seemed full of entirely disparate personalities, with very different research interests.

There was no obvious common theme, other than our membership of UPC. The HELP CETL staff did not take a straight-forward didactic role. There was very

little conflict, very little vying for position, and an atmosphere of polite enquiry and diverse but strong commitments. Even now, after meeting other Award

Holders at HELP CETL functions for the past two years, the community still defies my past experience

of academic strata.”

Rachel Wilkinson

The Experience• Writing facilitated engagement with theory• Transitional space• Changed & challenged perceptions – professional

status– Researchers– Scholars– Equal with their peers (other researchers & scholars)

• Encouraged them to recognise their roles as HE in FE lecturers– Distinct & unique

Consequences• Not the end but the start:

– Collaborative research project– Encouraged further writing for scholarly publications– Shared their experience with other HE in FE

professionals outside UPC

– Challenge their ambitions / further their development

References • Kreber, C. (2002) Teaching Excellence, Teaching

Expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching. Innovative Higher education, 27(1) 5-23

• Richlin, L. (2001) Scholarly Teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching. New Directions for Teaching & Learning (86) 57

• Shulman, L. (2000) Fostering a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Opinion Papers Speeches/Meeting Papers): Georgia Univ. Athens Inst of Higher education.

• Trigwell, K. Martin, E., Benjamin, J., & Prosser, M. (2000) Scholarship of Teaching: A Model. Higher Education Research and Development, 19(2) 155-168