Policy, practice and learning cultures (or how to improve

improvement)

David James BRILLE – Bristol Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning and Education, University of the West of England,

Bristol

Background issues

• FE is often positioned as the ‘saviour’ in policy, but is persistently positioned as ‘in need of improvement’ too

• The silence about teaching and learning• The low quality of some expressions of policy –

e.g. Leitch• Low-trust accountability still the norm. This may

or may not change with greater self-regulation• Increasing convergence between colleges and

schools – both continue to change

The Transforming Learning Cultures in FE (TLC) Project - Aims• To deepen understanding of the

complexities of learning;

• To identify, implement and evaluate strategies for the improvement of learning opportunities;

• To set in place an enhanced and lasting capacity among practitioners for enquiry into FE practice

The TLC project in outline

• 2001 to 2005, and part of ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme

• Four universities, four colleges of Further Education – in England

• Seventeen learning sites (why sites?) that represented the diversity of FE on several key dimensions. Chosen in negotiation

• Part-time efforts of a team of 30 – of whom 20 were FE practitioners

• Circa £870k total budget

Core team

• Graham Anderson, Gert Biesta, Martin Bloomer, Helen Colley, Jennie Davies, Kim Diment, Denis Gleeson, Phil Hodkinson, David James, Wendy Maull, Keith Postlethwaite, Tony Scaife, Michael Tedder, Madeleine Wahlberg, Eunice Wheeler

• …plus 17 ‘participating tutors’ in four FE colleges

Activities included

• 600 interviews with students, tutors, managers• 150 observations• 1043 questionnaires• Tutor diaries • Documents• Extensive peer shadowing• Regular team meetings • Residential workshops• Collaborative working and co-authorship

Glimpses of data and analysis

• Gwen: A tale of underground learning and the unintended but gross exploitation of professional values

• Paul: The big fight - audit vs. community of practice – audit wins hands down

• Rachel: The inspectors are coming – so pretend you are not a professional until they have gone

• Florence and Ruth: Two of fifty ways to leave your lover

Conventional perceptions of improvement in FE

• Subject, management and pedagogic ‘levers’

• BUT widespread perception of barriers to improvement – (a) general decline, (b) fragmentation & uniqueness, (c) clustering of staff

What does the project say about improvement?

• ‘Getting real means recognising cultures and complexity

• Learning and teaching are legitimately different from one programme to another

• A deep sense of professionalism is surprisingly resilient and is an untapped resource

• Inspection, audit and funding mechanisms are not good levers for improvement

Some other conclusions from the project• Teaching and learning are not just in a context –

they are constituted by context• Learning efficiency should not be confused with

‘good practice’• Current systems seem to promote managerialism

rather than management and leadership• ‘Principled infidelity’ is a fact of professional life,

so we must learn to live with it. Ideas like distributed leadership can help with this

• Despite the best efforts of Thatcher, Baker, Clarke et al, being a professional still means much more than doing a good job to a specification – get used to it!

The book! There is also extensive material on the Teaching and Learning Research Programme website –

www.tlrp.org.uk