Smithycroft Critical Skills: Evaluation of Co-operative Learning in Initial Teacher Education: Evaluation Report - Executive Summary

Executive Summary

In September 2005, SEED commissioned an external evaluation of the Critical Skills Programme pedagogy in Initial Teacher Education (specifically the Professional Graduate Diploma in Primary Education).  The evaluation explored the impact of this pedagogy on beginning teachers in Scottish primary schools.  This report provides an account of the evaluation, presents the main findings and identifies issues for further consideration. 

In August 2003, part of the cohort of post-graduate students undertaking the Professional Graduate Diploma in Primary Education (PGDE) in the Faculty of Education in the University of Glasgow were introduced to Critical Skills pedagogy on a pilot basis. The approach was developed to make it compatible with the more generic model of co-operative learning model developed in Canada.  At the end of each year virtually all the students were committed to take forward co-operative learning ideas and practices into their first teaching post.  This report focuses on the experience of a group of teachers in their first year of teaching who were trained using a co-operative learning pedagogy in their ITE course.

Methodology

The methodology chosen for this study was essentially qualitative. The PGDE (Primary) cohort of around 200 students in 2005 was used to identify a small group of volunteers to track into their first year of teaching. They were invited to participate in a focus group at the end of the course in June 2005, again in December of the same year when they were half way through their induction year, and finally in June 2006, when they were just completing their first year of teaching. The participants were volunteers from one of the author’s tutor group of 24. Five research questions were generated to structure the evaluation.  These were:

• Do probationary teachers who were introduced to co-operative learning theory and practice during their one-year ITE course attempt to introduce co-operative learning into their classroom practices during their first year of teaching?

• What response do such teachers get from the school’s management and the respective local authority staff? Is the response supportive or resistant?

• In schools where co-operative learning has been deployed, how does it become embedded, how is it sustained and under what conditions?

• What reaction do other teachers in schools have towards co-operative learning introduced by probationary teachers ITE-trained in co-operative learning?  Do they engage with co-operative learning and participate in it?

• How do probationary teachers ITE-trained in co-operative learning perceive the response of students to the co-operative learning approach?

Conclusions

The factors affecting the translation of student teachers’ stated intentions into practice in the classroom fall into three main categories, all of which are interconnected: the support of the local authority and school staff, the reactions of children, and the confidence of the new teachers in their own ability to implement and justify an innovative teaching approach.

Support

The most important influence, because it impacts on all the others, seems to be the support available in these early stages of a new teacher’s teaching career. The influence of the school culture and level of support for innovative teaching practices was mentioned again and again by the new teachers and seemed to be the overwhelming factor in determining the extent of their implementation of co-operative learning. Interestingly more than one of the above factors can come into play at the same time, so that new teachers reported that the pressure to cover the curriculum through the use of set schemes, was still apparent even where the school were quite supportive of the idea of the methodology.

Perceived effectiveness of the strategies

A second important influence was the success the new teachers actually had with the teaching strategies they used. When children appeared to make good progress and to be enjoying the learning they had organised, the teachers were motivated to continue and became increasingly convinced of the effectiveness of their approach. They felt their approach was validated when they saw the progress that could be made because they were able to gradually teach children to work together by learning the social skills required for co-operative learning.

New teachers’ confidence

All of the factors mentioned above affect deeply the confidence of new teachers at the beginning of their teaching career. It seemed to be easily knocked by negative circumstances and some had struggled hard in adverse conditions to hang on to what they believed to be good practice. This belief in the methodology is a crucial dimension of their ability to persevere with it and has important implications for how we prepare teachers for their first year of teaching. All of the new teachers in this study clearly stated their commitment to co-operative learning and the reasons for that commitment. Their confidence was clearly affected by the external factors mentioned, but their central resolve about the effectiveness of co-operative learning appeared to have remained intact. This has implications for the ways in which we prepare new teachers with regard to developing a rationale for their teaching.

Recommendations

The school context and level of support has been identified as a crucial factor in new teachers’ implementation of co-operative learning. There are a number of issues at different levels where that context needs to be addressed.

The macro level

There is some evidence that the influence of the Assessment is for Learning (AifL) initiative is affecting the classroom context for student teachers who are out on school placement. In this last year there has been a considerable shift in the reported level of support from teachers. The introduction of A Curriculum for Excellence is also a positive influence: the development of successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible individuals is an imperative which leads to the need to scrutinise teaching strategies to assess their fitness for purpose. Co-operative learning would seem to be an ideal vehicle for teachers to deliver A Curriculum for Excellence and formative assessment and its more formal support by SEED would lend further legitimisation to its use in schools. This would in turn help to create the climate which would make it acceptable for new teachers to be experimenting with these methodologies and for schools to support them. Clearly the expectations of HMIE are instrumental in driving the agenda in schools and there are possibilities for greater formal encouragement of innovative practice in the inspection regime.

School level

Central and in-class support for probationers varies from one local authority to another, and where it is well organised and positive, it has a highly motivating and confirming effect on new teachers. The support provided often reflects the policy context as much as the individual pedagogical preferences of individual staff in schools and so the policy framework referred to above is significant here too. Individual teachers, induction supporters, and school managers are much more likely to be supportive if they feel they are working to a policy agenda and inspection regime which matches the pedagogical aspirations of new teachers and helps ease the dilemma schools face about teaching for understanding as opposed to curriculum coverage. 

Higher Education Institutions

In terms of the ways in which Higher Education Institutions  (HEIs) can equip new teachers to implement innovative approaches to learning and teaching, two key factors seem to emerge: the methodologies experienced by students on teacher education courses and the extent to which student teachers are given opportunities to explore their own personal stance to develop a rationale for their teaching which will stand up to scrutiny. These contribute to the confidence levels of new teachers as they begin their teaching careers and their resilience in the face of lack of support or outright opposition.

The methodology is crucial and as has been outlined above: it is a modelling tool for student teachers so there is an important role of the tutor in understanding and translating into practice, the methodology students are being encouraged to use in school, both on placements and in their teaching when they are qualified. As well as modelling the practice, it is equally important to underpin the approaches being used by a strong theoretical and research base. For this reason, students need to be exposed to the wide range of research evidence which demonstrates the effectiveness of co-operative learning and the theoretical frameworks within which it fits. This requires the tutors who teach on teacher education courses to have that understanding themselves and to incorporate this dimension into the courses they offer.