Practical Influences

The ethos or organization of the parent institution might also influence these teachers’ choice of approach. During interview two instructional managers indicated that, while not directly dictating to their teachers, they did encourage them to adopt a particular approach. Both institutions were involved with community classes offered in a number of different venues. Manager A

favoured a group approach saying that it was the institution’s ethos that classes should offer more to the learners than they would get learning from home. Thus the classroom experience should be social, fun and ‘worth turning out for’. This seems related to the market need to attract customers and provide value for money.

Manager B favoured the workshop approach for reasons which seemed bound to a market need for consistency, quality assurance and flexibility. Manager B explained that while teachers were free to teach in their own way they were expected to use specific structured course materials so that training was standardized and that learners could be sure to cover the same syllabus, in the same way, no matter what the venue or who the teacher. This approach involved teachers using courseware which was purchased from external agents or developed in-house. Manager B described how their in-house material was developed through team discussion and then written by one or two full time teachers. This process required a huge investment of time and effort. Not only was such a commitment difficult for individual teachers, especially part timers, to duplicate; it also provided further institutional incentive to ensure that the prepared materials are taken up and used by all the teachers in the group. This reliance on ready prepared material meant that a) their creators’ approach became central to course structures; and b) perhaps favoured the workshop approach especially, as in this case, if it was the approach preferred by the course manager. These types of investment and quality issues were also observed in at least two other workshop situations so was not a unique case.

Institutional organizational decisions could also impact on teachers’ choices. To make courses economically viable several providers had merged different qualification courses together so that one teacher taught 3 or 4 different examinations and different skills levels at the same time. Learners could also enrol for courses at any time, especially on courses that ran for a year, so that teachers often had to deal with learners entering an ongoing course with differing skill levels to the learners already in the group. Given this diversity of

differential and outcomes it is difficult to see how any teacher could successfully conduct whole class teaching, although small group or paired activity would be possible. It is impossible to tell if managers saw these course mergers as practicable because teachers already used workshop approaches or if teachers were forced to adopt approaches to accommodate amalgamations. But certainly the teachers’ perception of ICT knowledge as serialistic, that is developed in a set sequence, and the learners’ need as step-by-step instruction make the workshop approach feasible.

This amalgamated and rolling-enrolment approach also impacted on the researcher. It was difficult to clearly differentiate learner’s skill level and stage of learning compared to teaching style. Take, for example, T9’s ECDL/Advanced group. This observation took place on the 17th of 30 sessions but one learner had been working on modules with the teacher for seven years while another started on the observation day. The remainer of the learners had been attending sessions at various points between the two. This type of variation in attendance and ability was commonplace within the workshop approach, but also occurred in two of the whole group classrooms. It was made possible by the modular nature of courses but, in most instances, made the stage in the course that the observation took place irrelevant.

Practical organizational issues were also observed to impact on teachers. Many of these teachers worked in communal and often restrictive conditions. For example, T14 shared facilities with another group meaning that she felt the need to keep her group quiet so as not to disturb the other learners especially as some could be sitting tests. Several of the teachers shared equipment or classrooms with schools or other providers and were dependent on that provider’s facilities. One observed lesson took place in a school library over three levels and involved the teacher moving constantly up and down stairs from one to the other. The cost of ICT equipment was also a factor, for example for the HE teachers the limited number software copies and accompanying equipment influenced their choice of approach. Such practical, organizational

considerations were described by or observed to impact on about three- quarters of the participating teachers and possibly could seriously affect the range of appropriate approaches available to teachers.

Within these two underlying approaches five differing teaching foci or styles were identified; ‘procedural’, ‘instructional’, ‘finding-out’, ‘constructional’ and ‘problem solving’. The teacher’s focus was not dependent on their teaching approach. Neither was it exclusive; teachers with a predominantly ‘procedural’ focus could also use ‘instructional’ or ‘finding-out’ methods occasionally. Many teachers had a dual focus for example procedural/instructional or constructional/finding out. The foci intersected the range of styles identified by Ramsden (2003), namely transmissive, transitional and transformative, on the continuum of teacher-centred to learner-centred activity [Table 5:1]. This chapter will now move on to explore and define these teaching styles with the aid of brief examples from the research.