Reflection: Analysing the problems with the SI implementation strategy March 1996 June

“The experience of implementing SI at Newham College of Further Education has not found its aims of increasing achievement and reducing drop out realised, nor has it supported as many students as was hoped.

There has been a lack of attendance at the sessions by the students being offered support From feedback received from both the SI leaders and those they sought to support, it appears that these students did not see the support offered by SI as relevant for their studies. They did not see SI as part of their course, or as something that would help them. Some o f those who did attend were looking for answers to their immediate problems, and were met with someone who would not give them answers and who would not tell them how to write assignments.

There has only been limited liaison between the SI leaders and the members of teaching staff. Teaching staff gave the impression that they viewed the scheme as something separate from the running of the course. Some responded very negatively to any feedback the SI leaders gave about the learning experience of the students they were supporting.” (Progress Report to PhD Supervisor 1st March 1996).

As the quotation above illustrates, after three years of attempting to promote SI in the college, my doubts about my initial approach to implementing it began to crystallise in March 1996. Despite having excellent SI leaders, attendance'at the sessions was low. This seemed to be a structural rather than a teething problem. I began to realise that the SI leaders and SI users viewed the SI sessions in very different ways and this led to a conflict of views of what the sessions should be about. The SI leaders, having received two days intensive training, wanted to help the SI users to find their own answers, whilst the SI users wanted the SI leaders to give them the answers. The students who attended SI did not seem to understand what it was about. I wrote at the time:

“SI users have little ownership of SI. They are faced with a scheme with a name they do not understand, led by students who promote values of learning they do not fully understand themselves and these other students are not allowed to give them the answers but are not quite sure why.’’(Progress Report to Ph.D. Supervisor 1st March 1996).

I began to realise that a different approach to peer learning was needed so that the understanding of leaders and users of how to structure a group-work session could develop together, rather than the SI leaders starting to run their sessions in a way that the SI users neither understood Or valued.

In April 1996,1 began to see the different perceptions of the SI leaders and SI users as an issue around ownership. The SI leaders felt strong ownership o f the scheme whilst potential SI users, as well as teachers, saw the schemes as irrelevant to their work. The obvious answer seemed to be to offer teachers and students the opportunity to develop their own models of peer learning through offering them a range o f Peer Support schemes.

I realised that the change process was more complicated than I had first thought. I was introducing SI into an educational system that was changing. Teaching staff were fighting changes in their role and SI was seen as a part of these changes. This meant that their lack of interest in the scheme was probably inevitable.

“When people have been working in an environment for some time, they have a stake in the status quo. They know what is expected o f them, they know how it operates, they know what elements they have control of, what effect they can have . . . In changing the way they think about the organisation people need to be careful. In particular, they peed to establish whether the proposed change is one of simply rhetoric, which if they act on may lead them into a double bind situation, or one of action, in which they have to establish in what way they are required to think about the organisation. To get either of these wrong may result in sanctions from the organisation.” (Progress Report to Ph.D. Supervisor 22nd April 1996).

From my reflection I saw that SI was not running successfully in the college. There appeared to be three key issues that I needed to address:

1. Teachers lack of interest in the SI scheme which seemed to be caused by the feeling that it was a management initiative that was irrelevant to their needs.

2. The fact that SI users were not attending in large numbers which seemed to be due to the SI users seeing SI as largely irrelevant to their perceived needs.

3. The feedback from the SI leaders that they felt under-prepared for their role and did not understand why they could not give students answers.