In addition to the emergence of the core categories focussing on types of capital acquired though participant investment in various aspects of the programmes of Masters level study, participant accounts identified how those learning opportunities were delivered and structured, what conditions made the experiences engaging and
171 why they were successful (or not). There emerged a constructivist theme in the discussed programme design, pedagogy and associated assessments of successful Masters level experiences to support the acquisition of personal and professional capital described in sections 5.2 to 5.5.
Characteristics of successful modes of learning, teaching and assessment discussed by participants were; that learners were actively involved in all aspects; that the environment was democratic (s-c 91) and harnessed reflective skills on knowledge gaps as they emerge to ensure personalisation (s-c 89); that activities were
interactive and student-centred (s-c 88); that a qualified or credible leader designed and facilitated the process of learning; and that students were encouraged to be responsible, autonomous, flexible, adaptable.
The participants’ descriptions of the characteristics listed above have a strong
relationship with constructivist learning, teaching and assessment. At the heart of the constructivist philosophy is the belief that knowledge is not given but gained through authentic experiences that have purpose and meaning to the learner (s-c 90), that learners undertake to achieve metacognition and make strategic decisions on their own learning, and that they exchange perspectives about the experience with others (Vygotsky, 1962, Piaget and Inhelder, 1969).
Many of the characteristics described above can be seen explicitly in the data presented so far and are connected to other themes, but here I have collected them together to form a core category entitled Constructivist Modes of Teaching Learning and Assessment. Many of the subcategories are practical, reflecting the impact of certain modes of assessments, tasks or pedagogies. Others are about developing
172 creative environments, climates or conditions to allow certain behaviours or learning to thrive, take effect or have an impact.
As a saturated subcategory, all participants discussed how their academic
programmes explicitly structured time for reflective practice (s-c 25). Participant 15 described the importance of this to his development as a teacher:
“…and so the uni timetable put in specific time for reflective practice where we needed to bring an issue or point for discussion from an article that was set.
We worked in small groups to discuss and try and offer solutions to the issue and then we had to present that to the group. That little circuit of learning was for practicing reflective skills. Also it showed me just how differently people think on a single issue….”.
Participant 2 discussed the same theme, arguing that reflective opportunities provided by or structured into a Masters level programme are prioritised;
“…you hear the time honoured excuses about teachers not having the time to reflect, well that’s quite true I think, particularly once the mentoring
requirement is gone after the NQT year…the Masters course schedule capitalises on this and literally carves out time to satisfy the reflective time-starved teacher!”.
The issue of being able to use time efficiently to self-regulate and self-determine work schedules surfaced and was connected to the efficient communication, in a timely manner, of programme information so that students could plan their time and
173 think about research when busy teaching schedules forbade actual research.
Participant 6 states:
“It was so important, while I admit I perhaps shouldn’t have done it! But if for example a meeting was pointless for me, but my face needed to be seen there, I could sit and think, plan and organise my Masters year ahead because we had been given the course design and curriculum including all module assignment titles and submission dates from the beginning… its basic
organisation I know, but didn’t happen on my BA…when I didn’t have time to be in the library I was thinking about my study, doing all the other stuff like admin and planning in time. Being a professional I see how important it is to be organised with your admin and that goes for my formal studying as well…I’m a planner!”.
Assessments designed to scaffold confidence had a useful effect on teaching practice (s-c 33). In this core category, a collection of sub themes discussed additional elements of successful curriculum design. Participant 13, along with all participants in this saturated sub category, noted how he interpreted the programme as building his competency through low risk assessment opportunities (s-c 37):
“I was cutting and pasting stuff for my teachers’ standards evidence log from my uni timetable and noticed how the tutors had increased the independence given to us – so I saw this in the research - initially they provided it, then suggested it, then just the framework of a field … we were being supported into independent learning, I could see that afterwards. It was exactly the same in the written assignments – first a set questions, then multiple choice, then
174 negotiated open topic… subtle but it worked for me, I just did it, didn’t question whether I couldn’t…”.
The confidence provided by assessments scaffolded to get progressively more challenging or require more self-direction were a vital quality to assessment design.
This was agreed on by all participants, as detailed here by Participant 8:
“I came in to teaching from a geography background where we wrote in a totally different way, and actually thought in a different way because the problems we were looking at were concerned with different things. It was really good that the first assignment was at level 6, knowing that I could successfully write at that level because I had done that in my undergrad dissertation, I remember my tutor saying that. The feedback was really about what specific things I needed to do to write a Masters level essay next time around, really practical stuff like including more quotes, being critical and analytical by looking at the component parts of an issue and all that…I literally did that and I jumped over into Masters level, the next one I managed fine because I had already done it once, I put more of myself and interest into to it as a focus that time round…”.
As well as discussing scaffolded assessment in terms of challenge, seven participants also reflected that where a degree of prior expertise, mainly from undergraduate subjects, could be ported into an assessment opportunity, this allowed them to transition more smoothly (s-c 69). Participant 9 stated:
175
“…obviously secondary teaching you expect it to be all about your subject, but at the moment it’s all teaching and learning which is a totally new field. My first Masters encouraged me to remember that I am a subject expert, I kind of reflected on the nature of my subject, its rhythms, core philosophies and its world views and I got the chance to relive my passion for my subject all over again but in a different way – like make it possible to tell others, kids, how to love it as much. The chance to focus on my subject gave me confidence to write drawing on some prior knowledge and knowledge of the research field at least where to begin, but personally I feel more expert…”.
The use of low stakes or formative assessment opportunities to provide competence and intrinsic motivation was, again, a saturated subcategory (s-c 34). Participant 1 summarises the motivational return for students:
“I am speaking for others here as well, I know, but the group tasks or formative tasks we did always got feedback from our uni programme tutor that had a real bearing on our confidence…that we were on the right intellectual track, but for me it also made me feel successful and that I was still on the right tracks practice wise too. They were small wins; kind of pats on the back, nods and agreements, which accumulated together at the end really helped provide purposeful happy students. There wasn’t a place for this in school were
everything, it always feels so judged… it only happened in uni time”.
Another saturated subcategory concerning the assessment opportunities was surprising in that that all participants reflected that they felt they had accessed a deeper level of thinking, learning and understanding through reflection on theory into
176 practice (praxis) through the written mode of assessments (s-c 70). Participant 2 suggests that:
“Perhaps because it was so hard to do it – overcoming procrastination, tiredness, getting your flat spotless, boredom … I don’t know what it is that makes essay writing so hard, but afterwards and well on from doing it you feel the benefits of what you have written about, what you learned from the writing in teaching practice…definitely endures longer than say what I did for my presentation, I suppose it’s something to do with memory, like if I have to remember something…a phone number or a poem then I write it out… also the difficulty of the task too – the harder to do the harder you learn the lessons, maybe!”.
Another saturated sub category around assessment tasks reflected on the value of the status of being both a student (a learner) and a teacher. Looking at their own assessment climate from the inside but with a teachers lens, helped them gain critical insight into the challenges, feelings, benefits and myths of assessment, consequently influencing and shaping teaching pedagogy and practice (s-c 71). Participant 12 describes this:
“So for the first time I realised why they set a word limit – not only as a planning exercise, but also to limit the workload of staff! Funny because I remember thinking that particular thing and then using the same perspective to view other details, so why referencing was so important to be able to track a research route was actually followed and not cheated, not just to make you work in a formulaic way, another thing was why you had to be so clear about
177 what prejudices you had so that anyone reading your work would understand how your beliefs skewed your arguments…I started to realise why devices and rules were there… I suppose I analysed the thing that is assessment rather than just being the student which assessment is done to…”.
The practical research experience and academic qualification level reached by academic tutors was recorded as a subcategory (s-c 62), with all referring to the reverence with which they regarded tutors with a doctoral degree because it was rare in the field of teacher education. Academic tutors that had academic papers or books attributed to them were valued over those with only school-based experience,
showing that participants were separating the relevance of particular profiles with the particular role within their programmes. Participant 11 explains her perspective:
…so she isn’t a teacher any more, she was once, but she is an academic who is now a specialist in teaching adults. It’s quite different from my PGCE where the tutors would go on about their days when they were a teacher and use anecdotes that were about twelve years old. I mean how can you learn about planning strategies from someone who hasn’t done it themselves for ages? So my Masters lecturer has a doctorate, which really shows, she has created research as well as knows about it, she just has confidence in saying she doesn’t know something too, but knows how to find out. She isn’t a teacher and doesn’t pretend to be because her research and qualifications shows she is a university lecturer – which is a different job”.
The notion of celebrating or marking important milestones to support reflection may appear strange as part of a core category. However, participants talked about how
178 there should be a formal timetabled session to allow cohort reflection of their
milestone moments and use certain early assessments to benchmark their progress (s-c 60). This was seen as particularly significant to encourage the continuation onto a full Masters having passed through the ITE year and gained the PGCE Masters level credits. Participant 4 describes how she did this and realised that Masters level study had opened her eyes to a new way of thinking, new worlds and she wanted that to continue:
“When I was brushing up on my final portfolio for presentation, I re-read my pen portrait on entry to ITT. It was so naive, not really even well intentioned, just sycophantic. My whole personal philosophy has altered, sharpened up and become yes a bit cynical, more critical, but also that I know that I will make decisions myself…thinking critically, analytically, reflectively, realistically and politically too, these are all things that have come to me from my
academic work. That reflection on my original benchmark was pivotal in me applying to do a full Masters this year. They should make you do it formally, consciously think how far you have come on… and if not then you shouldn’t be allowed in!”.
Twelve participants spoke about where they chose to complete their academic study, choosing academically linked learning spaces over professional spaces (s-c (s-c 67).
It became clear that having a choice of venue to complete different work supported them in their dual role as learner and teacher. Participant 3 outlines the qualities of the learning spaces that supported him:
179
“Creating space for uni studying is not all about silence…quiet helps, but so does the slight hum of activity and its controlled by someone else to ensure a consistent environment that you can rely on being the same.…but its also about the fact that I travelled to it, away from work and away from home.
Quick access to information and help is at hand and because I was mostly in the library after office hours there was mainly those like me, those combining part-time study with full time work – I didn’t meet anyone but there was a sort of quiet radiating supportive atmosphere, wordless camaraderie”.
Seven participants shared their experiences of co-creating aspects of their curriculum, so further enhancing their dual role of learner and teacher (s-c 66).
Participant 10 describes this:
“…after the first phase placement we audited our experiences and skills then were allowed to sit with the course leader to talk about how we wanted certain things delivered. So the idea was that we were able to make changes to the curriculum in year for our own benefit rather than just at the end through evaluation for others benefit… we did all that too, but we all felt the benefits of this, for our learning and understanding as well as being trusted by our course lead”.
As a final saturated subcategory in this core category, all participants offered the same warning. This was that a programme designer should avoid building in too many episodes where multi-tasking was required (s-c 23). While many spoke of how aspects of multi-tasking were useful to experience, stating how it challenged and pushed them, the participants felt that too many thoughtless assessment points
180 crossing over cancelled out the benefits described earlier in this section. This created fatigue. Participant 7 described how this came about for her:
“…just come through it barely. It was just too much, I didn’t get to enjoy any of it, and the feedback was coming in too thick and fast that I could not enjoy that either before I had to act upon it…it was too much. It was kind of stuffed in all overlapping placement with module assessments and portfolio stuff without any thought to how all the deadlines would all fall. The quality of my work across the board was lower than it needed to be and I am capable of better, it was just below par because I had to get it done…I feel burnt out and I’ve really lost my enthusiasm to go on with my Masters…my motivation sometimes feels quite fragile so this has damaged it…at the moment I can’t think about it, only that I am needing to avoid that level of work again…shame, I was really keen before this last phase”.
With thirteen of the seventeen categories saturated by all participants, this core category provides powerful practical suggestions for successful professional Masters level programmes for teachers to be constructivist in design, delivery and
assessment.
5.7 Transformative learning: academic realisation and personal and