Developing Teacher Education Research Capacity in the North West of England Launch Liverpool John Moores University 5 th November 2008 TERN Project Team: Marion Jones, Pat Mahony, Olwen McNamara, Ian Menter, Jean Murray, Grant Stanley Teacher Education Research Network

WELCOME Professor Diana Burton Pro Vice Chancellor Liverpool John Moores University TERN

North West Universities’ Education Federation (NWUEF) Federation of H E teacher education Promotes mutually beneficial partnerships in HE In existence for 15 years Formalised as a federation with mission statement in 2007 TERN

NWUEF Regional Strategy Regional Strategy for the Education and Training for all involved in the whole school and children’s workforce TERN

Purpose To develop the profile and presence of the North West Higher Education providers To ensure that their contribution to the national scene in the education and training of the whole school and children’s workforce is recognised, encouraged and nurtured TERN

Vision Education is critical to the future economic success and social stability of the region Our responsibility is to work collaboratively to provide cutting edge education and training for the school and children’s workforce We will ensure that a full contribution is made to the national context for education through continued dialogue with policy makers in education TERN

Strategic Objectives (i)NWUEF will develop a federation across providers of education and training for the school and children’s workforce in the region (ii)NWUEF will make a major and proactive contribution to the national agenda in all aspects of the education and training of the whole school and children’s workforce (iii)NWUEF will contribute to the development of a high quality learning environment for all learners within the North West, whether these are within schools, HEIs or other contexts TERN

(iv)NWUEF will nurture links between all professional communities involved in the education and training of the whole school and children’s workforce within the region (v)NWUEF will identify some elements of a common curriculum within initial teacher education and continuing professional development (vi)NWUEF will facilitate a debate relating to applying the best aspects of the change management and remodelling agenda with HEIs TERN

NWUEF Partnership Research Strategy Relationships are fundamental to ITE partnerships (trainees, mentors, tutors, schools, HEIs) Models of professional learning and teacher development have grown up organically and differentially partly as a consequence of these relationships An advantage of ITE partnerships is their fertile ground for research TERN

Regional Teacher Education Research Examples NWUEF has attempted to launch regional research projects investigating ITE but funding is a problem OU/MU/LJMU project looked at ITE impact, producing published papers Liverpool City of Learning (Edge Hill, LJMU, Hope, UoL) conducted nearly £500k of research into learning networks and professional issues TERN

Aims of TERN To pilot a strong and sustainable model for research capacity-building in teacher education Across a collaborative network of seven regional universities To test the potential of this model for building a coherent research infrastructure on a larger scale across England TERN

The separation of research and teaching is no more keenly in evidence than in the NW where only two HEIs receive QR funding NWUEF considers TERN to be fundamental to: Raising the profile of the quality of teacher education in the NW Strengthening NW research partnerships and creating a springboard for grant applications Involving school-based colleagues in collaborative, ground-breaking projects TERN

The National Context for Research in and on Teacher Education Professor Olwen McNamara University of Manchester

Capacity building in education Challenges facing the sector: politicisation of professional learning bureaucratisation of professional learning increase of research selectivity bifurcation of research and teaching in education departments sustaining the teacher education workforce TERN

Increasing Research Selectivity TERN 5/5*43a3b21total 1992 (1s not funded) (3) (1/ 2 not funded) (1-3 not funded)

Education Departments in 2001 RAE TERN No core QR funding (1, 2, 3b, 3a) Core QR funding (4, 5, 5*) % Research active in % % staff entered in education department 35%70% % education research grant income 20%80% focusSchoolscurriculum, assessment, policy and inclusion audienceteachersresearchers and policy makers

Education and the social sciences TERN Education‘Other’ Social sciences Size Research active in 2001 RAE 42%60% PhDs25%64% (psychology)

Sustaining a research active workforce Challenges include: Age demographics Age demographics Staff need QTS & pay differentials between HEI and school are sizeable Making the transition between cultures is challenging: Making the transition between cultures is challenging: Vast new range of knowledge and skills Research and scholarly activity Research and scholarly activity Heavy workload and long teaching year Drive for increased research selectivity Drive for increased research selectivity TERN

Initiatives to increase research quality and capability BERA has introduced: BERA has introduced: - Teacher Education SIG - bursaries for teachers to attend conference - refereeing of abstracts to increase quality HEFCE’s ‘Research Informed Teaching’ HEFCE’s ‘Research Informed Teaching’ TLRP’s ‘Meeting of Minds’ TLRP’s ‘Meeting of Minds’ Scottish Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS) Scottish Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS) Welsh Educational Research Network (WERN) Welsh Educational Research Network (WERN) TERN

Initiatives to increase research quality and capability If Capacity = expertise x motivation x opportunities (Desforges) Then WERN’s activities… have given researchers in Wales the “motivation to engage in research by providing an opportunity to develop expertise in a supportive co-learning environment” (Davies and Salisbury, 2008: 9) TERN

TERN Project Overview Professor Jean Murray University of East London

What were the origins of the TERN project in the North West? Research capacity building nationally and regionally TLRP capacity building resources and Teacher Education Group work Why the North West? The TERN Project

Objectives of TERN to foster institutional networking in the North West, ensuring collaboration between research-intensive and teaching-intensive universities to contribute to building the institutional research capacity of the participating universities to provide a research development programme to enhance existing regional provision and institutional and individual research capacity in so doing, to develop a) a network sustainable beyond the life of the project and b) an effective model for capacity-building which can potentially be applied more broadly across England The TERN Project

Research & teacher education Argument that the TERN project is building research capacity in and on teacher education in teacher education through working with the education staff in the participating universities on teacher education because the final proposals will have a substantive focus on research about the education / professional learning of teachers and related professionals

The TERN Project Funded by the ESRC (with additional funding from ESCalate) – use of funding ESRC & Teaching & Learning Research Programme (TLRP) associated project Dates: September 08 – August 09 Limitations around funding & timescales – continuation beyond 2009 Funding and timescales

Who benefits from the project and how? The TERN Project Broader: all education staff in the participating universities TERN project participants: Research Colleagues, Research Mentors, Institutional Research Leads, Steering Group All education staff in the participating universities

Elements of TERN Governance and ethics Initial mapping / baseline for project Planned research development programme, with face-to-face and virtual elements (42+ research colleagues + mentors) Broader research enhancement (colloquia and communal seminar / events programme) Mediation / communication of previous research resources External and internal evaluation The TERN Project

TERN project participants: Central activities Extended activities for research colleagues The TERN Project

Central benefits for TERN Research Colleagues Professional learning and career enhancement from participation in research development programme Working with research team and with senior colleague as mentor to develop research bids Access to the expertise of other senior researchers / research support staff in developing expertise The TERN Project

The Research Development programme Five workshops: Indicative foci for each workshop - fine tuned by results of Mapping Exercise Workshop 5 disseminating work to date and receiving feedback Virtual Research Environments (VREs) for further collaboration between each face-to-face meeting. Teaching & Learning Research Programme / BERA Virtual Research Environments in use already Use of existing resources for research development, including the Teacher Education Group mapping. The TERN Project

Workshops and VREs The TERN Project Workshop 1Group VRE 1 Workshop 2Group VRE 2 Workshop 3Group VRE 3 Workshop 4Group VRE 4 Workshop 5 Work to date… Group VRE 5 Further work in VRE Fine tune proposal between early July and end of August

Extended possibilities for Research Colleagues Further opportunities for supported participation in conference presentations, nationally and internationally Publication opportunities in international, peer reviewed journals (planned Special Issues etc.) Publication in professional journals etc. Involvement in other aspects of research capacity building nationally (e.g. other ESRC project) The TERN Project

Research Mentors Modelled on TLRP Meeting of Minds mentoring programmes Adapted to small groups and ‘blended learning’ through the workshops and on-line activities Extended benefits and opportunities for institutional research capacity building & research leadership Key roles in facilitating and guiding the activities of the Research Groups The TERN Project

Broader opportunities for all education staff in participating universities Participation in communal seminar / events programme ESCalate colloquia and planned BERA SIG events Internal dissemination of TERN. Benefits from RCB focus within university and from resulting strengths in research culture Further exploration of issues around research in and on teacher education The TERN Project

Working definitions of teacher education research Teacher education research is taken to include: Initial Teacher Education and continuing professional learning / development of teachers and the broader education workforce in the primary & secondary sectors. Research on both policy and practice The challenges of working as an academic / teacher educator The TERN Project

The negotiated research themes The broad themes will need to have: a clear focus on research about professional learning and / or teacher education relevance for professional learning and / or teacher education relevance for research capacity building in the region and nationally significance and interest for the individuals in the Research Groups and the work will clearly need to draw on individual and communal expertise. The TERN Project

Working groups 1 1. Key issues in research on teacher education and professional learning What do you think are the key issues about research in and on teacher education and professional learning nationally? Are there are particular regional (NW) issues about these areas of research? Are there particular institutional issues about these areas of research? 2. Under-researched areas in research in and on teacher education What significant issues for Teacher Education do you consider to be under-researched nationally? Do these have regional significance? If so, how would you like to see these being addressed in the region? The TERN Project

TLRP Virtual Research Environment Richard Procter Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies University of Cambridge TERN

VRE Basics Online collaboration tools, announcements, schedule, lists, discussion, chat, file store, wiki, rss news Works in a browser, nothing to download Access controlled space (username, password) Public and Private sites My Workspace (your private online space) Roles –Access –Contribute –Maintain TERN

Summary Not hard to use. But will take some getting used to. Remember your username and password. Try to agree how your worksite is structured, File store. This will not replace and other tools you use. If you download something and edit it you need to upload it again. Wiki is the most powerful collaborative tool but need to learn to drive it. Don’t be afraid TERN

Thank you Further Reading –Laterza, V., Carmichael, P., and Procter, R. (2007) The Doubtful Guest? A Virtual Research Environment for Education, Technology, Pedagogy and Education 16(3) pp Online at

The Teacher Education Group (TEG) Annotated Bibliography TEG Steering Group: Anne Campbell, Ian Hextall, Moira Hulme, Marion Jones, Pat Mahony, Ian Menter, Jean Murray, Richard Procter and Karl Wall, in collaboration with Steve Baron, Mary James and Andrew Pollard TERN

Objectives of the initial research activities set within a broad framework (TLRP initiative) To construct a literature mapping To draw on this mapping to analyse what it revealed about existing research activities in the field To develop a series of ‘walkthroughs’ to be placed on the TLRP website and to serve as a pedagogical tool for new researchers Funded by BERA, ESCalate and UCET TERN

Selection of articles Each issue of 49 journals checked for articles relevant to the objectives of TEG Retrieval of full text copies (PDF files) via Athens for each item where abstract appeared to fulfill the inclusion criteria Initial screening of 8,000 articles Exclusion criteria: -Studies not conducted within the UK and Republic of Ireland -Articles published before 2000 and after 2006 (Update 2007 and 2008 in progress) -Articles with a specific curriculum or pedagogic focus Production of ‘short list’ of approximately 300 articles TERN

The Teacher Education Bibliography page: The on-line resource TERN

The TEG database Currently consists of 278 citations Citations have been classified by the TEG group in various ways. To search these citations various filters can be applied to the list of citations The list of citations is organised alphabetically by author name TERN

Live weblink to journal source Total number of resources being displayed Full reference Full Abstract Extended Core methods Extended Core Topics What is in a reference? TERN

The online resource - available at: The search menus available include the following filters: Author Year Core Topics Core Methods Journal The abstracts have been classified by: ‘Themes’ (extended topics) ‘Categories’ (extended methods) A word search is also available TERN

Thematic and methodological categories for coding of articles (filtering mechanism) Core topics Professional learning Partnership Regulatory frameworks/policy Curriculum and assessment TE professional development National context Equity issues Ethical issues Core methods Qualitative / Quantitative / Mixed Practice-based Interviews / Questionnaire Longitudinal Survey Small-scale / Large-scale Reflection Political economy Case study Action research Literature review Content analysis Quasi-experimental TERN

Ways of filtering results (sorting) Search by a specific author name e.g. Avis The grey number (5) shows the number of citations featuring ‘Avis’ as an author Search by year of publication e.g The grey number (28) shows the number of citations in the database for ‘2004’ TERN

More ways of filtering results (sorting) Search by a ‘Core Topic’ e.g. Equity issues The grey number (39) shows the number of citations identified as relating to ‘Equity issues’. Search by ‘Core Method’ e.g. Case Study The grey number (53) shows the number of citations identified as using a ‘Case Study’ approach. TERN

Search by Journal name e.g. British Journal of Educational Studies The grey number (5) shows the number of citations in the database taken from the journal in the period ’. Further ways of filtering results (sorting) TERN

A multiple filter - name and year: e.g. Davies and 2005 Produces 1 result The numbers in grey confirm that there is only 1 identified citation The tick in the box shows you which filter you have used Here ‘Davies’ is the second author in the citation TERN

A multiple filter – core topic and core method e.g. ‘Equity issues’ and ‘case study’ (1) Click on Equity issues: citation list changes to show filtered results (2) Click on Case Study: citation list changes to show filtered results 39 citations related to ‘Ethical issues’ 7 citations related to ‘Ethical issues’ and ‘Case study’ TERN

A multiple filter – core topic and core method e.g. ‘Equity issues’ and ‘case study’ : Results Seven citations result sorted by topic and method TERN

Use a ‘Walk-through’ – another way into the database! Offers an introductory ‘overview’ and a way into the issue Gives ‘Starter links’ to key resources TERN

The Walkthrough Purpose: To facilitate a journey of exploration which may result in the acquisition of knowledge and skills in research Aims: - to provide a stimulus for those wishing to find out about or study or research a particular topic by identifying and briefly mapping the chosen field or topic and by selecting key ideas and issues that introduce the reader to the topic or field - to provide connections to a selection of relevant key literature, web resources and examples of policy, projects and practice through ‘jump out’ links, including the TEG resource itself and the TLRP resources and capacity building materials. A pedagogical tool for building capacity in research TERN

Future developments Expanding and updating Development of further walkthroughs Variation in policy across the UK Capacity building in education research, especially teacher education New pilot schemes in England Auditing teacher education research in the UK TERN

Working groups 2 What research themes do you think it might be important for the TERN project to address and why? (What would be the regional / national significance of these themes?) Do these research themes relate to a) institutional agendas and b) individual / small group expertise that you know about in the region? If so, how? The TERN Project