The end is nigh…

When I first chose this module, admittedly, it was the lure of no exams that my decision was largely based on, but I must say that it has been one of the more enjoyable modules that I have chosen this year.  

Firstly, it is the freedom that has been a main reason why I have enjoyed the module so much, the freedom of what to write and when to write it. It is not many modules that allow you the choice of what material with which to engage. At first, the abundance of topics and information available seemed daunting, but as the weeks progressed, it became clear what sub-areas I was most interested in, and topic choices became much easier.

Next, the peer element of the module was another that I found to be beneficial for me. Not only did it help in topic choices, with gaining ideas and inspiration from others, but the debates and comments on each others’ blogs were something that I enjoyed, both making comments and receiving them on my blog. I also enjoyed the discussions at the end of talks, which provoked thoughts and ideas that I probably would never had thought of. I think that this module has developed my critical analysis skills more in the past ten weeks than over the rest of my degree.

I feel as though this module has benefitted me greatly, not only opening my eyes to the world of education and the problems that our education system has, but also to the way in which I learn and what methods I can use in future to make the most of the educational experiences I may encounter. 

The Importance of Creativity

Creativity: “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, or interpretations; originality, progressiveness.” (Oxford Dictionary)

As the dictionary definition suggests, creativity is essential for progressiveness. This can be in many forms and situations, such as personal life or work life, where originality and moving forward is necessary for success. Cropley (2001) summed up creativity as ‘novelty’ in his book “Creativity in Education and Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Educators”. So novelty in ideas, not only by themselves, but on developing and furthering existing ideas.

This week, I was watching Loose Women (yes, I know, please don’t judge!). The discussion was about creativity, and Carol McGiffin summed up the problem for me:  “before, children could imagine what it would be like to see outerspace, or under the sea, but now they can just look on the internet and see it for themselves”. So, the abundance of information that we have available to us in the modern day is diminishing our sense of creativity.

What effect can this have on us?

Simonton (2000) outlines how personal characteristics such as intelligence and personality are affected by creativity and also have an effect on creativity, so my thoughts were that if creativity is not being fostered today, what is happening to this intelligence and individual personality traits? Are we all destined to become the same?

In terms of education, I think that this is a major problem we have. Many people throughout the module have talked about how we may be burdened by our abundance of knowledge, and this is another way in which we could be at a disadvantage. In schools, children thrive on pretend play and imaginative activities, and is a key part of their development; but if this continues to not be fostered, then this key element will not exist and it could prove to be a very dull future for our workplaces, and social environments. 

Quality of Life in the Elderly Population: How can learning help?

This week I decided to focus my research on learning for a specific population: the elderly. I read some articles on the quality of life of the older population, and realised that this is an extremely vulnerable population whereby learning could benefit them greatly. The concept of ‘lifelong learning’ seemed to pop out here and had many implications where this particular population was involved.

For people progressing into the later stages of life, there are many potential risk factors that may be present that could have a detrimental effect on their quality of life. Health problems, both physical and mental, have the potential to greatly decrease quality of life, along with possible life events, including unemployment or retirement, or even losing a partner. All of these factors can result in social isolation, emotional health issues, and some forms of chronic illness, including stress or depression.  Not only are the lives of the individual changing due to their personal changes, but the wider society is also changing rapidly in terms of progression in technology and communication, for example, which can push them further away from community and further decreasing quality of life.

The idea of lifelong learning can help to significantly increase their quality of life and adapt to the inevitable changes that will occur in their everyday lives. A survey by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) reported that 89% of adult learners noticed positive emotional and mental health changes, and 87% reported positive improvements to physical health, and attributed the improvements to learning. These figures include increased confidence, more contact with others, opportunities for volunteering and employment and also insights into themselves. Hammond also conducted interviews with lifelong learners and found reports of learning aiding in recovery from mental ill-health, coping with stress and increases in self-esteem, hope and social integration.

As you can see, learning seems to have an incredibly positive effect on the quality of life and personal insights of the elderly.  So, great! Everyone can learn and then all problems will be solved? Unfortunately it is not that simple. There are many barriers that the elderly may face in accessing this kind of lifelong learning. The NIACE survey also reported negative implications of learning, including financial issues, anxiety and stress, and Hammond reported positive implications only where learning matched interests and strengths of the learner. Along with this, there may be the issue of fear of returning to education and lack of confidence, particularly with the heavy dependence on technology, which I discussed in my first blog. Also, for those with physical and mental ill health, there is the issue of physical access and correct provision.

These issues can be solved by providing the correct and suitable provision for the learning, with supervisors trained to look after those with mental ill health, and also to hold the learning in suitable and easily accessible venues. To make the learning as beneficial as possible, providing a wide range of activities, including instruction on technology for those who are not confident in using them would alleviate some anxiety. Also, by providing opportunities for learning about technology, this could allow more contact and socialising with those throughout the world, possible reducing feelings of social isolation and loneliness and preventing illnesses such as chronic depression.

As I’ve outlined, with the correct provision and supervision, lifelong learning can be an extremely useful tool in preventing and helping with the inevitable issues that the aging population may face, improving quality of life and also personal well-being.

Peer Assessment and Evaluation

A few weeks ago, I touched upon the idea of peer assessment and evaluation in another of my blogs. This week I’m going to expand upon this and discuss the benefits of peer assessment.

Peer assessment is something that I’m sure we all have experience with, throughout school and our time at university we have been asked to evaluate and assess others. Assessment and evaluation can take various forms, from simply ticking a peer’s quiz, deciding what grade to give an essay, or even giving feedback on a presentation.

This kind of evaluation and assessment can show benefits for both the individual who’s work is being assessed, and also for the assessor.

The person who is having their worked assessed has the advantage of having immediate feedback on their work, which has shown to be beneficial for learning and avoids incorrect information being learned and remembered. Also, the quality of work has been seen to be higher after peer assessment, as shown by Topping, Smith, Swanson and Elliot. It could be said that this could be due to more effort being made by students if they know that peers are going to be looking at work, so showing evaluation apprehension.

The assessor will also reap some rewards from peer assessment. Students can be seen to develop more of a sense of responsibility for their own and others’ learning, increasing motivation and learning for the desire to learn, rather than to simply pass exams. Also, students get to see others’ work, so for those poorer students looking at the work of higher performers, they can see a high standard of work; and for high performers reading work of lower performers, they can see where mistakes are being made, so ensuring not to make those mistakes in future. Along with these benefits, students can also be seen to develop analytical skills and understand the concept of constructive criticism.

As with anything, there are drawbacks to this technique, however there are also solutions to the problems to ensure successful peer assessment and evaluation. To ensure that all students are marking equally and fairly, criteria is necessary to ensure that marking is objective and not subjective. Also, guidelines need to be set out at the start to ensure that the environment remains non-judgemental and professional.

With these solutions to main problems, peer assessment and evaluation can be seen to be an extremely beneficial tool for learning, with rewards for all parties involved.

What would I change? More Science!

When thinking about this question, I thought back to some talks that I had listened to in class, and I realised, the main thing that I would change, is the actual motivations behind this whole module: the science of education. I think that a major flaw in our education system is the lack of use of the abundance of scientific knowledge that we have about learning.

A major part of this, I feel, is how we teach our teachers. Teaching is seen as an ‘art’ and that some people are ‘natural born teachers’, however would it be that with the correct methods, with scientific evidence, anyone can be a successful teacher?

Snider recognised this as one of her six ‘myths and misconceptions’ in her book (2006). By assuming that good teachers are born and not made, we are ignoring teaching potentially effective teaching methods and judging our teachers based on personal attributes. With this being said, Snider does acknowledge that personal attributes do contribute to being a good teacher, but are not the sole factor.

The science behind these methods is in abundance, with evidence on more aspects of education than I have words to mention them here, for example, direct instruction, motivation, memory techniques, metacognition and self-regulatory learning, to name but a few. In theory, I believe that we could train teachers to be highly effective, with a combination of all the knowledge that we have, but we don’t seem to be using it.

Other than how teachers teach, I think that the methods of assessment that we use in education today do not seem to be informed by science, and this is not benefitting students by not getting the best out of them.  Again, there are far too many options than the word limit will allow, including formative assessment, the testing effect and peer assessment, to name a few.

With all of this information available to us, there is no excuse for not using it. So in summary, if I could change one thing about our education system, it would be to use the abundance of tools and information available to us to allow teachers to get the best out of their students and to reach their potential, by using methods and tools that have been shown to be a success.

Studio Schools: The way forward?

This week while looking through some TED talks for inspiration, I stumbled across this talk from Geoff Mulgan on a concept called ‘Studio Schools’.

Studio Schools is a notion set up by the same people that brought us the ‘Open University’, that aims to bridge the gap between the knowledge taught in schools under the current education system, and the necessary skills required to succeed in the real working world. A main idea in this concept is “working by learning and learning by working”.

In his talk, Mulgan discusses the idea that schools are often places that young people don’t want to be, and therefore leave with few or no qualifications. Studio schools are focused on a set up that is less like a school environment, and more like a workplace, with 9-5 timetables and ‘coaches’ as well as teachers to act as mentors. They aim to be seen to students as useful, and, as Kim talked about in her blog last week, when we can see why we are learning something, we are more motivated to learn it, so by teaching real-life skills, students will be more motivated to engage.

Another principle that these Studio Schools touch upon, is that non-cognitive skills are just as important in life success as cognitive skills, so measurements of skills such as motivation are valued as much as formal academic testing. A paper by Heckman & Rubinstein outlined how skills such as “motivation, tenacity, trustworthiness and perseverance” are valued in the working world, and this is a main focus in these kinds of schools. However, there is still an academic element with formal qualifications being achieved. According to Mulgan in his TED talk, after two years, the poorest performers rose into the top quartile, with 9 A-C grades at GCSE.

In today’s society, with the ever-growing number of ‘NEETs’ (not in education, employment or training), this seems like a perfect solution. According to an article from the guardian, the number of NEETs is almost 1 million, with one in six 16-24 year olds falling in to this category. So if we can prepare our students at the age of 14, we could dramatically reduce this statistic.

With the growing success of these Studio Schools, and the growing rate of NEETs, particularly in young people, maybe a suggestion could be incorporating some of the techniques of ‘learning through doing’ and teaching employability skills into our current education curriculums? I think that this is the way forward, for motivating students and allowing them to achieve their full potential.

Current Studio Schools in England:

We want answers!

This week, I found this article in the TES about using assessment to aid learning, rather than measure it, and it got me thinking about how the education system is missing out on a potentially useful tool for learning that is right under its nose, so to speak.

Assessment: something that I know we’re all too familiar with. January exams, end of year exams, midterm exams, exams in abundance! On reflection, how many exam papers have you received back in order to look at where you went right and wrong? I can’t think of many occasions. This kind of assessment is used to measure learning, rather than support it. Obviously at this point, there is the debate of whether our education system teaches us to pass exams, or teaches us to learn, but I don’t want to get too much into that. Instead, I am discussing how we can use a tool that we’re already familiar with to support and foster our learning, instead of simply measure it.

I think that the title of the article in the TES sums up my point exactly: “Answers, not questions”. How are we supposed to learn without answers? I think that formative assessment, particularly, marked by peers and ourselves is an ideal way of using the tools we already have (exams) to further our knowledge. We can see where our knowledge gaps are, so giving us the opportunity to fill them. A review by Black & Williams established that in the main, formative assessment is a successful learning tool in terms of content, knowledge and skills.

I think that peer assessment is an incredibly useful tool for learning. Not only do you gain the answers you need and have your own work graded, you can learn from the mistakes and successes of your peers. Similar to a point I made a few weeks ago in my Brainstorming blog, peer assessment also has the same qualities in that it allows ideas to ‘bounce around’ and be developed, while enhancing communication and social skills, while allowing for a professional attitude to be formed. A study by Topping, Smith, Swanson & Elliot showed that peer assessment aided in improving the quality of following work, and was similar to feedback of a teacher.

So, I think that exams and testing are vital to our education; however are they being used in the right way? By tweaking the uses of our current assessment methods, we can foster new environments for learning, giving answers to our problems, not questions.

Self-Evaluation: A successful tool for learning?

Self evaluation is something that I’m sure we’re all familiar with after our time in education. It involves using critical analytic skills to judge the quality of your own work. It is easy to see why it is a valued technique that is being promoted in schools and higher education today.

This form of evaluation need not be complicated. It can even be as simple as just asking questions to yourself such as “what did I learn today?” or “how well did I participate in that group discussion?” I think that simply the awareness of what you know or how much effort you put in, will motivate you to do better and improve upon performance, so acting as an intrinsic motivator. Rolheiser outlined a theory of self-evaluation.

The diagram below shows the model and how the inputs of goals and effort lead to the output and obvious benefit of self-confidence, via self-evaluation (Rolheiser, 1996)

Retrieved from Rolheiser & Ross

A main problem with this model is that there is the potential for failure if stages 4 and 5 (self-judgement and self-reaction) are not completed effectively or if the student perceives themselves wrongly in these stages. This could have the complete opposite effect in terms of motivation and self-confidence.

A way in which this could be avoided is to teach students how to effectively self-evaluate. This could be done by setting criteria for success, with detailed aims and objectives, and ensuring that this criterion is fully understood. Also, giving feedback on the evaluations will help to further develop skills and ability to self-evaluate.

With proper implementation, I think that self-evaluation is a valuable tool in learning and education, with the potential to increase motivation and self-confidence, while fostering a desire to learn.

Brainstorming: Let it rain thoughts! … Or should we?

“Brainstorm: A group discussion to produce ideas and ways of solving problems”

Brainstorming is a commonly used technique within the world of education, and something that I, and I’m sure plenty of others, am all too familiar with. The idea is to generate as many ideas as possible, without judgement, using each other to ‘bounce’ off, so being able to prioritise and narrow down the most useful solutions later on. On the surface, the idea of brainstorming is unquestionably effective: A group of people, using each others’ ideas as platforms for further development and solutions to problems, developing a large quantity of ideas, while increasing social, communication and teamwork skills.

However, there is a large stream of research to show that brainstorming has more negative outcomes than positive. A meta-analysis by Mullen, Johnson & Salas revealed that productivity was much lower as a result of brainstorming, both in quality and quantity of information and ideas.

Furnham outlined three ways in which brainstorming limits productivity and proves to be ineffective.

1. Social loafing: A term coined by Latane, Williams & Harkins, refers to a situation where an individual puts less effort into a task when working with others, than they would when working individually. So in the case of brainstorming, an individual may contribute less to the task, but still remain to reap the same rewards and gains as the other members, but without the costs.
2. Evaluation apprehension: A possible explanation by Geen for this drop in productivity is the fear of being judged by peers. Where brainstorming is concerned, this seems like an obvious issue. One of the fundamental points of brainstorming is that creativity without judgement is encouraged in order to generate the highest quantity of ideas possible, however this concept explains a major flaw in its effectiveness.
3. Production Blocking: This idea refers to the reality that only one person can speak at a time, so the lapse in time whilst waiting for an opportunity to voice an idea may mean that the idea has been forgotten, or deemed irrelevant or unsuitable, so therefore reducing the potential number or breadth of valuable ideas. Gallupe et al.  suggested electronic brainstorming to eliminate this, and found that larger groups brainstorming electronically produced both a higher quantity and quality of ideas.

Along with these ideas, much other research has been carried out and other ideas have been put forward as to why brainstorming is not as effective as was once thought, including the ‘illusion of productivity’, personality variables and reductions in productivity in relation to increase in group size.

So why, after all this research showing that brainstorming is not as effective as it seems, does this technique continue to be used in education?

The age of the ‘technophobe’?

The use of I.T. and technology in education: Are adult learners at a disadvantage?

Let me set the scene: 1980, graduation day at Bangor University, a group of fresh graduates in cap and gowns, clutching their degree certificates. These graduates have succeeded in completing their degrees, without the use of the modern technology we have today. I think it’s safe to say that although our degree ceremony may look particularly similar, we have gone about achieving our degrees in a very different way. The use of technology and I.T. in our everyday lives as a student is something that I feel is taken for granted, mainly because we know no different. We were brought up being taught through I.T. at school and it is a vital part of our education. Apart from being vital for our degree, use of technology is a skill that is essential for both job and personal development (Lawson, 2005).

For an adult who was not brought up in this environment and taught these skills, the prospect of returning to education can be a daunting one. Although many mature students are proficient in using technology due to personal use, or previous use with work, the technology used for educational purposes may prove a challenge. This would mean that added stress is put upon what can already be a stressful time for the average university-aged student, not to mention the added extra of a family and full time job.

A paper by Johnson outlines the anxiety, frustration and stress that can be caused by this “technophobia”, as is called in the paper. Not only does the “computerphobia” cause stress through a frustration when someone cannot use it, but the paper also explains an anxiety to use the technology in the first place. Orr et al. (2001) make the point that this anxiety is dependent upon age, level of education, and previous experience with technology, so less experience and older people can be seen to be more computer-anxious. Khulmann, Piel & Wolf (2005) found that stress impairs memory retrieval, so this added stress can only be detrimental to academic performance in assignments and exams.

Although psychological variables must be taken into account, such as the ability to deal with stress, so sense of coherence and locus of control, I feel that this need for technology is an overwhelming and daunting prospect for adult learners who were not brought up in our technological era, and has a detrimental effect on their education.