Future FE Pedagogies FINAL FOR PUBLICATION

Acknowledgements
The journal was categorically not intended to be a 'how to improve your e-learning skills'
guide - there are professional associations, websites and online materials fulfilling this
function already. Rather, we aimed to provide for time poor colleagues a series of think
pieces: nuanced analyses of the potentialities and challenges of TEL for our practice.
We are very grateful to the sector bodies, publishers, networks and research organisations
who have supported us in this aspiration: the AoC, the ETF, Huddersfield University’s
Education and Training Consortium, the Learning and Skills Research Network, the
National Education Union, PRISM Journal, Trentham Books, and UCU.
Particular thanks to David Hughes, the CEO of the Association of Colleges (AoC) for his
Preface; and to Vikki Liogier, National Head of EdTech and Digital Skills at the Education
and Training Foundation (ETF), for her Conclusion to the publication. The editors also
wish to extend their thanks to Sarah-Jane Crowson for her wonderful cover design.
From the outset it was our intention to promote an egalitarian approach. We are grateful
to our contributors who agreed to avoid the identification of institutional affiliation, and the
use of e.g. ‘Dr’, ‘Professor’ etc. Instead we invited them to provide an email address and/or
Twitter account to promote dialogue post publication – where indicated at the start of
chapters our contributors welcome your engagement.
Finally, we are delighted to announce that the lead editor of the next edition of ‘Future FE
Pedagogies’ will be Chloe Hynes, and that Sarah-Jane Crowson is also joining us on the
editorial team. Our provisional theme for the next edition is to explore the notion of the
centaur (the mythical half man, half horse): some TEL theorists argue that the potential
synergy between humans and e-learning could ultimately be more powerful than both.
Watch this space…
Joel Petrie, on behalf of the editors.
@12DPLegacy1 joelpetrie@hotmail.com
Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 1

Contents
1. Preface David Hughes Page 3

2. Introduction: Future Pedagogies - The Bob Harrison Page 5
Context
3. Rethinking the improvement of teaching and Matt O’Leary Page 7
learning in a virtual environment through
unseen observation
4. Free, easy and fit for purpose TEL: lessons Martin Compton Page 11
learned the hard way by a non IT whizz
5. Research from the front: A Developing Matt Gordon & Jan Page 14
Digital Project Calvert
6. Pedagogy at the centre - getting the blend Eddie Playfair Page 18
right
7. Ways of Engaging: some approaches to Ian Duckett Page 20
developing learning skills
8. The Proverbs of TEL Howard Scott Page 23
9. Digital Practitioners creating "artfully- Nigel Ecclesfield & Page 27
crafted, student-centred, learning Fred Garnett
experiences"
10. Moving a class online Dave Cheseldine Page 30
11. The Reality of FE TEL Post-Covid-19: Jamie Heywood Page 32
Thoughts from the bike by an FE Teacher
Educator
12. An open letter to the Secretary of State David Powell Page 36
for Education: preparing FES teachers and
trainers to ‘teach well’ in a digital world
13. Conclusion Vikki Liogier Page 39

Preface
David Hughes
@AoCDavidH david.hughes@aoc.co.uk
This set of essays on future pedagogies is timely after a year like no other in which
colleges and FE providers were forced in double-quick time to move all of their learning
online. That a year has exposed a range of profound issues and challenges in education
which many of us have been raising for many years. In particular it has shown clearly how
inequalities in society are reinforced by unequal outcomes in education, at every stage.
And like every crisis, whilst this one has caused great suffering and loss for so many, it
also offers an opportunity to reflect, review and renew. This publication helps us to do that
for FE, providing a resource for the conversations and debates we need have across the
education system. I only hope that policy makers, politicians and education leaders
embrace the debate, engage and seek change for the better.
I hated school and was bored with the teaching and learning I was offered. I also watched
with sadness how my three children’s thirst for knowledge, curiosity and motivation were
all sapped, rather than nurtured through a schools curriculum and targets which did
nothing to inspire nor tap into their motivations. Those experiences, and my own work in
community development and informal adult education have always led me to focus on how
education and teaching needs to tap into the motivations of learners. What is it they want
to learn, and why? How does this learning help them achieve what they want to achieve?
How can learning and education empower them in their lives to carry on learning, find
work, thrive in a job, support their children, be active citizens?
I mention all of this because the pandemic has shown us that motivated learners, with
committed teachers can learn successfully online, if the resources and facilities are
adequate for everyone involved. These essays show that and help us think about how
technology can enhance learning. The last year has also shown us that learning is also a
profoundly social experience, and that people generally want more than just online

learning. The physical interactions during learning as well as before and after are critical
for most learners.
For the very diverse learners in FE the balance and blend of online, remote, individual,
group, face to face and virtual will need to be carefully planned and delivered. We also
need to get the facilities right for learners, develop the skills of teachers, and invest to
make FE the best it can be with its use of technology. But that will not be enough, because
the pandemic has exposed how little the post-16 system really treats learners as adults
and gives little agency and provides little flexibility to tap into people’s motivations and
wants.
Technology can be transformational in supporting learning for everyone post-16, allowing

flexibility, access and engagement in ways that excite me. I hope that this publication
opens up more creativity and innovation across FE to meet diverse needs in various ways,
to tap into the motivations, situations, starting points and ambitions of learners. I believe
technology can empower when used well and I believe it can be part of the approach to
unearth and ignite the motivations of learners to maximise their talents and realise their
ambitions.

Introduction: Future Pedagogies - The Context
Bob Harrison
@BobHarrisonEdu bobharrisonset@gmail.com
In his very helpful BERA paper The origins of Further Education in England and Wales
(2019) Ross Goldstone, of Cardiff University tracks the roots of FE. He is careful to point
out that there is “a lack of historical accounts of the further education (FE) sector in
England and Wales, which is reflective of its broader historical-cultural positioning. FE sits
between secondary schooling and higher education, delivering vocational, mixed and
academic provision to school-leavers and adult learners”. He goes on to point out that the
origins of the sector derive from the self-help efforts of such organisations as The
Mechanics Institutes and voluntary organisations or private individuals in the 19th century.
“The absence of state intervention can be understood as a product of the

contemporary context, in which education for the working population was met with
scepticism, a cultural disposition in favour of liberal education and against
‘utilitarian’ education existed, and a complacent belief in liberalism regarding
development prevailed”
My first head of department role was at the North Derbyshire Tertiary College in a mining
community just outside Chesterfield. The original two-storey redbrick buildings at the
centre of the college, which had grown to be the thriving heart of the community were built
not by the state or the council but the miners’ “penny levy”. At the end of their pay day
shift, when brought to the surface, there was a can hung on a wall. The miners opened
their pay packets and dropped a penny in the can. When they had enough money they
built the two school rooms so they and their families could learn to read and write.
As a vice-principal of The People’s College in Nottingham I discovered the foundation

stone in the boiler room which was inscribed “The People’s College - Erected by Voluntary
Contribution for the Education and Training of the working class forever”. There were
many “People’s Colleges” scattered around the country as it became a movement and
some of our famous universities were formed from “People’s Colleges”. The main point

here is that the roots of the Further and Adult Education sector do not derive from the
altruism of employers or the government drive for skilled workers who contribute to the
economy and wealth, but from an intrinsic desire for self-improvement from individuals,
their families and their communities.
As Goldstone highlights,
“The state first became involved in vocational education via the Technical
Instruction Act 1889. Crucial to this legislative change was growing appreciation by
the government of the relative development of industrial productivity in Europe.
Local committees tasked with satisfying the demand for vocational education were
created, whose funding came from a levy on alcohol consumption – dubbed the
‘Whisky Tax’ – which was used to develop technical education institutions…”
Further legislation followed in 1902 when Local Authorities were created but it was not until
1944 that the Further Education Sector was legally established. “This act defined the
sector as providing (a) full-time and part-time provision for post-school aged pupils, and (b)
leisure-time occupation. Broadening FE provision meant that the sector became further
diversified, and a shift from part-time, evening study to full-time study in FE institutions was
precipitated. It is from these reforms that the mixed economy of provision in today’s sector,
and its status as ‘the Cinderella sector’, emerged.”
The Government published its eagerly anticipated White Paper in January 2021. I had
been hoping to save a few words to conclude this context setting for Future Pedagogies
with some inspiration. Sadly I cannot find any in this long awaited, over-hyped policy paper
promising to “reform” the FE landscape. Instead we have a very disappointing, under-
powered narrow employer and productivity focused mishmash of rhetoric and repeated
ideas which does nothing to move us forward from when the State first intervened in
Further and Vocational Education at the turn of the century. In fact it is worse than that as
the narrow focus on economic productivity and skills for work fails to recognise the true
roots of further education, the intrinsic human desire for community and self-improvement.
We hope by reading these articles in this journal you will be motivated to reflect on the
future of our sector by reconnecting with its origins and the intrinsic human desire for self
and community improvement so obviously absent from Government thinking, and that it
will also strengthen your desire to take back control of Further Education and its Future
Pedagogies.

Rethinking the improvement of teaching and learning in a virtual
environment through unseen observation
Matt O’Leary
@drmattoleary matthew.oleary@bcu.ac.uk
Introduction
With institutions having to make a rapid transition to online delivery, Covid-19 has left an
indelible mark on the educational landscape. Understandably, some are concerned about
how the quality of teaching and learning is being assured, along with supporting teachers
to adapt and thrive in this new environment. How can this be done remotely?
‘Unseen observation’ is an innovative method that is increasingly being embraced by a

growing number of colleges and schools, with practitioners acknowledging its positive
impact on attitudes to observation and reporting significant improvements in their critical
reflection on their professional practice, subsequently feeding into improvements in their
teaching and their students’ learning.
What is unseen observation?

The term ‘unseen observation’ might seem like a contradiction given that it is a model of
observation that does not actually involve observing a taught lesson. It is a teacher-
centred model of observation where the fundamental work takes place in the pre and post-
session conversations that form the foundation of the unseen observation cycle (see
Figure 1 below). The teacher’s recounting and reflection on the taught lesson is what
provides the stimulus for the professional dialogue between them and their coach/peer, as
well as a pre-session meeting (Stage 2) between the two in which the proposed session
plan is discussed. Originally designed for face-to-face interactions, one of the many
advantages of unseen observation is its flexibility, which makes it perfect for adapting to
virtual learning environments. Figure 1 below provides an overview of the 7 stages of the
virtual unseen observation cycle.

What are the principles and purposes of unseen observation?
Unseen observation shifts the traditional emphasis of observation from a product-focused
event to a process-driven practice that prioritises deep, meaningful thinking about teaching
and learning through collegial conversations and collective reflection. This takes place
through detailed conversations about the teacher’s planning, their delivery and analysis of
its effectiveness. By removing the ‘performance’ element traditionally associated with
classroom observation, unseen observation allows us to reconceptualise how we think
about observation as an educational tool to support teacher improvement. It also puts the
control and accountability of the process back into the hands of practitioners, as it is built
on the premise that they are the best people to decide their own professional needs and
those of their students.
1. Teacher
identifies
session & 2. Teacher prepares
7. Teacher writes draft session plan,
up or digitally focus
resources & shares
records a series virtually with
of feed forward coach/peer via: email,
action points MS Teams, Zoom,
Google Hangouts etc
6. Teacher & 3. Teacher &

coach/peer meet coach/peer meet
online for online to discuss plan
professional dialogue and resources
4. Teacher produces final

5. Teacher writes plan and resources.
up/digitally records a Teaches unobserved
reflective account of session and gathers
the taught lesson student feedback
Figure 1 – An overview of the 7 stages of the virtual unseen observation cycle
How does unseen observation work in practice?

Stages 1-4: The teacher identifies a session and particular area of practice they wish to
focus on. They prepare their session plan and resources, sharing them virtually with their

peer/coach before arranging an online meeting. The pair discuss the rationale for the
selected teaching techniques and tasks, along with the anticipated impact on the students.
The Stage 3 conversation also explores the teaching and learning philosophies
underpinning the teacher’s reasoning and considers any improvements before the teacher
finalises their session plan. The teacher then delivers the unobserved session, including
opportunities for students to provide feedback/evaluation of their learning experience (e.g.
online questions on a chat forum), which can be used to inform the teacher’s subsequent
reflections.
Stage 5-7: The teacher writes up and/or digitally records a reflective account of the
session. The teacher and peer/coach meet online for a post-session conversation to
discuss the effectiveness of the session and the anticipated outcomes. The two interrogate
any assumptions upon which the plan was based and examine possible sources of
evidence. Following the discussion, the teacher then writes up/digitally records a series of
feed forward action points to work on.
What are some of the benefits of virtual unseen observation?

1. Depth and rigour – the depth involved in the planning, reflection, discussion and
analysis of the session means that unseen observation can be a more rigorous process
than conventional models of observation. It provides a platform for institutions to
formally embed the importance of reflection into its improvement systems, recognising
the value of in-depth thinking about teaching and learning.
2. Removing the Hawthorne effect – teachers are able to behave more naturally and
authentically without the presence of an observer during the session.
3. Creativity and risk-taking – as the surveillance and performance elements of
traditional observations are no longer present, it encourages teachers to be more
creative and take more risks in their teaching without the fear of being judged.
4. Recalibration of locus of control – the shift in the locus of control from the ‘observer’
to the ‘observed’ creates a more equitable working relationship, reducing some of the
counterproductive effects of traditional observations. Placing the teacher’s thinking and
decision making at the centre of the process also allows them to explore and discuss
wider aspects of their beliefs about teaching and learning in greater depth instead of
focusing on an isolated session.
5. Teacher autonomy and ownership – as individual teachers are empowered to decide
the focus of their unseen observation, this provides them with increased autonomy to
take ownership of their practice, along with the freedom to reflect more meaningfully
and deeply on what they do and its impact on their students.
6. Flexibility – unseen observation can be adapted to working with staff individually or in
small groups, from an individualised area of focus to a collective theme of
interest/relevance to multiple members of a team. As it does not require face-to-face
meetings between staff, it also lends itself well to being used remotely via online
platforms.
Take-away thought
Research on professional learning has repeatedly reinforced how meaningful and
sustainable improvements in teaching and learning are built on trust, honest introspection
and personal responsibility. These key factors all underpin the ethos and practice of
unseen observation. At a time when education has become ever more dependent on the
trust, honesty and responsibility of teachers, unseen observation is an innovation that
encourages institutions to embrace this as the new normal in helping to assure the quality
and ongoing improvement of teaching and learning.

Free, easy and fit for purpose TEL: lessons learned the hard way by a
non IT whizz
Martin Compton
@uogmc m.compton@gre.ac.uk
In 20 + years teaching English, History and Education in FE, a lot of colleagues assumed I
was an ‘IT whizz’ because of the TEL stuff I implemented. As a consequence, I was often
embarrassed when unable to answer their technical questions. Why did they see me this
way and how did I end up running short courses built around the idea of “eTeaching” and
eventually doing most of my teaching online? I think it was because I was always willing to
have a fiddle with different pieces of software, unencumbered by a sense of lacking in my
own ability. A truly beneficial self-awareness deficit! Make no mistake, I have self-efficacy
and confidence issues in all sorts of areas but for some reason I was unfazed by the not
infrequent bumps and mishaps along the way with my TEL efforts. I connected new
technologies to my teaching and saw the whole thing as a glorious experiment. In doing
that I learnt some incredibly valuable lessons and, if there’s one thing I have been able to
do these last 10 years or so, it’s to have shared what works, what doesn’t and why with
colleagues so they don’t have to spend all that time fiddling around themselves.
I do use the big institutional tools like the VLE but this can be quite grudging, especially
where there are ways of doing things that are so much easier by accessing educational
and ‘productivity’ apps online. I will use the VLE as a launch point or portal to more
engaging activities online as I try to avoid the seemingly inevitable ‘scroll of death’ in the
VLE interface. Of course, we need to be alert to data security, GDPR and technical frailties
but, by and large, resources that sit in the cloud and are used for teaching (not data
collection) can offer incredible opportunities for heightening engagement, changing the
dynamic and supporting learning, assessment and feedback. Above all, I have come to
realise that I work most effectively with technology when it fulfils all three of the following
criteria:

1. Can I use it or at least try it for free?
2. Is it easy to use?
3. Does it do the job I want it to do?
The reason my use of VLEs has been grudging is because they often fail on two of the
three criteria.
Before I can apply criteria, I need to have something to apply them to. Previously I would
try anything and everything but realised over time that a. time was finite (!) and b. I needed
to identify my own and my students’ needs. Too often I had been dazzled by fancy effects
to consider what was being enhanced, added to or made easier in my teaching, the
resources or the student experience. I moved (eventually) from a tech-led to a tech-
enhanced perspective. As this shift in mindset became more visceral, I became object-
oriented and would seek technologies that were free, ‘freemium’ or advertising funded to
experiment with and were usually designed to perform one main function.
Recommendations from communities of colleagues at work or on social media helped
narrow the field and I often found that even the freemium tools gave me what I needed
without me having to purchase anything.
Ease of use is undoubtedly relative, but my benchmark question is usually: ‘Is this easier
to learn than the first time I used PowerPoint?’ I find the best tools are those that require
the following skills:
1. An ability to search online and within tools for existing content to curate (no point re-
creating the wheel).
2. An ability to type things into on-screen boxes.
3. An ability to copy a URL and paste it somewhere else.
This means that the best tools for the non IT whizz will have:
1. Ease of access (perhaps offering a Google sign in, giving me only one additional
password to remember).
2. Easy to identify quick start and save functions.
3. Visible and easy to access sharing and editing options.
4. Ability to create or find something I could use with my students within 15 minutes of
first logging in.
Fitness for purpose may be evident at the initial ‘fiddling around’ stage but is more likely
ascertained at the trial/ implementation stage. If I have invested no money and only a little

time, it is a lot easier to be honest with myself about whether the effort has been worth it. I
wince as I recall hours spent using a fussy tool to create supposedly re-usable ‘learning
objects’ only to realise I had a collection of dull presentations with the odd question here
and there. I always ask myself: ‘Is this doing something better, in a novel or engaging way
and does it make life easier for me and/ or my students?’ Tools that also offer
opportunities for students to become creators or co-creators as well as interactors are
often even more valuable. It is worth becoming familiar with some of the core principles of
access, navigation, accessibility and universal design but, in many ways, these are an
essential part of the journey if approaching it through the lens of the three criteria I have
defined.
In summing up this perspective, I’d say it is in large part attitudinal. An absence of tech
self-efficacy is more common amongst teachers and students than you might imagine. My
advice is always not to let assumptions taint thinking. I am not an IT whizz but I am
fortunate that I have been able to tap into a belief that exploration and experimentation
trumps disengagement, doubt and worry. If you are reluctant, try to confront your
trepidation. Listen to the teacher voice inside you that counsels students to value the
learning potential of mistakes. Accept that things will not always go the way you want.
Don’t be dazzled by shiny, high-end (but often pedagogically questionable) e-learning
content and try to target the unattainable. Rough round the edges but personalised, active
and engaging works. Above all, there are free to access, relatively easy to use tools out
there that will do what you want and need.

Research from the front: A Developing Digital Project
Matt Gordon & Jan Calvert
@mattgordonwfc matthew.gordon@waltham.ac.uk
@jancalvert jcalvert@shipley.ac.uk
Background
The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) is the expert body for professional
development and standards in Further Education (FE) and Training in England.
Through their work, the ETF supports teachers and leaders across the Further Education
and Training sector to help them achieve their professional development goals for the
benefit of learners and employers across England. Since its inception, the ETF has
supported a range of activity to improve teaching, from small scale projects involving
single departments or individuals to region-wide activity promoting change and sharing of
effective practice. This work focuses on empowering practitioners to focus on effective
practice that is most helpful for their own challenges. The wide range of activity that they
deliver is brought together under the banner of Outstanding Teaching Learning and
Assessment (OTLA).
In September 2020, the seventh phase of OTLA projects funded by the Education and
Training Foundation was launched, with the collaborative research project between two
general FE colleges’ GCSE English Language students and lecturers one of 36 projects
exploring approaches for teaching English and Maths in the post-16 sector.
Objectives
The intention was to investigate how two practitioners in separate settings could work
together to develop students’ confidence in transferable skills and in the demands of the
subject.
The overall objective was to produce collaborative, inter-college evidence-based research.
The research was centred around this question: how can we engage GCSE English
students using digital technology for learning?

We aimed to:
● encourage post-16 learners to work collaboratively and online with others they may
never meet and where they are separated by distance.
● seek to address current challenges in teaching, learning and assessment during
online and face to face lessons via the deployment of digital or web-based
resources.
● engage with, and positively develop, the student’s view of the subject itself, exam
questions, and with new ways of learning.
● enhance attainment, retention and progression for such learners.
Approach
We have been delivering co-teaching, learning and assessment methods across multiple
digital platforms, such as delivering live and recorded webinars.
We have been collecting results in the form of questionnaires and surveys, aiming for
around 100 student responses across both colleges. Although questionnaires and surveys
run the risk of being ‘data-rich, but information poor’, the forms used have allowed for both
multiple choice skills development and open questions. The completion rate has been
high as students find them accessible and relevant. We have also responded to individual
students after completion of the surveys to discuss their learning needs and ways to
progress. In the near-future we hope to conduct in-depth face to face interviews with
learners on site, aiming for 10 responses (5 from each college). Teaching notes and
survey methods will similarly reflect ‘learner voice’.
An example of the type of surveys we have used can be seen in Figure 1 on the next
page, and a live link is accessible here.

Figure 1: GCSE English November 2020 survey summary

Evidence was collected continuously via real-time review of student’s engagement in the
webinar sessions, in class via the practitioner’s reflections, participants’ survey completion,
face-to-face interviews with learners, anonymised completed tasks and subsequent
feedback and results of assessments. The practitioners met online on a regular basis to
collaboratively reflect on how our teaching and learning practice was developing in the
current context. Central to this aspect is the teachers sharing and reflecting on practice in
terms of online versus face-to-face delivery, and how we responded to what worked
well/not so well. Feedback from students was used to inform how the practitioners design
and deliver subsequent sessions, facilitating students’ insight and impact on their own
learning and how we incorporate this information and thus influence lesson planning.
Expected Results
We hoped to understand from the participants -students and practitioners- more about
how post-16 learners (including adults) can be encouraged to help themselves learn,
progress and achieve in the subject via digital tools. Additionally, we wished to engage
with, and positively develop: digital teaching, learning and assessment practice (TLA); the
student’s view of the subject itself and with formal assessment tasks; build on and
enhance student’s self-confidence and transferable skills relevant to the modern
workplace…Currently, we are half-way through completion of the project. Results will also
be gauged by how students engage with the adapted TLA and the project in general;
student work/feedback exchanges as well as in their confidence in approaching exam-style
questions and assessment objectives; their enjoyment of the subject; and in formative in-
class assessments, mock exams; and ultimately in summative assessments.
Further research
We would like to invite practitioners in the GCSE English Language re-sit domain across
the FE landscape to participate in further research, informed by the outcomes and
objectives from the current OTLA project will be published in summer 2021.
The authors would like to thanks the following for their support: Sue Southwood and Claire Collins
Consultancy; Omur Derelikoylu and Waltham Forest College; and Alex Hill and Shipley College.

Pedagogy at the centre - getting the blend right
Eddie Playfair
@eddieplayfair eddie.playfair@aoc.co.uk
The closure of college campuses to most students during much of the Covid-19 pandemic
has led to a rapid shift towards on-line and technology-enhanced learning. The speed of
this transition has been impressive and shows the adaptability and flexibility of the FE
sector, while also highlighting the risk of deepening existing inequalities, whether in access
to devices, prior knowledge and skills, signposting of resources or access to professional
support.
The use of e-learning has been steadily growing in colleges, with some brilliant innovative
practice. But the sudden switch to a much higher proportion of online teaching is more
than the acceleration of a trend. It prompts some fundamental questions about pedagogy
and the planning and organisation of learning.
As we consider the return to more campus delivery, we need to ask: what is it that we
value most about working in a shared physical space? Which aspects of our learning
community can and can’t be replicated on-line? How do we ensure that we make the best
use of the time we have in different types of settings, synchronously and asynchronously?
On-line pedagogy cannot simply be a screen-based form of classroom pedagogy.

Learning is a social process which relies on a range of different interactions between
teachers and students, not all of which can be fully replicated in a virtual setting. Are there
good online substitutes for browsing in the library and discussing what to read, having a
motivational chat with a tutor between classes or working in an informal study circle with a
couple of friends?
We need to understand which aspects of learning are best suited to face to face and social
settings and ensure we do not lose them. For example: open ended discussion, browsing
together, the joint exploration and development of ideas. This will help us make better
judgements about when and how to blend these with on-line experiences, this will depend

on course content and student needs. Teachers and students will need to be expert in
‘blending’; skilled at judging when and how to shift the balance.
Young people are sometimes described as ‘digital natives’ because they have grown up
using digital devices and navigating social media. However, they still need to develop
research, evaluation and connective skills and their on-line fluency together with other
literacies: social, political, cultural and psychological.
Producing on-line learning programmes requires good subject knowledge and expertise in
pacing learning, avoiding cognitive overload and balancing challenge with security. But we
also need to know our students and what makes them tick. Whether in person or on-line,
we need to motivate and engage our students as they navigate their leaning obstacle
course; facing life’s challenges, seeing, or not seeing, the point of what they are doing,
drifting in and out, exploring the boundaries of their knowledge, testing their
understanding, trying things out, applying their skills, struggling and eventually ‘getting it’.
Much of this cannot be programmed or planned for, and our methods must take this into
account.
Understanding the technology is important but realising the full educational potential of
virtual learning is primarily a question of pedagogy. As we consider the future of learning,
teaching needs to take centre stage.

Ways of Engaging: some approaches to developing learning skills
Ian Duckett
@duckett_ian ianjduckett1@btinternet.com
Ways of Engaging is a project designed to support disaffected young people. It was initially
rooted in research and was the inaugural project of the reformed East Anglia LSRN
(Learning and Skills Research Network). The project supported by partners the Co-
operative College, NEU (the National Education Union) through both its post-16
Researchmeet project and Norfolk District, Norfolk County Council’s Roar project (where
some of the resources and activities were trialled), Norwich Trades Council, the Socialist
Educational Association (SEA) and latterly the University and College Union (UCU) and
the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The research drew on experience as a teacher and manager in FE and alternative

provision in the last 10 years in a wide-range of contexts as well as previous research and
development of case studies around NEET cohorts. It was concerned with re-engagement,
learning and developing skills of employability and enterprise. There are three main
curriculum components to the approach to engagement and re-engagement. These are
leadership, employability and volunteering. Personalised and assignment-based, the
approach is learner focused and built on a foundation of agreed and realistic targets that
fully takes account of individual learner needs. The engagement project equips learners
with personal, learning and thinking and employability skills.
In the time of the pandemic, however, events overtook participants and it quickly morphed
into a more practical pedagogy linked to the emergency curriculum for practitioners to use
in a variety of ways of engaging with the young people in their care, sometimes planned;
sometimes as a means of managing in a crisis; sometimes collaborative, but always as a
direct and personalised response to individual learner needs. While not directly born out of
the Covid19 crisis, some learning activities have been shaped and altered and, in some
cases, driven on-line. Here are some examples:
1. Introductory skills session – what will you need to succeed? Team-work;

target setting and skills for learning; problem solving; language and communication
(employability skills);

2. Describe yourself – using a method of your choice (written description,
picture, film or artefact), try to explain who you are. You should think about your
background, ambitions and words which describe you. Record your evidence;
3. Objects that represent your life or planned career – bring in three objects
which represent who you are. Discuss with a partner or in a group what they
represent and why you have brought them;
4. Research a topic that interests you – use the internet, library, newspaper or
another route to find out information about a subject of your choice. Present the
information in an interesting or original way;
5. Think about team-work and leadership skills and communicate to a group

what it takes to be a good leader. Use examples of famous leaders and, as a group,
discuss what made them good or bad. How do you compare?;
6. On your own, or as a group, draw a mind map on the subject of respect,

showing what it means and giving examples of when it is and is not shown.
Compare your examples with others.
Some findings
Even when learners have chosen a course of study, it is sometimes a challenge for
teachers to keep them interested and motivated. This is where personal knowledge of
individual learners comes in to play. ‘Knowing which buttons to press’ for each individual
can provide the ignition to motivate and inspire any learner. ‘Which button’ will differ from
learner to learner as the very uniqueness of each individual will form the basis for their
personal determination and motivation. Learners crave realism. If we can gain their
interest by making learning real, by linking it to the outside world, we can inspire and
increase motivation.
Customised and flexible learning, including aspects of distance learning, is a means to

achieving this. The whole notion of ‘personalised learning’ recognises that teachers
focusing their attention on individual learners further progresses their learning and mirrors
in the real world, such as the move away from narrow vocational models. Within the post-
14 sector the debate has centred on how best to move from a world where the individual
responds to the system and its structures to one where the systems and structures
themselves are designed to respond flexibly to individuals’ needs.
Some recommendations
In terms of recommendations, this approach frees learners and teachers from a range of
the usual constraints: learners can take control of their own learning and teachers no
longer really need to consider time allowances or constraints and can consider:
 length of time allowed;

 independent learning;
 distance learning;
 resource-based learning;
 mastery learning.
Teachers can and should ask themselves:
 How can learning and teaching move a learner from where they are now to where the
learner has the potential to be?
 How can session-planning accommodate learners’ different, preferred approaches?

The Proverbs of TEL
Howard Scott
@HowardScott75 Howard.Scott@wlv.ac.uk
This document is designed to stimulate a provocation around the subject of technologies in

teaching and learning, drawing in pedagogical, sociological, and philosophical implications.
Like learning and education itself, it has no clear beginning or ending and is purposefully
disconnected in order that meaning be constructed in a non-linear disorganised
derangement of normal convention. It is presented as a set of aphorisms and maxims,
which may be rejected or agreed with ultimately and ideally stimulate discourse. It is
indisputably clear that technology improves the learning experience and no argument for
or against that is being made. It is also abundantly understood “….that technology is not
just a neutral delivery vehicle” and that there are numerous structures and contradictions
involved in these new normals.
FE should potentially have been well placed to cope with current circumstances, given the
pervasive influence of the FELTAG report that sought to prepare the workforce and
colleges for a digital future.
Disruption is the mother of innovation. There are some in education who misunderstand or
have scorned the use of technology, but if the teacher persists in creativity, the teacher
becomes inventive.
Rejecting technology’s role in the learning experience is like swimming with an arm tied
behind your back. Denying its function is to pretend the arm is not even there.
The Gutenberg Press influenced our systems of writing, moulded our very use of
language, our ways of seeing and sense of meaning about the world &etc. Our
perceptions, reading and understanding of life were radically and irreversibly encoded by a
machine, which showed how the medium was at least the equal of the message.
Technology has the potential to shape our practice, but also to confront what education is
and can be.

If nothing else technologies force us to re-evaluate the classroom as an environment and
the relationships within it.
The online social world develops communication, participation and identity, but these
networks should not be tickets for a world that continues to be oppressive. A refusal to
converge and interact is often a gesture of beautiful resistance.
The modern world has rapidly become a set of systems that are often fluid, insecure,
confused and perplexing to navigate. Technologies may help young people to make
meaning of it all and it is the responsibility of educators to utilise these tools.
It’s probable that the disruption of this present moment will continue in a semi-permanent
state; the superabundance of information can saturate without process: studying is not a
consumer activity and requires actions. Technology provides agency by enabling students
to act upon the wider world. FE providers must make this and wider social interaction as a
bedrock of online learning.
Tune in, turn on and switch off is the

maxim of social media. Any modern
teaching and learning conversation needs
to interrogate the online ontology of
passive consumption.
The ‘walled garden’ VLEs that FE

institutions invest in bear no reflection of
life in the real world and are a futile
exercise yard of administration. Teachers
use them, because institutions pay for
them; institutions pay for them, because
data is digital gold; shrewd students inherently distrust the mechanics of them that have
caged us in a Panopticon of self-surveillance.
The VLE is not an environment conducive to spirited learning and more like a series of
infinite corridors and doors. To each domain, there is a gatekeeper and an eye.
The new environments and landscapes deserve an entirely new language and imagination
for teaching and learning and the relationships at play.
But where we consider what is added and augmented by technology, we also must
consider what is lost, as related by Mary Newbold in a Tweet from the pandemic: “Let us
not so much as contemplate this next level of alienation. Learning is a shared, social
experience that involves the whole corporeal sensorium. We are more than minds; this is
what makes us distinct from the technologies that have become an extension of
ourselves.”
While distance learning can be done, we should never underestimate the importance of
physical environments for students – and more importantly we must not allow politicians to
traduce what we have with further funding cuts, closures or by selling land and assets
under the justification of distance learning. We can have both.
While technology can improve access and peer learning, it must not become a sterile
mass without personalisation.
It is not in the realm of paranoia to imagine that conniving politicians (who do not
understand teaching and learning or the peripheral participants of FE’s student body)
would replace all FE’s teachers with scripts, batches of resources and automated ‘click
and go’ DIY training. Consider the last online training you did. Was it worthy, was it soulful,
did it nourish your creativity, did you connect with others and learn incidental matters of
existential significance along the way, or was it used to cut corners?
If some parts of a subject are not replicable in a technologically dynamic and humanely
participatory form, then it is the curricula itself that needs change.
Technologies can de-territorialise the curriculum and learning terrain from many of its
present constraints and there is no one there, currently, using such tools of conviviality to
ensure teachers are complicit to standardisation or students are emasculated. Teachers
have an opportunity to teach with autonomy if they are given the confidence, but it requires
a big push in training to teach online well.
It is no surprise to see unimaginative educators use the pandemic crisis to endorse rote
memorisation through technology at the cost of a social online experience. It is much
easier to do repetition than socialism, play or creativity.
The first task is ambience and then imagination. Just as the classroom, students don’t
come online for repetition but diversion, the ludic and the unexpected.
How is it possible for technology to simulate the real world when the real world itself is
artificial, flawed or contains inherent social inequalities that technologies must not use their
users to reproduce?

Inherent paradoxes govern online behaviours:
Autonomy, but governance
A window to a world of diversity, but reflexive impotence
Visibility, but surveillance
Empowerment, but subservience
Individualism, yet conformity.
‘The cut worm forgives the plough’, but a student who walks into the world unprepared and
unequipped to challenge and change it will never forgive his teachers. FE must rise to the
new challenges presented it.

Digital Practitioners creating "artfully-crafted, student-centred, learning
experiences"
Nigel Ecclesfield and Fred Garnett
neecullompton@aol.com fred.garnett@gmail.com
@ neecullompton
Our book called Digital Learning Architectures of Participation was published by IGI Global
in July 2020, and we have 20 years’ experience each working in FE colleges and adult and
community education and 10 years working at the national level with Jisc and Becta and
other bodies on various FE related technology and learning/teaching projects. This
involved working with Government, consultants, researchers, and commissioning projects.
Thus, we have a great deal of relevant experience concerning what a future FE Pedagogy
might look like. Fred leads World Heutagogy Day on 23rd September every year
promoting creative Pedagogies of learning and Nigel was an inspector with ALI before it
was absorbed by Ofsted and he continues to contribute to a range of different activities
and to monitor research on post-compulsory education. We are both continually reviewing
learning, pedagogies and technology use and working with national and international
projects and practitioners.
The title of our book has three elements to it.
1. Digital refers to our Digital Practitioner project looking at "technology in action" in FE
colleges
2. Learning refers to our overall concern with "Modelling learning" or learning theory
3. Architectures of Participation developed from the E-Maturity Framework for Further
Education project that ran for 18 months, trying to define the e-mature or "e-learning
ready" provider in post-compulsory education.
We have a blog to support the book called Learn Teach 21 as we see learning as a co-
creation process between learner and teacher. When Fred taught in a London FE college
he developed a technique he called "brokering" as he believed everyone in FE wants to
learn, but perhaps not in the structured and exam-oriented way it is presented to them in
formal education. Brokering means identifying a pathway between students’ interests and
motivations and the formal assessment requirements of a course. He "front-loaded" the
delivery of any course to help develop learning skills which enabled students to produce
individually designed work to meet the course requirements.
Nigel has a background in counselling, student services, teaching, inspection and teacher
education, dating from 1985 in Cambridge, London, Liverpool and Devon and through his
experiences in staff development and inspection, sees FE as the adaptive layer in
education, taking up Government policies to deal with issues arising in both the
compulsory sector and higher education and in these processes, potentially becoming
responsive to and leading Government policy, changing learner needs/interests and
employer needs.
What we discovered in the revelatory Digital Practitioner Research was that FE lecturers
were using personal technologies such as smart phones and apps and were
collaboratively developing fresh learning paths. The curiosity of the individual Digital
Practitioner was producing new modes of learning using everyday technology devices.
Geoff Rebbeck produced a 7-level framing of these new skills that could be used to re-
invent the staff development of FE staff, moving away from computer skills training to
developing the craft professionalism of teachers.
In developing these ideas into a book, we looked at the work of others and a wide range of
issues concerning learning in all sectors and contexts. One key idea particularly stood out
for us, Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow identifies that we have two
modes of thinking. Fast thinking is immediately responsive and gives answers quickly
almost without thinking. Slow thinking considers questions more reflectively and is
concerned with both framing the answer and providing an answer. Fred's front-loaded
"brokering" technique is concerned with first taking his learners through a slow-thinking
reflective phase before enabling them to get productive and complete their courses using
fast thinking
If we want to develop a Future FE Pedagogy perhaps it could be built around combining
these elements, with Digital Practitioners who are creating "artfully-crafted, student-
centred, learning experiences" that are designed to stimulate both slow thinking "how do
we frame the problem?" and fast thinking "how do we solve the problem" so co-creating
learning with their students, helping to build provision that is more closely responsive to
context and helping to frame policy, when top-down policy over the last ten years such as
college mergers, have failed to make any impact on provision. In developing new
pedagogies. For example, Popov D and Cattoretti G (2019) “The impact of college
mergers in Further Education”, Department for Education, London, states,
“We find no strong statistical evidence of college mergers leading to an improvement or
deterioration of college performance on average. That is, we find that on average the
effect of merging is statistically indistinguishable from zero. This finding is robust to the
different model specifications we have explored and applies to all financial and
nonfinancial outcomes we have examined.” (p 42)
We need to be aware of the affordances of digital technologies and their potential
contribution to learning and teaching, especially in post-compulsory education. Our book
was written to set out our theoretical models e.g. “The Emergent Learning Model”,
developed from our research and experience (Part 1), while illustrating these ideas (Part 2)
through examples of projects and practice drawn from the UK and other parts of the world
and then by pointing to ideas and resources, which we will add to in the Learn Teach 21
and Architecture of Participation Blogs as a growing resource for the future.
In January the DfE produced a White Paper “Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for
Opportunity and Growth”, which sets out the Government’s direction for the further
education and skills sector, which intends, over the period between now and 2030 to
reinforce employer control and influence over sector providers and the post-compulsory
curriculum outside universities, while creating higher level vocational qualifications,
reforming teacher education and extending the reach of “online” and “remote” learning,
ostensibly drawing on the experience of colleges during the Covid pandemic.
We believe that the White Paper raises many questions we have already addressed in the
book and that the book is pertinent to the discussions initiated by the White Paper. To pick
up the debate we are producing a comprehensive review of the White Paper in our blog
Architecture of Participation and both engaging with and encouraging discussion on the
White Paper as the policy and its implementation are carried forward.

Moving a class online
Dave Cheseldine
davecheseldine@hotmail.com
When moving a course online, it may be

helpful to think look at the process from a
number of viewpoints; one of these is
channels of communication. As in the
classroom, the tutor needs to communicate
with students and vice-versa, and students
need to communicate with each other.
One approach to instructional design is
considering how each of these is managed.
Whichever is the Virtual Learning Environment, a tutor communicating organisation or

content, or adding input to ongoing activity, has similar options: announcements,
moderation of discussion, mini video progress reviews, basic text-based content. All have
cultural and efficiency tradeoffs that make them more or less appropriate to different
purposes. Providing formal feedback on student work is a part of any course, but could
that feedback take a different format to counter a communication imbalance elsewhere?
How will students communicate with each other? Options once again include discussion
forums, as well as problem-based learning or case study discussion in groups, or more
formally organised peer review. Maybe a student or students can lead or partner in
delivering live sessions or webinars. It may be important to compensate for students’
diminished ability to compare their progress with the rest of the class; we can set up
anonymous polling of questions in real-time sessions to allow them to compare their
understanding with peers. If self-marking Tests are set up in the VLE, post-deadline
feedback on the range of marks across the class as a whole might be beneficial.
Finally, how will students communicate or raise concerns with the tutor? Often the default
is email, but bear in mind that the culture of email is to invite and expect a response.

Where this is not appropriate or efficient, web-based feedback needs to be enabled and
encouraged from the outset; it is harder to change direction mid-course.
Another useful and easily understood frame of reference for the process of moving
materials online is the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework developed in the
1990s. The aim of UDL is to acknowledge diverse learning styles, and it often comes up in
discussion around accessibility and inclusivity. The principles of the UDL are broadly
threefold. Firstly, represent learning content in different ways: this might be as simple as
an illustrative image to support a block of text. Secondly, allow students to demonstrate
knowledge in different ways: a student with dyslexia might prefer to create a video rather
than write an essay for example. Thirdly, offer different options to engage with learning
content: apply it, test it more formally, explain it to others, and so on.
The top-level design of an online course will reflect its components, but organisation and
clear instructions are always paramount; a situation where a student cannot find a
resource or misunderstands an instruction is more perilous where informal face-to-face
discussion is not possible. To minimise that risk, being concise is crucial; less is often
more, and tutors need to review content actively looking for potential confusion or
ambiguity. A meaningful and consistent structure, and a logical breakdown of content into
a clearly labelled hierarchy of manageable and delineated resources, also ensures
students feel like they’re making progress, and are able to easily pick up where they left
off.

The Reality of FE TEL Post-Covid-19: Thoughts from the bike by an FE
Teacher Educator
Jamie Heywood
@jamiewheywood jamie.heywood@aru.ac.uk
What will Covid-19 mean for TEL in our beloved FE sector? Well the truth is, no one really
knows. This is a completely unprecedented, extraordinary, and unparalleled situation. As an
FE teacher educator, I am particularly curious on what digital pedagogy will look like when
our Colleges reopen, our staff rooms are full, and our students are back in the F2F classroom
(however long that may be). Digital pedagogy can be defined as the approach and method
of digital elements to change ways of delivering teaching and learning. It is more than just
the use of digital technologies and rather a more encompassing approach in how teaching
practice is shaped, influenced and approached using digital elements.
One personal benefit that has come from the lockdown is the chance to get out on my road
bike more and this is often the time I reflect and consider what TEL will look like. Strangely,
cycling and using TEL actually have some similarities: the inexperienced need some support
at first, the more you do it, the better (and faster) you get, and both help keep the world
green. Please forgive me for using a couple of cycling analogies here!
Personal Bests
Many educators have been thrust into an unknown reality, and after the initial
pandemonium, have become dependent on TEL. Like riding without stabilisers for the first
time, this can be daunting at first (and can result in a few falls) but as ever, the resilient FE
workforce, can adapt and thrive. The SAMR model provides a four stage TEL framework
from Substitution (TEL acting as a direct substitute, with no functional change) to
Redefinition (TEL allowing for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable) (Figure
1). Where many practitioners pre-Covid may have defaulted to the substitution stage, I like
to believe we have seen examples of redefining learning as a result from having to change
gear, trying something new and becoming more confident.

Figure 1: The SAMR Model
In cycling, riding with others is easier as you can share the workload, cover further
distance, and learn from others and it is no different when in education. Promoting group
cohesion and opportunities for collaboration is something we emphasise in our teacher
training courses but most teachers struggle to generate the same dynamic on their VLEs.
Moving from blended learning to interactive blended learning is a long-needed change,
where practitioners create a bustling VLE with opportunities for connectivity, not just a
content repository. I have experienced teachers harnessing this in innovative ways, for
example using discussion boards to enable reflection and creating online platforms for
group work and believe this pedagogical change has been accelerated.
Flat Tyres
Unfortunately, these are inevitable along the journey. Some teachers have seemed less
reluctant to embrace change and have regressed back to didactic teaching through tyring
(sorry) lecture-style remote delivery. It seems peculiar to me that some teachers would
never dream of delivering a full two-hour lecture in a F2F classroom, as it would not be
reasonable to expect a learner’s attention span to last that long, but in contrast, are
content with adopting this approach for online delivery.
Being in a sector which experiences change in policy perpetually, the FE workforce have
become accustomed to adapting. Another concern is that some teachers will regress
exactly to before and will not be willing to go through further change. They may not have
embraced TEL and will go back to riding with stabilisers.
There are also potential potholes relating to security and infrastructure which may struggle
to cope with the increased demand.

Finish Line
We will finish with a final important comparison. A saying in cycling is “no matter how slow
you go, you are still lapping everybody on the sofa”. We know that TEL is crucial for
preparing students for 21st century work and has a myriad of benefits. I applaud those
teachers, making positive change, trying new approaches, being innovative, and going out
of their comfort zone, however small it is at first. We will see whether the sector builds
upon these foundations or if College’s put the brakes on TEL. Ultimately, we hope that
post Covid-19 brings us more personal bests than flat tyres.
This piece was written in July 2020.

An open letter to the Secretary of State for Education: preparing FES
teachers and trainers to ‘teach well’ in a digital world
David Powell
@DavidPowellHud d.powell@hud.ac.uk
Abbreviations/explanation of key terms
CPD Continuous Professional Development
CTE Continuing teacher education, e.g. master’s and doctoral level study
FE Further education (similar to MBOs in the Netherlands)
FEITE Further education-based teacher education
FELTAG Further Education Learning and Technology Action Group. (This sector group was set up in
January 2013 by Matthew Hancock, who was then Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise in BIS, to make
practical recommendations aimed at ensuring the effective use of digital technology in learning, teaching and
assessment in Further Education and Skills).
FES Further Education and Skills sector. (This includes FE colleges, adult and community
learning; work-based learning; sixth-form colleges; public services training; and offender learning providers).
NC National Curriculum
TEL Technology Enabled / Enhanced Learning
TLA Teaching, Learning and Assessment
Trainees The English equivalent of student teachers
Trainers These are instructors and tutors, generally teaching vocational subjects, and they are
normally paid less than teachers/lecturers
YHAFE Yorkshire and Humberside Association for Further Education (an organisation that
supported subject specialism prior to Incorporation in 1993).
Dear Secretary of State,
The FES’s emergency stop and sharp turn into ‘online’ teaching, what a colleague calls the
‘online turn’, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, raises important questions about the
extent to which teacher education providers have adequately prepared previous and
current trainees for this significant change in pedagogy. I want to set out what constitutes
effective FEITE in a digital world, and how your government can realise and exceed
FELTAG’s ambitions for FEITE.
Three initial points:
1. How we educate trainees to teach both reflects social values and contains a
political message about FES teaching as a profession.
2. Research suggests school teachers take between 8-23 years to reach peak
effectiveness, though their trajectory depends on the quality of CPD and their
engagement with it after completing their ITE. FES’s teachers and trainers probably
take longer because of dual professionalism and insufficient subject specialist
pedagogy and inconsistent mentoring within FEITE. This is not FES’s fault. It’s a
result of the sector’s complexity and the in-built, structural inequality towards it
which means it is treated less favourably, in terms of funding, than the schools’ and
university sectors.
3. What we learn from living in COVID-19 time and how we respond to it will
determine the quality of education for FES’s future students and their teachers’ and
trainers’ ITE.
Teachers’ know-how for a digital world
Teachers and trainers need six types of knowledge to ‘teach well’ in a digital world. Here,
I’m using ‘teach well’ to denote a morally-informed teacher who sees teaching as a
virtuous profession that moves beyond the performative, technical and standardised model
favoured by some. As such, they need to know:
1. Their students (who they are, what motivates them and how they learn in a digital world).
2. Their subject (its curriculum, its ‘big ideas’ and threshold concepts).
3. How to teach their subject.
4. How technology works
5. How to ‘go on’. Bob Harrison observes that effective ‘online’ teaching requires teachers to
know-how to communicate, collaborate, create, co-construct, join and participate in
professional learning networks and contextualise this into their practice.
6. The virtues underpinning teaching ‘well’.

Learning to teach: an initiation into the practice of teaching: its ‘sayings, doings,
and relatings’.
Stephen Kemmis’ team of Australian researchers argue that teaching as a practice

consists of teachers’ ideas, audible in their ‘sayings’, their activities, visible in their ‘doings’,
and how they work with their students, visible and audible in their ‘relatings’. As a teacher
educator, I am interested in how we enable trainees to develop their personal pedagogies
of ‘sayings, doings, and relatings’ that enable them to ‘teach well’.
Unlike schools-based ITE, most of FEITE is not subject specific and so its mentors, all of
whom, unlike those in schools, are volunteers, have a crucial role in modelling to trainees
how to teach their subject whilst simultaneously demonstrating the professional behaviours
associated with that subject. It is the explicit modelling of practice by teacher educators
and by mentors that show trainees the ‘sayings, doings, and relatings’ of their subject,
enabling them to act as role models to their own students.
Three factors stifling FEITE
We are living in ‘impatient times’. This creates and stores up problems for governments,
FES’s leaders, its teacher educators and for their trainees. These include:
1. Excessive scrutiny of new teachers and trainers by managers and by Ofsted. This
creates a highly pressurised, toxic climate that contributes to teacher burnout.
2. Compared with other countries, England’s FEITE curriculum is overly prescribed,
congested, and slow to adapt. It tries to cover everything a teacher needs to know
for a career in teaching. For example, developing trainees’ capacity as researchers
within their FEITE is an idea too far, in my opinion. And it is unclear how many
trainees have demonstrated their ability to teach ‘online’ within their FEITE.
3. The CPD of teacher educators and mentors has been largely neglected since 2010
by government, FES’s professional associations and employers. It has been
estimated that there are over 200 ‘subjects’ taught in large, general FE colleges cf.
schools 14 NC subjects . FEITE can only be as good as the teacher educators
teaching it and the mentors supporting subject specialist pedagogy.
A vision for FEITE in COVID-19 time
Nine things I have learned from COVID-19 and what it means for FEITE:
 There must be real recognition of the value of FES’s teachers and trainers. This
requires well-resourced and appropriately paced ITE, CTE and CPD that sustains
their enthusiasm for their practice so they stay in the profession and reach peak
practice.
 The complexity of FE and its widening participation agenda means TLA is likely to
be a blend of face to face and online learning. FEITE’s teacher educators and
mentors need to effortlessly and confidently model this to trainees.
 Sustainability and digital pedagogy need to be woven into the FEITE curriculum.
 FES’s trainees, teacher educators and mentors need access to their own high
quality learning technologies, which are supported by reliable IT systems and
domestic broadband.
 Subject specialist pedagogy must be the beating heart of teacher development. We
need to re-establish subject-based associations like YHAFE.
 With appropriate resourcing, and collaboration with the gaming industry,
virtual/augmented reality could be used to teach trainees how to ‘teach well’. For
example, they could learn how to manage classroom behaviour through a series of
escalating and changing simulations.
 A research-rich FE would inform teacher educators’, mentors’ and their trainees’
TEL-based pedagogy.
 Trainees need to be research and digitally literate, i.e. they should be able to
critically evaluate the research on TLA and synthesise this with what they know
about the affordances of ‘online’ teaching, different platforms and software, and
privacy issues to inform their TEL pedagogy.
 We need to be patient, taking a long-term view of teacher and trainer development.
The challenge for FEITE’s stakeholders is to change it for the better. Systemic and cultural
change takes time and a measure of patience. Nonetheless, the time to start that process
is now.
Yours, David

Conclusion
Vikki Liogier
@vikkiliogier vikki.liogier@etfoundation.co.uk
I have very few photographs from my childhood. Although my parents owned a camera,
they only took photos to record special occasions and a roll of film could last a year before
being developed. Teaching was delivered in a very didactical manner to the class, with
little differentiation and interaction. Outside of the classroom, access to information was
limited to physical publications and media such as radio, television, and cinema.
Advances in technologies have transformed the world we live in; moments are constantly
being captured and instantly shared with anyone we choose, anywhere in the world.
We are connected.
We also have at our fingertips answers to questions no printed encyclopaedia would have
been able to respond to with such breadth and immediacy. Information is overwhelmingly
abundant and exponentially growing.
I recently played with “Reface”1, an app that allows the user to swap faces digitally to “be”
someone else, using photos or videos. Similar apps exist for voices so that false dialogue
can be created. Fake “news” is becoming easy to produce and accessible to everyone.
Recognising fake from true data is going to become increasingly challenging.
The recent Covid-19 crisis removed us from our comfortable learning context and forced
us to explore new teaching and learning approaches facilitated by digital. 2020, while
being challenging, was a learning and collaborative year. We all discovered new ways to
interact virtually, whether with people or content. We learned by doing, trying things out.
Some worked, some did not, but what mattered was that we kept an open mind, we tried
new things, we learned from our mistakes2 and shared what we did well. Our mindset
shifted to that of explorers and collaborators.
With it came the realisation that “technologies provide powerful ways of supporting
knowledge sequencing, layering and scaffolding including ‘spaced learning’” 3. We
discovered a new vocabulary for these new teaching approaches, such as “hybrid
teaching” and “synchronous/asynchronous learning”. The more asynchronous learning
can be “delivered with activities accompanied with clear instructions and structured in a
logical manner” 4, “the more time is freed up for synchronous interventions to focus on
developing higher level skills & mentoring individual understanding, performance and
1
App Store. 2021. Reface: face swap videos. [online] Available at: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/reface-face-swap-
videos/id1488782587 [Accessed 6 April 2021].
2
Compton, M., 2021. Free, easy and fit for purpose TEL; lessons learned the hard way by a non-IT whizz.
3
Liogier, V., 2021. Does EdTech have a role in Ofsted's new framework?. [online] TES. Available at:
https://www.tes.com/news/does-edtech-have-role-ofsteds-new-framework [Accessed 6 April 2021].
4
Cheseldine, 2021. Moving a Course Online.
progress”.5 Flipped learning makes the best of the digital world for knowledge
acquisition and tutor-based classes for adding experience and application. 6 The
approach gives learners the chance to choose the time, pace and place to interact with the
activity content and collaborate with peers, while the wide range of digital accessible
functionalities, such as close captions, immersive text, translator, etc., support their
individual just in time needs.
There is no doubt that the Internet facilitates a “shift from thinking about teaching as
providing information to thinking of learning and creating learning environments. This in
turn creates a relationship shift between teachers and learners as the teacher, while
remaining the subject expert, is no longer the sole information holder and promotes an
evolution toward inquiry-based learning and toward the development of a learner-centred
environment.”7 “We see learning as a co-creation process between learner and teacher.”8
However, “the cultivation of learning is not only ‘a cognitive activity’” explains Illeris (2010)
it is also “an emotional and social activity”9 and while communication, collaboration and
teamwork can be enhanced online; effective learning engagement requires teachers and
their learners to build a sense of community. To be fair this is far more difficult to achieve
remotely. MOOCs fail to retain 94% of the registered (non-paying) learners for this very
reason10. The physical classroom and education provider settings remain critical in
fostering the learners’ sense of belonging. Aristotle (350 B.C.E) would agree: “Man is by
nature a social animal” and J. Dewey (1916) defines education as a “social process”11.
“Educators, pedagogues and practitioners need to be gardeners rather than carpenters.”
explains Alison Gopnik (2017)12, our role is not only to make knowledge and skills stick but
most importantly to nurture the development of independent thinkers and support them in
making sense of the world. “With digital devices now constantly in our hands, our
extended-self could become permanent”13
The 4th industrial revolution will displace skills. Machine learning or artificial intelligence
(AI) is already pervading our daily lives and soon activities in every walk of life will be
5
Enhance Digital Teaching Platform. 2021. Asynchronous teaching and learning. [online] Available at:
https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/modules/2151/asynchronous-teaching- and-learning [Accessed 6 April
2021].
6
Enhance Digital Teaching Platform. 2021. The Flipped Classroom. [online] Available at:
https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/modules/1003/the-flipped-classroom [Accessed 6 April 2021].
7
“I was thinking about the textbook – I guess in the beginning, I thought the textbook was all I needed to teach them.
But, I’ve come to find out or realize that it’s not all that I need. And, I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot, but if the
year was longer, I could do a lot more with them in terms of making them do research. Finding out information about
different things. As opposed to just trying to give them this surface things that you get out of the textbook.” [online]
Available at: Orrill, C., 2000. Building Learner-Centered Classrooms: A Professional Development Framework for
Supporting Critical Thinking. [online] Available at: https://goo.gl/5V12P5 [Accessed 6 April 2021].
8
Ecclesfield, N. and Garnett, F., 2021. Learn Teach 21. [online] Learn Teach 21. Available at:
https://learnteach21.wordpress.com [Accessed 6 April 2021].
9
Illeris, K., 2010. Contemporary theories of learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, pp.396-406.
10
Insidehighered.com. 2021. Study offers data to show MOOCs didn't achieve their goals | Inside Higher Ed. [online]
Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/01/16/study-offers-data-show-moocs-
didnt-achieve-their-goals [Accessed 6 April 2021].
11
Dewey, J., 1916. Democracy and Education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 edn.). New York:
Free Press.
12
Gopnik, A., 2017. The Gardener and the Carpenter. St Martins Pr.
13
Lawton, G., 2020. Your Extended Self. New Scientist, p.42.
replaced by AI or by robots created for specialised tasks. Balfour Beatty (2017) is
predicting human-free construction sites by 205014 while Daniel Susskind (2020) forecasts
our inexorable evolution, to “A World Without Work”15.
Change is our constant while upskilling and reskilling our journey ahead.16 “The object and
reward of learning is continued capacity for growth” J. Dewey (1916).
If this is the case, why would we return to redundant pedagogic approaches that are not
harnessing the powers of the tools that are now at our disposal? Habit, comfort, modelling
are our constant enemies. We tend to teach the way we were taught and the way we have
taught in the past, assuming learners will be engaged in the way we once were. The old
techniques may work for knowledge and skills to stick enough to pass an examination, but
does it prepare our learners to live, work and study in a digital world? 17 “If nothing else
technologies force us to re-evaluate the classroom as an environment and the
relationships within it.”18
In a recent session, D. Russell (2021) asked ETF colleagues where teachers and trainers
get their fundamental beliefs about education. While we discussed several sources, such
as the intrinsic (values, motivations, etc…) and extrinsic (social, beliefs, etc…), we agreed
that initial teacher training (ITE), CPD and peer support were the most valuable.
Are the systems in place to really support us in redefining our pedagogic approaches? D.
Powell (2021) claims the CPD of FE teacher educators and mentors has been largely
neglected because of lack of funding and adds that “FE ITE can only be as good as the
teacher educators teaching it and the mentors supporting subject specialist pedagogy”. It
is unclear whether most FE teachers’ core knowledge, understanding and skills in “digital”
are up to date, but all of us should be proactive with our personal development. M. O’Leary
(2020) proposes “a teacher-centred model of observation where the fundamental work
takes place in the pre and post-session conversations that form the foundation of the
‘unseen observation’ cycle”, an approach that is owned by practitioners through critical
reflection and peer support. After all, “the true roots of further education, lie with the
intrinsic human desire for community and self-improvement.” B. Harrison (2021) It is time
to build our professional learning networks (PLNs). I am looking forward to reading the
findings from M. Gordon’s and J. Calvert’s OTLA research project (2021) as well as the
reflections from fellow educators on EdTechSwap 19 and other FE communities.20
Teaching is becoming a process of learning. “Understanding the technology is important
but realising the full educational potential of virtual learning is primarily a question of
14
Balfour Beatty plc., 2021. Balfour Beatty predicts a human free construction site with the launch of its latest paper
“Innovation 2050: A Digital Future for the Infrastructure industry”. [online] Available at:
https://www.balfourbeatty.com/news/balfour-beatty-predicts-a-human-free-construction-site-with-the-launch-of-its-
latest-paper-innovation-2050-a-digital-future-for-the-infrastructure-industry/ [Accessed 6 April 2021]. (2017)
15
Susskind, D., 2021. A World Without Work. [online] Penguin.co.uk. Available at:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306/306864/a-world-without-work/9780141986807.html [Accessed 6 April 2021].
16
Duckett, I., 2021, Ways of Engaging: some approaches to developing learning skills.
17
Wheywood, J., 2021, The Reality of FE TEL Post-Covid-19: Thoughts from the bike by an FE Teacher Educator.
18
Scott, H., 2021, The Proverbs of TEL.
19
Enhance Digital Teaching Platform. 2021. Awarded Practice. [online] Available at:
https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/awardedpractice/ [Accessed 6 April 2021].
20
#joyFE #AmplifyFE #ukfechat #LoveFE
pedagogy. As we consider the future of learning, teaching needs to take centre stage.” E.
Fairplay (2021)
For the FE sector to make the most of the many teaching and learning opportunities
offered by the digital world, it is vital to put in place the investment and resources to
sustain blended learning pedagogic approaches, so that every learner, teacher, and
teacher trainer have the skills, tools, and connectivity they need to become 21st century
lifelong learning digital citizens.
So, let’s not go back to ‘normal’, let’s connect – the future of FE pedagogy is blended!

Future FE Pedagogies FINAL FOR PUBLICATION

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Future FE Pedagogies FINAL FOR PUBLICATION

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Future FE Pedagogies FINAL FOR PUBLICATION

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Acknowledgements

Joel Petrie, on behalf of the editors.

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 1

1. Preface David Hughes Page 3

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 2

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 3

Technology can be transformational in supporting learning for everyone post-16, allowing

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 4

“The absence of state intervention can be understood as a product of the

As a vice-principal of The People’s College in Nottingham I discovered the foundation

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 5

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 6

‘Unseen observation’ is an innovative method that is increasingly being embraced by a

What is unseen observation?

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 7

6. Teacher & 3. Teacher &

4. Teacher produces final

Figure 1 – An overview of the 7 stages of the virtual unseen observation cycle

How does unseen observation work in practice?

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 8

What are some of the benefits of virtual unseen observation?

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 10

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 11

3. Does it do the job I want it to do?

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 12

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 13

Matt Gordon & Jan Calvert

The overall objective was to produce collaborative, inter-college evidence-based research.

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 14

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 15

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 16

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 17

On-line pedagogy cannot simply be a screen-based form of classroom pedagogy.

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 18

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 19

The research drew on experience as a teacher and manager in FE and alternative

1. Introductory skills session – what will you need to succeed? Team-work;

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 20

5. Think about team-work and leadership skills and communicate to a group

6. On your own, or as a group, draw a mind map on the subject of respect,

Customised and flexible learning, including aspects of distance learning, is a means to

 length of time allowed;

Teachers can and should ask themselves:

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 22

This document is designed to stimulate a provocation around the subject of technologies in

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 23

Tune in, turn on and switch off is the

The ‘walled garden’ VLEs that FE

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 25

Autonomy, but governance

A window to a world of diversity, but reflexive impotence

Visibility, but surveillance

Empowerment, but subservience

Individualism, yet conformity.

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 26

Nigel Ecclesfield and Fred Garnett

Future FE Pedagogies Volume 1 (Autumn 2021) 29

When moving a course online, it may be

Whichever is the Virtual Learning Environment, a tutor communicating organisation or