Pedagogical Research Initiatives at the University of Cambridge

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Pedagogical Research Initiatives at the
University of Cambridge

• Naomi Irvine
• Centre for Applied Research in Educational
  Technologies, University of Cambridge

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CARET

• Educational researchers and evaluators
• Software developers
• Content developers
• Faculty liaison
• Video unit
• Hosts University of Cambridge Virtual Learning
  Environment CamTools
• Partner site of CETL in Reusable Learning Objects
  

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The Teaching for Learning Network

• Network of educational researchers and university
  departments supporting evidence informed practice
  for enhancement of student teaching and learning
• Intensive collaboration between groups of
  academic staff, educational researchers and
  embedded researchers, marked by the evolution
  of research processes, educational practices, and
  roles and relationships

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Who is involved?

• Department of Plant Sciences is researching the
  provision of small group teaching
• Department of Engineering is carrying out
  research to supporting staff and students in
  improving practical experiences
• The Faculty of Classics is investigating the
  concept of confident readership in the ancient
  languages

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A Community of Practice
Staff and students
Embedded domain specialists
Educational experts
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Conceptual Frameworks

• Initially project drew on the conceptual
• frameworks of
• ETL Project (Enhancing Teaching and Learning
  Environments in Undergraduate Education)
  (Entwistle, McCune, Hounsell)
• Oxford Learning Context Study (Trigwell and
  Ashwin)
• TLRP Learning how to Learn (James et al)

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Gathering the Evidence Base

• Expansive research process and integrated design
  involving staff and students
• Range of techniques and approaches
• Documentary analysis
• Practice value questionnaire
• Self-efficacy questionnaire
• Student focus groups
• Interviews with staff
• Videos of small group teaching activities

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Emerging Analytical Framework

• Teaching and Learning Practices
• Making learning explicit
• Motivation, engagement and contingency
• Authentic learning
• Student self-regulation and independence
• Course, departmental and institutional activities
• Constructive alignment, synthesis and
  throughlines
• Transparency and accountability

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Supporting Research Processes
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Supporting the Research Community

• Many of the features of a strongly tied
  community
• Regular meetings, multiple forms of
  communication, context-specific activity
• Collaborative design of research instruments,
  data analysis and writing
• Flexibility of roles, relationships and
  responsibilities
• The weak ties and wider community

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What has the TfLN achieved?

• Efficient process for translating research into
  practice
• Applicability to a wide range of disciplines
• Participatory approaches which engage
  practitioners
• Development of a community of practice
• Capacity building for educational research

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Transforming Perspectives

• A 7 month development project funded by the
  ESRC/EPSRC Technology-Enhanced Learning
  Programme (Oct 2006 Apr 2007)
• Main Project aims
• the establishment of an interdisciplinary network
  to explore perspectives on the teaching and
  learning of threshold concepts across a number of
  disciplines
• the exploration of opportunities offered by a
  range of technologies to support the teaching and
  learning of threshold concepts

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What are Threshold Concepts?

• transformative occasioning a significant shift
  in the perception of a subject
• probably irreversible the change in
  perspective occasioned by acquisition of a
  threshold concept is unlikely to be forgotten
• integrative exposing the previously hidden
  interrelatedness of something
• possibly often bounded any conceptual space
  will have terminal frontiers, bordering with
  thresholds into new conceptual areas
• potentially troublesome that which appears
  counter-intuitive, alien (emanating from another
  culture or discourse), or incoherent (discrete
  aspects are unproblematic but there is no
  organising principle)

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Seminar Activities

• Seminar Series A practitioner seminars to
  define the nature and role of threshold concepts
  in a range of disciplines
• Participants given
• summaries of other research
• models of previous enquiry
• Advice on pedagogical approaches
• Representatives from eight disciplines and areas
  carried out case studies of potential threshold
  concepts

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Participant Activities

• Participants identified candidate threshold
  concepts, carried out small-scale research
  activities and produced posters

• They reported back to the group a month after the
  first seminar
• Expressed different and emergent
  conceptualisations of threshold concepts in the
  disciplines
• Methods and patterns of engagement selected and
  developed were also emergent and aligned with
  these

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Case Study Toolkit
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Case Study Posters

• Candidate Threshold Concept described
• Why troublesome?
• Teacher perspectives
• Learner perspectives
• Implications
• For T and L
• For Assessment
• For Technology

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Vignette 1 Sports Science

• Identified the static paddle as a threshold
  concept
• Carried out interview with teachers and learners
  of paddle sport activities
• Issues raised
• Performative, experiential nature of sports
• Cross-disciplinary exchange helped locate own
  viewpoint, but highlighted alien nature of
  theorisation of practice to other paddlers
• This is the case study that everyone seems to
  remember, and which seems to have had the
  greatest transformative impact on seminar
  participants

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Vignette 2 English Literature

• Identified Ethical reading in the teaching of
  tragedy
• Questionnaire and extended supervision with
  students
• Issues raised
• Emotional difficulties with concept and apparent
  absence of conceptual vocabulary to define it
• Cross disciplinary parallel Optimal distance
  determined by issues raised rather than the
  disciplinary context possibly a challenge to
  boundedness

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Vignette 3 Engineering

• Identified Spin name given to rotation of a
  body
• Documentary analysis, interviews with staff and
  students
• Raised issues
• Interdisciplinary experience was novel
• Appreciation of other disciplines perceptions of
  what it is to be complex or troublesome. (So
  thats what they get up to!)
• Are there threshold concepts for internal and
  external audiences?
• What role do threshold concepts perform?

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Methodological Issues

• As well as a being case studies of the nature and
  role of threshold concepts, the vignettes can be
  seen as narratives of personal experience
• Focus of expert-novice discourse within
  disciplinary communities, but way of representing
  the individual and collective identities of the
  participants within the temporary
  interdisciplinary community
• Legitimation of professional and disciplinary
  concerns in mixed environment

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Conference Presentations
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Acknowledgements
Patrick Carmichael Helen Burchmore Naomi Irvine
Classics Timothy Hill Paul Millett
Keith Johnstone Katy Jordan Frances Tracy
Engineering Aidan Reilly Hugh Hunt Hugh
Shercliff
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Contact Details and Further Information

• naomi_at_caret.cam.ac.uk
• tfln_at_caret.cam.ac.uk
• www.tfln.org/downloads
• www.caret.cam.ac.uk/tel