Placements and Work-based Learning in Education Studies

An introduction for students

Jim Hordern, Catherine Simon, Jim Hordern, Catherine Simon, Jim Hordern, Catherine A. Simon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138839076
• eBook ISBN: 9781317558583
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written specifically for education studies students, this accessible text offers a clear introduction to placements and work-based learning, providing an insight into work in schools and education settings.

Including case studies to illustrate the diversity of placements and workplace opportunities, it explores the theory and practice of working in educational contexts and supports students as they develop the skills and aptitudes that enhance their employability. With the aim of helping students to prepare for and get the most out of their work placements, chapters include:

• the nature of work-based learning on placement;
• preparing for your placement;
• placements in schools and other educational settings;
• learning on field trips and study visits;
• working with students with specific learning difficulties/dyslexia on placement;
• international placements.

Part of the Foundations of Education Studies series, this textbook is essential reading for students undertaking courses in Childhood Studies, Child and Youth Studies and Education Studies.

Section
B
Issues and case studies of placement and work-based learning

Introduction

Section B

Catherine A. Simon

So far we have outlined the theoretical and practical aspects of work-based learning in the context of education studies. This next section of the book explores in more depth the lived experiences of students engaged in work-based learning in a broad range of educational settings. Through a series of case studies we consider the nature and purpose of placements in different contexts and the issues these raise for undergraduates and their tutors. Examples are drawn from both local and international placement experiences, and extend across a broad range of educational settings. Central to the case studies which follow is the student and their experiences of negotiating the various roles of academic learner, pre-professional and active practitioner in the workplace. These experiences can be summarised in terms of challenge, change and collegiality.

Challenge

A core theme to emerge from the case study examples is that of challenge. We see students challenged in a variety of ways: in terms of their understanding and beliefs about theory and practice; their preconceived ideas and stereotypical views of professionals and learners in a variety of contexts; and finally about their own professional aspirations and future career identity. Empowerment is seen as part of challenge. June Bianchi’s examples of cultural placements (Chapter 7) demonstrate the potential for ‘cultural institutions [to] … contribute towards personal empowerment, challenging socio-economic exclusion’. Student engagement with such institutions leads to personal empowerment, as Bianchi’s example of Rondene Vassal powerfully illustrates. The theme of challenge and empowerment is also evident in Laura Green’s case studies (Chapter 11). Empowerment underpins much of youth and community work, and whilst students are exposed to youth and community projects they not only see how such work challenges oppression and inequality in the lived experiences of others, but they also have the opportunity to consider the impact of their own life choices on those of the more disadvantaged. Students are thus able to consider how this might frame the values and interventions considered best for young people and their communities.

Challenging stereotypical views and normative perceptions can also be seen through the school based examples provided by Richard Riddell (Chapter 6), where complexity in terms of classroom context, theory and practice presents a particular level of challenge. Not only do unqualified, emergent academic undergraduates have to make sense of government policy, expectations for schools and schooling and particular notions of professionalism held by a range of stakeholders, they also have to navigate the complexities of schools as institutions, and the individual histories that brought them to a decision to pursue teaching as a career. The potential disconnect between students’ life experiences, university study and the requirement to critique, using theory and research, the strong norms presented by classroom practice, is also pertinent here. As tutors and student observers it may well be possible to conclude that a child’s reticence to perform certain tasks was because they possibly were too challenging or the child did not want to be seen as failing, but in no way can we be sure this is a reasonable explanation nor should we be too quick to make such assumptions.

Students can also find their stereotypical views and preconceived ideas questioned when they engage with different cultures and unfamiliar contexts. This is particularly true of overseas placements. Lone Hattingh (Chapter 8) and Dan Davies (Chapter 10) present clear accounts of student responses to the unfamiliar. For students on a field trip in Denmark, a culture of outdoor learning confronted our English students’ preconditioning about risk and health and safety. Similarly ‘Simon’s’ experience of Zambia uncovered some stereotypical beliefs around poverty and culture, which led to mature reflection on what he encountered in reality. Indeed as Davis observed, these opportunities can lead to ‘different kinds of learning from those associated with the university-based module’ to which the international placement was linked.

Change

Challenge, therefore, in many instances, can lead to opportunities for change in terms of thinking, assumptions, expectations and practice. Mary Dooley’s chapter on working with students with specific learning difficulties (Chapter 9) demonstrates how students can be opened to viewing issues of dyslexia through ‘an affirmative’ lens, which can expose learners’ strengths rather than focusing on perceived weaknesses. Indeed, reflection is often the key to unlocking and understanding new perspectives and the notion of reflection either on, in or for practice, runs through all of the case study chapters. Martine Duggan (Chapter 12) explores how reflection on everyday experiences during work-based learning in early years settings can underpin academic study. The intersections between critically reflective and analytical practices of early years professionals and the academic nature of critical thinking and criticality make the barriers between the academic and practical more permeable. This demands a degree of support and collaboration between the student, the practitioner and the academic tutor.

Collaboration

Indeed collaboration – with peers, with learners, with professionals and with university staff – underpins our values about learning and knowledge production. Hordern (Chapter 2) refers to the work of Billett (2004) and the concept of participation in the social world. Such participation involves interaction with professionals such that students can make sense of the workplace and workplace practices. Students therefore may be joining a ‘community of practice’ such that they become participants in, as well as observers of, the social world of the setting or educational institution. As indicated earlier, we have to be mindful of the judgements that students (as novice pre-professionals) and tutors may make, and be careful to link these to academic study. In this way collaboration with professionals should be seen as providing opportunities for the co-construction of knowledge rather than viewing the professional and the workplace as ‘subjects’ or ‘objects’ in a knowledge production enterprise. Collaboration with practitioners guards against this.

Peer to peer collaboration is also important for work-based learning programmes and placement opportunities. Students may be encouraged to share their experiences during seminars or via online blogs or discussion boards. It may be possible for students in school-based settings to engage in paired placements, where they can work together in a classroom setting, sharing notes, activities, discussions with staff and personal reflections. This adds richness and depth to the experience and allows students to view the same situation through another person’s eyes.

It is here that the role of the academic tutor or seminar leader can be particularly useful in guiding students towards appropriate reading, theory or research. Indeed it is through reflection and collaborative learning and practice that students are able to develop as learners and adults in the real world. The whole points to work-based learning as an instantiation of transformational learning (Mezirow 1997). In essence the following chapters offer good examples of this process, one which:

involves transforming frames of reference through critical reflection of assumptions, validating contested beliefs through discourse, taking action on one’s reflective insight, and critically assessing it.

(Ibid.: 11)

One final point to note through the case studies which follow is the celebration of good practice, hard work and professionalism not only displayed by undergraduates but also on the part of all those who have welcomed students into their everyday world of work. We are unable to capture in the pages of this book the full extent of these student encounters nor the richness of their stories and the insights they bring back to the seminar room. Educationalists’ professional practice is often open to scrutiny, either by peers as part of routine staff development, through Ofsted or other formal inspection processes, evaluation, parent partnership and engagement with the very children and young people they encounter daily. To be willing to invite students into this mix adds another dimension of responsibility and expectation to a workload which we do not take for granted nor undervalue.

References

Billett, S. (2004) ‘Learning Through Work: Workplace Participatory Practices’. In Rainbird, H., Munro, A. and Fuller, A. eds Workplace Learning in Context. London: Routledge: 109–125.

Mezirow, J. (1997) ‘Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice’. New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education 74 (1): 5–12.

Chapter
6
Placements in schools and other educational settings on a core undergraduate module

Richard Riddell

Purpose of the chapter

After reading this chapter, you will:

• understand better the differing roles of placements in undergraduate degree courses in education;
• be acquainted with the placement provision as part of the degree programme run at a case study institution (Bath Spa University);
• have begun to think about what you can yourself get out of a placement in an education setting.

Background to placement: undergraduate study programmes in education

Bath Spa University’s BA and BSc programmes in Education Studies are examples of what Furlong (2013: 75) describes as ‘mainly academic’ degree courses ‘that have flourished in recent years’. They have evolved from earlier, often BEd degrees, which were sometimes seen by their host universities as ‘tips for teachers’ (Ward 2012), but combined a degree with qualified teacher status (QTS). Universities began to consider a deeper theoretical element was necessary in return for continuing accreditation at degree level, and hence the evolution of these newer recent degrees.

An advantage of such courses to the staff teaching them is that they are able to sidestep the ‘intensive government prescription and scrutiny’ that courses preparing teachers are subject to (ibid.: 75). Numbers have proved buoyant, as Furlong also says, and Bath Spa has been able to recruit strongly in recent years, including by surpassing the previous cap for 2016/17.

Many students undertaking such a degree, albeit still a minority, no longer see teaching as their career goal. As the Bath Spa handbook says, the degree will:

provide an excellent preparation for you to work with learners of all ages within the education sector. The commercial and industrial worlds are also very interested in people with knowledge about education and training. You will have the knowledge and skills to work in educational and training advisory roles in a range of organisations including businesses, local authorities, non-government organisations, charities, museums, art galleries and libraries.

The course handbook also explains that the degree can be the basis for applying for PGCE or other courses leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Education studies has thus become a degree ‘subject’, no longer tied to a particular destination, even within the various professions involved with schools and the wider education service.

Parallel to this, initial teacher professional preparation for teaching has taken more of a ‘practical turn’ since the 1980s, as Furlong says, and according to most recent government policy needs to be rooted in classroom experience (Carter 2015). It is now once again termed initial teacher training as opposed to education.

The clear bifurcation of academic study and training in education hence entail the multivalence of placements taken as part of undergraduate study. For students considering teaching as a career, this is an additional placement experience to observe and prepare themselves for teaching and the additional academic qualification, as Carter calls it – the PGCE – that is one route to QTS. For this course, students are generally expected to have had at least two weeks placement in a school before applying for it. The current alternative employment and schoolled routes to QTS are set out at www.getintoteaching.education.gov.uk.

At the same time, by the time students approach the placement they are half way through the academic studies for their degree. They have studied modules both intended to introduce them to the major disciplines involved in studying education – for example philosophy, history, psychology, sociology – and modules concerned with specific aspects of educational provision, such as early years, the primary classroom, literacy, numeracy, children with additional support needs, adolescence, assessment, globalisation and how these are all shaped by policy. Irrespective of intended career destination, the placement provides an opportunity to observe and interpret educational or other practice on the basis of what they have learned to date without the complication of being responsible for children.

Further, as schools and other settings in England represent an instantiation of long-standing detailed national policy direction – heads and teachers are ‘enactors’ of policy (Ball et al. 2012) and are positioned by it (Gunter 2012) – students can begin to understand how provision shapes the early lives of children and young people, with long-term consequences for the shape of our society and the inequities of English social reproduction. For this particular phenomenon they are not just being made aware, depending on the tutoring, of an aspect of professional practice in isolation from every other social process that may be occurring or being formed in the room or school more widely.

The shape and place of the placement

The Education Studies core year 2 module in its current manifestation – at the time of writing it was being prepared for the internal periodic review by the university – is in three distinct phases. The first term of 10 or 11 weeks is taught through a combination of a weekly one-hour lecture and a two-hour seminar to follow up and discuss the issues it raises. The lectures cover some general topics such as the nature of policy, the shape of schooling in England, progression to and participation in education and training post-16, marketisation and its effects, inclusion – with particular reference to the recent SEND (special educational needs and disability) reforms – and inequality, including the particular inequities by gender, race and class. The lecturer leading each week provides materials for tutors to use in the seminars. The emphasis in these lectures differs from year to year depending on current developments, but they are intended to provide students with the backgroun...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• List of abbreviations
• SECTION A Placement and work-based learning in education studies
• SECTION B Issues and case studies of placement and Work-based learning
• Index