Learning Without Limits
The Teacher's Task
A challenging new research
Project initiators:
Susan Hart
Mary Jane Drummond
Annabelle Dixon (Research Associate)
Professor Donald McIntyre
Phase 1 (Autumn Term)
THE LAST TEN YEARS of educational reform have left unchallenged the widespread belief that individual children are endowed with the fixed differential ability which determines the upper limits of their learning in school.
This research project, which will span one full academic year is based on the conviction that the concept of 'ability' is urgently in need of reform.
The projects aims to:
- Change the use of ideas of fixed ability in education
- Develop explicit models of teaching that do not depend upon the categorisation of pupils by ability
- Explore the conditions that support teachers in using teaching approaches that are free from beliefs about fixed ability.
Project outcomes...
Through the project we hope to:
- gain insight into successful classroom practice that does not rely on classification by ability.
- explore the impact of these practices on learning;
- develop models of teaching that are directly usable by other practitioners to stimulate reflection and development;
- understand the conditions needed to support and sustain these approaches to teaching and to develop them more widely.
Phase 2 (Spring Term)
This is concerned with the elaboration and refinement of these preliminary descriptive accounts through the sharing of ideas across the group of participating teachers, plus three further visits for observation and interview with teacher and pupils by a university researcher. Five target pupils in each classroom has been selected for in-depth study. Teachers are keeping a journal in which they keep a record of significant observations relating to individuals and other evidence of individual's development. Consideration is being given to the particular circumstances that sustain teachers' approaches in particular contexts.
Phase 3 (Summer Term)
In the third phase of the research, the initial task will be to produce a theorised account of each teacher's distinctive approach to teaching and of its impact on students' learning, through negotiation between participating teachers and the uneversity team. A university researcher will also meet with each class in order to provide feedback in the findings and invite comments from the students' group.
The whole team will then meet to discuss the accounts and to examine similarities and differences arising amongst them. Reference will be made to the literature in order to assist in the further refinement and development of emerging frameworks of teaching. Patterns, commonalities and differences will be sought within the evidence regarding conditions and circumstances that appear to have supported the development of anti-determinist approaches to teaching in individual cases. The views of key personnel in each participating school will also be sought at this stage.
The outcome will take form of at least one, and probably several approaches to teaching that have been shown to be viable in working with a whole-class group, set alongside an understanding of the conditions that support their use and development in practice.
The research seeks to create the means to challenge and displace approaches to teaching based on categorisations by notions of fixed ability through making available clearly articulated alternative approaches to teaching that not only do not rely on determinist assumptions but are grounded in practices that have shown themselves to be workable and effective. The teaching frameworks generated as a result of this study will be directly useable by practitioners: as reflective tools to assist in the re-examination and development of existing practice. Our belief is that they will be welcomed particularly by practitioners who currently use - but are ideologically uncomfortable with - categorisations by notions of fixed ability.
Potential Impacts of the Research
The research seeks to create the means to challenge and displace approaches to teaching based on categorisations by notions of fixed ability through making available clearly articulated alternative approaches to teaching that not only do not rely on determinist assumptions but are grounded in practices that have shown themselves to be workable and effective.
The teaching frameworks generated as a result of this study will be directly useable by practitioners: as reflective tools to assist in the re-examination and development of existing practice. Our belief is that they will be welcomed particularly by practitioners who currently use - but are ideologically uncomfortable with - categorisations by notions of fixed ability.