Personalisation, ICT and radical educational change: Implications for teachers and staff development

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• Dr Cathy Lewin, Senior Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Monday 11 October 2010, 17:00-18:30
• GS4, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Ann Waterman.

Refreshments available on arrival from 16.30

Personalisation of learning has become prominent within many European educational policies (OECD, 2006) with potential impacts such as increasing student engagement and maximising opportunities for learning (Jarvela, 2006). ICT can enable teachers to facilitate personalisation of learning and students to have greater choices and flexibility (Underwood et al, 2007; Robinson et al, 2008). This exploratory case study focuses on radical curriculum changes introduced for a cohort of 11-12 year olds in a UK secondary school. The intention was to provide students with personalised learning enhanced through the development of self-management skills, within a technology-rich environment. The cohort were based in a large open plan space with 5 break-out rooms, designed to hold no more than 15 students to entail a seminar/small group approach. All students had a school-owned laptop which enabled an ICT -led presentation of the curriculum to be followed. The students needed to meet the weekly time requirements for each subject (for example, 3 hours for mathematics) and plan their ‘learning journey’ accordingly. The aims of this research were to: illustrate the achievements of the project; identify the processes which brought about success; and identify issues for the future. Data on the development of the project were collected from September 2008 to July 2009, and included interviews with teaching staff and school managers, online surveys of staff and students, focus groups with students, and observation. The findings are informed by activity theory, highlighting the extent to which traditional definitions of rules, community and divisions of labour in a classroom setting were disrupted and transformed. The processes adopted to achieve this included adapting staffing structures, the integration of ICT , the development of new assessment practices, and pedagogical shifts. The achievements include greater flexibility in terms of staffing, students developing self-management skills, enhancing personalisation through choice and flexibility (what, when and where), and a perceived impact on attainment. The paper concludes with a discussion of the changing role of the teacher in this context and the implications for staff development.

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