Case Study on Leading Learning in Further Education: Keith Turner in conversation with Joanne Miles

Thanks to Keith Turner from North Hertfordshire College for sharing his thoughts around leading learning at a large FE college in England. We discuss the skills, activities and approaches that help managers to lead learning, the ways that senior leaders can support this focus and how training and development can be useful.

If you are interested in consultancy, training or development on leading learning for your organisation, I hope you’ll get in touch with me:

Joanne Miles jmilesconsulting@gmail.com

Related reading

The Learning Leader: walking the talk at management level

How can Heads of Faculty/Area in Further Education focus on teaching and learning?

The Learning Leader in FE: Have we defined this role yet?

Would you like to join the FE Sector Insights Group for Professional Development? Case studies, research, sharing practice and networking all available!

Would you like to join the FE Sector Insights Group for Professional Development? Next meeting May 9^th 2024 – Unseen Observations for Reflection and Development

I’m excited to be running the next meeting of this online group on May 9^th 2024 (2.00-3.15pm on Zoom) to support sharing of insight, research and practice among Advanced Practitioners, TLA Coaches, Teacher Educators and those who lead and manage Professional Development in the FE sector.

Here is a short clip to introduce you to the group, its purpose and way of working from our inception in June 2022:

At our May 2024 meeting, Sarah Cattell and David Turner from Walsall College will share learning points and lessons from their exciting pilot project on unseen observation for reflection and development. Then there will be time for breakout conversations to discuss our thoughts on the current and potential applications of this model for our professional development work, so plenty of opportunities for useful networking here.

If your organisation is new to this group, drop me a line at jmilesconsulting@gmail.com to arrange the one-off annual subscription of £350+20%VAT which entitles any two people from your organisation – they may be different people each time –  to attend each one of our three meetings over the academic year – May 2024, October 2024 and  February 2025.

Hope you will be joining us to collaborate and reflect on professional development soon!

Joanne Miles

Questions for Coaches: Reflecting on a Coaching Conversation

Questions for reflecting on a coaching conversation

1. How did you prepare for the coaching conversation and what impact did that preparation have?
2. Which assumptions might you have taken into that coaching session? How did/ could these have affected your approach in this conversation?
3. What effect do you think this had on the conversation?
4. How else could you have prepared for that conversation?
5. Which particular coaching skills did you harness in that session? How did the coachee respond?
6. What did you notice about the coachee’s reaction to any of the coaching approaches or models that you used?
7. How did you use different kinds of questions in the session?
8. If you planned questions beforehand, what can you say about the usefulness of that preparation? How did those questions land in the session?
9. If you didn’t plan questions in advance, what did you notice about your own skills and abilities in improvising questions on the spot?
10. How did you self-manage while listening to the coachee? What did you notice about the quality of your listening over the course of the session?
11. How did the coachee react to your style of listening?
12. What can you say about the motivation/energy/engagement curve of yourself and the coachee during the conversation?
13. How did your own levels of focus and energy change during the conversation?
14. Were there any sticky or challenging moments in the conversation for you  or the coachee and what made them so?
15. How did you respond to those tricky moments and was there anything else you could have done instead?
16. What suggested to you that the coachee was gaining something from the conversation?
17. What do you think the coachee took away from the conversation?
18. How clear and tangible was the action setting stage of the conversation?
19. Which approaches or tools did you use to capture actions or key points during the conversation? How did the coachee capture their points and actions?
20. How confident do you feel that the coachee is committed to taking those steps?
21. How can you best support this coachee as they work on their action steps? What would be a motivating way to follow up that conversation with them?
22. If you could have the conversation again right now, what would you do differently and why?
23. What are your own take away insights from that conversation, in terms of your coaching practice?

Reflecting on your culture of reflection: Some useful question prompts for schools and colleges

How valued and enabled is reflection in your organisation? When can you see that in action? What shows you that?

Where are the spaces and opportunities for reflective dialogue at work? Think physically about rooms and resources but also about roles and skills, agenda items, operational processes, events and digital tools

How could you engage others in a conversation about developing reflection skills and practices further? Who would you want to talk to?

Where is there expertise around reflective practice that you could tap into there?

How could you develop reflection opportunities in the timetable for staff?

How well embedded is reflection within TLA processes and programmes? Where are there gaps? Where are the strengths in practice to share?

What do learners need to work on in terms of their reflection skills?

How can you develop reflection skills and activities for learners?

What training or consultancy support might you need to develop capacity in your school or college around reflection?

What is a useful first step to start this work?

Developing a culture of reflection in a school or college

Recently, I have been having conversations and delivering training in schools and colleges around developing a more reflective culture and enhancing the skills and processes that make that possible. It has been interesting to hear how teachers and managers value reflective spaces and dialogues for standing back from their everyday practice, slowing things down, gaining fresh perspectives and noticing how they might do things differently. Many people have commented on the speed and pressures of a normal working week in a college or school and how challenging it can be to find/make time for such helpful conversations. So here are some thoughts about ways to foster and build a more sustainable approach to reflection so that staff and learners can all benefit.

Leaders valuing reflection

Reflective spaces and practices need embedding in the ways organisations work and talk, so the starting point is valuing and championing reflection as a part of the strategy for professional learning and organisational improvement. It is about discussing and articulating the importance of thinking reflectively together as professionals and as learners, to support development, and seeing where that fits into our processes and interactions. Leadership teams can play an important role on the strategic and resourcing front.

Scheduling opportunities for reflection

It really helps if leadership and management teams consider how reflection can be incorporated into strategies, operational plans, events, team and service meetings and action plans/minutes. Putting it onto agendas and into activities and templates/standard documents creates a space where these kinds of conversations can take place. Reflective dialogue evaluating progress, impact, strengths and actions for improvement can be part of curriculum team meetings, supervision 1:1s, leadership forums, appraisal and lesson observation conversations, whole class discussions,  tutorials with learners and the list goes on.

Building engagement with reflection

For reflective practice to take hold and take space, we need to get teachers and learners into conversations about its value, skills and approaches. You can harness TLA Coaches, Advanced Practitioners, the teacher education team, the staff development team, learner mentors, student coaches to facilitate conversations about the place of reflection in teaching and learning and to share approaches and tools for doing it. Online spaces and tools can be a part of this alongside stimulating live discussions.

Building capacity for reflection

Awareness training and reflective dialogue skills development can both support staff and learners to get a more varied toolkit of reflection approaches and to spot applications of this skill set in their routines at school or college. Running such training recently I have noticed how many teachers comment that they felt more active in and focused on reflection during their initial teacher training courses but that deep and insightful reflection has often been squeezed out of their busy working life.

Putting focus back on these skills and identifying the opportunities for conversations can make a real difference in how much thoughtful reflection happens in the working week.

If you want to discuss any needs around consultancy, training or coaching on reflective practice for your school or college, you can contact me via email for a no commitment conversation:

jmilesconsulting@gmail.com

Six Strategies To Build Learners’ Skills For Reflecting On Learning

1. Model reflection on learning during activities in sessions and explain its purpose and value
2. Share and unpick a few approaches for reflecting on learning so learners can find one that suits them well
3. Explore a few models, tools or prompts for reflection with learners in sessions, then set reflection tasks for homework afterwards
4. Embed a couple of reflection questions into tasks and resources so reflection becomes a regular occurrence
5. Provide sample language, templates or log sheets for semi-structured reflection to get learners started
6. Encourage learners to devise a few relevant reflection questions together and use them in a plenary slot for pair discussions about a recent task

At the moment I am delivering lots of CPD with teachers around developing students’ skills for reflecting on learning and so here I am sharing some of the strategies that they are using in practice. I am hearing that it is useful to embed short reflection tasks into sessions with students so that they gradually get used to thinking about and articulating their reflections on learning. Sentence starters, prompt sheets of questions and the chance to practise this in class can also be powerful aids in developing these skills.

Coaching questions for reflecting on a lesson/session with a teacher

Coaches: You might find it useful to review these questions and make any adjustments to the language to suit your context, coachee and the session they are teaching. They could be used as a list of optional prompts on a sheet to select from during a coaching conversation or as a set of question cards to encourage focus on different aspects of the session.

1. What were your intentions for learning when planning this session? How did reality reflect those?
2. What were you exploring or experimenting with in this session, as a practitioner?
3. How effectively do you think your planning process supported the learners during the session?
4. How did you feel at different stages of the session?
5. What did you notice about the flow of energy in the session?
6. Which moments in the session were highpoints for you and why?
7. How could you have enhanced the planning or preparation process for this session?
8. What surprised/pleased/challenged you about learners’ engagement during different activities?
9. How did different learners respond to particular tasks/activities?
10. Why did you group learners in certain ways and what was the effect?
11. How did the pacing of the lesson seem to affect the learners? What showed you that effect?
12. Which activities or tasks sparked a high level of thinking and discussion from learners?
13. Were there any activities that you felt left some learners a little muddled or confused? How did you respond?
14. If you could alter the plan/session delivery now, what would you change?
15. What will show you the impact of the session on the learners?
16. If the learners gave you feedback on the session, what would they say?
17. What needs to happen next to consolidate or extend the learning?
18. Which insights did you gather as a practitioner from planning and delivering that particular session for that group?

Questions for students to use when reflecting on their own learning

1. What three main points did we cover in this task/session/lesson?
2. What’s the one main thing I want to take away from this session/lesson/task?
3. What did I learn more about today/ in this unit?
4. What did I practise today/ this week?
5. What new ideas/words/concepts did I pick up in this session/lesson/task/module?
6. What do I need to review/recap/practise further and how can I do that?
7. What’s one question I have now? Who can I ask? How can I find the answer?
8. What do I feel foggy about? How can I get some clarity?
9. What seems a bit confusing? How can I find out what is correct/right?
10. What can I use from this unit/topic in future? And where/when might it be useful for me?

Questions for Reflection: Useful Prompts For Teachers

In my work as a trainer, coach and consultant in education, I have been having lots of conversations recently about the value of reflecting on planning and practice throughout our teaching careers. I have found that questions can be helpful to nudge the thinking into different areas that we might not have explored without that tool, so here are some prompts for thinking about a recent session with learners. I hope that Advanced Practitioners and TLA Coaches will feel free to adapt these for 1:1 or group coaching sessions that they might be running as well.

1. How did different learners react to the session? For example, think about stronger, quieter, more confident and less confident learners
2. What might specific learners say to me if I asked them about that session?
3. What surprised me about learners’ responses today?
4. What did I notice about the quality of learners’ attention and focus in that session?
5. What was I pleased with or encouraged by today?
6. What worked particularly well in that session? (group interaction, teacher presentation, activities, resources, pacing, sequencing etc) How do I know?
7. How did the space and room layout affect the learning experience in that session?
8. How did technology or other classroom aids support the learning process in that session? How could they have been even more useful?
9. Was there anything missing from that session that I could have included, to make it even more useful for learners?
10. What was the highlight of that session for learners and what showed me that? And for me?
11. How well did I engage learners and even inspire them in this session? What indicated that?
12. What were the most challenging parts of that session for different learners and what showed me that?
13. Where were the glitches or challenges for me in that session? What can I take away as next steps for my planning or practice?
14. If I had to give myself some constructive feedback on that session, what would I say?
15. Next time I cover that material, what tweaks will I make? And what could I do very differently?
16. What needs consolidating or recapping now and how can I encourage learners to do that?
17. How can I follow up that session to take the learning further?
18. How effectively did my planning and preparation support and stretch learners in that session?
19. How can I plan and prepare even more effectively for this group in future?
20. What are my two main take away points from that session?

Getting started back in the classroom? A few practical reads

Building reflection on writing – process and product – into your year with learners:

Using Learning Stories for Student Reflection

Engaging learners via routines at the start and end of lessons:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/14-effective-opening-and-closing-routines-for-teachers

Practical approaches for scaffolding learning:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-foundational-ways-to-scaffold-student-learning

Short posts and one-page summaries breaking down classroom practices:

Five Ways To.. the Booklet

On current uses of technology in education:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-ways-chatgpt-save-teachers-time

Resources for Teaching Students to Fact-Check

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2023