so you may be a bit confused about what teachers in the post compulsory sector will require from september, and people thinking of going into teaching in the sector may not know how to go ahead - here's a short quiz to help

http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/quizview.php?id=633

Not speaking English is the single biggest barrier to successful integration - Darra Singh

http://www.integrationandcohesion.org.uk/news/Not_speaking_english_is_the__single_biggest_barrier_to_successful_Integration.aspx

Migrants - the English challenge

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6383221.stm

So does this mean we need a much greater emphasis on the support and training of Esol teach

good practice in the teaching and learning of adult literacy, numeracy, and ESOL

http://www.nrdc.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=1101

Not speaking English is the single biggest barrier to successful integration - Darra Singh

http://www.integrationandcohesion.org.uk/news/Not_speaking_english_is_the__single_biggest_barrier_to_successful_Integration.aspx

Migrants - the English challenge

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6383221.stm

So does this mean we need a much greater emphasis on the support and training of Esol teach

good practice in the teaching and learning of adult literacy, numeracy, and ESOL

http://www.nrdc.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=1101

Im going to describe how we are introducing the use of electronic facilities to support research, critical thinking, refelctive practice, and collaborative research and presentation amongst a group of adult educators  who would not generally describe themselves as particularly "digitally literate".

the group are all working, and predominantly working in further and alt education across the West Midlands.  They are all enrolled on a Level 4 specialist course for teachers of adult literacy, numeracy or ESOL, and have all got or in the process of gettingt a generic teaching qualification for adults such as the Certificate in Education for Adult and Further Education.   This is the third year of provision and the use of online technologies is a response to some of the regular issues facing part time working students. 

Our initial starting point is familiarity and basic competence with e-mail,   a regular face to face training day,  difficulties in accessing appropriate research by traditional paper routes, limited time and access space, limited reseach skills. some limited knowledge of application of practical reflection, limited ability for research, discussion, and presentation groups to meet.

process

pre sessions - e-mail group set up

session 1 - introduce scribing  (see http://thescribepost.pbwiki.com/HallOfFame for background.    see http://newman.elggspaces.com/sflcommunity/weblog/5.html for example.) This was done via e-mail.

post session - set up elgspaces facility, register all stufudents on, and post relevant information into the community blog.

session 2 - responses to scribe,  and running a short workshop on how to access the elggspaces community. This included posting a response to the day's session.

post session - 2nd scribe, some small individual usage of community space. This included posting of some individual thoughts and links, and requests for help that were replied to.

session 3 a half day on using the community space. this was done as a group session, with technical support to ensure people could use appropriate passwords and be helped to use the process simply and easily. The activity was then built around a joint research activity  for special interest groups within the programme.   Groups discussed key issues, researched online, used search facilities and followed links, copied extrac6ts of texts, posted interesting links, talked about issues of analysis as opposed to copying, discussed critical thinking and plagiarism, began to make assertions questioning some of the lectures they'd had, began academic writing  (see http://newman.elggspaces.com/sflcommunity/weblog/103.html ), uploaded files and started to discuss about personal learning environments(PLEs) as opposed to Managed or Virtual  Learning Environments( MLEs, VLEs), looked at personal learning plans (PLPs)as opposed to Institutional Learning Plans (ILPs).   We also discussed issues relating to teaching and learning using collaborative tools, in particular how that related to adult literacy and numeracy and students' relationship to words.

At present we are using this small managed space. Future weeks will look at how we can use the technology to foster collaboration for the duration of the course, for the development and presentation of some of the required assessments, and for the longer term personal and professional community development of participants. 

We'll also be looking at wider technical possibilites such as self obeservations and video, use of video, audio in teaching and learning.

so lets have an update think (upthink ?) on activities for the proposed centres for excellence in teacher training  (CETT) for the Learning and Skills Sector ( e.g. AE, FE, workbased, voluntary sector, prisons, lifelong learning, post compulsory education.  H.E ? hmm.)

so organisations and partners are beavering away putting together round 1 bids.  There seem to be 2 kinds of bids,  firstly bids driven by a large institution which can take a lead and already has control of formal partnerships with other bodies, such as a University which services a range of FE colleges.  So the writing process is probably faily straightforward.    Second, a looser and more equal coming together of organisations who share a common concern but as yet unidentified vision or core set of values, and the writing process is in a way an attempt to get to that.  I find this rather interesting as in a way this is how a lot of the wider national developments in the sector are developing; for rxample it explains the length of time needed to produce the new teacher training standards.   So in the process of 6 months my institution has gone from taking a lead in developing one kind of CETT  with 5 or 6 other institutions to being involved with an almost completely different group of 6 institutions in the same geographical area with a different focus.  We originally concentrated around the Adult Literacy, language, and numeracy (skills for life) agenda, now the latest a ctivity is a Birmingham wideapproach to generic teacher training in the sector. So we are faced with a write up. first we produced a first draft, thanks Karen, then discussions with the head of school here at Newman.  This was an interesting activity; its clear there are a number of points, and while I wait for further internal college responses prior to commenting on the first draft of our bid,   here are a few thoughts.

1. we must be clear right at the beginning.  In Birmingham there is a long and successful history of institutional peer collaboration and development, We need to build on that

2. we already are meeting, we already talk and share information, students, staff, materials, ideas.

3. we must  now be linking into what academic thought is nationally through UCET (universities Council for Education of teachers) and ESCalate,( the Higher Education Academy -Education Subject Centre advancing learning and teaching in education) http://escalate.ac.uk/ through academic and practitioner research, through conference papers.

 below are some of the national activities we need to be aware of an contribute to.

The UCET Post-16 committee provides a forum for University colleagues to keep up to date with national developments in the field of generic teacher training and specific training for those who teach Skills for Life. It provides an opportunity to comment on and influence new policy as it affects the Learning and Skills Sector, and to keep in mind teacher training requirements to support initiatives that affect post-14 learners.

activities

Annual UCET conference 10//11 Nov

23rd Nov ITE Secondary committee discussion meeting 14-19 QTS/QTLS comparisons 

16th Mar - post 16 committee 

coming up via  ESCalate is

Getiing engaged, thursday 2nd nov ( Active engagement by students in their learning is a prerequisite to addressing many of the strategic imperatives in UK higher education. Student learning, retention and inclusion and the job satisfaction of teaching staff  are all enhanced by raising the levels of engagement that students have with their courses and with the institution in which they are studying.

Assessment for Lifelong learning 

Within Lifelong learning and Continuing Education assessment modes do not significantly differ from mainstream higher education – the difference is in the way assessment is applied. These workshops will highlight how methods of assessment have been, or can be, adapted to the needs of non-traditional learners – part-time, online, distance, work-based, etc.

Current projects > an evaluation of the pedagogical uses and cognitive applications to subject specialism teaching in post compulsory education of the "chronological *approach described in the best selling text book "Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education"

Escalate current priorities include

• Embedding Employability into the HE curriculum in Scotland supporting new staff in Education. Induction and the first three years
• Online resource bank for teaching staff to support student assessment activities
• Models of Learning, Teaching, Knowledge and Identity in Initial Teacher Education in the UK
• Widening participation to University study through flexible provision
• Assessment practices within Continuing Education
• Implications of Scottish QE agenda for Life Long Learning
• Centre for research in Lifelong Learning (CRLL) 4^th International Conference

  October bulletin

• Providers of ITT for the Learning and Skills Sector will no doubt now be involved in designing the new QT(LS) qualification for 2007/8. This will involve responding to the requirement for substantially more attention to developing trainees’ expertise in teaching their subject, but without much guidance on how it is to be achieved.

  Any organisation involved with ITT for the Learning and Skills sector that would like to be involved in this next phase of developing the project should visit the “News” and “Events” sections of the Associate web site and/or get in touch with e.e.eastwood@hud.ac.uk

  OFSTED and DfES identify work-based mentoring as a primary mechanism, but they also recognise some limitations in relying on this approach alone. The difficulties arise from the highly differentiated PCET curriculum. In contrast with the schools sector, it means that it is often difficult to find another teacher of your specialisms in your own workplace, and ITT providers can rarely form viable groups of trainee teachers with a shared specialism. New technology, though, can be highly effective where specialists are dispersed and isolated and there is a national project that is directed towards exploiting that potential.

• Greetings we had a brief look at the student handbook and welcome to the course.  (tried to learn a few names)
• Chris then handed us over to Malcolm (easy name to remember for me) in the library who gave us an extensive look around and an insight into how to find our way about the system.
• After a mini tour we made our way to the canteen for a quick coffee. (more names)
• Our non-test assessment back in L1-4
• After lunch we met up in the Conference room (I liked the 'any issues' activity with some good points raised)
• I found the course expectations interesting and not quite as daunting as I had expected (wait for the reality check)
• Course Background and philosophy, this was well laid out and at least I now know what N. Chomsky looks like thanks to Ali G
• We met up with Carol Millington and a couple of the other subject teacher (help me out here I didn't get their names)
• We now know who does what and to whom and after dealing with practical and Professional issues a few of us took advantage of a very short queries session ('cause we all wanted to get home)

here's a few starters via youtube for the Level 4 literacy courses

ESOL and language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iALFp6oYl0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmVAjTgW0_M     MAths

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zPHAhj_Cio  Ali G and Noam Chomsky

 A VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE ABOUT THE STORIES we use as teachers to describe our teaching -  http://hent.blogspot.com/2006/05/stories-teachers-tell-one-another.html

see also "the wisdom of crowds" Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, first published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

http://grail.oise.utoronto.ca/journal/cbrett/archives/ECOO2006Reading.ppt

digital literacies and reading skills - an interesting tour through key issues around the changing nature of literacy - useful for L 4 stuff particularly  Social factors.  Its too late to do this stuff properly. Letrs carry on using this as a notebook.