AT A GLANCE
Developing partnerships between ITE institutions and museum and gallery education departments to provide settings for teacher training other than schools.
Five regional triads each consisting of an ITT provider, a partnership school and a linked museum have been established.
Each triad has developed a specific programme of professional placements that are embedded within the trainee teacher's conventional school based professional placement. The project development has been underpinned by an exhaustive programme of continuing professional development for all partners.
This project has greatly benefited from the extensive funding from the MLA, Renaissance (East of England).
For more information, please visit the project web-site at:
http://alternative-settings.educ.cam.ac.uk
ITT PROVIDER
The Triads are:
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education & Milton Road School partnered with the Fitzwilliam Museum;
Pilgrim Partnership SCITT & Castle Lower School partnered with the Bedford Museum & Cecil Higgins Art Gallery;
University of East Anglia & Long Stratton High School partnered with Norwich Castle Museum;
University of Hertfordshire & St Michaels School partnered with Verulamium Museum;
University of Bedfordshire & Russell Lower School with Museums Luton.
SETTING
See previous section
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
* To develop and pilot models of partnership between schools, ITE providers and museums and galleries.
* To work towards these pilot models being both transferable to, and sustainable in, other contexts.
* To develop and pilot models of museum and gallery based training that help trainee teachers and their school based mentors develop:
o an understanding of teaching and learning in other settings,
o the skills and enthusiasm to build partnerships with museum educators working with children,
o the particular creative approaches to teaching and learning adopted by museum educators and to consider how these may be incorporated into their everyday practice.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
There have been a sequence of core training, planning, interim implementation (informing ‘fine-tuning’ of placements as they progress) and formative evaluation activities. Typically, these have been:
* training regarding museum and gallery education for tutors from each ITE provider aimed at tutors from both generic ‘professional studies’ routes and a spread of subject-specific curriculum areas ( English, Science, History, RE, etc);
* internal cascading and further training events to achieve extended tutor involvement across departments within each ITE provider;
* encouraging regional ITE providers to consider short to medium term placements within museums and galleries, modelling successful practice currently implemented by some UK institutions beyond the Eastern region;
* working with teachers in the selected schools in which ITE students are placed to raise awareness of the value of, and methods involved in museum education;
* training for museum educators regarding ITE including mentoring of trainees and making formative assessments linked to the Standards for the Award of QTS;
* provision of developmental teacher training that takes trainee teachers from a theoretical perspective through to supported museum based teaching whilst on school placements;
* trainee teachers undertaking progressive, mentored training experiences including the planning, delivery and evaluation of teaching in the galleries;
* trainee teachers recording training experiences through a variety of means with the emphasis on the development of generic aspects of their practice (communication, relationships and behaviour management, inclusion, the learning environment, etc.);
* evaluation through semi-structured interviews following both the induction and final stages of the placements;
* consideration of dissemination strategies such as the production of new resource packages (web published, videos, CD.s and print) for:
* - ITT students using museums
* - Schools involved in the provision of ITE
* - ITE Tutors.
OUTCOMES
Based on exhaustive evaluation evidence (over 10 hours of filmed semi-structured interviews involving all participants across all five triads) and matched to the original expectations of the project proposal, the following provisional outcomes have been identified:
*
* strong partnerships that are likely to be sustainable have been successfully established between the participating schools, museums and ITE providers;
* potential new partnerships for the future have been supported by inviting museum educators and ITE providers not identified in the original plan to training opportunities;
* a variety of flexible models for partnership that can be extended to a wider range of alternative settings through established links with the regional Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) have been established and are likely to be actively promoted and sustained through additional external funding;
* a strong and effective model of professional development for educators in other settings to enable them to build effective and cohesive partnerships with schools and associated ITE providers that are both transferable and sustainable has been developed;
* the capability of museum educators within the participating museums to mentor and formatively assess trainee teachers with reference to the Standards for QTS with confidence and competence has been greatly enhanced;
* a programme of approaches to training in alternative settings that meet the expectations of TDA initiatives regarding ‘Teaching Outside the Classroom’ (TOtC) has been established. Much of the work is already identified as a case study on the TOtC website;
* a cohort of trainee teachers with the knowledge, skills, understanding and enthusiasm to maximise the learning opportunities offered by museums and galleries and are now able to transfer these professional attributes to their day-to-day practice has been established;
* by the end of the project, the whole staff of participating schools will have been involved in the professional development initiatives associated with the work – particularly the place of object centred, dialogic approaches as part of their range of classroom teaching strategies.
An additional grant of funding from the TDA has ensured that the training and support needed to ensure continuation and sustainability of what has been achieved is possible.
SURPRISES
Evidence from evaluation highlights the following impact on the participating trainee teachers which far exceeded our original expectations:
* all trainees, without exception, refer to the positive impact on their confidence as a result of working with unfamiliar pupils from across the age ranges;
* all trainees were appreciative of the opportunity to extend the range of professional relationships they could engage in and were particularly impressed by the quality of partnership that had been established between the various stakeholders in the project;
* all trainees identified the wide ranging value of the alternative setting on consolidating and, more importantly, expanding the range of teaching strategies they will employ in their day-to-day teaching;
* all trainees were both surprised and inspired by the cross-curricular emphasis of museum and gallery education;
* all trainees felt the alternative settings provided them with opportunities to extend their understanding of inclusive education – working with children from wide-ranging social and ethnic backgrounds reflecting a far greater diversity than could hope to be offered through ‘traditional’ two-school placements;
* all trainees were both surprised by and valued the opportunity to be involved with the wider remit of museum and gallery education. This included exposure to work with Alzheimer’s groups, young offenders, informal family learning and outreach activities;
* all trainees were content that the ‘interruption’ to their standard school-based training had no negative impact on their overall training – on the contrary, they felt that on their return to school, they were more confident and able to self and peer evaluate practice at a more rigorous and sophisticated level than before;
* all trainees undertook a careful audit of their development against the Standards for the award of QTS and were surprised at just how many of the Standards were directly relevant in terms of assessing their practice in the alternative setting.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS
Genuine partnership and associated training are absolute pre-requisites for successful cross-sector engagement such as this.
Maintaining a very clear focus on this as a training experience that informs trainee teachers' day-to-day practice and not simply a 'taster' of what museums and galeries have to offer.
Professional development and mentor support for the museum educators proved to be invaluable.
The next phase involves establishing more museum and gallery participants in each of the triads and dissemination of the work through published case studies and regional conferences (through GEM).
