Chair’s Report

New MESHGuide research summaries for teachers, teacher educators and student student teachers

ITTE is a founder member and supporter of the MESH (Mapping Educational Specialist knowHow) initiative. This is an education sector funded, volunteer run research-based knowledge mobilisation initiative involving founder members and supporters from many countries. Over the last few years, hundreds of teacher educators, researchers and teachers supported by professional associations like ours have combined forces to experiment with new ways of summarising and publishing the research and evidence base for practice. 
 

1. Digital books for early years and primary school aged children: lead author Dr Natalia Kucirkova, Manchester Metropolitan University UK with links to UK Literacy Association materials.
2. Clinical Teaching in Education: lead author Dr Larissa Mclean Davies, University of Melbourne, Australia with university and school based colleagues.
3. Teaching English as an additional language: lead author Dr Naomi Flynn, Reading University with local authority and teacher colleagues.
4. Entrepreneurship Education: lead author: Mike Blamires with colleagues from three African countries 

 Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Guides are under development along with many other areas. 
 
Following the pilot phase of experimentation we now have systems in place which mean guides can be published rapidly if necessary and we are now retrofitting earlier guides to meet these new standards.
 
Long term the model of operation is to be the same as for the European SchoolNet (EUN) (www.eun.org) which has been running for 20 years with core funding costs shared between many sponsors. The EUN is supported by 30 ministries of education. 
 
Once again, many thanks for your support.

To join MESHGuides and contribute to its activity see the Get Involved - Toolkits menu on the MESH website or email enquiries@meshguides.org 
 
Two information resources are available here:

1. MESHGuides poster which has been prepared for exhibition at the ICET conference on what educators might do to help UNESCO achieve the new Sustainable Development Goals.
2. Infographic: A model of 21stC Teacher Professionalism in a self-improving system.

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Membership News

• Emma Goto
• James Saunders
• The OAKS (Ormiston and Keele SCITT)
• Hull University
• De Montfort University

Teacher Education Knowledge Mobilisation Summit for the UNESCO Education 2030 Framework for Action: Using low cost digital technologies

On 21st April 2016 the ‘Teacher Education Knowledge Mobilisation Summit for the UNESCO Education 2030 Framework for Action’ was held as a one-day event in London at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall. Attended by Teacher Educators from the across the globe the Summit focussed on practical ways teacher education can be mobilised to help deliver the UNESCO Education 2030 Framework for Action. Other speakers included representatives from the OECD and UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report.

ITTE and the IEF (Institute for Education Futures) ran this one-day summit and the organisers are writing to thank ITTE and the IEF for the support they provided as well as UCT and MirandaNet. ITTE is a founder member of the MESHGuides initiative, which is a knowledge mobilisation initiative governed by the IEF.

Gary Brace, the UNESCO UK National Commission Education Director, provided the keynote and discussed the critical role of teachers in the successful implementation of the new UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on education. He said of the summit: “It was an energetic and inspiring event attended by professionals and academics who understand the vital role of teachers and on-going teacher education to delivering the new SDGs. The speeches were wide-ranging and sparked creative discussions”. 

Gary focussed particularly on SDG4 on quality education and its implications for teacher education. He considered how teacher education could be used to overcome resource constraints in developing countries and how a focus on pedagogy could help to deliver SDG4 and the framework for action. The UKNC is looking to pursue these questions further in future policy work, in collaboration with members of its expert network. 
 
Gary Brace, also an ex-teacher and ex-leader of the Welsh teaching council, is planning to forward the report to UNESCO Paris. We will be asking colleagues in other countries who attended the event as international speakers and delegates to pass on the report to their UNESCO in-country commissions so that the recommendations are presented as a collaborative outcome from the summit.
 

ITTE Knowledge Mobilisation Strategy: April Report

• A review and synthesis of the literature around the use of social media in Initial Teacher Education. Team Leader: Alison Iredale, Leeds Beckett University.
• How technology-enhanced learning communities enable the dissemination and transfer of innovative pedagogies in teacher education. Team Leader: Helen Caldwell , University of Northampton
• Technology Enhanced Learning in the early years: a systematic review of published research 2005-2015. Team Leader:Moira Savage, University of Worcester 
• Mobilising Learning: A synoptic review of learning supported by personal devices. Team Leader: David Longman (Independent, Abergavenny)

• During the period of the award (18 months) prject members are permitted to use the post-nominal ITTE Research Fellow and display the provided logo.
• Each team will be awarded a honorarium of £1000, paid in two instalments of £500 to the team leader.
• The first instalment will be paid following your project presentation at the ITTE 2016 conference.
• The second instalment will be paid after (i) submission of the research review as an academic article in the Association’s journal Technology, Pedagogy and Education; (ii) a summary of the findings of the review as a MESHGuide and written in a form accessible to practitioners (more details to follow).

• If you have not already located it, there is a dedicated  ITTE Research Fellowship wiki page on KHub https://khub.net/. You will need to create an account initially.
• There is a page offering some guidance on carrying out systematic reviews. Please feel free to add resources and use the FAQ page if the ITTE Committee can support your research in any way. We are fortunate to have some very experienced researchers and authors.
• I would like to include a more extended article of the 4 projects in the next ITTE newsletter. I am happy to extract names and details from what has already been posted on the KHub wiki. 

• Check this Newsletter for information on the ITTE's 30th Annual Conference on Saturday 2nd July 2016, London where we look forward to hearing about project progress to date. The four ITTE Research Fellow projects will present together as part of the 'In the library' strand and each team will have approximately 10 minutes. Please can each team leader submit their proposal at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1l3QnKoyoZleVIO3KUa9tXMkjkZ57rnAcWqzRpzqyYtY/viewform . 
• You can either purchase conference tickets via Eventbrite in the normal way or if you prefer, we can deduct this cost from the honorarium on confirmation of which team members will be attending.

ITTE Committee: Roles and Responsibilities

In-ear coaching in professional development programmes.

 

• Be fully cloud based
• Use time-linked notes (meta-tagging)
• Provide tools for analysis and review.

• 94% of teachers using the system said their teaching had improved;
• 88% said their confidence had risen;
• 88% felt there had been a positive impact on collaboration;
• 96% felt they were willing to take more risks;
• 99% felt there were more conversations between teachers about teaching in their school.

The second phase of the research focussed on a particular aspect of web-based video coaching called ‘in-ear’ coaching. In this mode the teacher wears an ear-piece so that the coach who is not in the classroom (or even from some more remote location) but observing through a video link can make suggestions about the teacher’s performance in real time. The pupils cannot hear the suggestions although they have usually been told that this process is taking place. Video and audio is recorded and stored on the IRIS Connect servers where it can be annotated, commented and edited for later review, reflection and sharing.

This qualitative UK study begins to set a European standard by outlining contexts in which in-ear coaching is effective and presents observations and commentary from a small sample of early career teachers:

• Coachees report that pupils are cooperative and that the experience can also prompt pupils to be more reflective about their own learning and behaviour; 
• Alongside the study of subject specialist knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, teachers are reporting that this focus on classroom practice in real-time strengthens not just the confidence and capability of early career teachers but of any teacher keen to be active in improving their performance;  
• Using the platform to promote sharing of practice among teachers within and across schools ensures that the deep learning that is emerging from in-ear coaching becomes replicable and sustainable over time;  
• Sustainability can be a concern if those who set up and run the programme leave the school without training others to make use of the investment.

ITTE Strategy Update