‘It’s quite liberating turning up to a classroom without a pile of papers and equipment.’ Pedagogic bungee jumping: a strategy to rethink teaching in a technology-rich age?

Introduction

Learning and teaching [italics my addition] in higher education calls for a courage on the part of the learner/teacher and a will to leap into a kind of void. There is bound to be uncertainty. A pedagogy of air opens up spaces and calls for a will to learn on the part of the student/teacher; to learn even amid uncertainty. In the process, it is just possible that the student/teacher may come into a new mode of being. (Barnett, 2007: 1)

Much has been written about how ‘students experience learning in a technology rich age’ (Sharpe et al., 2010: 1; Creanor et al., 2006; Conole et al., 2006; Beetham et al., 2009). In earlier work (Hughes, 2008; Hughes & Purnell, 2008; Hughes et al., 2011), I have explored the shift from a wholly paper-based, individualised student experience of ITE for the post-compulsory sector to a blended, collaborative model of learning which exploits the dialogic possibilities inherent in new technologies.

The University of Wolverhampton was the first UK HEI to make what was coined at this point an e-portfolio system, PebblePad (http://www.pebblepad.co.uk), available to all students and staff in September 2005. Prior to 2005 the system, which was co-developed by the university and Pebble Learning, was trialled in four academic schools.

The School of Education was one of the pilot schools. It is important to note at this point that the system carries the strapline, ‘not just an eportfolio’ and it is in fact more usefully referred to as a personal learning space (Sutherland et al., 2011: 4) which offers students scaffolds for creating reflective assets such as digital portfolios, weblogs, action plans and CVs. However, the adoption of the technology within ITE (PCE) required an accompanying pedagogic shift in teaching, learning and assessment in order to facilitate the iterative and dialogic potential for learning and teaching.

This article will explore Barnett’s (2007: 133) claim that ‘pedagogical bungee jumping may be catching’ if the teacher is prepared to learn amid uncertainty, by drawing upon the narratives of teacher educators Cathie, Annie, David and Maggie and exploring the implications for the professional development of teacher educators.

Context – technology and ITE (PCE)

Teacher education for the post-compulsory sector is in a state of change. The outgoing sector skills council, Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK), commissioned a two-stage review of the current qualification structure in September 2010 which initially proposed a radical review of the use of technology in ITE. However, after the first consultation period it became obvious that the sector was reluctant to commit itself to the first ambitious impulse and instead responded that there were ‘concerns that establishing a requirement to evidence use of technology within the qualifications could exclude some people from achieving them’ (LLUK, 2011a: 12).

The respondents to this ongoing consultation were individuals and ‘groups with a specific focus on work-based learning (WBL), adult and community learning (ACL), literacy, numeracy and ESOL, awarding organisations (AOs), national and local meetings of Centres for Excellence in Teacher Training (CETTs), FE Teacher Education and the University and College Union (UCU)’ (LLUK, 2011b: 6).

This resulted in a step backwards to the requirement for technology skill development to be evidenced rather than applied within ITE along with the identification in the second phase that there was a growing demand for CPD in this area (LLUK, 2011b: 38).

Previously to this in 2010, LLUK also commissioned an empirical literature review, Pedagogic Approaches to Using Technology for Learning (Attwell & Hughes, 2010: 4), which stated that ‘the gap in technology related skills required by teaching and learning professionals cannot be bridged by qualifications alone or by initial training. A programme of opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD) is also needed to enable people to remain up to date.’

The detailed and expansive review went on to identify that technology implementation in ‘the further education college sector as a whole is still at a relatively early stage with much unevenness in development both between and within institutions (Finlayson [et al.], 2006)’ (Attwell & Hughes, 2010: 26). The review acknowledged that the body of research about the post-compulsory sector’s use of technology is sparse, acknowledging Coffield’s (2008) claims that ‘vocational education has suffered a relative lack of esteem when compared with school or university education’ (Attwell & Hughes, 2010: 5). Attwell & Hughes proposed that

diversity will emerge only if educators, researchers and communities are empowered to develop localised or novel responses to socio-technical change – including developing new approaches to curriculum, to assessment, to the workforce and governance, as well as to pedagogy. This approach, if adopted, would have major implications for the training of teachers in the use of new technologies for teaching and learning. (2010: 65)

They went on to identify that ‘an audit is needed of how ITT (Initial Teacher Training) courses are actually delivered, what methodologies are used (in particular, how curriculum content around e-learning is approached) and the skills needs of teacher trainers' (Attwell & Hughes, 2010: 65).

This article will continue in response to Attwell & Hughes' observations and Barnett’s claim at the opening of the introduction that courage and risk-taking are needed by both teachers, teacher educators and students in an age of uncertainty, particularly if experimentation with technology is to be encouraged.

PebblePad in the School of Education – using technology for talking not telling

Current use data identifies that around 55 staff within the school and its partner colleges and schools are currently engaged with what the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) defines as ‘e-portfolio-based learning’ (2008: 5),

Behind any product or presentation lie rich and complex processes of planning, synthesising, sharing, discussing, reflecting, giving, receiving and responding to feedback. These processes – referred to here as ‘e-portfolio-based learning’ – are the focus of increasing attention, since the process of learning can be as important as the end product.

The dialogue-based pedagogy described above is central to the use of PebblePad in the School of Education which exploits the dialogic possibility within the system (Hulme & Hughes, 2006; Hughes, 2008). Underpinning the educative dialogue is what Coffield (2008: 15) draws from Alexander (2006), in that the dialogue is intentionally ‘collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and purposeful’ and it is a ‘meeting of minds and ideas as well as voices; and it is therefore mediated through text, internet and computer screen as well as through face-to-face interaction.’ It is prudent at this point to consider what learning and teaching in this domain might look and feel like and how this might impact upon the ‘re-thinking’ and ‘re-doing’ of pedagogy.

Since 2004 I have been immersed in what I am calling PebblePad-based learning and teaching. By using this term, I am making a deliberate point to move away from the generic JISC terminology as the claims I have made in earlier writing and presentations are specific to learning and teaching in PebblePad, and not any other e-portfolio system. This is not to suggest that similar findings would not emerge from other systems but the iterative ethnographic research undertaken with students and colleagues since 2004 is embedded in our pedagogic practices in PebblePad. The ‘data’ collected annually from a tutor group of new teachers (between 15 and 20 per year) is drawn from blogs, critical incident sharing and wider reflective writing as well as interviews.

Colleague narratives have been captured verbally and in writing throughout and beyond the mentoring period. Capacity building has been key to all mentoring activities. Each year since 2005 colleagues have been supported and mentored to develop their technological and pedagogic practices. As a teacher/mentor I was interested in how learning and teaching might be different and differently articulated in this online space and how student and staff experiences and narratives might illuminate the pedagogy and culture shift required in the emergent literature of e-learning.

Bungee jumping and the need for culture shift

Barnett’s (2007: 146) bungee jumping motif challenges the higher education teacher, in this case the teacher educator in both the university and college setting (higher education in further education), to reconceptualise learning as, ‘a double risk: the student is at risk, but so too is the educator’. Adding the use of technology in learning and teaching into this analogy intensifies the risk-taking, or pedagogic fragility in Barnett’s terms, and exploration required as Laurillard, in Conole & Oliver (2007: 48) identifies, ‘it will take us a while yet to learn how to use technology properly in education ... We scarcely have the infrastructure, the training, the habits, or the access to new technology, to be optimising its use yet.’

Cathie (PebblePad user since 2006) struggled with the shift from paper to online learning and teaching initially, particularly online assessment and feedback. She states:

I felt confident that I knew what I was doing. However, looking back I would say that was a false perspective ... I am a Luddite, I fear, in that I like the feel of pencil on paper ... Feedback has been I feel, clumsy and stilted ... over the year I have become more adept at this. The strength is ... the interactive nature. When this works well there is a possibility to develop a truly dialogic approach ... This year I have learnt a lot about my approach to teaching, assessment and the way I react to new technologies ... I want to develop these skills so I can look more confidently to the future. (Hughes et al. 2008: 59–60)

Annie (Foundation degree teacher, PebblePad user since September 2009) articulates further real and perceived barriers for some teachers when she stated that she needed to ‘face my fears and address them’. In doing so she claimed that ‘my teaching has completely and utterly changed, totally from how I was taught on the Cert Ed – paper based ... Sometimes I walk in and there’s just [sic] images on the screen (on the blog) and that is the teaching and learning of the day.’

She went on to identify that some colleagues were concerned by the shift to a blended approach as they were ‘detached and they wanted to walk out of the door at 4 o’clock’.

Annie’s comments about detachment, time and access are recurring themes in teacher narratives as they explore the shift from face-to-face activity to online activity which may be perceived as more time consuming and intrusive of the home/work divide. Annie goes on to say, ‘I think you’ve got to change, education is changing, you have to change as a teacher and take this technology on and use it.’ Importantly she also identifies ‘you can have a cut off’ but for her the sharing of a collaborative blog extends and enhances the teaching and learning exchange allowing her to ‘slip the theory in ... the blogging side of it has just opened up so many avenues for my learners and relationships ... when you’ve got 32 students they haven’t got time to talk but if they blog they can’.

When asked to articulate how facing her fears and taking risks had supported her development as a teacher Annie responded, ‘I was very negative about it at the beginning – now I marry the teaching, the reflection and the learner – like that chain for the journey – and it hasn’t really finished, there’s a lot of gaps for me to cement.’

Recent developments in e-learning research and theory have identified that ‘skills such as curiosity, play, inventiveness and imagination appear to be becoming more important than traditional competences such as knowledge recall, organization and domain expertise’ (De Freitas & Conole 2010: 15). In response to theoretical and technological developments, as teachers, and teacher educators, we are challenged to ‘acknowledge that pedagogy needs to be “re-done” at the same time that it needs to be “re-thought”’ (Beetham & Sharpe, 2007: 3) and that ‘a will to learn’ and uncertainty will be necessary conditions for a pedagogical shift and new ways of being. David (PebblePad user since 2008) articulated his will to learn and adapt in his first year:

Although I regarded myself as being quite IT [Information Technology] literate and have always tried to embrace ILT [Information and Learning Technology] rather than feel threatened by it ... I also had concerns ... there was certainly that feeling of being only a small step ahead of them [the students] ... things started to settle into a pattern ... there was a more immediate conversational tone ... that simply felt more real than taking [paper] journal entries in from students and returning them ‘marked’ the following week. (Hughes et al., 2008: 56–8)

When moving to a collaborative whole-group blog for critical incident sharing David identified that his role shifted from being ‘a contributor ... to a more facilitative role’ and that the community of practice that emerged allowed individual students to take on tutor/demonstrator roles as they ‘demonstrated a genuine affinity with PebblePad and its possibilities' (Hughes et al., 2008: 58).

The required, and desired, culture shift identified by commentators such as Beetham and Attwell echo that of Weis et al. (2002: 153) who claimed almost a decade ago that ‘[n]ew digital technologies and multimedia are transforming how we teach and learn. They are transforming our classrooms from spaces of delivery to spaces of active inquiry and authorship.’ The movement from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 ways of being within this period is neatly captured by Gauntlett (2011: 8) as the shift from a ‘sit back and be told’ culture towards more of a ‘making and doing’ culture’ where ‘separate gardens' of activity become ‘like a collective allotment’ (2011: 5).

The approach taken at the School of Education to mentoring and developing collective risk-taking activity adopts Yancey & Weiser’s (1997: 11) conceptualisation of learning and development as ‘waves, with one wave of practice preparing the next wave of theorizing about that practice’ and Gauntlett’s (2011: 231) argument for the need to seed ‘the making is connecting power of the internet’.

Encouraging expressive messiness in teachers and students

Claire, a PGCE (pre-service full-time ITE programme) student from my first cohort in 2004, when asked to describe learning in a digital domain such as PebblePad, stated:

It’s like emptying a big jigsaw and building it slowly in pieces. Finding pieces of work that fit together and building from there and then maybe trying a different area afterwards. There’s no logical, symmetrical or linear route but emphasis upon drawing out the best points and building upon them.

Much recent literature has focused, quite rightly, upon the learner experience of technology (Creanor et al., 2006; Beetham et al., 2009). However, the transformative potential to ‘democratise learning and produce critical subjects and authors' (Weis et al., 2002: 153) must be countered by the need to consider this as not only about learning but as ‘a new model of education, rather than a new model of learning’ as ‘our understanding of e-learning matures, so our appreciation of the importance of theory deepens … we see how learning can be socially situated in a way never previously possible’ (Mayes & de Freitas, 2007: 13).

Ethnographic data gathered from students such as Claire offer a fascinating insight and challenge to teachers who are prepared to inhabit non-linear, temporal creative spaces for, as Barnett suggests, ‘[a]cademic travel requires a willingness to live with uncertainty, for in academic travel, academics put themselves forward into new spaces' (Barnett, 2010: 80); spaces and practices that ‘will be ontologically disturbing and enthralling all at once. It will be electric, as one spark moves another and in unpredictable ways' (Barnett, 2007: 137–8). It is the simultaneously disruptive potential and enthralling opportunity that leads teachers such as Cathie to explore the identity struggle that some colleagues experience in these domains with the shifts in ownership: ‘But, and this is a big but for me, I have felt some loss of control.’ Cathie’s bungee jumping has required courage to explore her changing and expanding ontological space (Barnett, 2010: 77) – her space ‘as academic and ... of being an academic’.

This echoes the comment in the title of this article made by Maggie (teacher educator, PebblePad user since September 2008) who is delighted to report that,

I think what I’ve noticed most is that they sort of carry on without us more if you know what I mean – whereas traditional teaching and learning is very much teacher at the centre, all information coming out through me but what often is seen to happen when using [PebblePad] is that they can talk to each other, they answer each other’s questions, they take threads of each other’s arguments – really oblivious to the fact that I might be there or might not be there and this for Teacher Education is fantastic because what we see is reflection – it’s reflection in practice, reflection on action in action and it’s going on all the time – it’s crucial.

Maggie and Cathie’s comments articulate how their use of technology has challenged traditional pedagogies and identities so that ‘[t]eachers and the taught teach each other. Their roles are interwoven, such that their boundaries become indistinct to some extent (Barnett 2007: 132). Annie’s further comments, ‘it’s fair to say we’ve become a learning family – we’ve become attached ... it impacts on how you write your curriculum ... it’s about empowering the students to be part of the scheme of work’, articulate what Barnett views as the threefold pedagogical task required to let learners learn. We must:

1. design curricular spaces in which the student can make her own explorations – often with other students;

2. encourage the student to actually make those explorations;

3. bring the student to a realization of the standards embedded within the intellectual and professional fields in question in her programme (Barnett, 2007: 148).

What all of the comments articulate is the fluidity of the technology which has been both appropriated and reshaped by the individual students and teachers to both fit and adapt current and desired pedagogies. Facer’s (2011: 6) exploration of the relationship between social and technological change states, ‘Just because a technology was designed for one purpose, doesn’t mean it won’t be used for another.’ This was certainly the case with PebblePad which was appropriated as a dialogic teaching space (rather than only used by students as a personal learning space) in the School of Education model.

This appropriation for collaboration and exchange, aligned to established values and cultures, has become a more common practice. Facer (2011: 6–7) views this viral appropriation and democratisation of technologies as hugely significant, as significant as the appropriation of the bicycle to women’s emancipation and the shift of text messaging from ‘an uninteresting tool for technicians ... to the communication medium of choice for much of the European population.’ Pedagogically the shift from teacher as teller to teacher as facilitator of talking and networking parallels the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and what Gauntlett (2011: 225) values as ‘expressive messiness'. Maggie’s comment below offers an example of how this expressive messiness in ITE is crucial to create the conditions for ongoing questioning and criticality:

It was built upon constantly ... people were going backwards and forward with their ideas – this was something very new and exciting which changed this 1–1 relationship between tutor and essay really, rather than tutor and student – we were setting a piece of work, they were writing it up and we marked it – we weren’t really discussing the process of the writing with students, [before] we weren’t really discussing the problems they might be having whereas [now] … we’ve had more opportunities to intervene in essay writing along the way – they can ask questions about our questions and that’s how we take that forward.

Taking it forward

The mentoring and capacity building in the post-compulsory partnership in the School of Education at the University of Wolverhampton is an ongoing project. The activity recognises Laurillard’s (2007: 48) observations that we (teachers and perhaps more importantly teacher educators) certainly do not have the infrastructure, particularly if working externally to the university, the training, the habits, or the access to new technology, to be optimising its use yet. We are very aware of the gaps that Attwell & Hughes (2010) identify and there is a rolling mentoring programme in place to support teacher educator colleagues to develop their technology skills and to experiment with their pedagogic practices. Underpinning this activity is Barnett’s assertion that these pedagogies must acknowledge the need for courage, on the part of the teacher and their learners, and ‘a will to leap into a kind of void … a pedagogy of air [which] opens up spaces and calls for a will to learn … even amid uncertainty’ (Barnett, 2007: 1).

The teacher educator narratives drawn upon here suggest that learning and teaching roles are changing because of the experimentation with new technologies and pedagogies. Barnett (2007: 132–3) understands this as pedagogical reciprocity and a pedagogy of risk. Barnett claims that pedagogic bungee jumping may be catching. The narratives drawn upon for this article demonstrate that it is possible to create cultures in ITE supportive of risk-taking with technology and reciprocity where ‘teachers and the taught teach each other’ (Barnett, 2007: 132). It is hoped that this approach to the mentoring of teacher educators and to the education of new teachers for the post-compulsory sector will support a continuing will to learn and resilience in the uncertain times ahead for ITE.