Investigators: Roger Lock, Allan Soares, Jenny Bryant
Funded from: Science Enhancement Programme; Gatsby Charitable Trust
Many of our student teachers are expected to teach the physical sciences at Key Stages 3 and 4 with limited support. Their own academic background and their understanding of physics and chemistry concepts is not strong.
Many of these student teachers go on to become specialist teachers in the physical sciences in schools.
The PhySEP project was developed to support young teachers in the school-based phases of their initial training, especially in the teaching and learning of physical science. We hoped that through this process we might improve recruitment and retention.
To develop PGCE science student teachers’ knowledge, understanding and pedagogic skills in the teaching and learning of physical sciences through extended and enhanced mentoring.
What are these Pedagogic Skills?
We see these pedagogic skills as being topic specific and involving aspects such as:
Support is provided by EXTENDING the mentoring support in school through the provision of an additional mentor, a physical science specialist who we term the PhySEP mentor. This mentor gives ENHANCED support through providing pairs of student teachers with tutorials centred on physical science knowledge, understanding and pedagogy linked to topics they are teaching in the next few days.
‘Point of Need’ Support
This ‘point of need’ support for subject knowledge and pedagogy contrasts with other approaches to such provision, for example ‘booster courses’, which are offered in colleges and universities remote from the time when student teachers need such support and not necessarily applicable to the relevant school context.
PhySEP provides:
PhySEP mentors follow through the tutorial support by observing lessons linked to the tutorial work, writing written lesson appraisals and debriefing the student teachers on points exclusively linked to subject knowledge and pedagogy. All of this support is additional to that provided from the students’ science mentor who focuses predominantly on generic science teaching skills and class management issues.
At the conclusion of the pilot year, in July 2004, there was a set of tutorial support materials which had been drafted by the PhySEP mentors to guide them in their work.
In the second year of the project we are developing and refining the tutorial support materials so that their use may be extended beyond the original teachers/authors and the specific PGCE course context in which they are employed. The second year of the project consists of 3 strands
New Schools and New Mentors
The first strand aims to develop the generalisability of the materials through involving schools and mentors who are completely new to the PhySEP model and the materials. As well as streamlining the initial training of these mentors (they will be involved in 8 twilight sessions compared with the 15 involved in the pilot phase) we are collectively developing a generic approach to revising the tutorial support materials so that anybody, with appropriate training, could use them in any school context. In Spring and Summer terms 2005, the materials are being further trialled and refined with pairs of student teachers in the 15 schools involved in PhySEP 2.
Advanced Skills Teachers (ASTs)
Strand 2 of the project is exploring the potential use of the tutorial resources, developed in the pilot phase, in supporting the work of ASTs. A group of six ASTs, all employed in GATSBY-funded collegiate schools in the Birmingham LEA, have also been trained in the PhySEP approach to supporting teachers and we are jointly developing a framework within which the materials from the pilot phase might be refined and modified for use by ASTs. Early indications are that the materials can be made generalisable to the work of ASTs in supporting their colleagues in schools. They provide ideas for ASTs to use which could save them from ‘reinventing the wheel’ when developing resources for use with colleagues.
Working with NQTs
There is a third strand to the work in PhySEP 2 and this is aimed at finding out more about how NQTs access subject knowledge and pedagogy in the physical sciences and how schools, LEAs and induction mentors provide support in this area. We think that the contrast in support levels from the initial training to induction year is stark, with limited progression and continuity and we are exploring whether there is a use for the type of support materials developed in the PhySEP project in the early years of a beginning science teacher. We wonder if a different style of induction support, possibly a second mentor with a subject knowledge and pedagogy focus, might make successful use of the type of support materials being developed in the PhySEP project in the early years of a beginning science teacher’s career. We wonder if continued support of this type might improve the retention of newly qualified teachers.
The PhySEP project is based in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham. The project directors are Roger Lock and Allan Soares, while editorial support with the materials is provided by Jenny Bryant. Howard Flavell and Kim Quigley carried out the editorial work in the pilot year.
In the ITT strand 15 schools and 15 PhySEP mentors drawn from five Midland LEAs are involved.
In the AST strand six ASTs, two directly funded by GATSBY, drawn from GATSBY-funded collegiate school groupings in the Birmingham LEA are involved including a Key Stage 3 coordinator from the Birmingham Advisory Support Service.
In the NQT strand there are two main cohorts of teachers involved. Twenty recently qualified teachers in their second year of teaching and drawn from 10 different LEAs are involved in one cohort, while a second cohort includes 40 teachers in their NQT year.
For further details contact
Roger Lock
Tel: 0121 414 4825
Email: r.j.lock@bham.ac.uk
Allan Soares
Tel: 0121 414 4818
Email: a.b.soares@bham.ac.uk
Fax: +44 (0) 121 414 4865 | School e-mail: education@bham.ac.uk
