Learning & Teaching

Title of case study	Action learning sets to promote critical reflection in research methods
School/Subject:	CoSS / School of Social and Environmental Sustainability/ Primary Education
Lecturer(s):	David Lundie
Course:	Research Methods for Education (DUMF3090)
Student Level:	Level 3 (SCQF Level 9)
Class size:	c.40
Location:	On campus/in person

 

Brief summary of the case study

Research methods can be a difficult topic but it is compulsory for students studying for the MA in Primary Education. David Lundie uses Action Learning Sets (ALSs) to help students to take a research informed approach to their professional practice, after their placement when they move into third year. This is a method for encouraging students to critically reflect on a critical issue encountered on their placement and start to form a research topic and research questions for their dissertation. Students work in groups of 6-8 on similar themes, and for each ALS, two students present their issue to their peers who ask clarifying questions to encouraging the presenter to critically reflect and make action points for the next cycle. The semester length allows for 2-3 action learning cycles, and the method drives professional and academic curiosity and promotes learner autonomy.

 

Objectives

I introduced this method to help students find the link between the learning being done on their compulsory research course and their professional practice placement. Previously, students were not engaging very well on this course and didn't see how it connected to teaching roles outside of their dissertations.

I also wanted to use this to model a pattern for research informed professional conversations, which teachers are being encouraged to do. The teaching council expects teachers to be continuous researchers and engage with academic work. This group learning method allowed students to see the links between research methodology and their practice.

 

What is done?

Starting from a position of professional curiosity, the class of approx. 45 are divided into groups of 6-8, based on a shared interest of a critical incident that occurred during their placement.

At the start of the cycle, students get to know each other, or update on actions from the previous week. Following this, in each session, two students are invited to present their critical incident or shared challenge. The idea of this sharing (a three-minute talk) is followed by clarifying questions from their peers to encourage the presenting student to reflect on what they did and what they could have done differently (over 8-10 minutes); it’s really important that only clarifying questions are asked, and not advice given.  A few additional activities could be ‘fly on the wall’, quietly listening to the student, or agreeing action points to take away before the next session. Each cycle should take 15 minutes and at the end of the session, participants are encouraged to review how the cycle went. This format is repeated each week over the course of the semester until every student has shared 2-3 times over the semester. This encourages students to give critical feedback to each other and how they dealt with the situations they are presenting on. As the cycles keep going, the topic slowly switches from placement issues to writing up the students’ dissertation proposal. As students understand the purpose of the cycles, they slowly begin to customise the sessions according to their needs, for example, instead of using clarifying questions, they propose sharing their own personal experiences for the speaker in cycles 2 and 3.

This method requires few resources as it is student-led with oral presentations and feedback; however, it requires a room that has space to break up into groups. It can be helpful to sit each group of students in a circle to aid discussion and to signal that this is a different activity from the previous part of the class focused on reading. Sometimes, small groups can meet in spaces outside the classroom, but this isn’t always possible depending on the space allocated.

Students know each other before this course, so it is good to get them out of their friendship groups to focus on a specific issue.

I implemented ALSs in person in the classroom, but the format also lends itself to online delivery in breakout rooms.

 

What works well?

One thing that was really good was that despite the students already knowing each other as a cohort, grouping them based on similar topics and not familiarity with each other boosted their creativity and critical thinking.

 

Benefits

Students

Staff

Students become more confident and comfortable with talking about their readings, research and teaching practice. Students are able to link their practical experience with research in the course. As students know the running order in advance of the session, and develop experience in the method, discussion becomes easier each time. Students develop autonomy in their learning. Resource-light active learning method, as it only requires a big room, pen and paper. Once students felt confident about the topics in the cycles, they themselves requested a switch to student-led reading groups. This nicely linked to the action learning sets, because the students knew what they wanted to address.

Learned to be adaptable to students and to listen to their feedback and use this to make changes to the class structure.

 

Challenges            

Students

Staff

If a scheduled student presenter does not turn up, you need a volunteer to step in. The students were very willing to step in. Seminar discussions need to be centred around bringing reflective and helpful questions to the student who was speaking and not simply a comparison of their issues.  You need to help students stay on task and model that clarifying question process. Ensure students do not choose too big a topic, for example in this case, additional support needs. Encourage students to be more focused in their enquiry. These ALSs took place after the placement once students had returned to university; ideally, for them to make links between theory and practice, it would happen during the placement.

A commitment to the timescale is required to let each 3-4 week cycle play out to allow everyone to present and receive clarifying questions and form actions. The academic staff member needs to do a lot of active listening; be aware of the tone of the discussion and remind people of the exploratory questions and where they are in the cycle, so the session doesn’t end up as a general moan about shared issues. In this case study, students requested a change after two cycles, focused more on reading than reflections on placement/research. This requires the teacher to be flexible.

 

What did you learn?

It is important to listen to students and be willing to adapt. The ALSs used here reached a natural conclusion after six weeks and students asked to change the class format to a flipped classroom approach, to support a reading group. In retrospect, it would have been helpful to teach students particular search strategies to get better papers for discussion.

There should be some sort of action from the students after finishing each cycle. There should also be an understanding of what the action sets have in common, further clarifying why they are together.

It felt quite difficult initially to step back and hand over control to the students, especially when more used to lecturing than facilitating. It can feel as if you’re not doing a lot, but you do get into a routine.

If there are many small groups of students during the cycles, it could potentially be better to work with them in smaller seminars.

If encouraging students to reflect on professional placements, it might be worth setting up online ALSs for students during the placement itself.

 

What advice would you give to others?

Embrace the chaos! But also recognise students’ own professional and academic knowledge and ability to lead the sessions. Always get feedback where you can. The ALSs have a space at the end of each session for getting feedback from students.