Pat’s views on inviting learners into a taught session to and provide ‘observe’ feedback? After consideration, Pat accepted that this was a potentially useful to add to a body of evidence”, as an means of “perspective ‘additional’ providing feedback in order to improve teaching and learning. However, the overall judgement a learner might provide, was felt to be of less value than other feedback mechanisms and even misleading” (email from “potentially Pat). There were concerns that a viewpoint might influence the personal feedback or comments from a learner; that if there was antagonism towards one of the teaching staff, this could affect that learner’s judgement (Cockburn, 2005): being able to de-personalise it, and make a judgement about “… teaching and learning, erm, when they are in the thick of it, erm I think is, is you know quite difficult to do.” (Pat, Int11) In addition to issues around where there is an existing ‘power’ relationship, the Literature Review also considered just how ‘sincere’ and dialogue could possibly be within such a context (Dinkelman, ‘open’ 1997). Pat was mindful of the impact this could have on members of teaching staff, particularly in an existing organisational climate of redundancies and restructuring: could potentially be undermining teachers, erm, in that and I “..you think there are sufficient, erm, ways in which teachers are feeling undermined [laughs] in their professional competence [laughs] that we don’t really want to add any more..” (Pat, Int11) However, this was viewed as something worth developing, but perhaps in a different format so that learners could still engage with but ‘observation’ without the direct link to an individual member of teaching staff. Pat
Pat’s views on inviting learners into a taught session to ‘observe’ and provide feedback? After consideration, Pat accepted that this was a potentially useful “perspective to add to a body of evidence”, as an ‘additional’ means of providing feedback in order to improve teaching and learning. However, the overall judgement a learner might provide, was felt to be of less value than other feedback mechanisms and even “potentially misleading” (email from Pat). There were concerns that a personal viewpoint might influence the feedback or comments from a learner; that if there was antagonism towards one of the teaching staff, this could affect that learner’s judgement (Cockburn, 2005): “… being able to de-personalise it, and make a judgement about teaching and learning, erm, when they are in the thick of it, erm I think is, is you know quite difficult to do.” (Pat, Int11) In addition to issues around ‘power’ where there is an existing relationship, the Literature Review also considered just how ‘sincere’ and ‘open’ dialogue could possibly be within such a context (Dinkelman, 1997). Pat was mindful of the impact this could have on members of teaching staff, particularly in an existing organisational climate of redundancies and restructuring: “..you could potentially be undermining teachers, erm, in that and I think there are sufficient, erm, ways in which teachers are feeling undermined [laughs] in their professional competence [laughs] that we don’t really want to add any more..” (Pat, Int11) However, this was viewed as something worth developing, but perhaps in a different format so that learners could still engage with ‘observation’ but without the direct link to an individual member of teaching staff. Pat
Observations_a%20vehicle%20for%20enabling%20learner%20voice%20and%20developing%20expert%20learners.docx