L2L in FE Project Aims

The Learning to Learn network includes practitioners from schools, Further Education colleges and Higher Education across England. It aims to support participants in developing and evaluating pedagogic innovation, and facilitates critical reflection and strategic action to support effective learning. This project extended the Further Education sector element of this network and in particular provides for increased dissemination of the outcomes to the FE sector more generally.

The approach centres on understanding the process of learning and supporting practitioner enquiry in FE contexts.   Classroom innovations, designed by the teacher, focus on making learning explicit and are written up as action research case studies to be shared within, and beyond, the teacher-researchers. This is a process of professional reflection where teachers aim to improve both their practice and the learner experience through investigation and acting upon the results.

The intention was to facilitate innovation and reflection on the part of individual FE teachers, through their participation in action research, supported by meetings with their peers and guidance from university researchers.   It was anticipated that students would benefit from these teachers’ involvement with research both through participating in particular innovations but also through the subsequent development of an evidence base for learning approaches for post-16 settings.   This second, broader but more powerful, aim depends on changing attitudes within the participating FE colleges and on disseminating findings and ideas to a wider audience.

Overall, the approach taken is innovative in terms of sector practice since it brings together teachers from diverse curriculum areas across a college, establishes genuine collaborative links between FE colleges and emphasises the relationship between teaching practices and education research.