Improving Workplace Learning By Teaching Literature

This book investigates the integration of literary writing into work based or business writing. It proposes ways of how to help people with considerable work experience use literature to engage with the problems they face in their work. Many people like to read for pleasure, but their skills in reading could always be improved. This book makes an original contribution to the fields of education, work based learning and business by encouraging students to explore history, memoir, fiction, and non-fiction to model their own writing and widen their knowledge beyond the work place and their customary reading. Inside are onsite experiments with fiction and non-fiction prose that show how people in the workplace respond and grow from contact with significant literature and culture that relates broadly to their work. As a Coaching Master’s student observes: “I have not been a prolific reader. It has been a weakness and a gap. I have probably read more in the last year [during the project course] than I have read in the past twenty years. So that says something. My ability to attend to what in a book has weight or relevance has markedly improved. In the past I banked largely on my opinions because not being a prolific reader, I had to. It can be incredibly empowering to see that there are so many assets outside of my own mind. When something comes up now, I tend to weigh it. I am more specific about how I use words.”

Presents key findings on workplace learning. This work brings together the conclusions from five different projects, and investigates a variety of workplace contexts. It shows how workplace learning can be improved if attention is paid to the relationship between organizational context, individual worker biographies, and regulatory frameworks.

In the current economic climate, it is more important than ever that young people engage with the world of work and gain the knowledge, skills and experience they will need to prepare them for their future careers. This book provides an overarching framework for understanding all the separate parts of the work-related learning curriculum and constructs a research-based pedagogy with practical steps for students, teachers and practitioners. Work-Related Teaching and Learning deepens our understanding of work-related learning and provides an overview of the programmes and recent initiatives designed to make learning more relevant and better connected to work. Drawing on contemporary research and innovative practice, it offers guidance to support teachers and practitioners in the delivery of the work-related learning curriculum. Covering all aspects of word-related learning from enterprise education and economic well-being to careers education, work experience and the diplomas, features include: An overarching conceptualisation of work-related learning An exploration of the benefits of work-related learning An examination of the key issues and challenges faced A detailed look at how teaching and learning activities have been used in various contexts and with what effects An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of different curriculum models Case studies and examples of good practice Discussion questions for reflective practice This book is essential reading for current teachers and practitioners involved in work-related learning, as well as students and trainee teachers who wish to improve or develop their practice in the light of recent initiatives.

This book explores teacher workplace learning from four different perspectives: social policy, international comparators, multi-professional stances/perspectives and socio-cultural theory. First, it considers the policy and practice context of professional learning in teacher education in England, and the rest of the UK, with particular reference to professional masters level provision. The importance of teachers’ and schools’ perceptions of improvement, development and learning, and the inherent tensions between individual, school and government priorities is explored. Second, the book considers models of teacher workplace learning to be found in international research and practice to explore what perspective they can bring to understanding policy and practice relating to workplace learning in the UK. Third, it draws on cross-professional analysis to get an intellectual and theoretical purchase on workplace learning by examining how insights from across the professions can provide us with useful perspectives on policy and practice. The analysis draws particularly on insights from medicine and educational psychology. Fourth, the book cross-fertilises research and practice across the field of education by drawing on insights from perspectives such as socio-cultural and activity theory and situated learning/cognition to discover what they can offer in analysing the theoretical and pedagogic underpinnings of teacher workplace learning. In short, the book offers a number of contexts for exploring how best to conceptualise and theorise learning in the workplace in order to generate evidence to inform policy and practice and facilitates the development of a more theoretically informed and robust model of workplace learning and teaching.

Improving Learning in a Professional Context provides vital new evidence on exactly how teachers learn to be teachers; evidence that is likely to affect and influence the profession for many years to come. Demonstrating that learning in schools is more than simple ‘cognitive’ knowledge of the curriculum and teaching skills, this book suggests that we need to pay more attention to the emotional, relational, ethical, material, structural and temporal dimensions of the teaching experience. Based on empirical research, including interviews with new teachers, by teachers themselves, on a scale rarely seen before, the book reveals the complexity of learning in a professional context and gives some basic truths about what really matters in teaching. This book offers a fundamental critique of policy but also the prospect of constructive change for the better as the authors present accounts of what the ‘real’ experience of beginning teaching may be like, as well as lines for future research. Key questions are answered, such as: Do we really understand what beginners go through in the workplace? What is the experience of new teachers as they join one of the largest workforces in the developed world? What do teachers learn in the school, one of our universal institutions? Becoming a teacher is a transformative search by individuals for their teaching identities and, with this book, teachers and teacher educators can at last begin to understand this complex developmental process. IMPROVING LEARNING SERIES The Improving Learning series supports evidence-informed professional practice and policy-making in education. Each book showcases findings from the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) - one of the world’s largest coordinated educational research initiatives. For those with a commitment to the improvement of outcomes for learners, these books are essential reading.

This essential guide helps teachers refine their approach to fundamental challenges in the classroom. Based on research from cognitive science and formative assessment, it ensures teachers can offer all students the support and challenge they need – and can do so sustainably. Written by an experienced teacher and teacher educator, the book balances evidence-informed principles and practical suggestions. It contains: A detailed exploration of six core problems that all teachers face in planning lessons, assessing learning and responding to students Effective practical strategies to address each of these problems across a range of subjects Useful examples of each strategy in practice and accounts from teachers already using these approaches Checklists to apply each principle successfully and advice tailored to teachers with specific responsibilities. This innovative book is a valuable resource for new and experienced teachers alike who wish to become more responsive teachers. It offers the evidence, practical strategies and supportive advice needed to make sustainable, worthwhile changes.

Teaching Literature-Based Instructional Units: From Planning to Assessment provides an accessible roadmap to planning, designing, and implementing literature-based instructional units for the English Language arts (ELA) classroom. Understanding that unit plans are the building blocks of the ELA curriculum, Hansen and Vásquez outline the theoretical foundations and approaches behind teaching ELA and offer a framework to help readers make sound decisions about their content pedagogy. In so doing, this text offers research-based and straightforward guidance on planning instruction around key literary texts. Placing literature at the center of the ELA curriculum, the approaches in this book not only support students’ reading, writing, listening, speaking, and digital media skills, but will also motivate and inspire them. Part 1 addresses how to choose unit themes and texts, discusses the importance of having a rationale for choices made, and examines the practical, philosophical, and historical approaches to teaching literature. Part 2 provides step-by-step instructions for designing literature-based units of instruction by using backwards design. The text focuses on assessment before moving into how to scaffold and sequence lessons to meet learning objectives, and concludes with consideration given to teaching ELA in virtual environments. The wealth of activities, strategies, exercises, examples, and templates in this book make this text essential reading for instructors and pre-service teachers in ELA pedagogical methods courses and for practicing teachers of literature instruction.

'It is scarcely possible to imagine a truly educated person who cannot read well. Yet it is not clear how or even if courses in literature actually work. How can teachers of English help students in their developmental journey toward becoming skillful readers and educated persons? This is the complex question that Chambers and Gregory address in Teaching and Learning English Literature. The authors consider practical matters such as course design and student assessment but do not shirk larger historical and theoretical issues. In a lucid and non-polemical fashion - and occasionally with welcome humor - Chambers and Gregory describe the what, why, and how of "doing" literature, often demonstrating the techniques they advocate. Veteran teachers will find the book rejuvenating, a stimulus to examining purposes and methods; beginning teachers may well find it indispensable' - Professor William Monroe, University of Houston 'The transatlantic cooperation of Ellie Chambers and Marshall Gregory has produced an outstanding book that ought to be on the shelves of anyone involved in the teaching of English Literature, as well as anyone engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning in general or in any discipline. As they say, "the teaching of English Literature plays a central role in human beings' search for meaning" although others in other disciplines may make this claim for theirs too. If so, they will still learn a great deal from this book; anyone looking for no more than a means of satisfying the demands of governments that look for simplistic quality measures and economic relevance, let them look elsewhere. This is a book for now and for all times' - Professor Lewis Elton, Visiting Professor, University of Manchester, Honorary Professor, University College London This is the third in the series Teaching and Learning the Humanities in Higher Education. The book is for beginning and experienced teachers of literature in higher education. The authors present a comprehensive overview of teaching English literature, from setting teaching goals and syllabus-planning through to a range of student assessment strategies and methods of course or teacher evaluation and improvement. Particular attention is paid to different teaching methods, from the traditional classroom to newer collaborative work, distance education and uses of electronic technologies. All this is set in the context of present-day circumstances and agendas to help academics and those in training become more informed and better teachers of their subject. The book includes: - how literature as a discipline is currently understood and constituted - what it means to study and learn the subject - what 'good teaching' is, with fewer resources for teaching, larger student numbers, an emphasis on 'user-pay' principles and vocationalism. This is an essential text for teachers of English Literature in universities and colleges worldwide. The Teaching & Learning in the Humanities series, edited by Ellie Chambers and Jan Parker, is for beginning and experienced lecturers. It deals with all aspects of teaching individual arts and humanities subjects in higher education. Experienced teachers offer authoritative suggestions on how to become critically reflective about discipline-specific practices.