Research in practice: experiences, insights and interventions from the project Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education

This publication is aimed at practitioners and managers in colleges of further education [FE] and parallel settings in the learning and skills sector. It arises from a partnership between the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) and the research project Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education (TLC) funded within Phase 2 of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). The project started in 2001 and will run until 2005. It has three main aims: it seeks to deepen understanding of the complexities of learning; to identify, implement and evaluate strategies for the improvement of learning opportunities; and to set in place an enhanced and lasting capacity among practitioners for enquiry into FE practice. This report offers a ‘collage’ of insight and experience pertaining to all three of these aims. It starts by giving an outline of the project and its approach and then covers: experiences of being involved in the project, and the way that reflection on practice has been enabled, enhanced and harnessed; the development of understanding of learning and its transformation via case-study work on particular ‘sites’ and through comparisons between them; cross-project insights and the approaches and tools being developed to arrive at them, including the proposal of six principles for good learning and teaching, derived from project data and analysis; and accounts of ‘interventions’, where practitioners have consciously sought to change some aspect of their practice and monitored the results. The report ends on a note of cautious optimism with regard to the potential for engagement in research to improve practice in colleges of further education and similar settings.

Excerpt from published summary reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less