More, Different and Better

Nine Nudges

Written by Paul Askew, National Project Manager for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy’s two year programme to Champion Continuing Professional Development, which is funded by the Union Learning Fund. Paul’s background is in the public, regulatory and non-profit sectors, developing and delivering strategy, change and performance programmes. 

The headline findings of his year’s Adult Participation in Learning Survey from NIACE show a relatively stable level of overall participation in learning over the last 14 years. Participation has varied between 46%, a high in 2001, to 38% in 2004, 2008, 2012 and now 2013. Over those same 14 years there’s continued to be a significant investment in adult learning and this is why NIACE has been actively seeking “new actions and initiates…if the scale and patterns of participation are to change”, including a super workshop I attended last year. Reflecting on these latest findings, here are my nine nudges, which collectively, might help lever longer term and sustainable increases in adult learning.

1.       Mainstream a self-sustaining approach to learning

This is about creating a mindset of self-motivated, self-directed, self-sustaining approach to learning. It might be a personal paradigm shift, but once we help people into that space, then they help themselves and potentially others, leading to less need for intervention. It’s about reinforcing that personal ownership for personal development. Give a person a fish and they eat for a day, support them to learn to fish and they eat for life. They can maybe even help others learn to fish.

2.       Be purpose driven

The ‘why’ can be our underlying motivation for anything, whether conscious not, so it’s important to be clear about it. In learning, it’s about ‘being the best I can be’ for whatever’s most important to me, my job, my career, my family, my children, my contribution to the greater good. Helping clarify that purpose can give meaning, direction and context for specific and then continued learning.

3.       Promote a continuous process of personal or professional development

Develop the idea of lifelong learning as a more dynamic way of thinking. Mainstreaming a simple and continuous personal or professional development cycle (CPD), along the lines of thoughtful reflection on needs, planning some learning to meet those needs, doing that learning and then considering how that learning has provided benefit. And then continuing that cycle from an ever-stronger base of learning achievements and awareness.

4.       The ’so what?’ test

It can be easy to see the input (time, money, energy), the process of study and learning and the output of skills or knowledge. But the real value lies in the difference it all makes - the outcome.  What is now different?  What is the impact? What is the benefit?

 5.       Appeal to both the head and the heart

Top-down evidence would seem to indicate that learning leads to better effectiveness and / or better efficiency. This appeals to the logical head. Then there’s also the emotional demonstration of the power of learning to specifically transform lives and circumstances. 

6.       Evangelise the power of learning

Having the head and heart cases for learning goes some way, it’s the convincing dissemination that’s top down, bottom up and sideways. It’s also about doing all of that in different ways: one-to-one, one to many, many to many and even many to one. This includes an individualised approach and thinking of and engaging employers as comprising individual CEOs, leaders and managers.

 7.       Learning is in our head and heart, not a classroom

 Moving the apparent commonplace perception that learning is by default in a classroom, to learning being something we do in our head, wherever and however. This is strengthened with the emphasis on those informal learning opportunities.

 8.       Learners understanding learning styles

Individuals can have preferred styles of learning (visual, audio, hands-on, etc) and it’s important to for them to understand how that preference can enable them to choose ways of learning that are more likely to be enjoyable, effective and sustainable.

9.       Realise that everything can be learning

Informal opportunities can have great value as learning in their own right and as a stepping stone to more formal learning. Encouraging an even more pro-active way to seek personal or work experience, activities and challenges can provide relevant and accessible ways to learn and grow. Even clouds have silver linings.

Bringing theory alive

Guest contribution for Adult Learners’ Week, written by Toni Fazaeli, Chief Executive at the Institute for Learning (IfL).

Is learning about theory dull and practical learning exciting? During Adult Learners’ Week, let’s listen to what the learners have to say.

I have been talking with students and trainees across England to find out the latest views about how theory comes alive.

Geoff Petty, one of IfL’s patrons, talks about research showing that too often vocational tutors are imaginative when teaching hands-on activities – which is good – but revert to an archetypal ‘chalk, talk and copy down’ method when teaching theory.

We would never do that, would we?

Let’s examine our own record in this. Do we ever keep on doing things, hoping for or actually expecting a different result, despite the evidence? Do we boil an egg without timing it, confident that it will be perfectly cooked this time, even though this flies in the face of our experience that this approach is somewhat hit and miss? Do we think we will make it from the bus stop to the office in six minutes this time, for that meeting, yet it takes eight minutes – again?

So what did the young adult learners I met recently have to say about how they are learning theory and what the very best looks like from their point of view?

Francesca, Jordan and Connor - three catering students studying at levels 1, 2 and 3 at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College - described the best theory teaching they had experienced, starting with wine tasting. They enthused about theories linking to acidity, balance, nose and terroir (not my field, as you may have gathered already) and said they got to understand the theory as it was blended and reinforced with actual wine tasting.

They had also learned the theories behind why boiling points vary between different oils and fats, and what this means for cooking (and burning), through hypothesising what they thought would happen, then using a probe to test temperatures as fats and oils heated up.

International educational research shows that estimating an outcome and articulating the rationale for this, followed by testing and reflecting upon the actual outcome, results in powerful learning. Integrating maths and English with the vocational area – for example, calculating portion sizes and costs and profit margins, and reading and writing about restaurant customer service – also works.

At Seetec, I met Emma and Jayshree, who are training in retail and have covered theory in ethics, the environment, health and safety, raw materials to the market, communications, customer service, and equality and diversity.

Their faces lit up when they explained how the tutor got them in groups to guess the significance of different elements of communication: words, body language and eye contact. The trainees were all so confident they had it right – words are the top priority. It was a memorable revelation, indeed a shock, when the tutor revealed research findings showing that body language comes top. They love theory and enjoy the exercises the tutors use to get them to think and reflect, drawing on their experiences and what they know from other areas of their lives.

At BAE Systems in Preston, the engineering apprentices I met grasped complex theories of water flow and dynamics by designing and creating water pumps of their own and gauging very precisely which worked fastest and what this confirmed or challenged about the theories.

Listening hard to explanations from the tutor has its place. But it must be snappy, and tutors should not be tempted to drift down memory lane of how they first learned this theory, bringing it alive for themselves, but not for their students.

So as you boil an egg and it is predictably too runny or hard, or you arrive two minutes late for a meeting, remember how hard it is to change behaviour patterns. If you teach theories in any subject or vocational area, or if you learn or work alongside teachers, let’s agree to be imaginative, look to the educational research, and bring theory alive, with confidence and aplomb.

Adult learners deserve no less.

A perfect fit

Guest contribution for Adult Learners’ Week from Kim Thorneywork, Chief Executive at the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

Helping people reach their full potential is what it’s all about at the National Careers Service. So working hand in hand with Adult Learners’ Week, which kicks off tomorrow, is a perfect fit for us and we are always delighted to be involved.

I believe that learning transforms lives. The weeklong celebration of the benefits of learning encourages adults to take part in the many activities during the week - and beyond!  I’m really pleased that the National Careers Service can be there to help people find out what’s on offer.

The benefits of learning are universal, but people learn in so many different ways. Further education courses and qualifications offer very flexible learning that allows people to learn at a time, and in a place, that suits them. There are a huge range of FE options for whatever stage in life or career people have reached, all widely available in local communities across the country. 

From my own experience, I know that the world of learning in FE can offer success and fulfilment for both individuals and employers, helping both play their part in improving skills in England in a way that contributes to economic growth. Skills deliver real economic benefits to individuals, to the communities they live in, and to the country as a whole. In these challenging economic times, learning becomes more important than ever before, playing a vital part in building a sustainable economy, nourishing social mobility and feeding social justice.

The National Careers Service is here to help right now, and it can.  We are committed to getting people the right information, advice and guidance on learning and work, at the right time, whether that’s during Adult Learners’ Week or any other week.

The wider service is available to everyone aged 13 and over in England and there are many ways to make contact to receive quality information and advice at a time that suits the individual person. Customers can either call free on 0800 100 900 to speak to an adviser, or visit the interactive website for information, to use the useful online tools or speak to an adviser via webchat. For those over 18, a face to face service with advisers is available, giving personalised guidance on learning options so that people can move on in their careers and find the perfect fit for their ambitions, whatever their circumstance.

There is more information on events and taster sessions taking place through Adult Learners’ Week 2013 from the National Careers Service helpline or at http://www.alw.org.uk/events.

Austerity or investment in learning and skills?

It’s been a busy few months at NIACE: preparing for Adult Learners’ Week, developing our proposals for the spending review, interpreting the figures coming out of this year’s participation survey, thinking about the impact of the benefit changes and skills for those in and out of work, working through the challenges in funding and structural changes and contributing to the growing debate on skills and economic growth in localities. All at the same time as considering the European context in our role as the national EU coordinator for adult learning. The list could go on and on, but we also see this through the lens of the change agenda playing out for many of our members and supporters at the frontline of teaching and learning in terms of changing learner profiles and needs, decreasing resources and the need for a new curriculum for difficult times.

One of our major roles as the national charity for adult education is to draw all of these issues together into a set of coherent messages about the role that learning and skills plays in people’s lives and to support the confidence in the economy - learning for work, to build resilience and for hope for the future of communities and families.

A key argument we are making in our spending review document - Spending Review Proposals - Learning for Adults - is that the UK should aspire to spend the OECD average on tertiary education by 2020, a date not too far away – it’s the end of the next parliament. The OECD average spend on tertiary education is 1.6% of GDP, the UK only spends 1.3% of GDP - 0.3% of the UK GDP is serious money, approximately £4.25 billion a year.  We are also well below the European average of employer investment in skills – both critical when we think about economic growth.

You can imagine some of the serious discussions we have had about this: how can we be this ambitious at a time of austerity and cuts? How can we not be this ambitious when it is skills and learning that underpin the sustainable economic growth everyone desperately seeks? We have been very clear about the need for a changed narrative for current times and the need to quantify the benefits of adult learning – this is about the hard factual case of the net present value (NPV) of investing in learning and skills. It is about the national evidence on productivity and on wage progression, as much as the equally important impact on well-being and the wider benefits on learning. A quick look at the long term scarring effect on earnings of a period of not being in education, employment or training as young people tells us this is an issue that needs a radical long term re-think.

We present a list of practical and technical policy “asks”, but our main message is much bigger and simpler: we need a long term cross-party consensus that investing in adult learning and skills at all levels, not only provides the scaffolding to enable everyone to contribute in a vision of future economic sustainable growth and resilience that meets both local and national needs, but also shows savings on other budgets to make this happen. But this needs to be a consistent long term approach and not subject to continual changes in policy or tweaks in direction.

And if you have any doubts about what our call for increased investment in adult learning and skills means, just take a quick look at the achievements of the national and regional winners for Adult Learners’ Week, the reality of the human capital debate that it is impossible to ignore.

Friends or enemies of promise? How to survive your family, save the planet and stop dreaming in html!

The Rootstein Hopkins drawing exhibition at Morley College.

I like it when a well turned phrase shows up in our generally bad tempered national debate on education, especially where it is carried out in the letters pages of the newspapers. For example, Michael Gove recently dubbed his critics “enemies of promise” (well they had called his draft national curriculum ‘Michael Gove’s pub quiz’).

“Enemies of promise” is a phrase borrowed from the title of a 1930s book by the critic Cyril Connolly, in which he comments the arts were “under a blight”. Ever thus, you might think.

As part of the arts and culture strand of Adult Learners Week 2013, I recently agreed to be one of three judges for the Rootstein Hopkins drawing exhibition at Morley College. It was hard work: 70 drawings had to be selected for inclusion from over 400 entries and winners identified. If you are in the vicinity of Lambeth North between now and 8 June, you should go and see the exhibition.
On the way in, the walls of the gallery are posted with the names of participating adult learning centres/colleges and short statements the participating learners gave on the subjects of  ‘adult education’ and ‘’why I draw’. The responses (“it’s a lifeline”, “changed my life”, “I’m finally following my dream”) are familiar testaments to the transformative power of learning and creative expression. I always think such one-liners act as a teaser for the individual life stories that lie behind the statement. My reward for the judging was an invitation to the private view, where I got to meet the learners and hear some of the life stories behind the drawings. I’d like to share three with you.

Anne Gardner is a student at SCOLA and is thrilled that two of her drawings are included in the exhibition. She told me that for her, drawing was something she had finally been able to do once her family had grown up and she’d been able to go part time at work: “when my son moved out, my drawing took over his room”. Her story is typical of the many adults for whom learning is a key element of their strategy for negotiating transition from one part of the life-course to another.

Jill Hopper is a student at City Lit whose drawing ‘Trolley’ won first prize. Jill, a working Mum with an 8 year old son, told me that she’d studied art at school but life had taken her down other paths. The City Lit course has been a way of picking up with art. Jill volunteers with the Wandle Trust, an environmental charity dedicated to restoring and maintaining the health of the River Wandle. The ‘trolley’ of Jill’s drawing is a shopping trolley pulled from the river by the trust. The drawing is made on three pages of a bible that once belonged to a WW2 serviceman, also found dumped near the river. Jill chose to make the drawing on pages from Leviticus, a book of the bible concerned closely with themes of cleanliness. The drawing therefore conveys information about environmental themes in a very direct way.

Another winner, Ann Gordon, told me she took an art class at Morley college “as therapy” when her full time job as a programmer threatened to become a bit of a problem. “I was sinking in a world of code”, she recalls, “I was even dreaming in html. For me, the drawing is definitely about giving a balance to my life. Through the drawing, I refuel in order to do the day job”.

These three learners have very different motivations: to reinvent life post-family, to find a new way of communication environmental messages, or to stop dreaming in html. But for all three, drawing has been a means for them of bringing their intelligence to bear on experience or subject matter critical to them. As (fellow judge) Professor Stephen Farthing puts it:

“Drawing is one of the three mechanisms we have at our disposal for translating time, sounds, forms, light, movement, emotions narratives, memories and ideas into comprehensible two dimensional matter. Matter that we use to remember, share and develop information”.

Connolly’s book is about his own unrealised potential as writer. Too often in recent times, supporters of arts education (and in particular its disciplines such as drawing, lazily dismissed as not digital enough or not C21st enough) have been labelled as ‘enemies of promise’. Those of us arguing for an education system with a richer conception of information and intelligence need to redouble our efforts to make the case for creativity at the centre, not periphery, of a curriculum that enables individuals and communities to fulfil their potential.