Using a Patchwork Texts approach
to curriculum and assessment
A case study of action research into the
development of a module in a vocational
undergraduate programme at Nottingham
Trent University
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The context
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The science specialist module in the final year of the BA Primary
Education degree had the aim:
development of knowledge of the syntactic structure of the subject
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Previously, students had not integrated various dimensions of their
learning as well or as widely as had been hoped.
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Their assignments lacked purpose, were ‘safe’ and task oriented.
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Professional autonomy was not being realised as fully as had been hoped
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Students produced significant writing only for the end-of-module
summative assessment by the tutor
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The aims of introducing a PT approach
Students writing regularly throughout the module could be a way of:
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them expressing their developing thinking,
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them learning from each other,
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them giving and receiving informal and formative assessment,
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allowing the tutor to support such learning through her/his formative
assessment.
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The approach
The metaphor of making a patchwork cloth by stitching patches of
different material together is used to suggest the composite format of
the final assignment.
Each patch has its own characteristics, involving expressions of different
kinds of learning about different aspects of the module content.
Stitching the patches together enables the student to assemble a coherent
text to convey their multiple learning achievements
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Justifications
Richard Winter's idea (1999) for Patchwork Text assessment arose as a
creative response to four questions:
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How do we ensure that the assessment process recognises the variety
of ways in which understanding can be represented and thus enable
students to draw on their various and differing abilities?
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How do we encourage students to integrate the diversity of elements
in a course of study in order to grasp its underlying or emergent
structure ?
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Justifications continued
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How do we encourage students to revise their existing personal
frames of reference in order to accommodate new knowledge, as a
genuine process of assimilation?

How do we encourage students to make their learning into a process
of constructing meaning (as opposed to merely mastering
information)?
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The Action research methodology 1
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the pedagogical aim embodies an educational ideal that the research
is committed to realising
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research focuses on changes in practice to make it more consistent
with the pedagogical aim
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evidence is gathered about the extent to which practice is consistent
with the aim,
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evidence is gathered from many sources, particularly the students,
seeking triangulation by comparing and contrasting the tutor’s
accounts of her/his own practice with those of observers and
students.
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The Action research methodology 2
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evidence is used to identify inconsistencies, and to problematise
assumptions and beliefs tacitly underpinning practice
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the research aims to generate and test new forms of action while
simultaneously reconstructing the theories that guide practice
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the research has reflexivity, that is participants try to reflect on their
own actions
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the teaching is seen as a form of research and vice versa
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The pedagogical aim
The aims of this module arise from three sources:
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the statutory ‘A-levelness’ requirement (Circular 4/98)
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an ideal of higher education as induction into a process of becoming critical
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a broad vision of science education
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assumptions about learning that are constructivist in character
Such aims need to be considered interdependently with anticipating the
means by which they might be accomplished.
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Changes in practice 1)
The module retained most of its previous structure and content, notably:
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Illustrated lectures on key areas of conceptual knowledge of science
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Collaborative reading and discussion in seminars on knowledge about
science
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A study visit to the Natural History Museum in London
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A peer teaching exercise
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An individual science inquiry project
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Changes in practice 2)
The two main changes introduced in 2000 – 2001 were:
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The Directed Learning Task requirement for each student to write
several ‘patches’ during the module
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The reorganisation of the contact time which is generally allocated to
tutorials, so as to establish a small group seminar programme spread
across the whole module
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Changes in practice 3)
Six pieces of writing are required, three of which are compulsory (a, b &
c) and the other three chosen from the following types
n a critical, evaluative or analytic response to published writing such as
an account of your understanding of a specific concept or theory
n a report on your own science inquiry project
n a journal (the so-called Jotter) for frequent reflective writing
n a critical, evaluative or analytic response to a media piece
n a story of scientific endeavour or a pen portrait of a scientist
n a critical incident analysis
n an account of some professional applications or implications of
development of your understanding of science
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Changes in practice 4)
In seminars, students
 discussed their choices for what and how to write,
 shared their pieces of writing in preliminary and final drafts
 gave and received peer comment
 received tutor responses, (which were constructively to criticise, not to
mark)
 discussed the development of each others’ patches as indicators of the
emergent, individual learning journeys, culminating in the Patchwork
text assignment.
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Changes in practice 5)
The Jotters were written regularly by students as:
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a stimulus for, and record of, current reflections on experiences and
ideas
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an accumulating record of the student’s learning journey
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communication of 1 and 2 from the student to the tutor and to peers
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communication of formative feedback from peers and the tutor to the
student
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Changes in practice 6)
Later in the module, students’ reflections on their accumulating portfolio
of patches focused on
what is/are the underlying and, possibly unifying theme(s) which are at
work in my writing?
The Jotter was a resource for stitching the edited patches together into the
assignment
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Changes in practice 7)
The assessed assignment is
an edited selection of the patches with an interpretive, reflective and
critical commentary, and a framework which brings out and explores
overall theme(s).
Such themes may, but do not need to converge on answers to
questions, or solutions to problems, nor do they need to seek a
contrived simplicity or clarity.
They may contain alternative points of view, dilemmas, residual
contradictions, unanswered or new questions and unsolved or new
problems.
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Changes in practice 8)
The criteria for the assessment of the Patchwork Text assignment are:
The extent to which the account of becoming a science specialist primary
teacher demonstrates the qualities of:
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Culture shock: from ‘spoon feeding’ to autonomy 1
Some students, who were quite frequently seeking implied reassurance
that they were achieving what the tutor is looking for, would
sometimes compare their tutor feedback with each other and, finding
that it seemed to be different, began to doubt its consistency.
They did not always appreciate that a tutor’s comment to one student
about her achievement and needs would not necessarily be applicable
to another’s.
In other words, they felt difficulty in overcoming the expectation that
there had to be a standardised correct answer to which their work
would need to conform.
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Culture shock: from ‘spoon feeding’ to autonomy 2
It was initially difficult for some students to gain confidence that what was
being valued by the tutoring were their own ideas and interests
(provided that they were carefully thought out and well sourced).
This may suggest that previous modules and their assessments have been
too closed, with convergent, product criteria, to be a helpful
preparation for students to engage in learning in which their creativity
and individuality could contribute significantly.
These difficulties may have contributed to a perception among some
students that the workload was heavy.
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Writing the patchwork text
Groups of students formed communities of learning, acknowledging
influences on each others’ thinking in discussion and by reading each
others’ work.
Sharing of each others’ patches was facilitated by the university intranet.
Uncertainties about differences between students surfaced most clearly
during the preparation of the PT.
There were peer assessment comments were exchanged between students
throughout the module, suggesting that their awareness of each others’
strengths developed well, and there was confidence in the mutually
supportive learning processes.
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The aims of the module
A particular aspect of some students’ views about the aims of the module
emerged most clearly during discussion with the external examiner.
They said that each subject was asking its specialist students to be a
scientist, historian, or whatever, as an important part of what they most
wanted to be which is a teacher.
Another group of students appeared to agree with the external examiner
that the more a student is able to become scientific themselves, the
more they will be able (as the external examiner put it)
to bring some intellectual and practical rigour to the more affective
notion of ‘enthusiasm’ for science.
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Tutors’ and examiners’ perspectives
BA tutor colleagues were drawn in to the PT Project as critical friends as
members of the PT Monitoring Group, which met three times.
The science external examiner showed much interest in the Project,
writing at some length about it from his perspective.
Concerns for comparability between this and other specialist modules
were expressed by some tutors. Science tutors were augmented by
tutors from three other subjects to form a team of five second markers
to strengthen the moderation process.
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Qualities of the Patchwork Texts
The consensus was that high standards of work were reached, with close
agreement between markers and the external examiner, across the
range.
Achievement was comparable to that of students at another University
who had been science specialists for all four years of their degree.
The external examiner commented that: all show an intelligent and
scientific approach to problem solving which is seldom addressed in
traditional ‘science’ undergraduate programmes . . . (and is) . . of a
high level of scientific rigour.
The PT method of assessment enabled best students to gain high marks,
while discriminating (in an assessment sense) across the range.
Key features: high quality of writing, breadth of reading, depth of
understanding shown by the best and notably the interest for 1) the
student communicating their learning, and 2) the reader, in being
stimulated to think for themselves about the issues raised.
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Issues for reflection
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Students found the view of knowledge implied by their formal education is
not the only or always the most helpful for understanding science or being
professional: it is a difficult task because you discover things about your
own thinking and also because the answer is never fully reached . . . I
never expected to come to the conclusions that I have.
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The tutor needs to be: an authority (possessing and using knowledge to be
a stimulus to improving students’ ways of thinking and a resource to
students’ learning) more than in authority (controlling closely what
students think and learn)
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Enabling students to make up their own minds, and go through doubts and
certainties in the process, requires an atmosphere of openness.
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Issues for reflection continued
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This is liberating for some students, and the insecurities it prompts for
others are accommodated by forms of support which do not short-circuit
thinking processes but give affirmation to their inquiring quality.
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Knowledge needs to be presented as contestable, notably through the
examination of controversy, so that it is not only the relevant concepts
which are considered but also the personal and social contexts for using
them, the inquiry purposes in which they are relevant and therefore the
questions and criticisms that can be included in the exploratory thinking.

It became clear how different students adopted distinctive styles of
working and showed particular characteristics in their interim products
which revealed their different working preferences, distinct viewpoints
and particular values which could themselves become the focus of
discussion and development.
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Overcoming assumptions of scientism
All assignments refer to one of the most profound changes that students
achieved, in their image of science, which had been broadly
scientistic: believing that science had privileged access to certain
knowledge of greater worth than knowledge of other kinds.
In communicating the range and, in some cases, the depth of the changes
in the images of science during the module, the Patchwork Texts
suggest that superficial and dangerous assumptions about science in
society are powerful and pervasive.
This adds yet more importance to the successful achievement of an aim of
this module: to enable primary teachers to enable children to question
and criticise scientifically, as part of them being able to think
independently about science in society.
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Patchwork Texts
peterovens69@googlemail.com