Putting Research Outcomes into Practice Notes of the meeting held on October 12th 2007 at the Chancellors Conference Centre, Manchester. Those present Aminder Nijar Bill Law Brian McIvor David Stanbury Gill Frigerio Jane Artess Karen Carter Michael Clarke Paul Dowson Pauline McDonald Peter Hawkins Ruth Lawton Val Butcher Apologies Allistair Work Amanda Wood Arti Kumar Barbara Graham Becka Currant Claire Callender Della Fazey Graham Nicholson Helen Colley Jeff Goodman Jenny Bimrose Kate Purcell Kent Roach Lee Harvey Loretta Jennings Marc Lintern Margaret Dane Ros Healey Sarah Ryan Terry Dray Valerie Metcalfe Agenda - Progress review Creating a new model for career learning Gaps, choices and underlying values Turning resources into action: funding and communications Progress review Since the last meeting colleagues had provided a range of potential project ideas. Some were extensions of work commenced following the December meeting at Crewe (Paul J and Kate P, Ros H) - others were more recent. There remained a consensus that what is required is: - a unifying core project (CPI) several smaller projects (see template) use of a variety of models but to harness practitioners and researchers working together (the 'Della model' providing a very good exemplar of this) 1 Creating a new model for career learning - Content, Processes and Influences (CPI) Bill Law provided an extensive introduction to the CPI notion, enabling participants to consider how it might be developed as a more up-to-date (than DOTS) device for designing careers work in HE. This lengthy discussion is summarised as:Careers advisers need 3 brains: 1) for career development: finding out what is going on, among the facts, factors and trends in how careers work. 2) for career management: drawing out what people make of those events and pressures, in their minds and in their actions. 3) for careers work: working out what we can best do to help, in our programmes. How can one model capture all this? All any model can do is provide a framework for what to do. Models are a collection of theories that bear (in this case) upon career. Models can, - - expand the repertoire for action by providing a foundation for questions such as (i) are we missing something here? (ii) does the model suggest something we might do about it? be used selectively - the CPI model is not a prescription - we need to ask, (i) what do we need from it? (ii) how can it be used? (iii) how can it be researched? (iv) what adjustments need to be made? Coverage The DOTS model was built upon the work of Super and Roberts and others but was designed originally as a framework with which to research the provision of careers education in six schools - as a way of mapping what was happening, rather than a prescription for what could/should happen. It is not the only model but it is one that has stood the test of time. DOTS concerns 'coverage' essentially, but where DOTS' 'decisions making' and 'opportunity awareness' is relate well to career decision making - 'transition' and 'self awareness' are closer to the process of learning. The model gives rise to questions such as, What gave you the idea of …? So what do you need to know…? Tell me more about why …? Processes Processes were described as those components that enable learning. In careers work these are: - opportunities (includes information about opportunity) - self and role (where the former includes developing awareness and the latter could be framed in terms of ‘identity’ in narrative) Further - role might be what the self becomes when s/he enters and opportunity. Role is context specific – individuals occupy several roles simultaneously. Role might be a better notion than ‘career management’ as it suggests complexity and shifts according to personal circumstances. Big question: how much of our role is predefined? Key discussion points about ‘coverage’ 2 - - it builds upon DOTS getting enough coverage (information) is time-consuming students expect the process to be simple – but its complex need to move away from the formulaic into seeing careers work as catalytic identity might be a better term than role (i.e. its already complex) self is a problematic term (does it exist outside identities?) practitioner has to be open to ideas otherwise the context forces reductionism (i.e. 20 minute – or less – interviews) if role and opportunities move to the centre of careers work – where does this stop? Are careers practitioners in HE to become more like Connexions advisers? = boundary issues technological solutions appear to provide the best means of achieving coverage but how do we provide tools to empower identities? Distinction between coverage and process Process has been described (by Law based on the work of Bruner, Vygotsky and other learning theorists) as sensing, sifting, focussing and understanding. These are all verbs. Career management is achieved by these processes the culmination of which is understanding. Sensing Students need to know enough about opportunities to know that they could have done things differently (otherwise there is no choice) – but the big issue for practitioners is, how much do they need to know? What is enough? could be a research question. If making a (career) choice is easy – it may be that the student is being impulsive – unless this is accompanied by (more learning verbs) asking, visiting, looking, listening. This was not part of DOTS. Sifting This involves sorting into ones own order – derives much from the work of Savickas (personal construct theory) and notions of mind-mapping. It involves organisation into (self) constructed categories; it involves the construction of ones own map, and is presumed to be undertaken when no more new information is being sensed. Web 2.0, co-learning, wikkis are examples of how individuals sift information. Focussing Once a map (or maps) is created, other life goals (stories or dreams) are brought to bear. The work of Krumbolz is important here = students build generalisations and skills, often on the basis of the comments of peers or partners. Narrative theorists look for recurrent themes. The work of Steven Pinker (How the Mind Works) was mentioned here and the comment made that there is not enough research about the place of ‘intuition’ in focussing on career goals. Understanding Looking for an explanation on cause and effect. Understanding provides a basis for an examination in retrospect; this can be used to feed-forward to 3 prospective events. A big part of understanding involves recall. Remembering may be i) semantic, (someone told me), ii) procedural (skills embedded without thinking) or iii) episodic (had an impact) – memories are the most powerful when combined with emotional events. However the curriculum tends to be mostly semantic and procedural (eg information and how to use it) and under-emphasises the events most likely to be remembered (i.e. the ones that involve an emotional response). There needs to be a focus in order to understand; without focus, there is often just too much information to take in. In this sense, focussing is a procedure of understanding. Equally if organisation takes place with inadequate amounts of information then the result can be stereotyping (e.g. people like me don’t do that kind of job) which is often underpinned by (unexpressed) values and is self-fulfilling. For further detail please see http://www.hihohiho.com/magazine/mkngtwork/cafprgrssn.pdf However, most information is not impartial – its economic – we need to teach students how to seek out and interpret their own information. The sensing, sifting, focussing and understanding process is cyclical – understanding provides for more sensing and so it goes on. The place of the practitioner is to assist this process – to clarify and to help students to progress creatively. Co-learning (with peers, or practitioners) might be relevant here too. Three components of knowledge: i) public knowledge (what is already known), ii) personal knowledge (that deriving from own and others’ practice) and iii) new knowledge (that which is derived from the interaction of i) and ii) and is sometimes referred to as ‘powerful practice’. Practice - research issues How to capture (career) learning? How to capture knowledge? An example from the work of the NCSL – appreciative enquiry - was provided. Here the practitioner (teachers in this case) are asked to identity their ‘dream question’ (what s/he really wants to know more about) which becomes a ‘design question’ followed by a ‘delivery question’ and ultimately in the group/school setting a ‘systems question’. Influences All students are influenced in their career learning by events within and beyond the curriculum – identifying those incidences (or flashpoints) can be a basis for action. Influences can be from ‘attachments’ (to individuals) or ‘allegiances’ (to groups). Discussion here centred upon ways of helping students to understand their network of influences and Brian (McIvor) expressed an interest to explore whether the three dimensional nature of this can be captured electronically. 4 Culture is an important influencer. It was thought likely that culture can be changed by exposure to difference (people, events, beliefs) and noted that the practitioners’ culture is an important influence/counter influence. Mention was made of the five goals of Every Child Matters – and there was some consensus that these broad objectives might also form a sound basis for work with students/graduates. Bill emphasises that CPI is a model of well-being; employability is a means to that but not the only component of it. Turning resources into action 1. The practical implications of Bill’s presentation were discussed. The following individuals agreed to take components forward by working collaboratively each other and with Bill: NB some of these ideas have now been incorporated into practitioner research proposals (Nov 2007). - Michael Clarke – to look at sensing/sifting and investigate how this maps on to now students navigate the web. Ruth Lawton – to run a workshop with staff on how to use CPI approach. Jane Artess – to work on providing examples. Gill Frigerio – to devise a case study to test out these ideas in a curriculum setting. Val Butcher – to keep a watching brief and to act as ‘critical friend’ Ruth Lawton – to use the VLE to promote work there Brian McIvor – to work on the visuals/graphics David Stanbury – is interested to work on ‘hindsight bias’ and how students justify past actions Aminder Nijar – how careers advisory services measure their own effectiveness/success. Karen Carter – would provide examples of/template to generate narrative accounts; a model for organising the materials. Peter Hawkins – to use CPI as a template to audit Windmills. Bill Law – to aim to simplify the CPI model as a 3 x 3 x 3 2. Project proposals received were voted for and proposals ranked in order of immediate importance. Jane agreed to contact all the proposers to discuss their plans. Date of the next meeting Was agreed as January 31st /1st February 2008. 5 Selected references Boseley, S., Arnold, J and Cohen, L., (2007) 'The anatomy of credibility: a conceptual framework of valued career helper attributes' Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 70 (1), 116 - 134 (001 - 8791) Bruner Law, B (l996) in Watts A G et al (1997) Rethinking Careers Education and Guidance: theory, policy and practice, London, Routledge. Kruboltz Pinker, S (1999) How the Mind Works, London, Penguin. Savickas Vygotski 6