East Midlands CETLs pedagogic research network (EMCETLs PREN) Towards the end of last week I went along to a meeting of our regional pedagogic research & evaluation network (see www.eastmidlandscetls.ac.uk/pren). Lindsay from the Centre for Integrative Learning (CIL) CETL hosted the meeting at Nottingham University and there were representatives from six other CETLs present. These were myself from engCETL at Loughborough University, Moira & David from SIGMA Maths CETL also at Loughborough, Ralph from the Visual Learning Lab CETL at Nottingham Uni, Anne from the Centre for Effective Learning in Science (CELS) at Nottingham Trent, Mark from GENIE CETL at Leicester University and Norman from the Centre for Enquiry Based Learning (CEEBL) at Manchester which we know is outside the region but we're trying to be inclusive to those who are interested!

The topic up for discussion was the HEFCE interim evaluation and the aim was to share our experiences and expectations of the process. Lindsay invited us to think about the evaluation methodologies and methods used, the dissemination media, the audience and who was consulted. We considered issues that had been raised by the process. One of these was the perception among those of us in CETLs that the report was to be formative but it appears there will be no personal feedback, just generalised feedback through the outcome of the OU/Lancaster programme evaluation. This was felt to be ironic considering the spirit of the programme and what is considered to be excellent in terms of feedback, i.e. how can you improve through formative assessment or evaluation if you received no feedback?! We decided that we need the answers to some questions regarding the summative report (size, format, timing and type of content) and should have an input into the format and a better understanding of the way in which the CETL initiative will be evaluated. We were not
confident that HEFCE know the answers to this hence the need for speedy consultation so as not to waste time.

We also chewed over issues relating to conducting and facilitating pedagogic research in our CETLs (discipline issues, scholarship vs RAEable research, research vs "evaluation", the time it takes to develop a research project, one person supporting many). Lindsay introduced attendees to the Eduspaces site she had set up to enable us to (hopefully) collaborate more easily. Finally we moved on to an exercise that enabled us to share experiences of the reporting process i.e. the who, what and how of compiling and disseminating the evaluation report.

Labels: CETLs, HEFCE, pedagogic research

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  Productive exchanges


Last week we had a really productive meeting of the CETL Internal Pedagogic Research and Evaluation Network (CETL-IPREN) at engCETL. We used the ideas of Open Space Technology to run a meeting without an agenda, where the folks who signed up had a 'carte blanche' to discuss the issues and topics of interest to them. We had a lively debate about the interim HEFCE evaluation and how we were going about embedding our work into our institutions. I will post more about the outcomes when we have an agreed set of notes.


Take a look at how Michael Herman describes a meeting held in this way and what Richard Seel and colleagues at New Paradigm Consulting say about Open Space.

Coincidently the Education Guardian this week published an article about a similar event run by NESTA.  ¶ 5:37 pm 0 Comments