Working Documents

1. Combating failure	2. Converting new knowledge into practice
3. Common factors in ability to change	4. Flexible approaches

Document 4: Flexible approaches

Statements:

• If learners are to be fully engaged and successful, then education must be sufficiently individualised and schools must recognise and meet diverse learning needs.
• Learners need to feel committed to and in control of their own learning.

ICT helps to meet many of these challenges. For instance, it provides a means to:

• individualise learning;
• facilitate greater control by the learner;
• bring together learners (even when geographically distant) into learning networks;
• develop the quality of education through new pedagogical possibilities.

Introduction

• In the practical realisation of an open and inclusive school - in the meeting point between teachers and pupils - it is important to find the personal and human resources on both sides. The resources of teachers - also resources which the individual teacher did not believe that they themselves possessed - might, for example, manifest themselves in commitment to some form of collaboration, in particular teamwork, with other teachers, where the goal is to create innovation in the curriculum.

• The resources in the pupils can be found when teachers focus on the pupil's own potentials and enter into a dialog with them about their needs, interests and short/long-term goals. These pupil resources can be located as soon as the teacher acknowledges that they must differentiate their teaching so that it takes into consideration the many different pupil profiles which engage with the task of learning at each their own level, in each their own way and with each their own goal.

• Experiences from the TESS project show that these resources can be found in the actual meeting between teacher and pupil - in school - when teachers are offered a flexible, practise-related in-service training with a content and a structure and tools which prepare the ground for changes in ways of thinking, in collaborative forms and in teaching practise as a step on the way towards an open, inclusive school. It has proved to be particularly fruitful to use the ICT-based in-service training model "Open and Distance Learning (ODL).

Flexibility in education

For years educationists have been discussing problems in schools and school systems because the efforts of the educational institutions seem to lead to unacceptable results for groups and individuals.

Generally speaking many of these problems seem to arise because of the insufficient flexibility and dynamics of the school which find expression in the attitudes of the teaching staff to pupils. Pupils are looked at as, for instance, able pupils or less able pupils instead of being seen as diverse learners who can contribute and share knowledge and experience.

For the further educational development schools and teachers must be enabled to see diversity and different interests for learning as a natural reality and make any effort to develop positive attitudes and interest to learning, help pupils to gain skills needed for learning independently, help them to access information and develop so that the outcome will be better and deeper knowledge - at different individual levels and with different individual profiles.

It is, then, a question of moving the focus away from the sorting of pupils in relation to a norm, towards an adaptation and modification of the curriculum so that the individual pupil's experience, interests, expectations, needs etc. form the starting point.

The starting point for flexible educational provision is the fact that the system/teacher focuses on the individual pupil and his or her needs. The code words here are

• analysing the pupil’s potentials, interests and competence
• co-operation between teacher and pupil on content and goals
• results of the individual in relation to the set goals
• assessment of the individual pupil’s progress
• differentiated teaching
• organisational differentiation

Thus, in basic terms, flexibility in education is a question of creating new ways of aiding pupils in acquiring knowledge and qualifications - using the proficiencies and possibilities of the individual - through a flexibly or individually organised curriculum.

Flexibility is necessary in order to “keep the pupil on course”, cf. the discussion as to why many people leave the educational system prematurely or reap too little benefit from their schooling – also in cases where they do complete their education.

This paradigm will in the long run alter our view of the traditional interpretation of what constitutes a disability on the part of the pupils and their need for special educational provision.

Information and communication technology (ICT) and open and distance learning (ODL)

Through the use of ICT it is possible to develop viable and practical methods for providing in-service training of teachers, teaching, and bringing about learning in pupils. One of the prerequisites is easy access to computers, software and the Internet.

Within the compulsory sector of the education system the situation today is that there is wide variation amongst both teachers and pupils as to how much knowledge one has of computers at user level, and with regard to understanding the potential which computers have for teaching and for helping pupils to work independently. In addition, there is also a wide variation in the number of computers available round about in schools, and the way in which the individual education institution has prioritised access to them.

There is reason to believe that computers in future will be an integral part of the tools placed at the disposal of both teachers and pupils. This will mean that the individual pupil and groups of pupils will gain access to the use of a computer, with the possibility of linking up to the Internet in cases where the computer is the best tool to solve a given task.

The computer and ICT are the children or symbols of a society that is in a phase of transition. Computer technology and ICT were created in the beginning of this transition and further developed later on and are at the same time conditioning the transition and necessary tools to promote it.

On the basis of a number of projects under the auspices of the Nordic and European umbrella (most recently TESS Network http: //www.tess.dk) it appears that a flexible in-service training model which uses teachers’ daily teaching as a starting point and supports teachers in developing new methods and strategies in their daily work is particularly fruitful.

This kind of opportunity for an in-service training which involves and engages teachers can be established through use of information and communication technology for the purpose of Open and Distance Learning (ODL).

In-service training of teachers

The importance of in-service training must be seen against the background of societal development, which is creating new needs and thereby placing new forms of demand on the educational systems; demands which cover both content, structure and effective means. Therefore the educational system must be adapted and adjusted in an ongoing process, and it is this process which in-service training must support.

Therefore it is also necessary to establish which in-service training activities give the greatest benefits for the educational institutions and their employees.

The elaboration of in-service training programmes must take into consideration at least two aspects: 1) The thinking and practice of the teaching staff is more or less linked to the industrial era and 2) The teachers must be given tools to reflect on educational values and innovating initiatives and carry out actions in a natural and competent way under new circumstances.

The results of in-service training should ideally be visible as a transfer effect which ensures that the necessary adaptation is taking place, and that as many teachers and instructors as possible experience an increase in their professional competence in respect of the new challenges and goals.

Introductory courses and courses on the job

These courses typically involve groups of teachers at the individual educational institution. This format creates a dynamic space in which opinions and ideas can be exchanged both internally at the school and externally in the overarching forum which comprises all participants in the open and distance learning course from other national and European schools.

Both introductory courses and on-the-job courses are important because they lead to increased efficiency in terms of reducing the time it takes for teachers to gain a knowledge of the computer and information and communication technology as an instrument of learning. Otherwise it will take the equivalent of a whole generation of teachers to become familiar with using the computer – and society cannot wait that long.

This course format provides the possibility of working at times of the day which suit the individual teacher or teacher group.

However, it goes without saying that participants in the pilot projects which have been conducted until now have received a considerable professional boost.

Introductory courses

The purpose of courses like these is to increase working knowledge of the computer and its potential. To these aims it is important to get teachers involved, so that they open up to the idea of using the computer in a teaching context and see and understand the new learning potential for pupils.

This introduction can be launched in the form of an open and distance learning (ODL) course, where the teachers as participants themselves can try out this form of teaching at first hand and gain experience from it. The introductory courses are a demonstration of the benefits to be gained from attending a course in this way.

On-the-job courses

When teachers have become familiar with the way in which ODL functions, they will then be ready to use the possibilities inherent in ODL to a much wider extent, and open and distance learning courses can be incorporated into the daily pedagogical work, where the starting point is the teacher’s own experiences, needs, thoughts, objectives etc.

On-the-job courses are designed according to the basic tenet that it is important that teachers experience learning at first hand through an information and technology based open and distance learning course (ODL), and that they are given support in organising the use of ICT in the daily teaching of their pupils.

Thus ODL will become a tool in developing the pedagogical work and improving the curriculum.

Among participants there is widespread agreement about the fact that the current ODL course has given them a professional lift, so that they have been able to add something new to their teaching.

This professional lift appears to be the result of the course's field-related content, the teaching method and the working format. The method (ODL) has provided a flexible framework for working with the content; the field-related content has been up-to-date in all national contexts. Together with the working formats, this has led to changes in the day-to-day curriculum, as all participants express the fact that the opening up and inspiration they found in the teamwork with other teachers locally regarding the course homework has given them substantial and positive experience which has invigorated their professional enterprise, given them the courage to take new initiatives and given them the positive experience of being a living element in a whole entity.

One of the most significant results of the pilot project is that, at the concrete level, the teachers have experienced team- and group-work with regard to a task as engendering a force which is greater than the sum of each participant's individual competence.

Perspectives for the future

Therefore it is recommended that, at a European level, efforts are made to promote the inclusive and qualifying perspectives which are contained in the indicators (mentioned in document 1) of the exemplary school; i.e. one which ensures that all pupils continue to apply themselves at school and achieve a competence which is sufficient to enable them to occupy a job in the society of tomorrow.

There are good reasons for concluding that ICT and ODL offer flexible tools and structures which are particularly suitable and effective in opening up the educational system and individual institutions, and influencing teaching practises towards developing an inclusive curriculum based on collaboration between teachers and, in a social context, with a focus on the individual pupil's potentials, interests, and academic developments.