Welcoming Spaces

As I venture into my new world of self employed freelancer I am finding myself seeking ways into new spaces. Yet that pesky impostor syndrome is always there, asking me to double check and wipe my feet before I go in to a new room. Am I welcome? Such an important question whether impostor syndrome strikes or not! What am I here to say? What am I here to learn? If I can answer these questions whether the imposer strikes or not I am steadier on my feet. 

I am a schools based teacher who moved into FE. This means I can relate to high school teachers and FE teachers about our work. The work is essentially the same. Education. The buildings are different but the core aim is the same. When I moved to FE I was sneered at by my schools colleagues. They felt I was making a mistake. They knew, as did I, that my pay would be dwarfed in FE and I would incrementally earn more if I stayed in schools. But I was saddled with numerous student loans and in NQT+2,  FE were going to pay me more so I jumped, with every intention of returning and re joining the school spine in the future.

The trouble was the longer I spent in FE the more I loved it. The wide variety of subjects. The wide range of abilities. The awesome settings. The subject experts and interesting people wherever you go. FE is the most welcoming place in education. No matter where you live, what your qualifications are or where you have been before you are welcome. Be it a 16 year old needing to resit and joining on a level 1 with maths and English GCSE's or if you are a 74 year old adult who wants to meet new friends and study IT. All are welcome. 

So I never left FE, well until now. I haven't actually left though, I still do my maths teaching in FE. I can't not teach, it is what I do. Whether it is coaching, mentoring, influencing that I do in my day to day freelance work, I now I will always crave that maths classroom. So I still teach. I am proud of that, I love having those light bulb moments with students when I teach a new topic and it finally clicks. That is probably the main reason I never returned to schools. The fact that my maths students are re sitters and I help them unlock that maths ability. That it the magic of the job.

Now I am a freelancer, a consultant, a speaker, a whatever you need me to be. I am entering more and more spaces. Different colleges invite me in to share my latest work or my latest ideas on edtech or how to embed maths in curriculum areas. I do it all. Yet not all audiences are welcoming. Essentially often I am the CPD speaker. I am doing CPD to staff. Rarely have they chosen to be there. Rarely have they asked to work with me. Rarely do they want to be there. I don't take this personally but I recognise that CPD is a personal choice and many organisations still force it upon staff rather than involve them in the decision.

A recent college didn't want me there, the audience made that known mid session. They also made it known in the feedback afterwards. But I asked my self. What am I here to say and what am I here to learn? I was there to say how to create active engaging activities online and I was there to learn what challenges teachers face. I learnt the frustrations of the staff were the same as I had experienced and witnessed colleagues experience. I learnt that through my own experience of this and the ideas I was here to share, that things could get better for these staff. But they didn't want me there and didn't listen. Yet I left confident in that I had said what I wanted to and I believed in my approaches. There were no hard feelings. 

Yet the unwelcoming nature of the space remains. The staff were having CPD done to them. There was no choice. The college had failed to seek the participants thoughts on what they wanted to learn about, the college had decided what was best. It is the same as when I enrol my children in an after school activity. If I choose the club or lesson it isn't welcome but if they choose a new sport to learn they are excited. But then organisations face spiralling costs and adding more options for CPD means more costs. I would argue though that with so much CPD now online surely some traditional face to face costs, of large conferences for example, are no longer in the expenditure budget so could be reassigned?

The impostor though did strike me recently when I was considering contributing to a HE event. That snobbery my school colleagues had expressed towards FE was multiplied and magnified by this HE event. Their approach did not welcome me in. They mase me feel like an intruder. I had bravely stuck my toe in the door and knew what I was there to learn. However I was not sure of what I was saying and how it would be received. I retreated and forgot about the HE event. I blinked it away and removed it from my memories. Then the deadline came around and I was reminded of the event again. 

I was fortunate to be part of a nationwide community of practice of fellow advanced practitioners via AP Connect. I took my idea to a #FestivalFriday #IdeasRoom. If you have yet to experience an ideas room, please do come along to a #JoyFE one on a Wednesday evening 8pm GMT, all are welcome (DM for link). In an ideas room, everyone takes turns and shares the space. Each idea is developed for those who bring one, and for those who don't bring on of their own they actively listen and their contributions help form the shared idea. It is magical. 

One Friday I shared my idea about my contribution to the HE event. We went in a round and the other participants shared their freshest thinking. Quickly it was identified through discussion that the impostor was holding me to ransom. Then one participant said something that gave me my own light bulb moment. 

"There would be no HE without FE"

In hearing this the impostor quietly silenced. I knew what I wanted to say and I submitted my idea to the HE event. The next stage of the process couldn't have been more welcoming, there was no sneering in the next stage of the HE event planning team. It has become a beautiful space to be part of. I am proud to say I come from FE and this is what I want to contribute. That pride is cemented in me by the strength my community of practice, be it #APConnect or #JoyFE give me. Education is a welcoming space as a whole, the end goal is always the same.

What I have learnt now is those same rules my parents gave me when making friends as a child still apply. Try to be nice, if they are mean, be twice as nice, if they are still mean walk away. 

If a space doesn't feel welcoming, try to amplify the positive affirmative action or message you came to share. If it still isn't welcoming it is OK to walk away it may be an off day for them, it probably isn't personal to you. And that impostor can go back in their box.

asynchronous for all

As I've been blogging my journey in teaching online has led me to asynchronous teaching. Asynchronous teaching allows learners to learn at their own pace. I construct the routes but they choose the path. Choice is key here for me. My learners are used to the choice and they are invested, they know their own journey through every lesson. They have the comfort of knowing that they have a backup plan to scaffold for them too.

But why did we end up at asynchronous? My class are adults. The traditional barriers for adults returning to education are listed here by the DfE in 2018. There are 3 key ones that I want to focus in on; childcare, work commitments/costs and fear. The beauty of FE is that it is the most welcoming of all education establishments. My adults have already taken a significant step in enrolling on my course. They want to be here. In the traditional battle of hearts and minds of a maths teacher, this is a huge advantage.  Although they have enrolled in our class there are still logistics involved. To attend every week they need to be away from work in good time. There can be no staying late for meetings at work on this evening. They need to give their kids tea early so they can be back out of the door in good time to get to the community centre for class. All not impossible tasks but require skillful juggling by my learners. Juggling that I recognise and appreciate.

I have high standards. Some often tell me too high but I like where my standards lie. Yet I am always supportive. My learners last year, pre covid, would let me know if they couldn't make class. Often accompanied with completed work or work arrived after the lesson. There was a mutual respect, I treated them as my equals which meant I respected the endeavours they had in arriving at class and respected when they failed in those endeavours but informed me that they were to be absent. Add in covid and we needed to re evaluate. Those who are still attending work are now in a more reactive space and late meetings have to be accommodated. Although children are at home they still need supervising for learners to attend the Centre for class, but who can be that adult in relation to bubbles and isolation? 

My adult learners and I agreed that rather than a cyclical attendance of bubbles we would all convene, together, every week online. It was from here we moved to asynchronous, but not immediately. This it the third barrier to education I mentioned, the fear.

My adults are all nervous. Everyone unsure of their own abilities in maths. This gcse that has eluded them for so long is now staring at them, taunting them, telling them it is out of reach. My job is to squash that noise and help my learners believe. I need to show them that maths happens in everyday life and we can apply those skills to this qualification. In the face to face classroom cold calling is a challenge. Last year Ruth left my class in week 2 when I dared to ask her a question. By week 18 she was modelling at the board. Let's now imagine that fear online. Compounded by their fear of their own digital skills. They are witnessing their children navigate platforms with ease that after many years are still alien to them. Cold calling is like a seance, knock 3 times if you know the answer. The fear is real for all my learners. Knowing this, I started with relationship building first i showed them how much I cared and we formed those bonds required for them to trust me to address that fear.

Meet Steve. Steve is early 20s and is working in a supermarket. He has been told that the supermarket would welcome him onto a degree apprenticeship once he achieves gcse maths. Steve enrols on my course. This isn't Steve's first course at our college. Steve has studied here for over 6 years. Every year attempting to achieve gcse maths. When I receive my registers there is a large highlighted mark next to his name and an accompanying 10 page document. This document includes all his prior learning support plans. Steve is diagnosed with 3 learning difficulties. He requires a teaching assistant (TA) one to one. He has 50% additional time allowed for exams. Steve is going to need me to carefully plan his learning.

When we began face to face, Steve was the only one to object to moving online, as he, quite rightly, wanted to know how it would work with his TA. I promised him I would have a think. Think I did and I reached out to the TA dept. Sadly there were no TAs available for my evening class. We can debate the morality of this later. Essentially our college only secured TAs 9-5 and 5-9pm on 2 evenings a week. My lesson day was not one of those 2 evenings. I therefore knew Steve's TA support would be out of class unless I changed my approach.

Evaluating the 3 factors that are known to prevent adults from returning to education I decided to give asynchronous study a trial. The lessons are shared on a Friday, work is due by Thursday and on a Thursday there is a shorter session where we workshop exam questions on the weeks topic. In switching to this my keyworker students no longer had added anxiety for attending extra meetings. Parents no longer had to rush food down with their kids in order to leave the house on time. No one was dealing with unnecessary risks by mixing bubbles for childcare to attend class, and Steve could do his lesson with his TA in a 9-5 slot.

The work that I set all my learners involved a video of me talking over my slides, as per the way it old have done it face to face. Then they would do a task, ideally self marking and easy to re attempt. This allows my learners to get instant satisfaction from being correct, be it their first of 10th attempt. They didn't need to wait for me to come round and mark in the face to face classroom so why do they online? I always hand out answers with tasks when face to face. Learners tick and flick their own work, I give them feedback. This is the same online, they submit their marked work and I give detailed, personalised feedback with next steps.

Steve declined TA support. He wanted to give it a go just me and him. We had a long chat and he said he works better with his mum at home and if I was OK with it he wanted to give it a go with his mum helping him. We agreed weekly we would have a 10 minute checkin 1 to 1 before the workshop to address misconceptions. I was anxious,  I had never taught to this degree online before. I was the only maths teacher teaching asynchronously and I had to document that Steve had declined TA support which meant he would struggle to get any later if we needed it. But fortune favours the ....

Week 1 Steve took 18 attempts on the homework but achieved 100%. His asynchronous classwork was also all correct, I couldn't track number of attempts though. In our discussion he asked me probing follow ups to some of the questions. This told me he had participated in the work and was trying to progress. Week 2 was a similar story but there was an exchange of messages mid way through the week where Steve was adamant he was right but the website was telling him he was wrong. I videoed myself answering the same question and sent it to him. He had been wrong and could now see where he went wrong. Steve, using my video for a prompt reattempt the work and submitted it all correct.

Week 3 Steve came with a long list of questions to his 1 to 1. All of which were reasonable given the topic and were what I had planned for the live workshop session. So we had a chat about how Steve was finding the course instead and saved his questions for the workshop. Week 4 and 5 Steve came with common misconception questions again to the 1 to 1. We glossed over them and I said we would do them in more detail in the workshop. Steve was happy and we talked about how his shift pattern had changed and it was a good job we didn't have set times for classes. In the live workshop in week 5 Steve unmuted after an example and said. I think I get this now, can I go? Of course he could, the workshops were only ever a mop up, the asynchronous work is what mattered. 

Week 6 Steve cancelled his 1 to 1 but came to the workshop. He also helped a fellow student out by explaining he originally made the same mistake but realised what he had done wrong. I struggled to stop the Cheshire cat grin from appearing on my face at my pride at his depth of knowledge of the topic. That joy of learning is infectious and is the main reason I say in the job. Seeing Steve develop and grow gave me the biggest buzz. Proud doesn't come close. He told me his enjoyed learning and helping others.

Sadly I had to leave the group at Feb half term. In my final workshop Steve came along. It was great to see him as he didn't always feel the need to attend workshops anymore as he was doing so well! He didn't have any misconceptions that needed looking at, he was flying. Dont get me wrong there were multiple messages exchanged between Steve and myself weekly about work and workload. Mainly Steve's questions were for conversation and confidence, not errors that he needed addressing. He was doing very well. When he came to my final session and unmuted to answer a question after a modelled example. I was beaming again. He unmuted a second time to help a peer out who lost her trail of thought when explaining her workings out. He stayed on at the end of the call.

'I just wanted to say thank you, no one has ever found a way to help me learn and you did, I can do it. In a class I get lost I don't know whats going on, but here, the way you lay it out, I can and I know it's working'

The pandemic has robbed us of many things but also opened new avenues. I have done more CPD than would ever have been possible since lockdown 1. If I had met Steve in class fave to face we would have got him a TA in class and we would have continued as per his previous experiences. Despite my confidence in my teaching abilities in terms of helping him, I know he wouldn't have achieved the level of independent learning he has this year. Let's look at what he said, 'xthe way you lay it out', the videos, the modelling, the short self assessing tasks. The immediacy of the feedback of these tasks worked for Steve. He also said 'in class I get lost' we all know that feeling, as a learner, in a class where we have lost what's going on in a lesson. We have had a lapse where we lost what was going on and we now can't keep up. For Steve this was every lesson. Easing the pressure of learning asynchronously helped him. It removed the fear.

So when we look at synchronous and asynchronous models do we look at them in terms of inclusion models?