SUNCETT

SUNCETT Publications

 

As a centre for excellence, SUNCETT have written extensively about pedagogy in the further, vocational and adult learning sector.  Below is a selection of the most recent publications by the team:

Reflective Teaching in Further Adult and Vocational Education 

by Margaret Gregson, Yvonne Hillier, Gert Biesta, Sam Duncan, Lawrence Nixon, Trish Spedding and Paul Wakeling

 

Reflective Teaching is scheduled to be the authoritative textbook for all FAVE practitioners. Through our book we offer extensive support for trainee and practising teachers through easy to use strategies based on sound theory informed practice. Drawing on a combination of contemporary pedagogic research and personal experiences, our book on Reflective Teaching presents practical and easily-accessible guidance essential for practitioner success.

 

For further resources and more information visit the reflective teaching website.

 

Readings for Reflective Teaching in Further, Adult and Vocational Education

Edited by Margaret Gergson, Lawrence Nixon, Andrew Pollard and Trish Spedding

 

Readings for Reflective Teaching is a unique portable library of exceptional readings  drawing together seminal extracts and contemporary literature from international sources from books and journals to support both initial study and extended career-long professionalism for further, adult and vocational education practitioners. Introductions to each reading highlight the key issues explored and explain the status of classic works. We are proud to release this volume as an indispensable companion to our main textbook.

 

For further resources and more information visit the reflective teaching website.

Joint Practice Development: new research policy and practice partnerships in action in the FE and Skills Sector.

Margaret Gregson, Lawrence Nixon and Sheila Kearney

 

This paper reports on a four-year study (2009-2013) of the National Research Development Fellowship (RDF) programme which aimed to encourage and support practitioner research in the Further Education (FE) and Skills sector in England. The programme was initiated and funded by policy professionals in the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) (now The Education and Training Foundation) and developed in collaboration with a team of research-active teacher educators at the University of Sunderland’s Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SUNCETT). The purpose of the study was to address perceived shortcomings in ‘top-down’, ‘outcomes-based’ approaches to educational evaluation and improvement. Of particular concern was the way in which the dominant ‘outcomes’ driven model of educational improvement was restricting what could be measured and valued in vocational education, to was capable of being overly simplified and reduced to blunt measures of ‘hard outcomes’. Another concern was that this was operating to inhibit real improvements in practice because it overlooked subtle, complex and crucially important aspects of the realities of the process of educational improvement. 

Pedagogy and the intuitive appeal of learning styles in post‐compulsory education in England pages 39-51

Margaret Gregson, Lawrence Nixon and Trish Spedding

 

Despite the rigorous and robust evaluation of learning styles theories, models and inventories, little objective evidence in support of their effectiveness has been found. The lack of unambiguous evidence in support of these models and practices leaves the continued popularity of these models and instruments as a puzzle. Two related accounts of the tenacious appeal are considered in this paper. First, the popularity of these accounts is explored in terms of their intuitive appeal. This notion is explicated in terms of what it is to be gripped by a metaphysical picture. It is argued that the simple and direct appeal of these models, viewed as metaphysical pictures, in part explains their continued popularity. Second, it is argued that when we situate these models in the arena of contemporary pedagogic practice in the Post‐compulsory Education and Training Sector it becomes possible to discern a number of ways in which they can also be recognized to serve specific instrumental ends. The apparent usefulness of these models will be challenged with reference to Dewey.