Title: How can I use xxx for yyy

You don’t have to give a formal abstract but just say briefly what you are covering and your final thoughts on the topic (this is my text which is 12 pt plain double spacing).

Key Phrases

This paperdescribes the use of VLE’s to...

It identifies the problems faced by young people in my teaching context ...

It argues that ideas of e safety are ...

It suggests that as a department we should...

My topic concerns social networking and its use to support formal learning

By social networking I mean ......

what I want to find out in this project are three things .......

The assignment is divided into four sections including background reading and interviews with ....

What others have said

You want to consider different sources of evidence not just the literature.

Key Phrases

This section describes the use made of social networking ....

I have accessed the following literature

The topic is widely / little reported

The finding from the literature are organised around the following themes

I conducted semi structured / structured / open ended interviews / focus groupwith young users of Facebook

This was a representative / opportunity / quota sample

Data were organised into the following themes

I carried out a content analysis of web sites, the criteria for selection was

Observations were recorded according to

Comparison of sources

I compared these finding with the literature and found the following consistency / inconsistency

Reporting literature

Some of the literature may be specifically about teaching a different subject but is still relevant for you – though do not forget to tell us why it is relevant:

this study is about science teaching, however, the points they make about practical experiments relate to my experiences of teaching ICT because ICT is a similarly practical subject….

Other literature is general. For example, there is a great deal about IWBs but very little about using the IWB in particular subjects.. It is fine for you to use this literature, but look to see if they are missing something about the context in which you teach. Again, some of the literature may relate to primary schools, some to higher education. You may want to draw on this work, for example Higher Education has probably been in the forefront of developing VLE as lecturers often deal with very large classes (200 students or more) and many students who cannot physically attend campus. Try to assess the relevance of these experiences to supporting smaller classes in secondary schools.

There are different types of literature which carry a different status. For example, there are academic journals, many of which you can access online through the library pages; professional resources (eg those produced by DCFS, Teachers TV and organisations such as Becta); and what we often call ‘grey literature’ such as online reports on particular projects. Think about the authors of articles – do they have a special position which means they are likely to stress the benefits more than the drawbacks of a particular approach?

Writing about what you have read is an art. Your job is to describe briefly what the author has said, to indicate what kind of study was carried out and comment on what was said. For example, here one student summarises a comment from an article she had read:

Glover and Miller (2004) in a study of science and MFL teachers, identify three stages in the use of IWB (or IAWs as they called them at the time): the first to support everyday classroom teaching; the second to stimulate interactivity with the class; the third is to use the IWB to present the lesson in new ways.

This student has summarised a longer point quite succinctly and provided a comment on it. As you read more articles you may want to organise your review around themes. For example this student introduces her review of VLEs and highlights that she will write about opportunities, difficulties and conclusions:

In this first section I will report on what has been said about the advantages of VLEs and the opportunities they offer both teachers and students. These cover issues such as storage, interaction and assessment. In the second section I will look at the difficulties teachers and students have with VLEs and these cover technical access and preferred styles of teaching and learning. Finally, I will summarise the two sections and argue that VLEs seem to have a limited but important potential for departments.

In reviewing articles you may want to quote key phrases or particularly striking ideas. Use quotes selectively and do not leave them to stand alone, in other words Quote -

Explain – Critique. This student give the quote, explains its importance and offers a view of her own:

Loveless (2007, p 1) argues “creativity can be regarded as not only a quality found in exceptional individuals, but also as an essential life skill through which people can develop their potential to use their imagination to express themselves, and make original and valued choices in their lives.”

This shows that creativity is a much wider concept than making or performing art. A difficulty, however, is that creativity has become so wide a concept that it could cover almost any context in which learners are engaged in learning.

As you carry out your reading, look for similarity and difference between what different people have said. Key phrases for bringing together themes in the research are:

A consistent theme of the papers is that ….

An often reported difficulty is …..

Those arguing against (VLEs) often suggest that ….

Implications for classroom use of (VLEs) seem to be…..

The case for (formative assessment) clearly rests on….

 You might also report on the extent of literature and some of the difficulties you encountered in getting hold of articles. For example, this student discussed problems in the literature on VLEs:

As the use of VLEs in school, and their use in the teaching of my subject in particular, is a relatively new field there has not been a lot of literature to access. There does not seem a great deal of consistency in the findings and much of the work has been carried out by enthusiasts and we must be cautious in accepting the findings.

What you have found out in your school (s)

This gives you an opportunity to contrast what the literature is saying with what teachers and pupils are saying about a topic. This is really important, the literature is often general or talking about contexts with which you are not familiar. No-one knows your school, your classes, your pupils as well as you do and the teachers who teach there. In talking to teachers, you may find they think pretty much along similar lines as yourself, but sometimes teacher reactions will surprise you. Try to understand why teachers feel the way they do. Make notes on what they said and look for patterns – where is the consistency, where are the differences? Make sure all references to school, teachers and pupils are anonymised in your reporting and keep anything told to you confidential. In your reporting say how you collected the data – a chat rather than formal interview is fine but say it, then let us know what you did with your data. In this example a student teacher is looking at creativity in ‘Blackberry’ school:

 While working in Blackberry school I spoke with three teachers in my department, one with a lot of experience of working in the school and two who were relatively new to teaching. I carried half hour semi structured interviews with each about creativity in lessons. I asked what they thought creativity meant; how it was best developed and the difficulties they had experience in developing creativity. I made notes of each interview and looked for consistency and contrast within these notes.

 Regarding the first, each teacher put a different meaning onto creativity. One associated it very much with being practical and being ‘arty’. He felt “most of the creativity gets done in Drama and Art”. The other two teachers referred to an in-service event they had attended and saw it as much more about pupils making choices in their learning. They contrasted creative approaches with rote learning. They were worried about the lack of creativity in some classes. One said “the coursework should be creative but very often it is jumping through hoops, we need to look at that”. I could see that there was a difference in teachers’ understanding of creativity and I need to explore this further….

In the same way if you have spoken to pupils tell us who you spoke to? where did you speak to them? what did you find out? Respect confidentiality and do not engage in discussions of individual teachers. This student carried out a discussion on assessment:

 I set up a short focus group with 5 pupils from my class. They were Y8 s (three boys and two girls) and represented a range of ability. I asked them what they saw as the value of assessment in our subject, what types of assessment they found useful, what worries they had about assessment; and what suggestions they had for me to develop assessment practice with them. This was a half hour open ended discussion. I made notes about the meeting and looked for consistency and contrast in these opinions. There was a much greater consensus between pupils, given this was a focus group rather than a set of individual interviews. On the first, they felt that the value of assessment was that it should let you know ‘how well you are doing’. However in practice they felt ….

Your colleagues are an important resource interview one or some of them about you topic. Create a semi structured schedule (simply a list of questions you would like to ask, make sure these questions are easy to follow and as unbiased as you can do them). As an interviewer try to express neutrality and give your interviewee a chance to respond.

References

Follow a recognised format

Hargreaves, E. (2005) Assessment for learning? Thinking outside the (black) box, Cambridge Journal of Education, 35, 2, 213-224.

Ridgway, J., McCusker, S., Pead, D. (2004) E – assessment, Futurelab, Bristol.

Becta (2004) A review of the Research Literature on the use of Managed Learning

Environments and Virtual Learning Environments in Education, and a consideration of the implications for schools in the United Kingdom, Becta, Coventry. Accessed [12 January 2011] at:

http://www.becta.org.uk/resaerch/resaerch.cfm?section=1&id=545.