THE LEARNING VORTEX: A MORE COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO SECURING LEARNING GAINS FROM THE ADOPTION OF NEW LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

This paper presents some suggestions as to how the time devoted to CPD can be congruent in meeting whole school, departmental and individual development needs whilst maintaining a focus on improving student learning outcomes.

This paper explores the structural, cultural and leadership factors that promote effective CPD in a twenty first century context in which traditional conceptions of pedagogy are challenged and informed by new technologies and new definitions of learning for students.

Specifically the paper addresses how CPD can be used as a transformational tool to the introduction of new technologies to learning so that the outcomes are not determined as if the process were a technical exercise, but become embedded in the heart of the culture of learning at the institution.

Collectively the approach is called the Learning Vortex. It is outcome based and seeks to secure quality assured levels of teacher practitioner competence in the pedagogical use of new technologies.

The paper explores the considerable investment in all elements of ICT made in the secondary school environment and seeks to address the question, “Has there been a commensurate return on that investment in terms of learner engagement, learner outcomes and teacher exploitation of the potential of ICT?” The Learning Vortex is put forward as a more systematic approach to ensuring teacher use of ICT is pedagogically driven and builds around quality assurance systems which deliver personalised CPD experiences. These develop individual expertise, secure the intellectual capital of the school and federate best developing practice, promoting reflective practice and capacity building across the institution.

The work comes out of my experience of running large scale ICT CPD programmes across schools; work in the Building Schools for the Future programme in the pedagogical design of new schools, and the development of the reflective practice and capacity building modules for the MA in School Leadership Development of the University of Nottingham.

The bulk of evidence and research underlying this work is based on the experience of UK secondary schools. However, conversations with colleagues in Scandinavia, the United States, Australia and the Middle East suggest that the critical issues of the adoption of new technologies for improving learning outcomes are universal in scope and profile.