When you’re smiling: exploring how teachers motivate and engage learners in the further education sector

Abstract

Sue Wallace is Professor of Continuing Education at Nottingham Trent Universitywhere she is involved with the initial teacher training and continuing professional development of teachers in the further education sector. 2When you're smiling: exploring how teachers motivate and engage learners in the further education sector.Abstract. This paper is based on a one year research project in the UK designed to investigate teachers' strategies for motivating learners and managing non-compliant behaviour in the Further Education sector. Carried out in collaboration with 203 teachers in three colleges of further education, the inquiry set out to identify, through the use of observations and focus groups, the learner behaviours most commonly identified by teachers as 'challenging', and the methods teachers employ to successfully address these. It also sought to capture teachers' theories about the possible causes of non-engagement, with a view to incorporating findings about both theorising and practice into sessions for initial teacher training and continuing professional development. Drawing on these data, this paper suggests that lack of motivation in the 14-19 age group is a common phenomenon across this range of colleges, manifesting in behaviours such as lack of punctuality, failure to submit coursework and refusal to remain on task; and that experienced teachers are no more effective in managing such behaviours than teachers new to the profession. The implications in terms of teacher education and development are discussed in the final section which points to the evidence that, although positive teacherlearner interaction is found to be productive in addressing the immediate symptoms of disengagement, participants in the study consider the root causes to lie beyond their control.

The flipped classroom in further education: literature review and case study

“…Wallace (2013) notes that the correlation between positive teacher-student relationships and engagement is consistent with the works of Knowles (1984) and Freire (1996), as well as reflecting humanist theories of learning (for example ;Maslow 1987;Rogers 1983). Despite the mixed feedback from the study participants, the responses were 272 C. Little largely positive.…”

“…This open and positive teacher-learner relationship has been noted to be beneficial to learning (Fuller and Macfadyen 2012;Peart 2012;Wallace 2013). Wallace (2013) notes that the correlation between positive teacher-student relationships and engagement is consistent with the works of Knowles (1984) and Freire (1996), as well as reflecting humanist theories of learning (for example ;Maslow 1987;Rogers 1983).…”

Equality and Differentiation in Marketised Higher Education

“…To support this, I start at a point familiar to learners, building on their knowledge and experience of the subject, engaging them in active learning, and enabling each person to construct links between their past experiences and present understanding. This approach supports active learning and knowledge synthesis (Donavan, Bransford and Pellegrino, 1999;Wallace, 2014). However, I find that students are often preoccupied by module assessment tasks and are primarily focused on the assessment outcome i.e.…”