Blog feedMeet the team – Margaret Alcorn
September 10th, 2010
I am Margaret Alcorn and I have been national CPD Co-ordinator since May 2004. The National CPD team aims to lead and support the development of world-class CPD for Scottish teachers.
Prior to this post, I was an English teacher in Edinburgh for 28 years in a variety of posts, and also served as CPD Manager for City of Edinburgh Education Department for a few years.
I believe that CPD is important - for teachers, for the children and young people in our schools and for the future economic success of Scotland. Ambitious, excellent schools need teachers who have confidence and competence to deliver the new curriculum. High quality CPD can help achieve this, and I am proud to be in a position to contribute to this agenda
While I missed it ( because I was overseas), I from TESS that you created a little bit of a wave at the Edinburgh thing this week. See below for one of my views on these issues,
“As I write this, I am working in Lahore with a group of senior staff from a private Pakistan school system known as “The City School”. Our theme is leadership development. Broadly speaking we are designing, not for the first time, CPD for groups of senior teachers. The programme is based on a mixture of contact days, self-study materials, reading and mentored work-based action projects.
Some of my input is based on materials from the HMIe/LTS “The Journey to Excellence” initiative; and it is not the first time I have used these in Pakistan. There are a range of materials on the LTS/HMIe website: readings; self-reflective exercises; and videos of good practice. Altogether they form a formidable resource: and my previous experience is that senior Pakistan teachers have found them useful, even inspirational. So they certainly have had an influence on The City School (an organisation the size of a moderately large Scottish education authority i.e. with about 300 schools and 3000 teachers.)
Whether they have had an effect on any of Scotland’s 32 education authorities is more dubious. Most local authority staff to whom I have spoken certainly think not; and most school staff to whom I have spoken have not heard of the materials.
Why is this?
Firstly the sheer volume of material is overwhelming, and navigating one’s way around them deciding what to use and what to discard is a major task. I can do that because my time is paid to do it. For, say, an aspiring head to do that and fit that time around the day-time job would be a real challenge, and probably a frustrating and dispiriting one.
Secondly, and more importantly, we know that online material intended for individual self-study is largely ineffective (except possibly for some tightly defined skills enhancement) when that is the only mode in which learning can be accessed. Embed it within other CPD experiences (e.g. provide some face-to-face interaction with other students, some mentoring support and so on) and the picture is rather different. That is precisely what the training designers in the City School decided to do.
To use the jargon, “blended learning” can work rather well. Which is why, from its very beginnings, the Open University “blended” their distance learning study packs and radio and TV broadcasts with Saturday schools, summer schools, tutorials and tutor-counselling support. Within UHI, even the courses that are “on-line” have face-to-face induction days, on-line tutor contact and on-line discussion groups (none of which feature in the “Journey to Excellence” approach).
The concept that individual study of e-learning materials can on its own produce a new generation of school leaders for Scottish schools is a delusion. We do not learn inter-personal or team-building or meeting management skills by sitting in front of a computer screen.
I suggested both in written and in oral evidence to the Donaldson inquiry that leadership development materials will have very little effect if they are deployed only in their current mode. My evidence was in vain. Instead, “Teaching Scotland’s Future”, quite accurately but entirely misleadingly, talks only about the high quality of the materials.
My Pakistani colleagues sometimes lack confidence in their abilities: which is why Westerners such as I end up working with them in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. I must tell them that, at least when it comes to developing school leaders, they are well ahead of the Scottish game.”
Iain Smith
Lahore
20 Jan 2011
(Iain Smith was formerly Dean of Education at the University of Strathclyde)
Thanks for finding the blog post – it’s lovely to hear from you!
I agree with many of your comments regarding the Journey to Excellence materials. They do offer a significant resource with some excellent CPD materials. I am interested that some senior Pakistani teachers have found them helpful. The evidence we gather from our CPD Network colleagues in the authorities and from the schools we visit fully supports the views you express in your response. Teachers are unlikely to spend the time that would be needed to negotiate the mass of material. As you say, we would always suggest a blended model of learning, that allows some element of personalisation and contextualisation, is much more likely to impact on practice. For us the coaching support is a key factor in ensuring that CPD is effective. We have also come to understand that the idea of “best practice” is rather jaded and in our experience many educators react badly to this concept.
There are of course some areas where on-line learning can be helpful. I believe the Heads Together forum was a very effective way for headteachers to share experience and learn from each other. Sadly it no longer exists. We have explored the use of technology to support events such as the summer school, by offering pre-course reading, by live streaming of interesting speakers, and by building a sustainable community after the event through a Glow Group.
It will be important to ensure that the ideas in your response are picked up and addressed by the new Scottish Educational Quality and Inspection Agency as it comes into being in July. Interesting times indeed!
What a surprise! Great to hear from you. I have so many wonderful memories from that time in my career and i remember you as one of the panto stars. What are you doing now? Did you become a teacher? I’d love to hear more.
PS Bill is still a Hibby, and I am still mother of Rhona!