Ten Principles for Framing Core Processes of

Effective Teaching and Learning

Adapted from work by Frank Coffield, Emeritus Professor of Education at the
Institute of Education, University of London **

The 10 principles need to beworked out in detail so that they fit the radically different
sites of T & L up and down the country. They provide only a framework and the main job
remains to be done, namely of finding techniques to turn these principles into practices
which suit you and your students. They also need to be adapted to the different subject
areasbecause the pedagogy needed to teach engineering is obviously different from
that needed to teach child care. If not, we shall end up with rather mechanically-minded
nurses and child-centred engineers.

Taken together, do these principles constitute a culture of learning or is something
more meant by that phrase?

1. Equips learners for life in its broadest sense.
Development of all learners as active citizens means, for instance, expanding our
conception of worthwhile learning outcomes beyond the attainment of academic
qualifications. In doing so, we would be catching up with our learners who
already value other outcomes such as the new friends met at college, the rise in
self-confidence and the informal learning done in and outside the college.

2. Engages with valued forms of knowledge.
Expecting that tutors will develop a good understanding both of the subjects they
teach and of the best ways to teach those subjects so that learners are engaged
with the big ideas, key processes, modes of discourse, and narratives of those
subjects. But we need to ask: whose valued forms of knowledge? The
governments? The tutors? The students? Experts in the field?

3. Recognises the importance of prior experience and learning.
Awareness that tutors need to take account of what learners (and especially
adult learners) know already, [and] to respond to the personal and cultural
experiences of the different groups in their classrooms.

4. Requires the tutor to scaffold or sequence learning.
Tutors should provide activities and structures of intellectual, social and
emotional support to help learners to move forward in their learning so that, when
these supports are removed, the learning is secure. A useful analogy is
providing a child with stabilisers [training wheels] while she is learning to ride a
bike. In other words, all learners need to be given the means of going beyond the
understanding and skills of their tutors.

5. Uses assessment as a means of advancing learning.
That is, assessment should advance learning as well as determine that it has
taken place.
6. Promotes the active engagement of the learner.
Such that learners acquire a broad repertoire of learning strategies to become
agents in their own learning. Sue Crowley (in personal communication with
Coffield) pushes this argument further: If we accept the importance of prior
learning and experience, then the trajectory of learning must be shaped by both
the teacher and the learner.Such interactions amount to more than just active
engagement.

7. Fosters both individual and social processes and outcomes.
And turns teachers attention to consulting learners about their learning, which
considers, in turn, ways in which giving them a voice is a right.

8. Recognises the significance of informal learning.
Open to the argument that informal learning in the home, during leisure pursuits,
or in the workplace or with community/affinity groups is perhaps more significant
than formal learning in educational institutions.

9. Depends on and encourages tutors continuing to learn.
Tutors learn continuously in order to develop their knowledge and skill, and
adapt and develop their roles, especially through classroom enquiry is a central
component of teaching.

10. Demands consistent policy frameworks with support for teaching and learning as
their primary focus.
The body of research argues that institutional and system-level policies need to
recognise the fundamental importance of teaching and learning and be designed
to create effective learning environments for all learners.
_______

** Frank Coffield. Just Suppose Teaching and Learning Became the First Priority...
Published by the Learning and Skills Network. London, 2008. 11-13. The full
monograph is readily available at multiple sites that turn up in a browser search.

The ideas and words comprising this short handout are drawn entirely from Coffields
monograph, and created for use as a teaching tool meant to introduce Teaching in
Higher Education students and higher education colleagues attending workshops to
Coffields monograph.
Within the monograph, Coffield credits James and Pollard (2006) for informing the Ten
Principles, noting that the work conveys
evidence-informed principles adapted from the Teaching and Learning Research
Programme analysis of findings from 20 projects in primary and secondary
schools, applicable to the post-compulsory / higher education sectors, and then
the largest initiative in educational research in the UK
James, M. and Pollard A. Improving Teaching and Learning in Schools; A
Commentary by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. London
University: Institute of Education, TLRP, 2006.


(Adapted by Ilene D. Alexander)