Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching

The majority of our students have come through the traditional route of primary, secondary and further education – though in universities we seldom look back at the way these settings are teaching and see if there any lessons there to be learned: how can we better engage students in the classroom? What type of ‘homework’ actually helps students learn? How can we positively affect a students’ wellbeing? How is A.I. being used in earlier education settings?

On Thursday 4^th July I attended the  15^th ‘Festival of Education’, a huge event held at Wellington College serving – for the most part – primary, secondary and FE teachers 45 minute sessions on a wide range of topics to try and find the answers to some of these questions. There were over 125 sessions to choose from across 5 sessions, so the selection was difficult, but I went with: 

• ‘The future of teaching is bright, the future is A.I’
• Student Wellbeing 
• Leading the exams (r)evolution: students, inclusion and challenging what is possible
• Young trans people and learning 
• Why poetry is so awesome 

‘The future of teaching is bright, the future is A.I’

1. A.I. has the potential to be a time-saving device for teachers, freeing up time for developing social/emotional connections with students and placing teachers more in the role of ‘coach’, though the way in which it is used in this way must be taken with extreme caution.
2. Large-language models are ‘bullsh*tting’ – we shouldn’t worry about students using ChatGPT and the like to write essays as you can’t know that something is wrong unless you know it yourself first. We should focus assessments on critiquing the hallucinated A.I. answers. We should focus on the way students come up with the outputs, rather than the output itself. 
3. The same worries were voiced when Encarta was released, then the internet, the Wikipedia… and yet education and teaching methods have prevailed – this will not revolutionise teaching in the way we worry it will. 
4. If we want to learn to live with A.I., we need people ‘on the ground’ to champion it, as well as having support from leadership. 

Student Wellbeing

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this vaguely named session, but it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable of the day. Led by Kirsten Colquhoun, she discussed her research and experience as a teacher and pastoral leader in schools over the last 15 years, and outlined what she believed to be the biggest influencers and factors in a pupil’s wellbeing. The parallels to the research we have done in BILT were significant, with ‘school connectedness’ (sense of belonging) being a central factor in a student’s sense of wellbeing, as well as stress and worry about assessments being a major factor in negative wellbeing. She shared this quote, which is definitely something I recognised from listening to our students.

“When people’s sense of social connectedness is threatened, so is their ability to self-regulate suffers” (Baumeister, Twenge and Nuss (2022).

Leading the exams (r)evolution: students, inclusion and challenging what is possible

I’d been most excited about this session but unfortunately did not read past the title… I thought this was going to be a session about the potential to eradicate exams from schooling but instead it was an advert for session on Pearson’s online invigilation tool offering home-schooled students an “inclusive” option for taking their GCSE exams at home, instead of going into a school setting to do this. It was pretty surprising (to put it politely) that an assessment method that involved three different cameras filming an already-vulnerable student taking an exam was being discussed in the context of ‘student choice’, ‘inclusive’ and ‘revolutionary’.

There was a moment of very short relief when an audience member asked the questions I hoped was on everyone else’s mind – why are we having a discussion about high-stakes summative assessments in the context of ‘inclusivity’? Of which the panel members could not provide an answer. Moving on… 

Young trans people and learning 

This was another session I was really looking forward to but left feeling a bit disappointed. The session, which was hosted by Dr. Natacha Kennedy, largely focussed on transphobia in the media and the effect of this on the wider populations’ perception of trans people. I hoped to walk about with some tips on how to create inclusive classroom environments but I believe our series on Creating queer-friendly classrooms provides more practical advice. 

After a long break, which mostly involved picking up as many freebies as I could, drinking several free mocktails and making a smoothie on a bike, I headed up to my last session of the day. 

Why poetry is so awesome 

The other sessions I had chosen were linked to the work of BILT, but I chose this session for more personal reasons. My oldest daughter is soon to start school and I am keen to learn more about learning to read – and to love reading – and the synopsis from this session sounded like it would help with that. 

The session didn’t disappoint, with readings from three leading children’s poets, including Joseph Coelho, the 2022-2024 Children’s Laureate. They discussed how poetry is one of the only ways children can be truly creative in school and how it is an accessible form of readers for students with a wide range of needs. 

The session reminded me of one of my most memorable moments while working in the University – I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing this – Prof. Tansy Jessop, then BILT visiting professor – stood up in a meeting filled with a lot of quite senior colleagues, and recited a poem (I believe it was from Kathleen Quinlan’s ‘How Education Feels’ book, though I may be misremembering…). It had such an impact on the people in the room, immediately changed the atmosphere and brought a sense of emotion and connectedness to the people around it. 

I don’t think I expected there to be so many moments in the day where I thought ‘that’s exactly what we have found/ what we are doing’ but, on reflection, it is a good thing – we are all teaching growing minds and by seeing what others are doing we only strengthen our approach and understanding of the people we are teaching.