Interventions

Abstract The research was conceived as a result of teaching adult learners on a City & Guilds Jewellery course who showed keen interest toward practical work but less interest in their design sketchbook work. In most cases the qualification was not their intrinsic motivator so saw little value in completing sketchbooks beyond their initial ideas just to fulfil the course criteria. The aim of this action research was to change learners attitude, motivation and understanding toward design development to result in improving the quality of their sketchbook work and being able to complete this autonomously away from sessions in order to free class time for practical work. The intervention focused on providing a variety of student centred learning activities during two concise sessions over the ten week course. Following this a triangulated data set was collected and analysed using a variety of methods to show that by delivering actively interesting sessions learners were motivated in design development. Despite developing early understanding, the intervention alone was not enough to provide completely independent learning and revealed that in conjunction guidance was needed to provide ongoing improvement of design leading to heightened learner confidence. Introduction I teach two part-time jewellery design and making courses each term at an adult education community centre. One is non-vocational and the other which is the focus of my research is a City & Guilds (C&G’s) Level One Award; the course consists of ten weekly three-hour sessions. Students can choose to do the Award as a stand alone unit or continue their studies and enrol the following term to gain another unit Level One Award in jewellery. If they complete four Awards they gain a C&G’s Level One Certificate. This is the second year I have taught C&G’s as a module based qualification allowing students to build up a qualification that can be studied to fit around their life and personal commitments. Previous students were required to enrol on a one year course with the same weekly timetable and if successful automatically gain the C&G’s Level One Certificate. Prior to 2005 I taught two non-vocational courses but in 2006 I was required to change one of the non-vocational courses to a vocational qualification and therefore meet the needs of the recent governments ‘Skills for Life and Employability’ strategies set out by the white paper in 2003. In 2004 the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) started switching funding to the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) and many vocational qualifications became more flexible with the ability to mix and match qualifications to improve learners employability and remain up to date with employers changing needs, and by doing attract the subsequent funding from the LSC, now known as the Skills Funding Agency (SFA). C&G’s has always been seen as a qualification linked to employability however over the last three years my initial Student Assessment forms have concluded that employability is not what motivates most learners to join the course. Less than 10% of learners want to develop their interest in the subject with a view to gain the qualification, for employment or to establish their own business, however some want to see a merit of their course work in the form of a recognised certificate. The majority join due to the non-vocational course being fully subscribed and simply want to learn a new skill and be able to make jewellery. I question why I teach the qualification at an Adult Education Centre. Is it to meet government policy so that Derbyshire County Council centres can gain more funding or to increase the likelihood of teachers keeping their jobs' Mary Curran wrote an article in the Adult Learning Magazine (January 2010) entitled Not so Soft: ‘In times of economic recession and public expenditure, the adult and community learning sector needs to provide evidence of the contribution it makes to the economy as well as to the personal development of learners’. In my case it is the latter that my learners benefit, they gain a skill but mainly for their own pleasure, it is therefore ironic that employability is the drive behind running my course. My learners are mainly female aged 25-70 years, beginners to jewellery making and for some it may be the first time back in an educational setting since school. The Award is assessed against C&G’s criteria via a portfolio of evidence at the end of the course consisting of an A4 technical folder, a sketchbook of design development, practical samples and a finished piece of jewellery. Last year I taught small elements of the design process ad-hoc throughout the course and at summative assessments sketchbook work stood out as the weaker area even though all passed. My research was conceived after collecting qualitative data from students on this; an overwhelming majority answered ‘practical work’ when asked would they rather spend session time on practical work or design work. They felt it more beneficial to use session time to practically make jewellery in order to use the equipment they did not have at home. This was a valid point considering this course is very practically weighted and class time is tight in order to complete work over the ten weeks. Many of last year’s learners had strong predetermined ideas of a piece of jewellery they wished to create at the start of the course and showed reluctance in developing design work; in some cases learners back-tracked to make supposed design development fit their initial thought they now called their final idea. When I pointed out the need for this to pass course criteria it was often met with statements such as, ‘I’m not that bothered about the qualification, I just want to make practical pieces. Design seems a waste of time’. An article on teaching creativity to adult learners entitled ‘Misassumptions Preventing Creativity’, Abigail (2009). It stated ‘students tell themselves and me negative things about being creative and convince themselves what’s the point in doing it, due to lack of confidence/out of their comfort zone’. This I felt could be the case with my learners, as some