a level 5 teaching qualification, be able to demonstrate your English and maths to at least level 2, and pay the required application fee. There is also a recognition route for teachers who do not hold a level 5 teaching qualification, but have substantial teaching experience.
Holding QTLS status could help you in your career progression, and you can be added to the SET’s online professional status register. Please see this link for details of QTLS status: https://set.et-foundation.co.uk/professionalism/qtls/
Extension activity
If you are currently teaching, find out if there is a professional teaching status you could apply for, such as QTLS in England, once you are qualified and experienced.
If you are not yet teaching, find out where your local colleges or training organisations are. Have a look at their websites or contact them to ask how you could obtain a teaching position. Find out what qualifications and/or experience they expect you to have. If they have any positions available, ask for an application form. If they don’t, ask if you can send them your curriculum vitae for them to keep on file, or ask if there are any voluntary teaching opportunities available. Don’t be put off by rejection, you need to persevere and stay positive. Alternatively, you could consider delivering some training to colleagues or new staff in your current place of work.
Evidence-based practice
Evidence-based practice is about using what works best when teaching a particular topic or subject. Evidence is confirmation or proof of something, but how do you know what works best if you are a new teacher?
You could try the following:
• talking to other teachers and experts. Discussing what you have done and why it did or did not work. Finding out what they do, why they do it, and why what they do works.
• researching what has been done before. There are many journal papers and books written by educational experts who have tried and tested different ways of doing things. However, there might equally be other experts who contradict them.
• trying something out with your learners, for example, from the research you have read, seeing if it works or not, and considering why. However, what works with one learner or group might not work with another. Don’t be put off trying, you can adapt and keep experimenting. You can even be honest with your learners and tell them you are trying something new and would like their feedback.
• carrying out research yourself, for example, you might have to do this as part of a teaching qualification you are taking.
• reviewing what you do and reflecting upon each experience you have, comparing this to research.
If you are a new teacher, you might not really have anything on which to base what you will do when you have your own learners, other than your past experiences as a learner yourself. These experiences might have been positive, for example, a college course with a friendly and helpful teacher. Alternatively, they could have been negative, for example, a school class with a domineering teacher. You will know what worked and did not work for you. However, you can’t base how you will teach, on how you were taught, as all situations are different. You also can’t teach everyone the same thing at the same time, as learning takes place in different ways and at different times. This is what makes the role of a teacher challenging but interesting. As you progress through this book, you will find out lots of ways of doing things. However, you need to find out what works for you and your learners, in a way that you all feel comfortable with.
Activity
If you have access to the internet, take a look at one or more of the case studies at this shortcut link: http://tinyurl.com/zdat6fw.
Can you use any of the ideas for your own subject? If so, how?
Never be afraid of asking for help, advice and support. There should be colleagues, supervisors and other staff who could help you. Don’t think that you have to know everything. It’s fine to admit you don’t know something and that you would like the benefit of someone else’s expertise. It could be that the organisation in which you will teach uses an observation process to support their staff. The person will be able to see you in action with your learners and will give you feedback. Their advice should be based on evidence of what works as they will be experienced specialists. Don’t be afraid to ask them some questions and find out what books and research they would recommend you could read.
Example
Alex is a fairly new teacher in a college, having worked there for six months teaching numeracy skills. His organisation uses a system of peer observations to help support each other and share good practice. Jon, another maths teacher, observed one of Alex’s sessions. In Jon’s feedback, he stated ‘You had high expectations of all your learners and took into account their prior knowledge. You were able to set challenging tasks, and all learners were engaged during the session. However, you need to use formative assessment more to ensure learning is taking place by each individual’. This enabled Alex to ask Jon how he used formative assessment with his learners. This led to an interesting and helpful discussion of evidence-based practice.
Whatever you do, sometimes things will go wrong, or something you had planned to do just won’t work. Don’t panic, just be honest with yourself and your learners, and don’t bluff your way out of something. Afterwards, make a note of what went well, and what didn’t go well. You can then use this to help evaluate your session and reflect on how you could do things differently next time. You will develop your own strategies as time progresses, and you will also learn from your own experiences.
Extension activity
Research more about what evidence-based practice involves. This could be via the internet by keying in ‘evidence-based practice’ into an online search engine. Alternatively, it could be by discussing the topic with colleagues, reading current educational research, or visiting a library and reading relevant textbooks or journal articles.
Self-assessment checklist
Do I know about the following?
If not, re-read this chapter, or research the texts and websites listed at the end.
□ How to use this book
□ What the FE and skills sector is
□ The subject I will teach, to whom and in what context
□ The teaching qualifications I can work towards
□ The ways I might be assessed for a teaching qualification
□ The standards which teachers can aspire to
□ How to study in an effective way
□ How to write in an academic style
□ How to cite text and reference work
□ How to apply for a teaching or a training role
□ How to progress further once I have achieved my goals
□ The importance of evidence-based practice upon my role
