PICTA@Lewes

Today the BBC announce that since June 2007 18,600 prisoners have been released 'early' from their sentences to accommodate the general increase in prison population.

With most of those released early almost certainly making up the numbers of those coming back into prison, one has to ask how do we stop re-offending.

In the past the Prison Service has had to concentrate most of its efforts into insuring that prisoners have the grasp of the 3 R's, but in recent times this has changed considerably, with more work based vocational training being made available.

PICTA leads the way with e-learning programs where the student/prisoner learnt at their own pace and in a more friendly environment. At HMP Lewes this is soon to take one step further.

We are currently pursuing funding to install 172 new cells with a variety of training materials fed to the prisoner. This will require the use of a joint TV/computer screen, where educational content can either be via tv like KICKSTART TV or furnished by an educational server via screen/keyboard/mouse.

It is aimed at stimulating the student/prisoner needs in letting them continue learning after their normal daily educational provision has ended. PICTA is aiming to have it's CISCO and ECDL materials hosted on the server to allow students to progress faster than they normally would through the complexities of learning new IT skills.

We are not aiming to replace current teaching provision, but more to enhance it. Prisoners can spend up to 18 out the 24 hours a day 'banged up' and this system allows them to use this time more productively.

I am sure there will be those that will moan that we are bending over backwards for prisoner needs at the detriment of other public services. But I am sure that they would rather prefer a inmate that departs prison with the tools to actively gain employment, rather than drifting back into old habits.

PDF Version for download

There is a great benefit from evaluating training as feedback to the tutor that they are achieving goals set out when designing courses. The only problem is that these evaluations are often undertaken at the end of a course where an damage may have already be done. Evaluation is an ongoing process that should be addressed and actioned upon by the tutor at any time during the training process.

I feel that the general Training Evaluation forms that are dished out at the end of the course do not truly reflect the processes as it is quite often given to the student when they are about to leave where they have other things on their minds other than filling out forms.

So companies and tutors may do this deliberately to ensure that they get positive responses, but I myself would rather know truly what I was doing right/wrong.

I have had experience of rather basic forms with yes/no answers, like 'Did the course meet your needs?' to really elaborate forms where they want your inside leg measurement.

I prefer to evaluate my training during my one-to-one conversations with students when we address their Individual Learning Plans on a weekly basis. One of the reasons that I do it this way is that you cannot be guaranteed in a prison environment of having a student for the whole duration of the course and so they may be moved on before you can get them to fill out an evaluation form.
Feedback Form

There is a school of thought that feedback must always be positive even when it is negative. The Prison Service trains all its management the process of what we call the S**T Sandwich. This is when you want to give a negative feedback you sandwich it within two pieces of good feedback. The problem is that some individuals are so poor at giving this that as soon as the praise part comes you think 'what have I done wrong now'! This then has the reverse effect of what it sets out to attain.

These are the primary principles about feedback:

1. Feedback Is Not About Forms - If you use forms as the basis for discussions about performance, you change only one thing - what might have been a natural, helpful conversation into an awkward, anxious inspection.
2. Feedback Delayed Is Feedback Denied - The once- or twice-a-year evaluation is a creature of the past. Today's learners are expected to be project-driven, results-oriented. That doesn't fit with the old model of reviewing performance every 6 or 12 months
3. Feedback Is Where You Find It - Feedback does not need to be presented in a formal setting. Put the student at ease and speak to them where they feel more comfortable.
4. Giving people a Reward isn't the Same as Giving them Feedback - Feedback is an adult thing, not a pat on the head and a sweetie. Feedback is not to be confused with appraisal, otherwise the learner will always be looking for a reward when told they have done something good. Good feedback should be reward enough and the recipient should go away contented that they 'did good'.
5. Always Get Feedback on Your Feedback - Trainers' impressions of the feedback they give and their students' impressions of the feedback they get can be a little delusional . Most trainers need a reality check and can do so by following these steps of self feedback:

• What prompted me to give feedback on that matter at that time?
• Did I check my facts first?
• What was the substance of the feedback?
• Was there any concrete action as a result?

It is evident from the entries about feedback on the forum that it is seen as a motivational tool necessary to ensure a good bond between student and tutor. The fear is that the wrong sort of feedback can have a detrimental effect instead of its desired purpose. We touched on the need for the student to be a reflective learner to benefit best from feedback. (Maybe feedback can be added to a students reflective journal). We also looked at when is it best to give feedback, should it be after or during the learning process. Also should this feedback be praise and accolade in front of the group or more personal to ensure they don't feel uncomfortable. What we do all agree though is that any feedback should comply with the principles of clarity, specificity, support, timebound and overall developmental.

I have been involved in Training Needs Analysis since working for Racal Acoustics back in the 1980's. It is a necessary part of training delivery and shouldn't be undertaken half hearted.

In recent months my training need analysis has been around the general need of the prison due to its pursuing Investors in People recognition. Attached is my latest analysis based around looking at the ITC needs of prison staff at Lewes.

Being an e-trainer or 'facilitator' I have to concur with Clive Shepherd of Fastrak Consulting that an e-trainer needs "the ability to adapt training materials to be extremely visual, allowing plenty of opportunities for the trainees to interact with online tools, such as whiteboard, polling and application sharing".

Learning guru Peter Honey also sums up the best attributes of a trainer as being someone who "sees life is a series of befores, during and afters, with the quality of the during largely determining what happens before and what happens after".

Not all trainers fit in with on-line learning in fact Don Taylor of InfoBasis points to a trainer totally unsuited for e-learning that of a 'classroom charismatic', this person has the force of personality to succeed, but much of the time is just winging it. A good e-trainer does not need to be charismatic, but they need structure and an ability to both get learners involved and respond to the audience needs.

Looking at e-learning more deeply now than when I first started delivering it I realise that it has definite Advantages and Disadvantages over conventional teaching.
Disadvantages:

• It can be seen as sterile and impersonal where the student spends a lot of time in his/her own learning zone. These is a need of some personal feedback as well to ensure that the student does not feel left on their own.
• It can be allowed to run unsupervised and in to a culdesac if the tutor doesn't monitor achievement and or commitment.
• It can be looked on by education departments as a 'cheap option' so reducing the number of skilled tutors.
• On the reverse it can be costly to set up initially if you are starting with a learning environment with no ITC equipment at hand.
• Is taken for granted that students have access to ITC at home. This can include access to a telephone line.

• It allows the tutor the facility of having a classroom of students working on a variety of subjects at different stages on a roll-on roll-off basis eliminating the need of having a general class start/end date. ( I  'facilitate' 40 students doing 8 different courses at any one time).
• Student diversity of classrooms. Delivering CISCO courses can involve students from the 4 corners of the world all in a virtual class with a tutor on webcam. There are 120+ countries on the CISCO circuit so it really helps towards reducing the 'Digital Divide'
• Online learning encourages independent learning/study and builds self confidence.
• It enables widening participation and social inclusion.
• Allows access to online course at any time/place and learners can work at their own pace.

When looking at learning styles tutors should be more adaptive to students needs, rather than students having to come out of their comfort-zone of achievement to fulfill a tutors style of teaching.
E-learning can facilitate this as it can be adapted to suit the need of the student more than 'front of class' run lessons. We assess the learning needs of all our students when they register for our courses and try to match deliver as near as we can to this need. Not to say we haven't hit a few problems, including working with a student with split personalities. I feel e-learning offers the opportunities in personal development that will make it easier to deliver to diverse students, but however, I feel that on-line learning quite often fails in this requirement.

Has any body had involvement in the use of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) in teaching? The reason I ask is that when assessing a students Primary Representational Systems we look at a wider area of stimuli.
The 'predicates', as they are called fall in to 6 groups which can and do have an influence on how the learner learns. The 6 predicates are:
visual (V),auditory tonal (At), kinesthetic (K), olfactory (O), gustatory (G), or auditory digital (Ad). When working with special needs students you may find that these have a major influence on how they perceive the world and how best to approach their learning needs.

Developments in recent months in e-learning have turned from a trickle to a full-on torrent. As more and more agencies embrace the concept of technology working in education (not taking over as some think),better and better resources are becoming available to the teacher disseminator of learning and learner alike.

Latest facility that I can see being widely used is the BECTA run personalised learning support and discussion site which will help fuel the debate.

Straw poll anyone?

Interested to gauge the opinion of the blogosphere as to the necessity to introduce a 'Unique Learning Number' to all students from the time they start school right through adult learning.

Positives put forward are:
•Easier to track student progress in conjunction with an e-portfolio

•Easier transference of student information when moving from institution to institution

•Can be used to qualify students for tests as a means of identification

•In adulthood can be used for further education and employers to ratify learning achievements.

Negatives:
•Further proof of a nanny state – Big Brother

•Security of information

•What do you do with students already in the ‘system’?

I have no problem with the system as we already have a National Insurance Number that has been around since year dot. What I would like to see the Government do is link this to an education token system where all ‘students’ from cradle to grave be issued redeemable ‘Learner Points’ each year that can be cashed in for further education courses or save up for more adventurous training needs such as a degree course.

Over to you…