The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) was
founded in 1985 by a group of teachers and academics who shared concerns about
the prevalence of passive, unreflective, dependent student learning, even in
apparently successful lessons. They set out to research classroom
approaches that would stimulate and support student learning that was more
informed, purposeful, intellectually active, independent and metacognitive. The
project was unfunded and not a result of any system or institution-level
initiative. PEEL teachers agree to meet on a regular basis, in their own time,
to share and analyse experiences, ideas and new practices.
The original project was intended to run for two
years at
one (secondary) school, however the process of collaborative
action-research,
the developments of so many new ideas for practice and the changes in
classroom
environment all proved very rewarding for the teachers. Consequently,
at the
end of the initial two years, the teachers refused to let the project
end and a
year later it began to spread to other schools in Australia and then in
other
countries. This spread was driven by teachers in those schools who had
similar
concerns about learning, as well as the lack of opportunities in
a normal
school day for collaborative reflection, and who wished to set up PEEL
groups
of their own. While the initial spread was in secondary schools, there
is now a network of teachers in primary/elementary schools.
PEEL operates as a network of autonomous groups of teachers
who take on a role of interdependent innovators. Coherence is provided by the
shared concerns about passive, dependent learning and by structures that allow
teachers to learn from and share new wisdom with teachers in other schools as well
as a few academic friends. These structures include books, where teachers write about their practice, PEEL SEEDS, (the
journal of the PEEL collective) an annual PEEL conference, PEEL collective
meetings, a range of short courses and in-service activities and of course PEEL in Practice (a large database of teaching practice) available on CD or online.
The list of Teacher Concerns, summarise the sorts of concerns that are held by teachers who get
involved in PEEL. The eight groups of Teaching Procedures that have been
built up over the life of the project, reflect the areas where the teachers
have been active in developing and extending new teaching practices. The
twelve Principles of Teaching for Quality Learning were first codified in 1997;
they list the critical features of the teaching that PEEL teachers were
reporting as being consistently successful in achieving what they felt to be
quality learning behaviours in their students.
Distinguishing PEEL from other initiatives.
When PEEL began there was little talk about
how students approached learning, let alone about metacognition. 20 years later, these ideas had become much
more mainstream and there had been many initiatives with goals consistent with
those of PEEL. In late 2006, the PEEL
collective reflected on whether and how PEEL was different to these other
initiatives, most of which involved some kind of Program. We decided that PEEL was different and did
have some unique things to offer. After
quite a bit of discussion and analysis of past writings, we distilled six statements that distinguish PEEL from other
initiatives that have similar goals in terms of student learning.
You are using a PEEL approach if you are or are moving towards:
A school is adopting a PEEL approach if it:
6.
Positions teachers as
generators of new knowledge and in control of their professional learning and
development.
These are now elaborated below.
1.
Having a strategic, long-term learning agenda focussing on multiple
aspects of quality learning and metacognition
PEEL teachers do not just call or hope for quality
learning, they proactively promote, support and develop it. Experienced PEEL
teachers begin each year with an articulated, year long strategy for changing
and developing how their students approach learning. It takes time, for example
for students to realize that wrong answers can be as helpful for learning as
right answers. Lesson planning is done against this learning curriculum in
parallel with content curricula. The lists of poor learning tendencies and
good learning behaviours provide complementary targets and goals; they
help frame the multiple aspects of learning in ways that move beyond general
motherhood statements and allow for specific and purposeful teacher tactics to
promote each of these aspects of quality learning.
2. Making consistent, persistent and
purposeful use of teaching procedures, appropriate teaching behaviours and the
Principles of Teaching for Quality Learning.
Over the years, PEEL teachers have developed, adopted, and adapted
over 220 teaching procedures, these are an important part of searching the 'PEEL in Practice' database. Expanding one's teaching repertoire by incorporating new (for the
teacher) teaching procedures is a common route into PEEL. However this is not a
random process: different procedures have different purposes in terms of the
aspects of quality learning that they promote and PEEL teachers select use and
(importantly) link procedures with specific learning goals in mind.
Early in PEEL, we learnt that, to achieve any worthwhile development
in student learning, we could not do PEEL one day and not the next. We needed
to be consistent in our approaches and persistent in achieving change. For
several reasons however, one cannot use the same procedure or lesson type every
day fluid, interpretive discussions where the teacher is delaying judgement
as students clarify, articulate and argue for their ideas are very valuable,
but more structured activities are equally essential. The twelve Principles of
Teaching for Quality Learning provide a strategic framework for allowing for a
wide variety of tactics that are consistent in intent. One can, for example,
consistently and persistently promote students reacting to and using each
others' ideas (Principle 6), but do this in a range of ways.
3. Trusting students and sharing
responsibilities and intellectual control with students.
PEEL involves a multi-year journey for teachers
and, unless they move from one PEEL teacher to another, a year long journey for
students. Both of these journeys include giving students increased
responsibilities and room to make decisions. This involves both developing a
shared language to talk about learning with students and placing increased
trust in students not to abuse this responsibility. PEEL Principle 1 Share intellectual control and Principle
3 Provide opportunities for choice and
decision making are central here. One outcome of this emphasis that was of
fundamental importance to the students who reflected back on their PEEL
experiences many years earlier in the 2005 PEEL conference was in the affective
domain. Although PEEL has always had a strong cognitive and metacognitive
focus, these students chose to highlight how warm, friendly, supportive and fun
they found their PEEL classrooms because of the more trusting and collaborative
relationships between them and their teacher (see Students and PEEL: What do they say 10 years on).
4. Problematizing and purposefully
interrogating and developing your practice. Becoming more metacognitive about
your teaching and developing new dimensions of sense-making.
The willingness to problematize one's practice, identifying and
sharing aspects of dissatisfaction with what may appear to be very successful
classrooms as well as purposefully interrogating practice raising
challenging questions about what is really happening have always been
necessary requirements for becoming involved in PEEL. Many teachers are not
willing to engage in what can be seen as admitting to weakness or raising
unnecessary problems and, for this reason more than any other, PEEL can almost
never involve all teachers in a school. However the outcomes, as we have found,
are worth it. PEEL teachers set out to make students more metacognitive about
their learning, but none of us realized how much more metacognitive we would
become about our teaching. With new insights into and sensitivities to
learning, teachers (and students) make sense of their practice along a range of
new dimensions, a greater sense of learning behaviours and a greater sense of
the journey of student change are just two (see PEEL: making more sense of teaching and learning for more details).
What all this allows is a never ending and coherent development of practice
that is very rewarding for teachers.
5. Supportive and being supported by
others in a process of collaborative action research.
If research is defined as a systematic attempt to
generate new knowledge, then PEEL is definitely a research activity. It is,
however, one that (with one exception) must be done collaboratively. It is very
hard to sustain the PEEL journey alone. One reason is that trying and developing
new approaches, giving increased responsibilities to students are high risk
activities that need the support and (equally importantly) the stimulation of
others. Another reason is that PEEL teachers are tackling complex,
multi-faceted and hence messy and elusive problems. Much of the new knowledge
is socially constructed as teachers share, react to and build on each others
ideas then pool experiences, finding insights from the collective set that
were not obvious from one experience.
6. Positions teachers as generators of new
knowledge and in control of their professional learning and development.
PEEL operates as a network of autonomous
and voluntary groups of teachers who take on a role of interdependent
innovators. The teachers agree to meet regularly to reflect on their
practice, and to provide mutual support and stimulation for the
processes of teacher and student change. Coherence is provided by the
shared concerns about passive, dependent learning and by the publications of the publications of the project and by structures
that allow teachers to learn from and share new wisdom with teachers in
other schools as well as a few academic friends.
PEEL groups are continually generating new wisdom about learning, teaching and change, but their unfunded and voluntary nature means that, without PEEL Publishing, most, if not all of this wisdom would remain in the individual groups and schools. PEEL Publishing operates as part of the project with the role of documenting and sharing the insights, experiences and ideas that emerge from the groups via a range of books, PEEL SEEDS (the journal of the PEEL collective) and a database of ideas that currently contains over 1500 articles in PEEL in Practice and is available in both a CD and online version. Income from these publications is central to sustaining the project.
PEEL has shown that, if appropriately stimulated and supported, teachers can make substantial contributions to the knowledge base of education. To provide this stimulation and support, we run short courses, and other activities that help teachers initiate and sustain involvement in developing and documenting ideas for improving the ways students approach learning.
The list of Teacher Concerns, that are a search
category on PEEL in Practice, summarises the sorts of concerns that are
held by teachers who get involved in PEEL. The eight groups of
Teaching Procedures that have been built up over the life of the
project, reflect the areas where the teachers have been active in
developing and extending new teaching practices. The twelve
Principles of Teaching for Quality Learning describe critical features of the teaching that PEEL
teachers report as being consistently successful in achieving the goals of the project.
Outcomes so far include a huge repertoire of
teaching procedures designed to promote effective learning; findings
about the nature of student change, and teacher change; and findings
about the nature of collaborative professional development in schools
and between the school and tertiary sectors. Schools and teachers
report substantial changes to teaching practice and to the classroom
environment. Teachers consistently report much higher levels of student
interest and engagement as well as learning that is more informed,
purposeful, intellectually active and independent. Over the 24 years
PEEL has been operating, teachers have aimed to promote what is
termed Good Learning Behaviours in their students. They have also identified a
number of Poor Learning Tendencies exhibited by many students and developed procedures (see PEEL in Practice) to reduce these behaviours.
PEEL offers a number of in-service options. Up to date news on these events can be found on the Whats New page.
In-service Providers - PEEL has a group of teachers and
academics who are available for in-service work. Please direct all inquiries
to:
Howard Brown:
Phone: (03) 9905
2791
Email: howard.brown@education.monash.edu.au
Fax: (03) 9905 2779
or
Dr Ian Mitchell: