Notes from a 2009 presentation on Ultraversity.

Notes from a workshop presented to Anglia Ruskin Faculty of Education in 2009 on the Ultraversity approach to Personalised Learning.

 Personalised Learning is a tricky beast to talk about as it means very different things to different people. For the purposes of this workshop the term 'personalisation' will be used to indicate the process through which individuals learning together in a diverse group adapt their approaches within the constraints of their work context to achieve the same learning outcomes. This discussion describes aspects of the Ultraversity approach to designing a cohesive curriculum that enables this process.

 Since 2003 we have used a cohort team delivery model where a team of facilitators take the lead role in supporting the development of a cohort throughout the three years they are with us. The implications of this for our practice are that each and every one on the pathway has to become adept at delivering every module and assessing every module. The benefits we hoped this would provide for the students and the facilitators include the development of deep and trusting relationships and a sense of continuity and stability for the students while providing richness through the range of skills and perspectives of exposure from the contrasting viewpoints of a team of academic researchers.  Many of the students keep in touch with their facilitators after graduation and this provides an opportunity for long term data collection and the evaluation of impact beyond delivery. A few days prior to this workshop I received an unexpected mail from a recent graduate who shared her experiences of a potentially stressful interview for a place on a Masters course.....
 Hi Ian, hope you are enjoying the spanish sun.
Just thought I'd drop you a post to say my Speech and language masters interview went really well on the 1st. We had a short written piece, role play, critical reflection on a video clip and individual interviews.
I got so carried away talking about theory Dr. Wilson (lecturer) lent me a book which he thought I'd enjoy! I just hope they didn't have a headache post interview.The knowledge and understanding I'd acquired through my degree was so relevant that I was "singing" all the way through. It didn't feel like an interview at all! I didn't want to leave!
In the second year there is a research project to be undertaken and action research is an option. I nearly fell off my chair with happiness: )
I was so better prepared than some of the other applicants and I needed to be as there were nearly 400 applicants, 100 got interviews and only 22 places. So I've done pretty well already.
Keeping everything crossed now, should find out my fate in a couple of weeks.
I think the reality of what I can achieve is really kicking in now, especially the habit of picking apart every experience I encounter. I never fully realised how infinately relevant these modules were. I now realise why our facilitators made us work for the answers.
Wishing you and your family well.Love Kate x
"It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not".  ~Author Unknown
PS. My last thought on leaving the Uni. was "I wish my Clanger mates ( Kate's learning set ) were with me now...they would love this".
Lifelong learning and lifelong friends! 

Kate was a support teacher working with autistic spectrum 5-7 year olds, and was interested in work focused learning she studied in an online community alongside:

 A handful of TAs
1 University administrator
1 building projects manager in Spain
1 swimming instructor
 Several librarians
Several other students in a range of equally diverse work contexts.

What did Kate say to these people; what was their common ground; what did they learn together - how did they learn together?

 

The Ultraversity project provides access to formal accreditation through a BA honours pathway that is delivered fully online with no face-to-face contact between staff and students or between students and students. Everything they said to each other was communicated through internet enabled technologies. The dominant approach to communication is one where students have high visibility in online conferences that are presented as communal mail boxes. Messages are threaded and personalised fonts and colours enable voices to be easily discerned. Voice recordings are integrated into the communications system.
The curriculum design locates a significant proportion of study in work-focused experiences so enabling students to remain in full time employment while they study.
 Learners are required to act together to support each other in an online community of inquiry exhibiting the characteristics of a Community of Practice (COP); see Wenger (1999). This is not just another online space where students can talk to each other and the course tutors; it is a carefully facilitated scholarly community. Tutors encourage socialising as a means of bonding and developing trust, we also model and encourage high level dialogue – particularly critical reflection amongst peers on each others' work in progress. Many of the modules require evidence of participation in this process to meet learning outcomes. 

Like the other students, at the start of each module Kate discussed her own ideas for how she would approach the module, she then presented an individual learning plan to her learning facilitator who reviewed, negotiated and validated the plan. Kate went on to discuss what she found in her literature search and strategies for reviewing and writing up her literature review. Locating these discussions in a COP exposes all students to a wealth of literature and encourages autonomous searching for contemporary and seminal sources. Kate provided regular updates as to her experiential learning and what she was discovering by applying theory to practice. The students compared and commented on each others' experiences. They offered new ideas, collaborated on problem solving, argued about meaning, agreed or agreed to differ and consolidated personal epistemological understanding. They explored methodologies and associated methods, reviewed each others' interpretation of data and discussed validity of findings in the light of the small-scale and contextualised nature of their research. They supported each other when life work or study presented unexpected difficulties. They worked and studied together to develop the personal and professional characteristics that the project aims set out.

Initial project aims (taken from validation documentation)Develop the student as a critically reflective problem solver who is able to take effective action for improvement within their work-context as a part of their ongoing studies:

1.  To develop a personal philosophy of learning that includes the use of technology and research and relates to their own work setting
2.  To acquire the ability to analyse and synthesise knowledge of practice so as to solve practical problems and situations
3.  To maintain a flexible approach to change as a participant, and awareness of their own power to influence change
4.  To appreciate the enriching nature of working collaboratively in communities of inquiry that share insights and perspectives
5.  To develop a continuing concern for their own professional development and the appropriate strategies to achieve this
6.  To provide an appropriate foundation in professional and technical understanding, and knowledge and skills on which they can build through continuous professional development
7.  To develop the skills of action inquiry as an enduring capacity for lifelong learning and improvement in the workplace

 (Ultralab, 2003)

The 2008  HEA report into Workforce Development highlights a potential difficulty for higher educational institutions (HEI's) when working on employer-led learning initiatives by drawing a distinction between professional training and professional education where:
  "There will be an emphasis upon higher level skills that embody the essence of higher education - for example, reflection, analysis, problem solving, creativity, evaluation, and an open-endedness about what emerges from the learning" (HEA, 2008)
There is a strong alignment between the HEA statement and the Ultraversity initial project aims above - although this presentation does not have the scope to explore how we build in opportunities for creative expression, creative use of technology, creative approaches to action planning and to constructing assessment products I can confirm that we do do creativity too and open-endedness is an intrinsic concept - as Kate indicated in her email she perceives herself as a lifetime learner with life-time friends - we also see that the inquiries used for module work go on and on beyond the closure of the module.  It seems to us that we have captured the essence of HE and that we instil in many of our students a zest for lifetime learning and key skills for their life beyond the course.

Kate mailed me a week later...They have offered me a place so I'm well and truly "in". One of the lecturers made the journey into my school and told me I was "top of the pile" and I gave her a big hug and promptly burst into tears.

I am so pleased and relieved I can't tell you. I owe you guys so much.

My dear headmaster said that when I finish in 2011 the first thing I must do is pick up the phone as he wants me back. We shook on it and it is the first thing I shall do.

The curriculum requires graduates to have:

1. Developed a deep understanding of their work place and their role.
2. Become adept at applying theoretical knowledge to solve problems and improve practice.
3. Become competent and self-confident contributors to the organisation.
What kind of problems do they solve ?

in the voice of the students -  Third sector – Project leader in New Media Design and Development Unit
    I wanted to carry out an inquiry that would have some impact and benefit on the work that I do, and also involve my blind and partially sighted colleagues...it was designed to investigate how I could improve the product evaluation process for blind and partially sighted colleagues."

Nursery School - Manager 
 My aim was to look into how I could implement a better system of working with parents, using accessible homemade activities, which would not only help and reinforce their role as the baby`s prime educator but also create working links between home and Nursery”

School - Office Manger
The aim of the project centred on finding out whether the process of two-way communication flow between classroom-based staff and office staff is efficient, and if not, to investigate ways and means to effect an improvement.

Primary School  Administrator     ...existing culture in school for Teaching Assistants seemed to me to be that of the underdog... there was an underlying theme of being undervalued. As a consequence morale was low... from previous research I found that Teaching Assistants on the whole felt undervalued and not part of the ‘team’. Lack of communication seemed to be a recurring gripe, almost a feeling of being excluded"

Analysis of final project foci 

Table 1.
Final project submissions of 325 students (the first 6 cohorts) were examined to identify the focus of their inquiries. What we see is 9 broad areas of work context and 18 inquiry topic areas. 261students worked in schools or college; these include roles such as librarians, TAs, administrators and  lunchtime supervisors so still very different roles within the organisation. 
A brief insight into how one student approached action for improvement.
This student works as an administrator in a primary school setting with expanding staff numbers.

1. Reconnaissance and reflection

An evaluation of the workplace uncovered a range of potential inquiry contexts.

“Lack of information regarding – staff structure and responsibilities, school policies and resource areas”

2. Identifying an inquiry focus and research questions

Further evaluation focusing on the Teaching Assistants uncovered an area in need of improvement suitable as a focus for an action inquiry.

The key area identified though was the lack of communication between the rest of the school and the Teaching Assistants…
…The existing culture in school for Teaching Assistants seemed to me to be that of the underdog... there was an underlying theme of being undervalued. As a consequence morale was low – this had become more apparent with an increase in staff from just 2 Teaching Assistants 4 years ago to a total of 11 Teaching Assistants now. From my research I found that Teaching Assistants on the whole felt undervalued and not part of the ‘team’. Lack of communication seemed to be a recurring gripe, almost a feeling of being excluded.

3. Identify learning/research activities that lead to the development, implementation, and evaluation of an action for improvement


An inclusive and iterative approach was used to explore the impact of change.

I used the cyclical process of action research (Kemmis and Wilkinson 1998) plan – do – review. This provided me with scope to conduct my research over 3 cycles…Improvement and involvement are central to action research. Collaboration between researchers and those who are the focus of the research, and their participation in the process, are seen as central to action research. This relationship fits well with the approach of flexible, qualitative design.

4. Implement the plan and take action

The cycles of inquiry focused on investigating how communication within the school could be developed for Teaching Assistants. A set of strategies for improvement was introduced and a positive impact was provoked.

 By introducing a point of contact, holding regular weekly meetings, passing on information about school events, having a proper induction process for new employees, even giving Teaching Assistants the opportunity to all hold First Aid certificates has empowered them enough to feel more useful. They now feel more valued by the school which has gone some way to raising morale.

5. Share selected parts of the inquiry with fellow learners for critical feedback
The student shared plans and invited critical feedback…

I chose to present activity 3 to my fellow researchers  whose critical feedback forced me to rethink my impact study. Had I only considered the evaluation issue in my defence? I struggled during this module to put my ideas into the correct ‘category’, and subsequently had included my thoughts on reliability of data into activity 1 and now see that this is part of my defence and should be incorporated here. I defended the reason for exhibiting twice and included this because it has impacted on me and other people’s attitudes towards me in school. By including criticism from my exhibition this led me to reflect on changes that had happened to me in school, I think, as a result of my heightened profile.

6. Construct a final account that identifies learning in relation to module intended learning outcomes

In the final account the student describes how her research has introduced significant change and developed her role within her workplace.

In the past I have felt that I am only a small cog in this great wheel that is this educational establishment, but my efforts so far have changed procedures, developed communication, raised morale and formed a cohesive group which offers support to each other. What began as a small idea has now become a set order where the Headteacher does not want to ‘lose the impetus’. My research area has developed my school role beyond what was first perceived as my role as school administrator.
The research activity has also resulted in new responsibilities being offered and professional recognition by the workplace.
As a consequence of my research the Headteacher has asked me to look into co-ordinating the Investors in People project for our school this year. He has seen the value of my research and how successfully and professionally I have approached it and I think that this has had an impact on him in that he feels I will be able to successfully steer the school through the Investors in People programme.

The whole experience provoked a significant level of personal satisfaction for the student.

I now have extra responsibility for the Teaching Assistants and I see the cohesion of this group as my doing, which gives me a lot of satisfaction. By empowering Teaching Assistants with knowledge, they feel more valued, indeed one member of teaching staff has said that the Teaching Assistants seems to know more about school events than she does.

FOS day 3

Twitter shower discussing 3Es Framework. 

From this initial introduction it seemed to me that there is an assumption that students will at first have relatively low levels skills and that learning design should help them progress across the continuum towards developing an deploying higher level skills.

It sounded a bit prescriptive at first I was left thinking what if students in a group are not all at the same level of tech or learning competence? What about mixed group work where students scaffold each other? As the Twitter shower progressed I warmed to it a bit. It certainly looks like it could be a useful set of prompts for individuals or small differentiated groups.  

In the Twitter shower/storm/deluge there seemed to be a fair consensus towards the value of early empowerment and ownership amongst students. I need to read the storify to check that it is all a bit swirling round at the moment. mostly due to me experimenting with Tweetdeck, TweetChat and Hootsuite during the hour, rather aptly I was seeing in the Tweets that others were doing the same and we were also touching on the value of iterative experimenting / play with no fear of failure / seeing experimenting and failure as a potentially valuable learning process and the need to be clear to students that they are allowed to fail so they can learn from that experience. 

I spent a fair bit of time thinking about the structure of my own practice.

Gaining credit by learning from things that do not go well is built into the Ultraversity model for learning design. That partly reduces the risk of failing a module but that is not to get weak students and easy ride to an award it is to encourage experimentation - sometimes radical experiments lead to  useful innovative solutions and I don't want to hold anyone back from trying new things. There is no point in setting out on a journey that is bound to fail, many errors can be avoided by good planning. There is ownership of the learning from day 1. Students develop an ILP or research plan in the first few weeks of a module that shows how they will adapt the module to fit with their own workplace context and personal needs. There is a tutor review and negotiating of approaches process built in, this is supported by peer - peer review as well so that generally ensures that the student's proposed approach will enable them to meet the learning outcomes and that any errors in interpreting goals or designing activities are identified and rectified before they become problematic.

We adapted Richard Winter's Patchwork Text' approach to encompass assessment of a wide range of electronic media and so call our version the Patchwork Text and Media approach. At the module level activities are broken down into discrete but related patches, these are then stitched together via a retrospective critical commentary. In this the students self evaluate what they have learned about learning on both the personal and organisational level. This is because these are work focused students integrating study into their work activities with the aim of improving personal practice and contributing to organisational learning as well. 

The degree is process driven with themes relating to the title: 'Learning, Technology and Research'.

A module might have a structure as below:

Patch 1. Literature review. Learning about theory and developing a critical voice while doing so. some of the key theory areas we cover include reflective practice, action inquiry, prototyping and testing, professional development, research design, presentation of information. These are then interpreted as learning processes students can apply.

Patch 2. Design how to apply the theory to improve practice in the workplace. This is a problem identification and solution design phase, the problem may be how to improve something that has gone wrong, something that is weak or something that is already good but could be better. Ideally some of the modules will focus on addressing professional development or appraisal targets the student has.

Patch 3. Implementation of theory to solve a problem.  This is the active research phase, processes from theory are used to implement change, data is collected and evaluated, iterations of improvement cycles progress, findings are articulated. 

Patch 4. Project evaluation. Having applied theory to practice the literature is re-evaluated in the light of experience - was it interpreted correctly in the lit review; did it stand up to scrutiny when applied in the real world? What was learned about practice through this approach to problem solving / implementing improvement strategies? How could the findings contribute to improving practice in the wider organisation? 

Stitching. Retrospective evaluative commentary. In this activity each patch is reflected on from a learning perspective; identifying what went well, what could have been improved and what the improvements might be. If there were weaknesses in the interpretation of literature for example the student might devise a better way of approaching searching for literature and developing a systematic review process. Less visible aspects are examined such as their participation in peer review, their use of technologies or of the library and other services. Recommendations for how they will enhance their learning strategies ready for the next semester are devised. 

Students are encouraged to consider; who was I  - what did I learn  - who am I becoming - what do I need to do to become the person I aspire to be? 

Flexible study

On the BA LTR course we don’t set dates for formative assessment as the students are doing work based learning and have to fit work and study into a busy schedule. We do not even have synchronous timetabled learning schedules, interaction between students and with tutors is largely asynchronous. It is not unusual for discussions to be spread over several days or even weeks as relevant thoughts are added at times to suit individuals. Telephone or VOIP tutorials are available on a group or individual basis by negotiation with tutors. These may be in Google Hangouts, VLE discussions, G+ forums, Skype, Facetime or telephone.

In week 1 of a module students each develop an ILP to plan their study by adapting the suggested study schedules to align with their predicted workplace activities in a way that best suits them. That is an approach we have used since 2003, feedback from many students over the 11 years since we started indicates that this flexibility is very much appreciated by students and their employers. 

Anglia Ruskin University allow students up to a maximum of 20% formative feedback from tutors on their draft work for each module assignment. In our model, in order to maximise the value of formative assessment, each student decides which elements of their work they want tutors to provide the 20% feedback on and then requests that feedback as and when it is convenient for them. 

Assessment is by patchwork text and media so the modules are chunked down generally into 3 or 4 patches and a stitching section. A student with an outstanding approach to literature review (usually patch 1) shown in their semester 1 sumative feedback would not be likely to feel that they would benefit from further formative assessment of that skill in semester 2 so might focus formative requests on their experiential patches, or on the stitching which is a review of meta-learning. A student with weaknesses in all elements may well ask for a proportion of each patch to be reviewed by a tutor so they can improve across the board. Tutors may well make suggestions to individual students as to what might be a good approach for them but the choice lies with the student. This approach enables students to tailor their formative assessment to suite their own needs and also allows them to demonstrate good practice in independently managing their learning when they provide the retrospective self assessment of meta-learning in their final activity for each module. 

The form in which feedback is provided varies depending on which kind of media a student has used. On Word or PDF files adding digital annotation is straightforward using comments tools that put the comment in an extended margin with a line connecting to the element that is being commented on. The advantage of this is that a tutor comment is then directed at exactly which word, phrase or paragraph it is referring to. With some forms of media, such as video, animation or audio, direct annotation is not possible so a feedback sheet, or more usually an email message is used. Context cues are then included such as; On slide 3...  or: at point 2mins 30secs into the video....  The language of assessment criteria, learning outcomes, module suggested tasks or other scholarly practice standards/expectations is often used to show students what the expectations are. Where relevant, links to web sources such as the Anglia Harvard style templates, online study skills files, blog posts etc. are included to extend the guidance.

Why are we so flexible?

The ILP is a flexible planning document that is revised as semester progresses to show what has been achieved and what needs to be rescheduled.

During semester a teaching assistant may well have to go on a 5 day outdoor activities residential course with their class as part of their expected work duties. They are often unable to study during such a period due to long working days and/or poor internet/lack of IT equipment so need to adapt their study schedule to have a higher load on other weeks. Unexpected events such as Ofsted visits or personal/family illness can also interrupt plans. 

A student working in the DfE had occasional weeks where he was unable to study due to involvement in important government business. Our flexible approach meant he could negotiate his study around this and he was able to achieve some outstanding results, usually in the 80s, and graduated with a very good 1st class degree. He felt the degree was perhaps the only one in the country he could have done while maintaining his employment. 

I could provide many other examples of how the approach has benefited students in other work contexts going back to 2001 when working on a British Thoracic Society project where a specialist registrar commented that this approach was exactly what he needed, the time he was able to study was late; when the kids have gone to bed. Were we to have set rigid dates/times for study activities and formative assessment there would be problems for many students. As we are flexible, employers often show their appreciation by offering students study time during some working weeks to make up for times they have higher workloads and are not able to carry out study related activities.

Successful Study Cycle.

1. Read the module guide at the start of semester - read it carefully.

2. Set up a document and paste in the key requirements, including learning outcomes and the assessment criteria level indicators that you aspire to meet. Make them red or another colour that you will not forget to delete later.  

3. Plan your study schedule, aim to make steady progress every week. Add a timeline to your working document by tagging dates against key milestones, this will help you plan your study and keep an eye on your time-management. Map your progress so you can't deceive yourself about how much you have achieved and what you should be doing.

4.  Use the document as a learning journal; record notes as you read literature or carry out practical activities and develop your draft narratives for each learning activity on it.  Use it to construct your assignment as semester progresses. 

5. Depending on module delivery mode: attend all teaching sessions and/or participate in the online discussion forums on a regular basis. Share uncertainty, share revelations, support your peers.

6. Make use of your opportunity to ask tutors to provide formative feedback on up to 20% of your draft work during semester.

7. Read the module reading list, read well beyond it looking for seminal and contemporary sources to extend your knowledge base and provide more opportunity to compare and contrast the views of a range of authors. Follow the right people in Twitter so you get news of cutting edge publications.

8. Make use of online or on-campus tutorials and generic study support material.

9. Complete the assignment a week before submission.

10. Go do something fun for at least a weekend  -  forget about the assignment. 

11. Re-read the assignment with fresh objective eyes, check alignment with the red bits and refine what should already be good work.

12. Remove the red bits and carry out a meticulous word by word proof read before submission and check you have met university regulations, in particular word count, Harvard referencing and submission procedures.

13. Submit the work well before the deadline confident that you have done all you can to use constructive alignment and formative feedback to give you a high chance of success. If you are using Turnitin you must be very careful to submit the correct file as you only get one chance to upload. It is not unusual for students to create versions of an assessment product as it evolves. A label such as:  SID_module code_Final.docx is fairly difficult to miss when you are working out which file to upload. You should only label a file as 'Final' or give it a colour tag such as green for go in the hour or so before you intend to upload it. if you make a final draft in week 10 chances are there will be a fair few more 'final' versions before hand in and that is where versioning errors can occur.

14. Relax as much as possible until feedback day.

15. Don't just look at your mark, tutors put a lot of effort into providing useful feedback - read it and use it to feed-forward into your approach to the next module. if your scripts have been annotated you should look at those as the annotations will show you exactly where improvements could be made. Ask tutors for clarification if needed.

Repeat the cycle over the duration of your course. 

Be proud of who you have become and enjoy graduation, smile for the photos.

Move on to the career you deserve.

For BA LTR students the file upload conventions are explained below:

Combine all files that are of the same type unless it is specified that you should submit files separately. 

Make sure you include stand alone versions of media files such as PowerPoint, video, audio, this will enable us to assess them should embedding of the media in other files not work.

Include text transcripts of any video or audio in the appendix.

Put all of the files for each module in a separate folder labelled as SID_module code. 

 01234567_MOD001234 Double check you got the right files in the right folder.

Compress or zip the folder. 01234567_MOD001234.zip 

Upload to your assessment portfolio folder well before the deadline. 

Remember technical problems are usually​ not accepted as good grounds for mitigation against late submission. 

Some thoughts on study time:

The time students are expected to spend on study is set out in each module definition form. 

Espoused theory check; what level of weekly study do you aim to achieve or think you achieve?

Theory in use check; what is the reality - record your study time for a week.

Is there a mismatch? Does action need to be taken to ensure better alignment? 

Analysis of governing variables:

1. Personal beliefs - you may believe you can compress study time or that you will benefit from spending more time studying than is specified for a module. The reality is that significant variance can lead to lower attainment due to not spending enough time studying or to higher levels of stress for self and/or family due to spending too many hours studying. Reflecting on this should lead to an understanding of the impact of variance and you alone can take those risks into consideration and choose to vary or not to vary whether you meet this time allocation.

2. Norms of behaviour - You might compare your approach to that employed by your peers. Again there should be consideration of the potential impact of varying from the stated expectation. 

3. Values of the organisation - The university set the study hours, they are intended to ensure students on all modules have a parity of study effort relating to the number of credits studied no matter what course they are on. They are set at a level that is seen as providing a good quality to time invested ratio, they also ensure that sufficient time is allocated to achieve the required standards in assessment products. They aim not to over-work or over-stress students. 

In a perfect world how would I like to solve this problem? - An 8 day week would be cool! Gaining a good degree is a potential life changing achievement; achieving the intended study hours is clearly important. Negotiating study time at work and negotiating with family could help solve the problem.

In my real world how will I solve this problem? The use of an ILP is the recommended approach to solving this problem, staff have spent many years developing and testing this approach and surveys of students have shown that most high achieving students do create a detailed learning plan and adapt it regularly as they progress through a module.  I will make sure that I take care to plan when I can fit study in with work and life commitments and monitor / reschedule as necessary to ensure I do meet the required study hours. 

Learning Plans

Individual learning plans, independent learning plans, personalised learning plans I really don't mind what our students call them I do encourage them all to use one and when they do it is usually a  good decision.

As described in earlier posts we do work based online learning where students can study asynchronously without the restriction of timetabled lectures, live streamed workshops, summer schools and all that stuff that can be great in its own right but just doesn't fit with everyone's life / work patterns.

We do provide a recommended study schedule that maps activities in a suggested time-frame. There are many variations and this is a very simplified example but it may well go something like:

Week	Patch / learning outcome	Suggested activity	Assessment product.
1	All	Read through the resources, raise any uncertainties in the community discussion. In your reflective learning journal create your own personal learning plan.	No assessment product - preparing for study.
2-3	Patch 1 LO 1.	This may be a literature review or a knowledge consolidation activity.	Analytical report on theory.
4-5	Patch 2 LO 2+3	Planning and preparing for research activity.	Present a proposal.
6-8	Patch 3 LO 3	Implementing theory through real world research - often reflection or inquiry based.	Initial research report.
9-10	Patch 4 LO 4	Reviewing research activity - analysis and findings.	Evidence based presentation of analysis and findings.
11	Stitching All LOs	Retrospective commentary identifying meta-learning, may include re-evaluation of theory from Patch 1 in the light of the experience of applying the theory.	Reflective account - may be first person, alternative genre.
12	Preparing for hand-in	Time for a meticulous proof read for meaning and grammar.	Honed and refined e-portfolio. Uploaded by 5 pm on hand-in day.

Blimey that was very simplified but will serve a need in this post.

So what does a student need to do to turn that into an ILP? Not easy to answer as all students have different contexts, cultures and personal lives, these all exert forces that push and pull at the time available for study. Again simplification is going to have to suffice.

Generally the detail of life happens in hours, days and weeks, not so much in chunks of weeks. So the first step is developing a usable framework. Gantt charts, spreadsheets, flow charts (hand drawn or digital like Cmap), tables, pages in a paper book, sections in a Word document, slides in a PowerPoint, Etherpad - there are many ways to approach planning. 

So its time to think things through.

The planning:

Week 1 - Tuesday is busy at work + evening meeting, Wed-Thurs evenings free, Friday doctor + shopping. Weekend is free. =>3 hours per night Wed-Thurs read module resources and monitor discussions. Saturday is family time. Sunday pm 2-4 work on ILP, 7-9 read everything again - do I know what I am doing?

Week 2 - Residential outdoor activity trip with year 5. Mon - Thursday. => Can't guarantee good connection so need to download literature to iPad on Sunday before I go so I have a chance to read it if I get some free time during residential. Friday evening + Saturday am is family time but I need to pop into the online community as well. Study Saturday pm + most of Sunday - read and make notes in Learning journal/share ideas in online community.

Week 3. Staff meeting Wed evening, otherwise fairly OK week. => 2 hours each Monday + Tuesday evenings write up notes into critical review.  Thursday 3 hours to look for / review additional literature and add to notes. Friday  - Sunday evenings complete literature review - turn notes into proper text. 30 mins each day in VLE discussions.

And so on, transfer the thinking onto a clear framework that is editable. Do not just plan then hide the plans away - they are dynamic and need annotation if they are to be of high value.

Using the plan:

Week 1 went OK I even think I think I know what I am doing.

Week 2 very little free time at residential. Children do not sleep it seems. Need to add a late night on Saturday to get through the literature on time.

Week 3. Oh Blow, news on Monday am that OfSTEDare coming in week 5 so week 3 Thursday is also an after school meeting, I need to negotiate less family time on Saturday and block out Monday -Wednesday of week 5 as non study days. 

And so on.

If a plan is created then stuck on a wall and forgotten it is not much use at all.

If a plan is created then stuck on the wall and not annotated to show what was achieved, and not adapted to cater for unexpected circumstances, it shows how much was not done and makes you feel less than happy - that is not conducive to good learning.

If a plan is created, referred to on a daily basis, annotated and adapted to cater for unexpected events, including barriers and opportunities, then it is a useful device that tracks successful learning and engenders a feel-good feeling - that is conducive to good learning.