¶ Introduction
today's podcast, I am talking to Janine Pavlis, who is at St. Mary's University, I'm sure you're going to tell him what the what the correct name of the university is, as involved in primary Ed, teacher training for design and technology. We've had some conversations on teams and whatever before now. So it's just nice to get on the podcast. So Janine, and I'm gonna hand over to you. And you can say a little bit about who you are, where you are and what you do.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm at St. Mary's University is St. Mary's University. And it seemed Twickenham London. And I've been there two years. So in September, I'll be going into my third, third year there. And yeah, I teach I'm most pathways for primary Ed's.
So those pathways
Well, we have, we have undergraduate there, we have postgraduate, we have work base route. We have a foundation degree, which then they lead on tosomething with qualified teacher status. So my predominantly it's undergraduate and postgraduate that I, I lecture in, and I absolutely love it. It's wonderful. And I love it more so as well, because I actually did my undergraduate there. I did my BA primary education with QTS at St. Mary's 13 years ago. So it's, it's like going home
almost. And some of the people who I work with my colleagues there, they lectured me when I was there. So it's just, it's lovely. It's a lovely environment to be in. And actually, I just, I love I love the fact that it's quite a small campus as well. That that's lovely. You know, you can get from one side of the campus to the other in about 15 minutes. Lovely, lovely grounds. Yeah, I, yeah, go
to St. Mary's specialise in is it? Is it maybe Teacher Education? Or was it?
Yeah, no, it's mainly teacher education. But we do a lot of sport there as well. We, of course, had Mo farah there during his degree, Joe wickes. So a few famous people have come from St. Mary's to have done sports science physiotherapy or something like that. And we have grounds to facilitate that as well. We've got the Mo Farah racetrack. Nice, beautiful sports facilities. So yeah, that's that's
¶ Teaching at St Mary's
a huge area to St. Mary's as well. We also do a lot on theology. Yeah, yeah. That the teaching is the main main
area. I don't think those were unusual mixes in teacher ed, PE and theology. Yeah, so yeah. So you've been there two years coming up to third year? And do you remember that you lead on the design and technology?
I do? Yeah, I need on design technology. It's a bit of a default, really, because there is only me. So I've given my colleagues are fine with I mean, we there's a few of us that are on our own doing a subject and, and so
therefore, we lead in it. And it was something that I had, I had really enjoyed doing when I was there, designing technology, because St. Mary's offered the opportunity to do do bits of all the foundation subjects in primary education across your first year of the BA you do actually five lectures, two hours for each, which is quite a quite a lot of time spent to
foundation subjects. And then and then what they do is they offer you the opportunity to take on what we call elective subjects into year two BA and when I was when I was there, DMT was one of those subjects that I decided that I wanted to take on board and that was mainly because the GCSE and A level. I absolutely loved it. And so I thought okay, I'll I'll do this and I'm sure I'll love it even more because I'm learning how to teach children how to do something that I really love at
school. Yeah, so I did that along with some other subjects as well. And then in year three, we offer them the opportunity to pick one of those four elective subjects and really specialise in that subject. Bearing in mind when you go into primary education. You don't necessarily specialise. within a subject, we teach all areas of the curriculum. But I, of course, I chose d and t. And I it was it was lovely it was it was
wonderful. And the person that taught me at St. Mary's is actually who I then took over their job when I when I went there, so they retired and I came on board. So it's actually a really lovely thing is a very good, it's nice transition. Yeah. She said, You know, I know I'm leaving it in good hands. And that was really lovely. But interestingly, I went, so I went into primary education, and I didn't I didn't coordinate in designing technology at all.
Right. Okay. And I think did you do, I actually coordinated I actually coordinated in English. For for most of the years that I was a primary teacher, all the way until I decided to go into higher education. But I think there's a number of reasons why, and I think a lot of primary school teachers may agree with
me here. It's, it's something that a lot of a lot of the time, teachers will who who wants to progress, and in some certain situations will want to gain a little bit more money, they will choose the core subjects to, to in order to reap some benefits from that, because if I had chosen to NT, I potentially wouldn't have been able to progress as quickly as I wanted to. But to show that you're making homeschool impact. They want to see English and Math
being done. So you know, I immediately went to English and I love English. So that was that was fine. You know, I don't mind. And I thought I was quite good at it. But it was interesting that I didn't lead in it. And yet now I kind of I teach it on a day to day basis as well how to teach it. And some of my electives. Students will ask questions about how do you coordinate this subject? It's an interesting one, because obviously, I did it. But I have a lot of passion for the
subject. So I feel like I can really lead with that. Definitely.
And you probably work with through the schools you've worked with, you work with quite a lot of coordinators for science and technology. So you you have a network of people to call out, it's not always that you've had to have done it to be able to draw on that expertise, isn't it?
Absolutely. And there's, there's opportunities to kind of network still, with with the people that are in schools now doing wonderful design or technology in primary schools are some great good practice being done in primary schools. It's nice to be on this side, because I get to see when I go into schools, and I do what we call, like a link tutor, situation where we send our students out on to practice and I get to go in and observe them, I get to meet. I'm seeing the children doing design
technology. And I actually got to observe a DMT lesson recently, which was lovely, because actually, that's what I what I want to go and see I want to see it actually in action. Children in action doing this subjects that I'm constantly talking about. And that was one of my worries about coming into higher education is that I
wouldn't get to see. You know, if I really loved it, then why didn't I just stay as a primary school teacher and continue in year six, which is what I predominantly did, continuing your six and continue to teach D and T well. I still question, you know, the move like, why did i Why did I do that? If that's really what I want to go and see. But ultimately, I absolutely love teaching trainee teachers. When I had when I was a class bass mentor. When I was told I'd have a student for
however long. I was really excited. And some teachers don't get that excitement. Some ask not to have a student. And that was me kind of first on the list, like make sure I have a student not knowing who's going to walk through the door. But I was really excited. And then something just kind of clicked that this could be this could be a job. And because I had a master's, and I'd considered I was always looking for like the
next thing I could research. And I was always thinking, Should I do my NVQ SL, could I go into doing a little bit more for the local authority in terms of research, but then I thought well hang on a minute. Why not take it a little bit further and start the ED doc, the doctoral studies. I hear I
¶ The impact of subjects on career progression
hear you out Are you on so you've got a master's. So I'm gonna go to backtrack a little bit, because you, I thought was really interesting observation that I suppose because of the performance measures in primary school. And that thing that you've commented on that, you know, if you if you want to think about career progression, you've got to show show leadership across a whole
school. Because of the status of subjects like design and technology, music to an extent art and design, those are subjects, they get varying amounts of time, I'm going to I'm going to come back and pick up on that as well about whether they whether there's more time being given to primary now for
DNC than you think. But yeah, that you have to kind of sacrifice a bit and take another part to to, to kind of look at that promotion, and then that has as a whole knock on effect about the status of the subject. And then you don't get people in leadership who understand design and technology because they've
not done it. Or because, you know, they've specialised that kind of as a huge, all of those little patterns have a huge impact on the status, the profile the time, the quality of teaching of subjects, like design and technology don't.
I mean, you said so many things, but it was it was so good. It was really so where do I start? Because yeah, I mean, I do think the profile foundation subjects has has developed, it's definitely looked like it was
TNT a feel kind of dainty a foundation subjects.
Yeah. And it's considered a foundation subject when Ofsted are looking at school, and primary education. And we know that Ofsted are going to come in and ask to speak to three subject areas about that, that what they're doing, what they're coordinating in what's going on. And we know that design technology could be could be picked, it might be picked. We know for a fact that English and math will be or reading, should I say or phonics. We don't know
necessarily about DMT. But we certainly know more than we did before, which was it didn't get looking before, along with other subjects. Now I add is not just technology. But we know now that we've all got to be kind of ready, we've got to be ready to talk about the impact of subjects having on children's
education. And so that so it has developed, it's definitely something that I think teachers now realise that actually, being a design and technology coordinator or being a music coordinator is actually far harder than it was. It's got far
more credit. In fact, having to do a deep dive into a subject, whether it's, you know, deep dive is what we call it, we're doing a deep dive into the subject, it still actually you're doing a whole its whole school impact is obviously what I said before about it being English and maths as a predominant kind of coordinator subject that you would take on. But that was then this is now.
And if I was to go back into school, I'd welcome design and technology, because actually, I think this is something that is really important. And
do you think so? Is it that the core subjects are what people look for, you know, when they're employing senior leaders in primary, because those are the ones that are measured, whereas subjects like design and technology, they're not necessarily measured and reported on? They might well be internally. But they're not, you know, they're not tested? They're not they're not reported
on that externally. So it's very difficult to how do you make a judgement about the impact that design or technology is having? If we don't, you know, how do we? How do we assess its impact on the children? Because what we what tends to be valued are those external measures, which I can, I can understand why we have external measures for parents and other people to make judgments about where they want
their children to go. But yeah, it's kind of and so therefore, the measure around subjects like design and technology and music become the output that they want the children produce and what can be seen, or heard or touched or tasted, rather than very crudely in English and maths. It's a number.
It's number. Yeah, absolutely. And we're actually lessening that number due because of the Key Stage One a completely getting rid of that. I mean, they got rid of them previously anyway. And it was kind of just what the what the schools are doing in terms of just internal assignments, assessments, which were their version of SATs or just using tests. hated. But now we don't need to, we don't need to do that at all. They come in, I think it was, I mean, I'm not only a specialist here. So I do
apologise. But I think, you know, the children come in, they test them within the first six months of them coming into reception. And then they don't get to see again until the end of key stage two. That's it. So you've got that data to go by. So all the way from reception to? And obviously, that's a reading, writing math. That's
it? Because that's the only kind of data where and you're absolutely right, you do not need to be assessment, anything else, in terms of data that the school has looming over them, that data pressure from any other subject doesn't need to be there. And schools will do their own assessment procedure for all of these subjects. But it's interesting, because I do
¶ What are the assessment criteria for design and technology?
wonder, what are you assessing? I also teach us what what are your what's your assessment criteria for design and technology at different stages of, of children going through to primary education. And often it is that product at the end, where they're going to make this. This is what they're going to make. This actually brings across some other issues as well, which I found out recently, in some research that
I'm doing. You know, funding wise, we're even going to the point where people are saying we can't, they can't afford those kinds of resources. So what do we do? Because actually, they're not going to end up with a product. We're finding it really difficult.
Yeah. Because there's a lot going on there isn't it's like thinking about what, what, what does progression look like in design and technology and primary because what are they trying to progress in? Right? And then, yeah, being caught up with them making something that's finished, rather than handling materials and doing processes for the learning to be able to explore and develop their designs, isn't it? It's kind of like, we get fixated on the
thing at the end. And yeah, we're assessing that rather than the totality. Yeah, I'm progressing it.
Absolutely.
So yeah, just gone, no Gone. Gone, you're gonna say no, I
think when I when I definitely when I'm lecturing, seminars workshop, I keep I just keep bringing it back to that, which is don't necessarily because I know the factors that make teachers really concerned about teaching design and technology, I've seen it, I've heard it, I've done some research. And I speak regularly with teachers in the field now doing it, and they I know, it's time, it's it's confidence, it's
resources. And I have to keep bringing it back to remember, they don't have to make this like sparkling brand new product. And it's not about that, you could do a whole six week unit, where for the first four weeks, there's no like, official kind of products being made this sparkling product being made at the end, they could do four weeks of complete prototyping with paper with a piece of paper and real problem solving activities. As I do, I
can really encourage that. And I had a student say to me once and I put it back in kind of an example of what I would consider a good six weeks, you know what to look like? They were shocked when they saw that the designing aspect. And the making aspect came in kind of week four and five of the six week unit of work, I said, but actually, it's
not really about that. It's about them understanding current products, how to redesign how to design, how to do that iteration, how to get things wrong, how to develop it further, because that is design and technology. What I feel it is at primary level, especially we're just not going to make this sparkling brand new product at the end of it. So let's, let's change our mindset.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's about you alluded to this earlier about primary teachers subject knowledge because of having to teach all the subjects. It's about knowing what subject knowledge that they need, that is sufficient.
So this brings me on to my research I'm in I live in a London borough, and we we have a organisation who provide services for children in the borough. I live in Kingston, and Richmond, which is our neighbouring borough, and they're a wonderful organisation they've been around On since forever, I can't remember a time
when they weren't around. And they were always so brilliant at being able to give all the teachers in our borough, don't you think there's so many schools in the suburbs, so many, all these teachers the opportunity to come together and network and talk about good practice. And, and I think, obviously, the pandemic came about, and we were in a situation where everything needed to go very much at all
like everybody else. But one thing that did happen was we they decided, the organisation decided that we actually needed to do more in terms of network meetings around these foundation subjects, which were big really scrutinised by Ofsted. So actually, let's bring these people together who coordinating these subjects and let's, let's let's network. Yeah, these have
¶ Virtual workshops for teachers
only ever been virtual. So all online, chatting away, there could be 4050 teachers on a team's meeting, Zoom call whatever. And with, you know, one person's talking this facilitator who doesn't get paid for doing it, it's just, you know, just keying off of the subject, and their school was doing okay in it. So let's have a chat. I went to hear these.
And I have to admit, I didn't go to too many, because I really found them quite well, I came away thinking well, what what have these teachers been able to take away? We've, we've, we've spoken for an hour and a half online about design and technology, I think three or four times a year? What what are they taking away from this workshop that we're supposed to be doing this virtual workshop.
And we were we were kind of it was all about action plans, it was kind of paperwork he was off, they're going to ask you. And at that time, I just thought I've got to step back, I've got to step back. And I've got to have a think about what I'm doing here because I'm watching something unfold. And nothing's really happening. And I'm noticing that people's cameras are switched off. When I go into these breakout rooms, you do only one or two people are talking. It's all very awkward.
And I thought, what can I do? So I went away and I spoke to the curriculum, the curriculum advisor for this organisation, I said, I just want to do something that's more hands on where they are face to face. And there's this kind of almost vulnerability in the room about AI saying, I don't know what I'm doing. Let's practice. Let's get our hands dirty. Let's do let's make some mistakes. So that I feel more confident about going to plan and teach design and
technology. Because if you look at the national curriculum in primary education for D and T, it's it's hard stuff. Something's in there not being done. Because people just don't feel comfortable. Don't feel like they can because they haven't had that practice, to practice. So I said, you know, can we do some workshops I want, I want to put on some face to face workshops. I'm going to call it workshops because I want it to be I want it to be predominantly Practical, not me
talking. It's them doing. Yeah, so we put together a kind of a form for teachers in the local boroughs to vote about which area of the design or technology national curriculum they were feeling, least confident with. unanimously, it came back as programming and control to the idea of using computing to enhance the design of something which is actually a key stage to base, which just goes to show is it's about that knowledge is the knowledge around it that people
were really struggling with. So I straightaway said, I'm going to get my computing lead at St. Mary's University on board. Gonna come together, we're going to create a workshop and it happened the other day, and it was, it was wonderful. And we had it was quite successful. We gave them a date. It wasn't that they you know, unfortunately, my diaries quite, quite busy at the
moment. So I really only had one day that I could give and it was an hour and a half after school workshop, pouring rain, so I thought, you know, no one's kind of want to no one's gonna want to come. But they all turned up all 20 schools, which considering only gave them a date, a lot of this could have been doing extracurricular activities with the children after school. We not teachers
take on clubs. You've got staff meeting Yeah, I, they apart from me talking for the first 15 minutes, they were just practising using kind of micro bit MaKey MaKey board crumble, and thinking about ways that they can use these products in order to enhance the design that the children are doing. And we gave them ideas, and they were able to take away real ideas that they could see working in front of them. And they were able to go away with information, like how much
things cost, right? Well, how many would I need for a class? How reliable are they? The durability of these products can because I need to tell my head teacher because we haven't got a lot of money. So we want to know, I want to be able to go back and sell this to them. And I can show them actual pictures of me putting this together, and just little ProShow type of things that they were doing in this errand a bit. And I think they're just really appreciate that. There's a lot to do. My
research has to do with that. So effective professional development. So I was really happy.
¶ The difference between subject knowledge and pedagogy
Well, that's that sounds really interesting. So you've had them all together, they've done something that I think there's some really interesting points there about? Yeah. Is it durable? How easy is it for me as a teacher to fix it? You know, what's, what's my
subject knowledge? We don't? We don't think about because there's like lots of different things going on there again, isn't that there's, there's subject knowledge that teachers need to have made it feel secure in that, at least be aware of what the misconceptions are in that. And then the pedagogical knowledge of well, how do I teach these things? And these are two separate things really do not mean? So it's, it's the time for the subject knowledge. And it's a time for the
pedagogy. So how am I going to teach it in such a way that the pupils are going through making progress in design and technology? And they have the children have a secure subject knowledge as well? Isn't it? It's kind of those two eyes, two separate things completely
agree, I feel that you can't do you can't do the How am I going to teach it? Unless you know how to really do do it yourself? I know that sounds quite basic, we know that but we don't do this primary school teachers are absolutely incredible. But we're not specialists in these areas. Some of them, especially if they've done PDCA, they've had previous roles, as I say, I mean, actually, this year, I taught an engineer who had decided to then come on board and be a teacher.
And she was great within my DMT DMT lectures, but not everybody has done that. And it's it's a hard subject to get your head around. And so if so without having to actually get involved, do do, what you're actually going to be teaching the children what to do, then becomes easy, you can identify those misconceptions, you can identify what part you found the most challenging what part you can actually become make into a problem solving activity for
those children. Because you obviously just don't want to just teach them what the right answer is. We want to get them to investigate, which I think there's a lot around dainty as well, given those children opportunity to make those mistakes.
Yeah, yeah. Well, while you were talking, I kind of get quite quite a bee in my bonnet about teachers learning subject knowledge, because because the teachers are adults. And so when we talk about pedagogy that's about children. And when we're talking about our teachers learning, that's about andragogy. That's about adults learning. And so if you've not come across this before Malcolm Knowles is the is the kind of leading expert on andragogy.
And, and I've just looked up he's got he's got no I did, I started a blog post. Last year, I went to do part two on our D and T teacher education, and I never got it. Nobody ever called me out. I've never done part two, about andragogy I need to kind of pull my finger out on
that one. Even Matt McLean's have pulled me up on that one as I did part one else, and in January 2020 to do was part two, but Andrew Gargi is a proposed theory and under way that's what it's about the fact that I was when you said we asked the teachers what they wanted to
know about. That's that's the that's the that's one really key thing is that it those talks about the adults are one of the one of the criteria for adults learning is about them learning subjects that they had an immediate relevance to their work and, and that they are responsible for their that decision so that you gave them that option to make that
decision. So so it's taking a very long way winded around around of this is that I think when we do proof additional development for teachers about subject knowledge, we need to remember that we're teaching adults, we're not teaching children. So we need to kind of think about how we're getting them on board in learning this subject knowledge. And then as they're learning it, helping
them pick it. So they can kind of see the different parts and see how the different bits of knowledge are linking together.
And you're doing it through them being problem solving, problem centred, which is more of a thing for adults than it is for children actually, rather than contents orientates, that whole thing about you doing the hands on and then then using it and handling it and touching it, it's much more relevant in terms of adults in terms of learning than it is necessarily have of children, learn for children? It's kind of I think it's more about makes it makes making
things concrete. Yeah, then you move into that whole pedagogy. Part of it is I'm a teacher, I've kind of got some more of a grasp of this subject knowledge. So now I'm faced with my 2020 567 and eight year olds, how do I, how do I manage it? You know what? And actually,
¶ How to teach students to think differently about programming
sometimes there's something like programming, you're not wanting them to be able to work something out, you might teach them input process output. Here's a basic circuit. Now we're going to design something using that basic circuit, basic programme. We're not going to design a programme, we're going to design something that utilises that programme. Yeah. Does that make sense? And so there, so then, because the teachers have handled that they can have that awareness of
thinking? Yeah, that's the knowledge than the design knowledge, but it is what what can we do with it?
What can we do with it? And actually, that becomes really exciting. As soon as you know, about these kind of the principles there about how something works, actually, in order to then put that into a planning format. To teach children about? Yeah, I mean, we were, we were really getting involved as a group. The other week, when we were doing this workshop, what kinds of things could we do with the children,
she became quite exciting. And I absolutely convinced before the session was started, they probably were not looking forward to it. And thought, Gosh, I don't know what I'm about to expect, I'm probably going to be really confused. This isn't something of immediate value to me, potentially, although they came,
they signed up. But they actually left it out, you know, what we could make a I could tell, which was one of the things we brought with us is like a little cardboard guitar with split pins, and we could show them that the output could be is exactly what we've just done. But we've just got to slip in, in something that looks like a guitar, and the children of a musical instrument. See that?
I've got up on my shelf. I think it's my shelf at work. If you look back at the Nuffield DMT stuff. And I know the key stage two, I don't know the Key Stage Two stuff. But they talk about children making a musical instrument. Yeah. Or designing a musical instrument. Yeah. So. So you're doing research around this around? How do you? Is it about how do you teach teachers? subject knowledge? Indian tea?
Yeah, sure. title of it is effective professional development to enhance the teaching of cloud technology. And this is a small scale one. So I want to do this for Part 40. Okay, watch it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to do some interviewing, actually. So to get to get feedback on what the teachers actually thought about it.
So what's what's your criteria for assessing whether the professional development has been effective?
So I first looked at because when I was kind of interested in what professional development should look like, because actually, I could give it a good go. But I wanted to know, like, research behind what professional development because I actually went and did a lot of research. So I read about a lot of research the education Endowment Foundation had done on effective professional development
during the university lead on it didn't Yeah, they did people like
that. Yeah, that was exactly it. So I read the guidance report, and they have done kind of like a recommendations on effective professional development. So I planned it based on those recommendations. And my questioning to the teachers are around kind of weather whether I've met those criteria, that criteria that I've looked up, so when
you started your interviews yet,
no happen.
Right? So I I'm gonna, I'm going to, I like to stick my nose in where it's not welcome. So, you know, feel free
¶ Criteria for assessing the impact of a professional development
to tell me lost at any point you need. So I love how you've designed the professional development based on other people's research into what makes effective professional development. But I suppose to me the next bit is your you're reasonably confident that you've designed something based on that criteria, you know that you're the course designer? The next bit, I suppose, really is what's the impact of that professional
development? And so does the EF stuff say anything about, you know, not just what what the professional development should look like, but what what impact it should have? And that, to me will be the criteria for assessing the professional development is not does it meet the criteria of it being a well designed programme, but, you know, do they do they have more subject knowledge? Could you test them? Yeah, well, they're using it. What impact is it
having on the children? Are the children's subject knowledge better? How do they know that? If they, if they tested it? If they do they see it evidenced in their design work? Are they designing with programmes more confidently?
I didn't. Yeah, no, that's
interesting around there going, No, impact isn't
absolutely. And they and they actually created this mechanism, you know, professional development mechanisms. And I thought, that's interesting. Identity. So I thought I'd have a read. And actually, it has a section on there about embedding practice. And that sort of those things you've come out with, I've actually got it up so I can remind myself, but yeah, that kind of idea of monitoring afterwards, like, have they been able to successfully plan a unit
on this? Have they been able to successfully teach the other teachers about this? So it's not just that person who came to the workshop? Have you now given all this information to everybody else who has to teach as well? Because you're not just going to person? Is it being repeated? You know, will you be doing it again? Will you be? Yeah, and it's definitely an ongoing research? Because you can, and I have put that it's kind of the ongoing small scale research
study. I think my main point of doing it as well was to kind of show the organisation the local authority that this was needed. Yeah. Wow.
So it is it's that impact bit that I yeah, I think you should be, you should be measuring. Yeah. That's, that's, that's my thinking is, what difference is it making back in their schools, to the children to their colleagues?
I'm gonna go in,
can't see this, but me and you are wagging our fingers at each other?
Now, me, like I said, this near the beginning of this podcast, me going into schools, and actually seeing this being done. Yeah. Yeah, I think going well, that's a big tick, isn't it? That's bought 30 Makey Makey balls. And now you're actually
like, that's, that's a question, isn't it? So what did you buy? You know, how often has it been used? Who's using it? Who have you talk to us it? You know, can we have a look at some children's work? You know, can we see the knowledge in the world or not? I mean, yeah, absolutely. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, not so much pupil voice. Sorry. I'm kind of like, sorry, I'm, I'm like, I'm more looking at what are the children doing? What are
you seeing in? You know, how does this How does the teacher know that what they've learned about programming, that then they are teaching that the children are then learning it, where you go, you go looking for
that? Surely, and the children's work, whether that's an artefact, or a drawing, or a bit of a programme or whatever, it doesn't have to be anything magnificent does it you know, doesn't have to be something, you know, any anybody produces gets the kids to produce work, just so we've got flipping evidence that the children have learned, you know, but it's, it's it was maybe it's even asking the teacher how do you know that the children know it? Yep. Isn't it? Yeah. Oh, that's
¶ What’s next?
gonna be Pat.
Oh, yeah. This is my first Pat, as you know, so I think it will be Yeah, I think it'd be lovely experience. I'm ready for it. You know, it's the first time and I remember hearing your experiences. Your first time sometimes it doesn't always go to plan you're gonna get people questioning you but I'm ready for this. Like, this is higher education. This is I want to get into academia. My EDD doc. It's putting me through highs and lows, sometimes more lows and highs and but uh, but it's rewarding.
Yeah, yeah. So So you've got some research on the way. So you're gonna come back on the podcast when you come back on the podcast before you do pap 40 could do a dry run of your presentation, and I'll be your audience because let's face it, I mean, I'm not gonna give you an easy ride on it. Am I?
Do you ever think that you'd give me an easy ride? Now I want to be absolutely critiqued.
And then fine, then I then come back, I think people would be really interested to hear as well, about what you're seeing that is happening in primary because I think most of the people are listening the secondary. And so it'd be good to hear what what is actually happening in primary. And we know we've got to we've got a chapter in the debates book, written by Kathy granny about that transition.
But I think, you know, we need to hear from primary experts like yourself talking about what is happening in primary what what is it about primary DNC that makes it primary DNC? Not? Not? This is what you do before you go into secondary? Do you know, the mean, that makes it makes it? So that'd be good.
That'd be good to have you back for two more podcasts, at least Janine one on this research, sharing what you're finding, and then one on one, you know, what's happening in primary what you're what you're seeing.
And as soon as I kind of start deciding what I'm going to actually do my thesis on, it'd be lovely to talk about that as well, because that's a bit a bit of a blur, because I'm in year one of my doctorate right now. So I'm still learning my, who I am my professional identity. My stance, my position, it's still being figured out.
Yeah, and it will change, it will change. I remember Steve curl. When I started doing my PhD back in 2011 2012. He talked to me and he, he drew a picture of a cloud on a bit of paper. Sure, I've probably got it somewhere. So do a bit of a cloud. And it kind of like drew these little chinks. And he said, when you're starting your feet, there's not many chinks in the cloud, it just feels like a mass of cloud.
And occasionally, and then over time, the cloud dissipates, and you see more and more of the light coming through, and you see the picture for me. So that was a really beautiful way of putting it but it is
really not. And it's nice, because obviously his his wife is my supervisor. Okay, so she says similar, and it's so lovely.
Oh, well. So you can pass that on that. Somebody's remembering what Steve said, what, 1112 years ago now? And yeah, that was a packed conference as well. Believe it or not, that was a conversation. We had a packed conference. That one was in Stockholm. So yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. It's been great to talk to you. Yeah. And then yeah, come back, come back two, three times. Because I mean, I'm tired of Sarah and Matt coming back repeatedly.
Probably tired has been so easy, saying come on the podcast and talk about this with me.
Personally, but I'm more than happy to do that. Absolutely. And I also, by the way, I have a few people in the pipeline for doing some kind of blog writing as well, because I know that we want it Yeah, I'm just waiting for some results to be released to them before I can actually tell them, but one other person is just has done some wonderful, wonderful teaching in school. I suppose. Let's talk let's just put it into gloves talking about it
that you know, this is nice. I'm only a trainee teacher, I can only train the teacher you've got fresh mind. You've got all the kind of you've got the although you know, wants to do some really good teaching and got some passion unto you. So now we want you to write
salutely Absolutely. So for people who are unfamiliar with what we're talking about, Janine has joined myself and Matt as editors for the design and technology teacher education blog, and along with Liam Anderson, and so is kind of getting people to write on that because it's kind of got a little bit quiet as part because we and Matt have got so many things in so many other pies. So it's great to have people like Janine on board and kind of kicking that into
touch. Well, kicking it, kicking it forward, so we can kind of get some more people in that community. Yeah,
yeah. And just talking about DNC more talking about doing absolutely.
And also also having stuff out there that people can go, I don't agree with it. But I do agree with it, or I've done better, I've done worse, or I've tried that it didn't work. And so yeah, yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great. Anyway, Janine, thanks ever so much for your time. It's been brilliant.
That's okay. Thank you so much for having me.