4.2.2.2.1: Knowing which pupils to select
Teacher A was unsure how the pupils would respond to COGMED, she thought it was important to have an understanding of how the pupils may respond to and engage with the programme. She said, “Erm because one child got quite distressed by it, but they had to keep going to get used to it so it’s making you know it’s understanding the children as well I think before they do it” (LN154-156).
Teacher A discussed that some pupils may not be suitable for the programme, but she thought that until the pupils had undertaken the programme she wasn’t able to judge who would be suitable for the programme. She noted that,
“I think there are a couple that I wouldn’t of selected no erm and one was because erm he has got autism and it was just too frustrating for him. He couldn’t cope with that frustration of erm like the speed the reaction of the programme wasn’t quick enough for him, which you know but then you know there was another child who really seemed to benefit from it, he worked really well on it so, until you do it you don’t really know that’s the trouble” (LN201-206).
98 4.2.2.2.2: Design / Content
a) Transfer
It was identified that if any of the pupils made progress on COGMED, a reported drawback of the programme structure was that the progress the pupils made on COGMED did not transfer to the classroom. This was particularly indicated by Teacher C who said, “Yeh sometimes they improve in COGMED but do not bring those strategies back to class, but I’m not saying that’s the fault of the programme, I think that is probably an indicator of the teacher and teaching assistant” (LN314-316). The teacher was then asked a further question
Interviewer: “They can’t generalise, transfer the skills from COGMED?” Teacher: “Sometimes yeh, so that’s on the skills of the teacher” (LN317-318).
b) Design
Teacher D talked about how they thought that a drawback of the programme content was that it was just number sequences or patterns. It was discussed that one of the pupils became frustrated with the task, whereby he had to remember some numbers in reverse order. She went on to discuss how the programme could have been modified. These suggestions are acknowledged in section 4.2.4 Recommendations. Teacher A and D both explained that they thought the design of the programme was frustrating for some pupils as it was repetitive. Teacher A said,
“I’m not sure erm how well that worked for certain children because some of them were frustrated....they were just doing the same thing over and over again whereas the programme adjusted slightly to their scores and things like that but it was the same type of activity over and over and over again which I guess is part of reason, but it did frustrate some children” (LN165-169).
At another stage in the interview she also said that repetitiveness was an issue:
“So repetitive, because that kind of put one of the children off who could of actually really benefitted from it, had it not been so repetitive but then that’s just one child” (LN2553-254).
99 Another challenge of the programme was in relation to technology. Teacher A mentioned; “Well for us, a school, it was you know making sure the Ipads were working and that we had headphones and you just didn’t. Especially with the headphones side of thing you didn’t really, I didn’t sort of think that was a necessity until we actually started using it and then we sort of had to scrap around” (LN183-186).
c) Time consuming and mis-matched with contextual demands
Teacher D, thought that COGMED was difficult to administer in the context of the classroom. COGMED was described as time consuming, it was reported that having five pupils in the classroom accessing the programme was difficult to manage and said that they were aware that COGMED recommended the programme needed to be delivered every day. The teacher said, “Well it’s quite disruptive actually because I was trying to teach while that group were getting on so that is quite a disruption to you...” (LN633-634). Teacher D, also said,
“It messed the class up really because we had five children over there doing that, I’d be trying to teach the class something else and they weren’t you know, they were behind because they didn’t know what I’d just talked about, cause I’d give them something else to do, it messed up the afternoon really. I didn’t want it doing in the morning cause I didn’t want it to interfere with literacy and numeracy and I suppose if you’ve only got one or two children in the class on it, it wouldn’t be too bad, but five of them and they struggled anyway” (LN193-201).
Additionally another Teacher A also said that the programme is time consuming Interviewer: “What would you say are the disadvantages of using COGMED?”
Teacher A: “Erm I think the fact that it does take a good chunk out of teaching time” (LN189-190).
Teacher A said in the summer term there are lots of other activities happening in school including assessments, events and school trips. She stated,
“If we are doing something like COGMED that you need to be doing it every day...so the summer term is not the best time to do it er I mean that there is going to be something in every term. In the autumn term you have the nativity plays and all that sort of thing errrr spring certain children getting ready for tests or SATS or whatever” (LN78-84).
100 Teacher B also discussed how the summer term was not a suitable time to implement COGMED. She said,
“Well normally on other terms it would not of been a problem, it would have been a lot more secure, a lot more routine, it would of happened the same time every day or the about the same day and I feel I would might of seen, of picked up on any differences” (LN235-237).
This teacher indicated she didn’t observe any differences in the pupils in the classroom but thinks that if they had employed a routine for delivering the programme then this may have occurred.
d) Lack of feedback / monitoring progress provision
COGMED has a monitoring system that provides data on the participants’ progress on the programme. This is described in further detail in a later section of this chapter in Section 4.3.3. However Teacher A stated,
“I think that because it takes them out of a good chunk of learning time it ... they may not of had more summative assessment that you would do while they are learning while you’re teaching them, that sort of day to day assessment, you couldn’t really do that with the programme. It’s difficult to get feedback for the programme” (LN279-282).
She also said, “I don’t know erm if you could sort of assess as you go really and then you could take children off it or something but you kind of feel that you’ve got to do the whole programme otherwise you won’t see the impact and there are some children that won’t ever make that have that impact so is it then wasted you know however many weeks wasted” (LN196-199).
This can be compared and contrasted to Teacher D who reported that they were aware that COGMED had an integrated monitoring programme and she accessed it to observe the pupils’ progress after undertaking some sessions on COGMED.
e) Cost
Teacher A reported that COGMED’s cost is a barrier. She said, “I think you know cause it’s not a cheap option so you feel you need to keep going at it to get your money’s worth” (LN205-206).
101
f) Teachers’ understanding and accessing the programme
Using ICT was reported by one teacher as a difficulty, she also mentioned that the teachers may not have had regular conversations about the programme and understood COGMED and also another difficulty was identifying the children that will benefit from COGMED.
4.2.3: Implementation
The theme of Implementation has two sub themes of reasons for implementing COGMED and Delivery. The thematic map (figure J) below shows the teachers views on the implementation of COGMED.
Figure J: