Hastings PEEL

What does PEEL stand for?

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 growing 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, 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:

1. Having a strategic, long-term learning agenda focussing on multiple aspects of quality learning and metacognition.
2. Making consistent, persistent and purposeful use of teaching procedures, appropriate teaching behaviours and the Principles of Teaching for Quality Learning.
3. Trusting students and sharing responsibilities and intellectual control with students.
4. Problematizing and purposefully interrogating and developing your practice. Becoming more metacognitive about your teaching and developing new dimensions of sense-making.
5. Supportive and being supported by others in a process of collaborative action research.