Transcript Slide 1

From ‘teaching’ to
‘discovery’: Geography as a
starting point for
institutional change
Carolyn Roberts
and
Mick Healey
Centre for Active Learning
University of Gloucestershire, U.K.
‘To pursue it with forks and hope…’,
from ‘The Hunting of the Snark: an
Agony in Eight Fits’ Lewis Carroll, 1876
The adoption of the ‘Student as
Scholar’ model is the culmination of
fundamental shifts in our underlying
educational philosophy, specifically
from a teaching paradigm that
emphasizes telling students what they
need to know, to a learning paradigm
that emphasizes inquiry in shaping
how students learn what they need to
know, to a discovery paradigm that
emphasizes inquiry with no
boundaries.
Hodge et al., 2007
Themes
• Journeys, maps, geographies
and meanings
• Institutional change
• Risks and unexpected
consequences
• Travelling with Lewis Carroll
‘Alice in Wonderland’
Centres for Excellence in
Teaching and Learning
..CETLs will recognize, celebrate and
promote excellence by rewarding
teachers who have made a
demonstrable impact on student
learning and who enthuse, motivate
and influence others to do the
same..
Higher Education Funding Council for
England, 2004
A CETL.. will be a source of institutional
pride. We believe that the demonstrable
commitment of CETLs to excellence will
enthuse their staff and attract and motivate
students... these centres will acquire
significant influence inside institutions,
shaping and guiding teaching and learning
strategies… By 2010, we hope that some
CETLs will have taken risks, pioneered
innovative learning approaches and
significantly extended the use of new
technology.
Higher Education Funding Council for England, 2004
The Centre for Active Learning
in Geography, Environment and
Related Disciplines (CeAL)
CeAL is an international
centre of excellence
reviewing, developing,
promoting and embedding
inclusive and exemplary
active learning for students in
geography, environment and
related disciplines, including
landscape architecture,
community development and
heritage management.
Active learning focuses on inquiry in
the field, studio, laboratory and
classroom using real sites,
community-related and employerlinked activities. More than simply
'learning by doing', our approach
enables students to construct
theoretical understanding through
reflection on practical activities.
CeAL is developed around
communities of active learners where
students and staff inquire together.
Active styles of learning
“No, no! The adventures first,” said the
Gryphon in an impatient tone:
“explanations take such a dreadful time.”
The Gloucestershire
approach to active learning
• Linking the thinking, doing and reflecting
• Innovative ways of linking theory and
practice
• Embedding active learning in all teaching
• Innovative methods for developing blended
learning
• Active involvement of external agencies
• Creative ways of assessing active learning
• Underpinning with pedagogic research
• Involvement nationally and internationally
• Maintaining inclusivity
• Making learning enjoyable for everyone
Taking risks?
"But I don't want to go among mad
people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the
Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad."
You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said
Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you
wouldn't have come here."
Building on the institution’s
commendation for initiating a teaching,
learning and assessment strategy to
empower learners (HEQC 1995) it was
proposed in 1997 to embed the shift from
a teaching to a learning paradigm... The
2007 strategy has now moved the debate
towards a discovery paradigm by
engaging students with each of Boyer’s
four scholarships to empower them to
learn for life.
Broadfoot, Healey and Mason O’Connor, 2008
Gloucestershire’s Learning,
Teaching and Assessment
Strategy, 2007
In conjunction with.. subject knowledge,
students will.. develop the skills required for
lifelong learning. A principal means for
achieving this is through the promotion of
active engagement in learning. Active
engagement may be characterised as ‘active
learning’, ‘problem based learning’, ‘inquiry
based learning’, ‘experiential learning’,
‘research based learning’ and ‘reflective
learning’. All are imbued with strong
elements of scholarship, discovery and
creativity.
In an age of ‘supercomplexity’ (Barnett
2000)…. teaching and research are
becoming ever more intimately related…
In a ‘knowledge society’ all students..
have to be researchers. Not only are they
engaged in the production of knowledge;
they must also be educated to cope with
the risks and uncertainties generated by
the advance of science.
Scott, 2002
“Speak English!” said the
Eaglet. “I don't know the
meaning of half those long
words, and, what’s more, I
don't believe you do either!”.
Models of change in
Higher Education,
according to
Trowler et al, 2003
•
•
•
•
Technical-rational
Resource allocation
Diffusionist:epidemiological
Kai Zen or continuous quality
improvement
• Models using complexity
Modelling Institutional Change
- A simple model
Appreciative Enquiry Approach
1. Appreciating and valuing the
best of ‘what is’
2. Envisioning ‘what might be’
3. Dialoguing ‘what should be’
4. Innovating ‘what will be’
Hammond, 1998
Early issues: Multiple influences
on the University
“And how many hours a day did
you do lessons?” said Alice.
“Ten hours the first day,” said
the Mock Turtle: “nine the next,
and so on.”
“What a curious plan!”
exclaimed Alice.
“That's the reason they're
called lessons,” the Gryphon
remarked: “because they
lessen from day to day.”
Kotter’s Eight Stages of
Change
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Establish a sense of urgency
Create a guiding coalition
Develop a vision and strategy
Communicate the change vision
Empower broad-based action
Generate short term wins
Consolidate gains and produce
more change
8. Anchor new approaches in the
culture
Kotter, 1995
Mapping the
route: technicalrational models
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from
here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said
the Cat.
"I don't much care where - " said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.
" - so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an
explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk
long enough."
Ah ha! moments
• The role of language
• The role of learning spaces
• The role of student induction
• The role of new technologies
• The role of serendipity and
celebration
Emergent themes: the
role of language
“When I use a word,” Humpty
Dumpty said, in a rather
scornful tone, “it means just
what I choose it to mean neither more nor less.”
“The question is, “said Alice,
“whether you can make words
mean so many different
things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty
Dumpty, “which is to be
master - that's all.”
Emergent themes: the
role of language
• Language is critical to securing
engagement
• It can also be disempowering for
Faculty and students. ‘Which is to
be master?’
• ‘Active learning’ can be interpreted
in ways specific to individual
disciplines
• This is not only acceptable, but
positively beneficial in terms of
promoting interest, debate and
adoption
Complexity and working
with Faculty
“What is the use of repeating
all that stuff?” the Mock Turtle
interrupted, “if you don't
explain it as you go on? It's by
far the most confusing thing I
ever heard!”
Emergent
themes: the
role of social
learning
spaces
Emergent themes: the role of
social learning spaces
Students say:
‘All in all a really lovely building. The
facilities here are excellent’
‘I like the relaxed atmosphere of this building, and
how it is quiet but not silent’
‘This space is most like a good work environment – a
lot of the others are more like a call centre’
‘More sofas – they are amazing!’
‘Just want to use it more’
‘Facilities are fantastic’
‘I am very impressed’
Emergent themes: the role of
social learning spaces
• Instrument of change
• Symbolic
• Celebration
‘We shape our
buildings, and
afterwards our
buildings shape us’
Winston Churchill, 1943
Emergent themes: the role of
student induction
• An academically-focussed week, students and
tutors undertaking off-campus inquiry together
• Introduction to personal and active learning styles
• Socialising into the academic ‘tribe’
• Collaborative learning
• Talks on University staff research
• Inquiring in the library and on line
• Tutor feedback on academic projects
• Celebration, fun and food
Emergent themes: the role of
student induction
• Three years’ experience 2004-7, growing in
scale and scope
• 2007 projects included ‘Let’s Flood the Forest!’,
‘Voices from the Great Flood of 2007’, ‘Playing
with time: Toys through childhood’, ‘Who’s afraid
to go into the Forest?’, ‘Monkeying around:
Communicating with our relatives’, ‘Drawing on
nature’, ‘The Philosopher in the woods’, ‘Forest,
tree, leaf: the significance of trees in literature’
• Improved retention, reduced stress,
increased engagement,
and staff development
Emergent issues: the role of
new technologies
• Communities of practice originally
included campus-based and distant
learners, brokered using ICT. Now evolved
into structures to enrich all students
• Videoconferencing with international
students e.g. the 12,000 mile Studio,
International Relations project, CGGE
Phase II and globalised teaching
materials
• Unforseen highlights, for example digital
storytelling, podcasting, video, digital
design, music
Emergent issues: the role of
new technologies
“and what is the use of a book,”
thought Alice, “without pictures or
conversations?”
Emergent themes: the role
of serendipity & celebration
• The University ‘Mission’ and a new Vice
Chancellor
• Collaborative publications such as ‘Active
Learning’ (Healey and Roberts, J) and
‘Greener by Degrees’ (Roberts, C and
Roberts, J)
• Institutional interest in Education for
Sustainable Development, which shares
the skill set of active learning
• Trying for more prizes e.g. National
Teaching Fellowships
Geography still permeating
CeAL’s approaches
• Diverse Geography sub-disciplinary
methodologies and staff interests, arts,
humanities, social and natural sciences
• Changes in the nature of the CeAL
operation matching changes in the
nature of geography: Mapping and
description, to scientific explanation, to
complexity and postmodernist
emergence of themes
• Internationalisation and globalisation
• Awareness of space as an instrument,
at many scales
What are the key drivers?
• Some of Kotter’s eight steps are
evident – urgency, developing and
communicating the vision, short
term wins, – but not all, and not in
a particular order
• Direct financial rewards to staff and
‘missionary’ activities do not work
What drivers are missing?
• Key roles and strengths of team members
• Communication amongst the team and
beyond
• Ideas of developing mutual support, a
‘community of scholars’, through staff
development
• The role of the students, in joining and
supporting the changes
• Serendipity, and new opportunities,
challenges (and risks) appearing
• Evaluating the change and developing as
a learning institution
Characteristics of CeAL’s(?)
changes
• Change is highly complex, not linear,
although it can be steered to some degree
• Change can be developmental or emergent
• Many changes occur concurrently, change
breeding change
• Goals are adjusted and we move towards a
new goal without always achieving the first
• Rapid and dynamic shifts between states
• No end point can be defined
• A ‘wicked problem’ (Rittel and Webber,
1973)
Charateristics of models using
complexity
• Universities are indeterminate systems, hence
the outcomes are not predictable. We can only
create likely conditions for change, and exert
indirect influence
• No locus of power; ‘power is’.
• Multiple small changes provide suitable conditions
for change
• Over-optimal supply of ‘tools’ required
• Change champions are organic, intellectual and
skilled in praxis and creating affordances
Trowler, Saunders and Knight, 2003
Recording change
…the Red Queen said to Alice.
“Always speak the truth - think
before you speak - and write it
down afterwards.”
Evaluating change
And yesterday things went on just
as usual. I wonder if I've been
changed in the night? Let me think:
was I the same when I got up this
morning? I almost think I can
remember feeling a little different.
But if I'm not the same, the next
question is 'Who in the world am I?'
Ah, that's the great puzzle!
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865
“Begin at the
beginning,” the
King said, very
gravely, “and go
on till you come
to the end: then
stop.”
Please look at our website
www.glos.ac.uk/ceal
Acknowledgements to:
Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson: 18321898), Arthur B Frost, Henry Holliday and
Sir John Tenniel
Claire Hanson, Caro McIntosh and staff
and students at the University of
Gloucestershire and elsewhere