Transcript Slide 1

Teaching and Innovation in a
Research-led University
Professor Nick Foskett
Vice Chancellor, Keele University
at
Keele University Teaching and Learning Symposium
28 June 2012
Aims of this session
• Reflection on the role of academic staff
• Exploring meanings and purposes of researchled teaching
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The Role of Academic Staff
What are Universities for?
Primarily……
•Creation of Knowledge
•Dissemination of Knowledge
Additionally………
•Critical Friend for Society (speaking truth to power)
•Repositories of Knowledge and Culture
What is Keele’s mission
within this?
On Being an Academic….
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a passion for our discipline
not sufficient to know stuff for our own sake, but expectation
that we know stuff for somebody else’s sake.
Therefore we must:
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be up to date in our knowledge of our own discipline
(scholarship)
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contribute to advancing knowledge in our own discipline
(research)
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communicate that knowledge through teaching, publication
and academic dissemination, and through knowledge transfer
Professional Communities and
Academics
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our academic discipline
our professional discipline eg nursing
the learning professional community for HE students
the wider economic and social community
Each has its professional obligations, ideals, systems,
methods, values.
An academic must operate as a professional in all of these
communities
Traditional Model
Brew, 2003:11
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Research-led
teaching
The Nature of Learning
Research is simply one end of the spectrum of
learning. It involves discovering knowledge
that was not known before by anybody, and
therefore contributes to academic and societal
wisdom. All other learning is learning by an
individual of things that were already known.
It is new learning to that individual. Hence
learning is simply a spectrum.
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The Growing Importance of
Research-led Teaching
(Taylor 2007)
• More than 80% universities in the UK see themselves as
research intensive/led universities
• Even teaching led universities value research led
teaching
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Staff Views of Research-led
Teaching
(Prosser et al 2008)
• Multiple views, but among academics, it is about
allocating teaching responsibility to people with a
solid research background
• Other views include: teaching activities based on
findings from research; teaching in which students
are trained to become research skilled; embedding
empirical processes in assignments
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Tensions/Contradictions in the
Practice of Research-led Teaching
• Organisational and strategic separation between
research and teaching
• The dominance of research over teaching
• Down grading of pedagogic research in universities
• Separation of research and teaching universities
• Disagreement about supervision of research students.
Does it count as teaching or research?
• Promotion policies which privilege research
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Research-teaching nexus
STUDENTS AS PARTICIPANTS
Research-tutored
Curriculum emphasises
learning focused on student
writing and discussing
papers or essays
Research-based
Curriculum emphasises
students undertaking inquirybased learning
Research-led
Curriculum is structured
around teaching subject
content
Research-oriented
Curriculum emphasises
teaching process of
knowledge construction in
the subject
EMPHASIS ON
RESEARCH
CONTENT
EMPHASIS ON
RESEARCH
PROCESS AND
PROBLEMS
STUDENTS AS AUDIENCE
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Jenkins et al, 2007:29; based on Healy, 2005
Enquiry-based Learning
• Student-led enquiry versus tutor-led
enquiry
• Stages of enquiry:
– Stage 1
– Stage 2
– Stage 3
– Stage 4
What?
Where?
How?
Why?
What will?
How ought?
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Enquiry-based Learning
Exploring and Acquiring Existing Disciplinary Knowledge
Pursuing (information-active)
Students explore the knowledgebase of the discipline by pursuing
questions, problems, scenarios or
lines of inquiry they have
formulated
“What is the existing answer to
my question?”
Identifying (informationresponsive)
Students explore the knowledge-base
of the discipline in response to
questions, problems, scenarios or
lines of inquiry formulated by the staff
“What is the existing answer to
this question?”
Student-led
Staff-led
Authoring (discovery-active)
Students pursue their own new
questions, problems, scenarios or
lines of inquiry, in interaction with
the knowledge-base of the
discipline
“How can I answer my
question?”
Producing (discovery-responsive)
Students pursue new questions,
problems, scenarios or lines of inquiry,
as formulated by tutors, in interaction
with the knowledge-base of the
discipline
“How can I answer this question?”
Participation in Building Disciplinary Knowledge
Levy, P. And Petrulis, R., 2007
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Modelling Cognitive Learning
Bloom’s Taxonomy
(1956)
Anderson and Krathwohl
(2001)
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A Model of Research-Led
Teaching
Brew, 2006
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Assumptions or Myths ?
(Jenkins and Healey 2003)
• The mutuality between teaching and research activities
• The superiority of research informed teaching
• The commonality of status between research and
teaching
• Teaching and research performance are positively
correlated
• Good academics are both good researchers and good
teachers
• Research and teaching can not be separated
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Internationalisation – impact on
learning and teaching practice
Rama Thirunamachandran
Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost
28 June 2012
Teaching Quality and Learning Support
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Different learning styles
Multi-cultural learning environment
Language and Study Skills
Assessment and feedback
Curriculum
Internationalising the curriculum
“…change to make the curriculum more
engaging and relevant to students from different
cultures… and change to prepare home students
to live and work in settings where the culture is
quite different from their own”
McTaggart in Clifford and Joseph (2005)
Ideas for internationalising curricula
• Encourage students to move beyond stereotypes, to discover rich
perspectives by engaging with resources, people and media from
multiple cultures and traditions
• Recognise the global by developing staff and student awareness on
how our local practices impact on other people, places and
environments in the world
• Include activities which require students to examine local and
international standards/practice/approaches within the discipline
• Where possible, incorporate a range of sources from around the
world (journals, conference papers, research findings)
• Include activities which invite staff and students to be aware of
their own cultural positions, differences and starting points,
reinforcing that ‘difference’ can be positive.
Source: Dr Emma Dawson
The Distinctive Keele Curriculum
Making it happen
Professor Marilyn Andrews
Pro Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience
The Why?
The What and How?
The Distinctive Keele Curriculum
‘We live in a world where change is exponential and we
are helping to prepare students for jobs that don’t yet
exist, using technologies that have not yet been
invented, in order to solve problems that we don’t
know are problems yet. In short, we have a
responsibility to prepare our students for a lifetime of
uncertainty, change, challenge and emergent or selfcreated opportunity’.
Professor Norman Jackson 2007
Drivers for Change
• Changing world needs a different type of graduate
• Government Reforms:
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Fees (Browne Review)
Funding – changes in recurrent HEFCE grants
White Paper implications
Business-University Collaboration (Wilson Review).
• Drivers regarding course content:
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Employability
Internationalisation
Sustainability (economic, social, environmental)
Inter-disciplinarity.
The Distinctive Keele Curriculum
Our Distinctive Keele Curriculum
Graduate Attributes
Make a difference in my
communities
Make the most of my
potential
• leadership
• communication
• care and respect for others
• community spirit
• active learning
• reflection
• self-development
• self direction
• integrity
Make sense of my world
• breadth of knowledge and
thinking
• perspective
• scholarship
• enquiry and problem solving
• independence of thought
Keele’s Distinctive Academic Curriculum
The University offers:
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Range of subject combinations
Flexibility and choice
Foreign language instruction
Undergraduate research
International exchanges
Our Distinctive Academic Curriculum
Overarching themes:
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Employability Skills
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International Perspective
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Sustainability
supported by high quality learning and teaching
Our Distinctive Academic Curriculum
is characterised by:
the distinctive nature of each of our academic disciplines
through which our students achieve
ten distinctive graduate attributes which make explicit
students’ achievements at graduate level and provide our
graduates with a non-discipline language to articulate their
achievements.
and have the opportunity to engage in
a range of developmental activities which will enable
students to get the most out of their studies and hence improve
their performance and achieve their full potential.
Our Distinctive Academic
Curriculum
Development Strand Activities
• Preparation for study in higher education
• Personal and Professional development
• Career development
Keele University and the
Institute of Leadership and Management ILM
• Activities within the development strand – such as leadership
and employability – will be recognised by the ILM.
• The ILM will accredit these elements of the Development Strand
and therefore Keele graduates will be distinctive simply by the
nature of their award bearing programmes.
• This is the first such arrangement in the UK.
The Co-curriculum
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Attainment of the Graduate Attributes will be
strengthened by engagement with the Co-curriculum
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The Co-curriculum, formerly called ‘extra curricular’
activities, is a range of student focussed
opportunities to assist the student develop a range
of transferable employability skills
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Some of these activities can be recorded on the
Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR)
(some examples of)
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Co-curriculum Activities
Student mentors and student ambassadors
Elected positions in the Students’ Union, Representing Students StARs
Sporting activities and Student Societies within the Students’ Union
Volunteering activities
Entrepreneurship activities, Starting a Business
Keele Link Programme, working with schools and colleges
Personal Development Planning
Part-time work / Caring for others
Study or Work Abroad opportunities (that are not part of the degree award)
Work Experience, placement opportunities and internships (that are not
part of the degree award)
Future Developments
• Develop further the links with the ILM to design,
develop and deliver the Keele Award.
• Pilot and evaluate the Distinctive Keele
Curriculum.
• Develop a suite of on-line learning opportunities.
The Distinctive Keele Curriculum
" Our reforms are about empowering students and ensuring
their university experience helps them succeed. I believe that
a good student is not simply a consumer of other people’s
knowledge, but will actively draw on all the resources that a
good university can offer to learn as much as they can. A
university experience should transform lives and career
options.
" I welcome the innovative approach that Keele University has
taken with the Distinctive Keele Curriculum. This initiative will
help your graduates to emerge with the breadth and depth of
skills and knowledge that employers are looking for. "
David Willetts, Universities and Science Minister 17.05.12
The Distinctive Keele Curriculum
‘We live in a world where change is exponential and we
are helping to prepare students for jobs that don’t yet
exist, using technologies that have not yet been
invented, in order to solve problems that we don’t
know are problems yet. In short, we have a
responsibility to prepare our students for a lifetime of
uncertainty, change, challenge and emergent or selfcreated opportunity’.
Professor Norman Jackson 2007
Any Questions?