Teaching and Innovation in a Research-led University

Professor Nick FoskettVice 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 research-led 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….• 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:• be up to date in our knowledge of our own discipline

(scholarship)

• contribute to advancing knowledge in our own discipline (research)

• communicate that knowledge through teaching, publication and academic dissemination, and through knowledge transfer

Professional Communities and Academics

• 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

Traditional model of the relationship between research and teaching

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

Research-tutoredCurriculum emphasises learning focused on student writing and discussing papers or essays

Research-basedCurriculum emphasises students undertaking inquiry-based learning

Research-ledCurriculum is structured around teaching subject content

Research-orientedCurriculum emphasises teaching process of knowledge construction in the subject

STUDENTS AS PARTICIPANTS

STUDENTS AS AUDIENCE

EMPHASIS ON RESEARCH CONTENT

EMPHASIS ON RESEARCH PROCESS AND PROBLEMS

Jenkins et al, 2007:29; based on Healy, 200513

Enquiry-based Learning

• Student-led enquiry versus tutor-led enquiry

• Stages of enquiry:– Stage 1 What? Where?– Stage 2 How? Why?– Stage 3 What will?– Stage 4 How ought?

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Enquiry-based Learning

Pursuing (information-active)Students explore the knowledge-base of the discipline by pursuing questions, problems, scenarios or lines of inquiry they have formulated “What is the existing answer to my question?”

Identifying (information-responsive)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?”

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?”

Exploring and Acquiring Existing Disciplinary Knowledge

Participation in Building Disciplinary Knowledge

Student-led Staff-led

Levy, P. And Petrulis, R., 200715

Modelling Cognitive Learning

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Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956)

Anderson and Krathwohl (2001)

A Model of Research-Led Teaching

Traditional model of the relationship between research and teaching

Brew, 2006

New model of the relationship between research and teaching

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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 ThirunamachandranDeputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost

28 June 2012

Teaching Quality and Learning Support

• 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 self-created opportunity’.

Professor Norman Jackson 2007

Drivers for Change• Changing world needs a different type of graduate• Government Reforms:

– Fees (Browne Review)– Funding – changes in recurrent HEFCE grants – White Paper implications – Business-University Collaboration (Wilson Review).

• Drivers regarding course content:– Employability– Internationalisation– Sustainability (economic, social, environmental) – Inter-disciplinarity.

The Distinctive Keele Curriculum

Keele Graduate Attributes Distinctive Academic Curriculum

The Co-curriculum The Development Strand

The Distinctive Keele Graduate

Our Distinctive Keele Curriculum Graduate Attributes

Make a difference in my communities• leadership• communication• care and respect for others• community spirit

Make the most of my potential• 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:

• Range of subject combinations• Flexibility and choice• Foreign language instruction• Undergraduate research• International exchanges

Our Distinctive Academic Curriculum

Overarching themes:

• Employability Skills

• International Perspective

• 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• Attainment of the Graduate Attributes will be

strengthened by engagement with the Co-curriculum

• 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

• Some of these activities can be recorded on the Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR)

(some examples of) 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 self-created opportunity’.

Professor Norman Jackson 2007

Any Questions?