Embracing the slow: on the deliciousness of pedagogical conversations

  Rome 1986: a resilient group of activists assemble at the historic Piazza di Spagna and, each ‘armed’ with a bowl of penne, vent their displeasure at the opening of a McDonald’s. It was a seminal moment that triggered the birth of the Slow Food movement which by 1989, spearheaded by the charismatic Carlo Petrini (2001), was embedded as a vibrant global and grassroots programme to counter both fast food and ‘fast life’. According to The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Social and Political Movements (2013), Slow Food – whose symbol is a snail - has amassed supporters in 150 countries, determined to link the pleasure of good food with a commitment to their community and the environment. However, in an age of speed walking, speed reading, and speed dating, or ‘living in the fast lane’ and ‘hurrying through life’, slowing down may not come so naturally to many. Especially if we consider that ‘walking’, ‘reading’ and ‘dating’ are moments that should be imbibed and enjoyed rather than as activities to be speeded up.  [Editorial continues]

Book Review of Naomi Winstone and David Carless (2019) Designing Effective Feedback Processes in Higher Education: A Learning-focused Approach

Many in higher education have advised of the need to move from transmission-based approaches to those in which students are active participants in their learning. Assessment and feedback, especially, have been much slower – even, seemingly reluctant, to adapt.  Encouragingly though, pedagogic discourse and research on feedback is now shifting away from teachers’ actions towards those of students and, more specifically, how they engage with and use messages about their work. [Review continues

Sector reports review: September 2018 to January 2019

This paper provides a summary of selected reports and papers (‘grey literature’) published by key HE sector organisations in England (and the UK), and ‘think tanks’ between September 2018 and January 2019. These include: Advance HE; the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Assistive Technology (APPGAT); Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS); Department for Education (DfE); GuildHE; High Fliers; Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI); Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA); House of Commons Library; Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); Jisc; Migration Advisory Committee (MAC); Office for Fair Access (OFFA); Office for Students (OfS); Papyrus UK (Prevention of Young Suicide); Policy Connect; The Sutton Trust; The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS); UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT); Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA); UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA); UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment (UKSCQA); Universities and Colleges Union (UCU); Universities UK (UUK); Universities UK International (UUKi); Warwick Economics and Development (WECD); The 1752 Group. The themes covered in the paper include: grade inflation; post-qualification applications; unconditional offers; access and participation plans; the multiple equality measure; outreach; targeted tuition fees; degree apprenticeships; the English Baccalaureate; the student voice; analysing qualitative data; student engagement; students’ unions; student engagement and experience surveys; part-time learners; commuter students; flexible learning; student wellbeing (suicide prevention, personal tutoring); equality and diversity; religion and belief; sexual misconduct; technology enhanced-learning (TEL); TEL accessibility; the intelligent campus; managing change; the graduate labour market; employability; first destinations of disabled students; enterprise education; graduate earnings; internships; practice-informed learning; graduate wellbeing; institutional accountability; internationalisation; student outward mobility; transnational education; and the HE workforce (academic staff)

Personal tutoring: a recognition of ‘levelness’ in the support for undergraduates

The changing terrain of higher education in the UK, and particularly the greater diversity of the student body, has undoubtedly led to the need for universities to provide greater support, both from frontline teaching staff and in the provision of extra institutional services.  Added to the mix are sectoral concerns for the wellbeing and welfare of the student.  It is therefore unsurprising that we are seeing a renewed focus on, and interest in, personal tutoring.  Taking a qualitative approach, we set out to explore the needs of undergraduate students, on an event management programme, in relation to personal tutoring.  Outlined in this paper are the different senses of personal tutoring as student transition through their course.&nbsp

Postgraduate students’ perception of research ethics training: a qualitative study

Unethical practices undermine research findings, and destroy societal trust in research and researchers.  Formal ethics training for researchers is widely supported, and has been adopted by many organisations, including the NHS.  However, a wide variation in what constitutes ethics training is apparent.  This paper outlines a study that explored the perceptions of research ethics training amongst postgraduate nursing students undertaking research on human subjects.  A combination of six focus groups and four one-to-one interviews were undertaken.  Three significant themes emerged, each representing different aspects of the teaching process.  First, time and timeliness, underlining the importance of the timing of training, but with the need for ongoing access to resources.  Second, content and delivery, where the differences between the principles and processes, and the mechanisms required to address both aspects, was raised.  Finally, assessment, where the difficulties of useful assessment were discussed.  Participants emphasised the need to differentiate between the principles and processes of ethics teaching.  This paper argues that both aspects require different approaches to disseminating information, with timing of access to teaching and resources requiring critical consideration

Book Review of David Boud, Rola Ajjawi, Phillip Dawson and Joanna Tai (Eds.) (2018) Developing Evaluative Judgement in Higher Education

The context that this book sets itself within is portrayed as one of increasing uncertainty.  It presents a future in which graduates must develop skills for lifelong learning, adaptation and autonomy.  It is argued that, contrarily, traditional assessment methods in higher education foster dependency, with teachers as experts – sole arbiters of judgements about the quality of work – curtailing key skills demanded by a constantly changing employment landscape. The editors’ definition of evaluative judgement, taken from Tai et al. (2018: 471), is “the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of self and others.”  There are three particularly notable keywords at work here.  First, that evaluative judgement is a capability, a skill, and not an activity; second, that it concerns quality – distinguishing the good from the less good with reference to a standard; and third, that it is applied to work, and not the self.  At its core, this is an expansion of the established ambition in higher education for engaging students as active agents in their learning, through facilitating opportunities for them to participate in making and articulating judgements over their own work and that of others.  Evaluative judgement is an empowerment of students to become active participants in understanding quality and developing connoisseurship regarding their work and their learning, thereby demystifying and potentially democratising teachers’ assessment of their work – a laudable aim in itself.[Review continues

Volunteering: enhancing the student experience

In 2016, HEFCE commissioned a study into the relationship between public or civic engagement and the student experience.  In the resulting report, it describes this engagement as connecting the work of the university to society, and lists three key components: transmitting information to inspire and educate; receiving information through actively listening to concerns, insights or views; and collaborating with communities to solve problems with co-created or co-designed solutions.  At LJMU, we can point to many examples of activity within these themes, which supports our identity as a ‘pioneering modern civic university’.  This paper is a reflection on civic engagement and the role of student volunteering.

Coddling in an age of outrage

Every so often, a book arrives on the scene that challenges us to think about the nature of higher education and its purpose.  Some generate a lot of attention.  The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, has had a fair share of the media spotlight.  Critiqued by The Guardian (Weigel, 2018), one of the co-authors (Jonathan Haidt) was even invited to take part in a discussion-based programme, ‘Start of the Week’, on BBC Radio 4. Continuing a thesis developed in Allan Bloom’s (1988) Closing of the American Mind, in which Bloom asserted that HE had ‘failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students’, Lukianoff and Haidt posit that students in 2018 aren’t so much ‘closed’ but are being ‘coddled’ to a point that is making them too fragile to encounter challenging ideas.  On Radio 4, Haidt (2018) referred to ‘protections’ being put in place against certain ‘microaggressions’, with ‘Gen Z’ students demanding protection from “words, books, speakers and ideas”; in other words “speaking a language of safety”.  This is possibly a symptom of smartphone addiction or “paranoid parenting”.  In a period where HE institutions are becoming more diverse, ‘safetyism’ could lead to “further misunderstandings” and, more pointedly, students may not have the tools or resilience required to succeed in professional life.[Editorial continues

Sector reports review: February to August 2018

This paper provides a summary of selected reports and papers (‘grey literature’) published by key higher education sector organisations, ‘think tanks’ and other relevant bodies between February and August 2018.  These include: Advance HE; Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS); Chartered Management Institute (CMI); Department for Education (DfE); Equality Challenge Unit (ECU); Fair Education Alliance; Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE); Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI); Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA); Institute for Fiscal Studies; Jisc; Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE); Learning and Work Institute; MillionPlus; National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE); National Education Opportunities Network; National Union of Students (NUS); Office for Students (OfS); Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA); Office for National Statistics (ONS); PA Consulting; Public First; Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA); The Student Engagement Partnership (TSEP); Student Minds; The Sutton Trust; UK Data Services; Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS); Universities UK (UUK); Universities UK International (UUKi); and UPP Foundation.The themes in this paper include: review of post-18 education; formation of the OfS; vice-chancellors’ outlook on HE; the civic university; student satisfaction; applications and teaching excellence; contextual information in admissions; widening participation; part-time and mature learners; social mobility; supporting progression; non-continuation trends; feedback from assessment; HE analytics; financial concerns of students and perceptions of value-for-money; the student academic experience; student complaints; postgraduate experiences; supporting undergraduate research; mental health; student participation in sport; ethnicity and diversity; sexual misconduct; student drug use; Prevent duty; student poverty; student and employment outcomes; earnings after graduation; internationalisation; the HE workforce; and the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme

It started with a KIS...

I never thought it would come to this…- Hot ChocolateIn Robert Troschitz’s (2017) Higher Education and the Student, the universal and the particular sit side by side.  In the universal sense of HE, the economic, liberal and social ideas that have structured discourse since 1945 are illuminated and, from this telescopic lens, Troschitz sends our vision plunging from huge vistas to focus on some fine detail.  In this journey, one notices how the position of the student in terms of power has shifted.  There are many points of departure but, for me, the KIS (Key Information Set), articulated in the 2011 White Paper Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System, strikes me as one of those points of detail that have cast a particular shadow on us today, especially in relation to the subject-level TEF (Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework).[Editorial continues