'Learning & Teaching'

I have been posting mostly about my research and my life, now it is time to close the 'triangle' and talk about my teaching.

I am fairly new to the world of learning and teaching/pedagogy in higher education, despite my 14 year (!) career in higher education. I started my career in higher education in Portugal (where I worked for 10 years) and higher education pedagogy was simply not in the agenda. I did not have to have any teaching qualification to teach in higher education (?!). While I was doing the best I knew and I could, in all honesty I was ‘doing’. The skills or knowledge to reflect on the nature of learning and my own practice were not there. For example, I had never thought about the definition of learning, let alone hearing about concepts such as ‘deep and surface learning’, ‘constructive alignment’ and ‘formative and summative feedback’.

Since I joined Bournemouth University, this has changed dramatically. Learning & Teaching are a central activity for any UK academic institution, and BU is no exception. At the earliest opportunity I enrolled on the Post-Graduate Certificate (PGCert) in Academic Practice, which BU offers for free to all the academic staff (lecturers or support staff). Two years ago (when I did it) it was still optional, now it has become compulsory (if you do not hold a teaching qualification yet).

The PGCert was a fantastic experience and it really opened my eyes to a complete new world. Yet, this new world should not have been new for someone with 10 years experience in higher education. I realised that I had been doing a job (i.e. facilitating student learning) for which I had no training whatsoever! For an academic, who among other things attempts to convince businesses that they should be recruiting individuals with an events management degree because they have been well trained to do the job, it does not look good! In Portuguese we would use the expression “em casa de ferreiro, espeto de pau” (means something like this: "only wooden kebab sticks are used at a blacksmith’s home”).

After successfully completing my PGCert, I become a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. HEA’s mission is to support the sector in providing the best possible learning experience for all students. The HEA commissions a number of reports that they then make available in their website (see resources page). Generally, these are of a very high quality, usually involving reporting on actual pedagogic experiences at UK universities. And the access is free to all (even if you are not a fellow!). From time to time I pay a visit to their site to see what’s new. For those who are looking for inspiration with a view to improve their teaching practice, this site is a good source of information.

Back to the PGCert experience. Since taking this course, I have developed an ongoing interest in learning & teaching issues. The tools learnt during the course helped me to develop an awareness regarding my own pedagogic practice. I am now much more aware of my strengths and weaknesses. And this has been valuable information as it enables me to build on my strengths and work towards improving whatever skills I am lacking. At an attitudinal level, it has also entrenched in my mind the importance of continuously attempting to improve what I do to foster student learning. Actually, I have set myself the goal of introducing a new pegagogic element in my practice every year. My confidence levels improved to the extent that I have now introduced several teaching innovations (for me) in my teaching practice. Examples include:

1. ‘Dragon’s Den’ Experience - involves using ‘real’ tasks and real organisations to improve student learning and motivation
2. Use of banks of comments to improve the quantity and quality of feedback.
3. Use of blogs to enhance students ability to self-assess

I will come back to some of these experiences soon in separate posts.

During the PGCert I had to do a portfolio of teaching and learning, which included a supporting report. In order to illustrate the dramatic impact the course had on me, I employed an analogy to a story I had heard from an ‘old wise man’ who is a very good friend of mine. The morals of the story address three important questions: where I come from, where I am and where I might be in the future as far as my academic practice is concerned.

The story goes like this. A group of humans had been living all their lives in a cavern, which had a little hole at the top. Because it was too high and narrow, they could not see what was going on outside other than shadows. One day, after much effort, one of them manages to get to the top, leave the cavern and see the world outside. The world outside was immense, full of different people, objects and practices. A world he had never imagined. Much different from the ‘single world’ he knew from living in the cavern. Before he left, he was an ‘ignorant’ – he though he had seen everything, he though he new everything. Now, he was in awe and fascinated with what he was seeing. He was ready to explore it, ready to learn what that new world would reveal.

My journey over the past three years at BU is a voyage of enlightening in much the same way as the cavern man’s one. I have climbed the rock and left my previous world, governed by shadows. Like the cavern man’s new world, I know that the learning and teaching world is much wider and richer than the one I knew before embarking on this journey. And it is much richer than the one I know today. You start seeing endless possibilities. Like the cavern man’s new world, after you have seen it, you will no go back to the shadow. You have no other desire than wanting to explore it, seeing what other new worlds are out there. And more importantly, the discovery of a new world leads you to the conclusion that as much as you may be learning exciting new things every day, you know that it is just another 'cavern'. Thus, you just need to climb the wall again and again to discover new worlds. You then realise you still know nothing when compared to what is out there to be learned. At this stage, you’ve become a scientist. You realise you still know nothing (much gthe same as the ignorant), but you are aware of it. Hence you keep climbing walls. You keep learning. As to the ignorant, he remains in the cavern, contemplating the shadows.