Search

This paper identifies the need for a pedagogical re-orientation in UK higher education to prepare graduates to overcome wicked problems. In addition to key knowledge sets, graduates need attributes of critical self-reflection, risk-awareness and management, collaboration, creativity, agility, reflexivity - enabling the ability to manage the unknown. In response, researchers have acknowledged the importance of pedagogies that are risk-oriented, creative, and reflective to remedy modernist banking methods. This paper acknowledges that while such pedagogies are underutilised, an antagonistic dichotomy between modernist banking methods (bad) and enquiry and risk-oriented approaches (good) is unhelpful as both approaches are necessary. This paper develops a metamodern framework to guide pedagogic practices to facilitate a disposition among learning strategists and practitioners which embraces oscillation between banking and radical pedagogic approaches. In turn this enables the development of student sensibilities, empowering them to challenge the growing wickedness with which they must do battle.

This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, pre-empt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' anti-intellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice.

This paper explores tensions and ambiguities for UK HE teachers during COVID-19. It analyses changed behaviours and routines for existing hybrid workers experienced in online pedagogy through three core axes of "precarity and security;" "time and perceptions of time;" and "communication." Twelve participants supplied photographs and written narratives depicting their teaching during the pandemic. To understand working lives at this liminal time, we undertook three-level photographic and content analysis, examining the interplay between homeworking challenges and extremities with an accompanying range of emotional responses. Findings include changed routines, new independence, and tensions around resulting autonomy in a liminal lockdown phase when everyday life was anything but. Recommendations for HE management are to ensure that effective communication and collaboration are privileged between management and academic staff. Moving forward, the value of academic judgement and voice should be acknowledged as much as teaching capacity in strategic planning and tuition delivery.

The paper puts forward the case for vulnerability as an important element within higher education pedagogy. In a context of rapid change and competing demands in the global higher education sector, the zeitgeist is that of teaching excellence, usually measured by a market-driven metrics approach. Teachers might, therefore, feel pressured not to reveal weaknesses either to their students or to their colleagues, and might tend to position themselves far away from any kind of vulnerability mode. Pedagogic vulnerability is a complex concept, liable to diverse interpretations and definitions. In an attempt to understand it more clearly, different views are explored in the literature, combined with a reflective analysis of two autoethnographic narratives portraying examples of vulnerability in teaching. This examination generated five principles of pedagogic vulnerability which are suggested as an approach to rethinking the purpose of higher education and the notion of teaching excellence.

The Prevent counter terrorism strategy ('Prevent') -- specifically the duty to report those deemed vulnerable to, or causing suspicions of, radicalisation -- has been intensely criticised within UK higher education for its racialised and colonial agenda; its potential to curb academic freedom; and its reframing of the pedagogical dynamic as one of surveillance. A specific concern is that Prevent limits possibilities for critical teaching and learning which is predicated on notions of openness and mutual exchange. This paper responds to the claim that Prevent and the statuary duty it implies, "prevents" critical thinking using empirical data collection with 14 academic faculty teaching Politics across 4 English universities. These data reveal how Prevent's effects are neither uniform nor straightforward but that its bureaucratic and legalistic framing produces significant and detrimental 'critical closures' with an urgent need for higher education institutions to approach future guises of Prevent both critically and pedagogically.

Despite the rapid development of TNHE over the past decade, research studies on students' perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning at TNHE programmes in China are very limited. Using both surveys (328) and follow-up interviews (40) from students at two Anglo-Sino programmes, this study explores students' perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning in TNHE in China. Drawing on the five components of the intercultural dialogue framework, this paper reveals that Chinese students' experience of teaching was fragmented not least through a mixture of cultural approaches to pedagogy including a teacher-centred approach by the local Chinese teachers and a student-centred approach by the foreign teachers, with the latter generally preferred by the students. The findings yield several important implications for contextualized curriculum and careful consideration of the TNHE learning environment in China.

The paper explores questions of power arising from feminist facilitators running a doctoral writing group at a UK university. Butler's [2014. Re-thinking Vulnerability and Resistance. [Online]. Accessed September 12, 2017. http://www.institutofranklin.net/sites/default/files/files/Rethinking%20Vulnerability%20and%20Resistance%20Judith%20Butler.pdf] theorisation of precarity and vulnerability inspired us to re-think normative constructions of research writing and the academic identities and subjectivities this presupposed. Our doctoral writing group was imagined as a space to think collectively and reflexively about the thesis, the multi-faceted power-dynamics at work in its production, and our relations to the text as both writer and audience. This paper antagonises some of the pedagogic consequences of inviting seemingly 'personal' matters into the space of the writing space and, subsequently, the doctoral text itself. We speak back to discourses that position doctoral writing as always and only an individual, and individualising endeavour, that eschews encounters with the personal and relational. Indeed, we recognise that configurations and spaces for research writing are always 'political'.

This paper seeks to analyse lecturers' views on how they understand academic development in order to elucidate current arguments around how knowledge is codified in higher education, and to what end. Whilst work of this nature has been carried out in a number of national and institutional contexts, much attention has been given to research embedded in particular subject areas or within academic development departments. By utilising Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a series of super- and sub-ordinate themes that represent the ways in which each lecturer describes academic development have been mapped across the existing literature in a form that has not been done to date. The results of this analysis highlight the need to think beyond the binaries subsumed within learner-/discipline-focussed or institutionally-/epistemologically- constrained barriers to academic development.

Within the currently diverse UK higher education environment, one important aspect of learning is the development of intercultural competence. The study that informs this paper investigated the ways intercultural competence was perceived as being enhanced or inhibited through current language and educational practices at a university that positions itself as internationally engaged and globally recognised. The project employed a multiple-case study design, examining eight academic programmes drawn from four different broad disciplinary groupings: social sciences, science, engineering, and management. Data were collected through individual, focus group and stimulated recall interviews, the latter using class observation recordings as a stimulus. The study revealed the ways in which language was exploited by both staff and students to convey particular meanings within an intercultural context. It was found that language choices, register and style were perceived as contributing to the pragmatic impact of either reinforcing barriers to or promoting intercultural competence development.

Despite existing work on the situated and sometimes alienating nature of academic writing practices, the implications of the specifically spatial nature of these practices continue to pose questions for teaching and learning in higher education. This paper addresses these questions through a study of the views and experiences of students and teachers of academic writing in postgraduate teacher education (n = 33). Specifically, it introduces a concept, xenolexia, which complements that of alienation by recognizing the dynamic nature of academic writing, texts and practices without reifying them. Discussing the fundamentally spatial nature of this dynamism, the concept of xenolexia is used to analyse perceptions of academic writing practices as 'foreign'. The features of this 'foreignness' are examined from the point of view of both teaching and learning, and lessons about identity and dynamism in academic writing are drawn for writing pedagogies in postgraduate teacher education contexts.

The paper argues that powerful regional knowledge is necessary and possible and that there are historical precedents supporting these claims. Regional knowledge is being used in a double sense: the first Bernsteinian, the second in relation to knowledge generated outside the academy. Both are important if the debate is not to be confined solely to the global north and if the curriculum is to be responsive to geo-political realities. In order to think critically about access to higher education, we need to consider the sorts of knowledge, engagement, and opportunities that are open to newer actors. This includes recognising the contextual nature of professional practice and also that social movements beyond the academy can and do challenge academic knowledge. The paper concludes that many of issues addressed are not capable of theoretical resolution alone and that we need more empirical work to inform curriculum change and renewal.

This paper explores the significance of designing online learning led by the principle of direct and meaningful participant engagement. It considers the notion of kindness as a crucial value contributing to pedagogy and the development of meaningful learning relationships. The paper challenges the "delivery" approach to online learning, suggesting that the flexible and explicit design of engagement opportunities from a sociocultural perspective is a more meaningful and human approach to learning online. The paper clarifies the term Digitally Mediated Learning (DML) to establish connections to important pedagogic positions. The research approach is based around a qualitative professional reflective enquiry. It considers the experiences of learners on a Masters in Education online module and concludes that design, engagement nurturing, community cohesion and kindness can become crucial aspects of successful DML, if institutions learn to value the life projects of others more fully.

This paper considers the benefits of framing the education of Higher Education teachers as an art, and of facilitating a creative and artistic approach to teaching in Higher Education. It recognises the difficulties this poses in an international context in which Higher Education is increasingly presented as a commodity which must be standardised to provide guaranteed outcomes for students and governments. It presents the findings from a study of two cohorts of academic staff at a UK University who followed an arts-informed development programme and suggests that they and their students benefitted from the freedom to improvise and experiment. The study suggests that teachers appreciate the structure and discipline offered by the arts, as well as the opportunity to work with methods and materials outside their normal comfort zones.

In the context of increasing international mobility in higher education, educators experience multiple challenges in the classroom. In the UK, policy discourses often frame international students as desirable resources. However, international students are frequently problematised as in academic deficit. Cultural reasons are posited for different patterns of participation in seminar discussions and critical engagement. This deficit narrative is neo-imperialist. A critical and ethical pedagogy should position international students as equals and as co-contributors. This article suggests that by changing pedagogical structures of traditional higher education classroom in the UK, subverting norms for epistemological interactions, international students can be empowered to engage actively and critically. This approach draws on the principles of Active Blended Learning to develop an ethical pedagogy, with equitable epistemic access for internationally mobile students. This paper explores how a module designed in keeping with ethical pedagogy [Madge, Clare, Parvati Raghuram, and Patricia Noxolo. 2009. "Engaged Pedagogy and Responsibility: A Postcolonial Analysis of International Students." "Geoforum" 40 (1): 34-45] succeeded in critically engaging students.

This paper reports a qualitative inquiry on teaching a British undergraduate management programme to Chinese students in China. The research objectives were to develop a deeper understanding of challenges students face in their academic learning within an English speaking and study environment, and to enhance organisational learning through developing practical pedagogical techniques to improve classroom interactions. A longitudinal participatory action research strategy was employed. The subjects were second and third year undergraduate students who were studying for dual-degrees in international tourism management at a Sino-Foreign educational institute. The inquiry found that various instructional techniques could help the students engage with fellow students and the lecturer in the classroom setting. We conclude that, in addition to linguistic factors, normative values of education in Chinese culture ought to be appreciated so that Chinese students' learning needs can be better served.

Drawing upon student narratives gleaned through qualitative interviews, this paper argues that teaching and learning "sensitive" issues surrounding gender and sexualities through "creative" pedagogies can be a mode of resistance against the reproduction of problematic social discourses, and to the negative impacts of neoliberalism on student's learning within higher education. The findings point to the importance of speaking about sensitive issues; the value of creative approaches for enhancing learning; and that together these can enable students to articulate an agenda for social change. Students saw the "personal as political"--of sharing personal journeys around sensitive issues as important. They further spoke of "apathy" in an neoliberal era of student "consumers" and how this could curtail "creative" teaching and jeopardise learning. Overall, it is argued that creative approaches to teaching and learning sensitive issues can invoke a resistant potentiality which exposes the 'hidden injuries' (Gill, 2010) of the neoliberal university.

Since its beginnings in the late 1970s, punk culture has been associated with counter-mainstream ideology and anti-institutional antagonism. In particular, formal education has been criticised in punk for sustaining oppressive social and conceptual orders and associated behavioural norms. Drawing on literature and interviews, this paper focuses on the experiences of higher education teachers who self-identify as punks, and considers how they negotiate and reconcile their subcultural and academic identities in their academic practice. The findings reveal that participants' affiliations with punk subculture give rise to counter-cultural pedagogies in which both the ethics and aesthetics of punk are applied in classroom contexts. Furthermore, the participants draw upon subcultural ethical and epistemological narratives to formulate and rationalise their responses to the state of contemporary UK higher education.

This paper discusses a student-centred learning and teaching approach, "Marketing Downloads", designed to support students in transition into Higher Education. The move from secondary to tertiary education can be stressful for students and it impacts on their academic performance, their social life and general sense of well-being. Marketing Downloads was designed with transition in mind and involves students initiating their own research to demonstrate the link between theory and real-world business practice, presenting their work and instigating a debate. Evaluation of data from five focus groups suggests that the social nature, the secure environment, the student-centred aspect and the links with the outside world help students understand the difference between secondary and tertiary education and ultimately contribute to a smooth transition. Recommendations for learning and teaching initiatives focus on these four aspects: a safe classroom environment, social networks, student-centred exercises and creating links to the outside world.

Academic Literacies and English for Specific Purposes perspectives on the teaching of academic writing tend to be positioned as dichotomous and ideologically incompatible. Nonetheless, recent studies have called for the integration of these two perspectives in the design of writing programmes in order to meet the needs of students in the increasingly diverse and shifting landscape of academia. The aim of the present paper is to reflect on how this theoretical integration could be put into practice. Drawing on the design of a research-based writing workshop for postgraduate anthropology students, we argue that rather than a "hybrid" model of writing pedagogy, a theoretically grounded but eclectic approach is needed in order to respond to students' personal, local, and disciplinary contexts.

This paper uses Bernstein's sociology of knowledge and studies of professional knowledge and expertise to identify how knowledge value is constituted in higher education curricula. It is argued that different knowledge structures and forms of disciplinary community influence how curricula are determined, and lead to distinctive types of knowledge value that reflect curriculum purpose. Three models of curriculum construction are presented to distinguish between the constitution of value in the curricula of (i) pure disciplines, (ii) "stronger" professional disciplines and (iii) "weaker" occupational disciplines. These illustrate how processes of knowledge selection and transformation, and the dynamics of disciplinary and professional communities, can lead to the strengthening or undermining of knowledge value.

This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, pre-empt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' anti-intellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently much interest in the interconnections between research and teaching in Higher Education. This relationship is usually termed 'the research/teaching nexus' (RTN). However, within this wide body of literature, there has been little attempt to explore the emergent experiences of students across the entire length of their degree programme. Drawing on the results of a three-year qualitative study that followed 40 students through their whole student lifecycle, this paper explores how undergraduates in an English university experienced the RTN, how those experiences developed over time, and how these changes can be variously enabled or constrained. Situating the findings in the context of the 'post-truth' society and the uncertainty of employment futures, the paper highlights how the nexus can also often serve to exclude students as much as it includes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comprises findings from three parallel case studies within the broad framework of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). These provide results from classroom-based action research conducted over two years working with Semantics, Specialisation and axiological cosmologies from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Each author shares how one or both of these LCT dimensions have guided their practice in the teaching of English for academic writing and specifically, the development of their students' critical dispositions by teaching them how to apply lenses to analyse texts so that they may make informed judgements. Data from classroom interventions and student writing are provided. It is hoped that this paper elicits further discussion in the growing field of applying LCT and may draw attention to the role of the EAP teacher as expert in linguistics and the need to focus more on knowledge in EAP writing courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research-based learning in taught courses develops the skills needed to judge knowledge sources and think critically in a post-truth world. In viewing research skills as threshold concepts, the paper argues that transforming a student cannot be a one-off event. Research capacity must build over a programme and this requires coherent research skill development and assessment that is progressive (ipsative). A study of five programmes each with a different design of research 'throughline' showed that such integrated research-based learning generates three challenges. Firstly, conceptualising the research skills and progression is not easy. Secondly, the accumulation and enrichment of research skills is not readily visible to students. Finally, providing a clear support system across the programme is not straightforward. The paper concludes that these challenges need to be addressed if the potential of research-based education to enable future citizens to interrogate populist claims and reject misinformation is to be realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks on the challenges of curriculum planning and creating pedagogic strategies for students and classroom setting in Great Britian. It highlights the engagement with students to teach the contemporary exercise of their chosen fields and careers in higher education. Also mentioned is the evaluative judgments concerning the credibility and relevance of students curricular activity.

The concept of 'post-truth' is here explored within the context of education and educational technology. Contemporary political discourse is often characterised by a polarisation of political belief and scepticism about scientific and expert authority has become commonplace. We explore tensions between democratic and technocratic impulses in describing changes that are taking place in the way that authority typically operates in higher education. We analyse changing notions of academic authority to understand some of the implications for the practice of teaching, learning and administration. We argue that technocratic, administrative authority increasingly supplants cognitive authority and subject expertise. One result of increased emphasis on performative/administrative authority is the nature of authority both within the academy and the wider public sphere is changed. We examine the implications for pedagogy, curriculum and academic practice, suggesting that performative approaches to criticality, openness, truth and transparency offer potential routes to new constellations of cognitive authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]