The pedagogies of the ‘new’ higher education Ann-Marie Bathmaker UWE Bristol, UK

1. The pedagogies of the ‘new’ higher educationAnn-Marie BathmakerUWE Bristol, UK Paper presented at the Switch Conference, Dillington, Somerset on 10 July 2009 Ann-Marie.Bathmaker@uwe.ac.uk

2. Acknowledgements This presentation is based on work contributing to an ESRC TLRP project entitled Universal access and dual regimes of further and higher education. The research team comprises: Diane Burns, Anne Thompson, Val Thompson, Cate Goodlad (University fieldwork research team) Will Thomas, Liz Halford, David Dale, Andy Roberts (Institution based researchers) Ann-Marie Bathmaker (BRILLE, UWE), Greg Brooks, Gareth Parry (University of Sheffield), David Smith (University of Leeds) (Project directors) Karen Kitchen (Project administrator)

3. My argument There is a confusion of ideas about what it is that new forms of higher education are aiming to do, leading to constructions of ‘higher education’ pedagogies that are not necessarily different to ‘traditional’ pedagogies, and therefore may struggle to be productive, enabling and challenging.

4. How is undergraduate HE being redefined? • What are the implications for the pedagogies of higher education?

5. Redefining HE through WP policy Different versions of WP in UK policy: • meritocratic access to ‘elite’ HE • meritocratic access to an expanded ‘traditional’ system of HE (the myth that is implied by current policy) • access to some form of HE for all who can benefit from it (HEFCE, 2007)(which does not offer the same returns as participation in ‘traditional’ HE)

6. Redefining HE as participation increases (Trow, 1973)

7. Features of all 3 in current system, involving differentiation and stratification • New forms of ‘vocational’ HE fit more with Trow’s ‘universal’ HE which involves:Preparing large numbers of people for life in an advanced industrial society • BUT in the 21st century this needs to be rewritten as:Preparing large number of people for life in an advanced post-industrial and globalised society(knowledge and service sector jobs; uncertainty and flexibilisation of the job market with global competition)

8. Role of FE/HE dual sector institutions Access to some form of HE for all who can benefit from it (HEFCE, 2007) Enabling WP and transition to HE through: • Alternative routes • Second chance opportunities • Increased variety and geographical spread (local and regional) • 2 year HE courses (Foundation degrees), a progression route to Honours • ‘Seamless’ transition WITHIN single FE/HE institutions

9. Pedagogies for diversity and differentiation • WP literature talks of diversity and differentiation. Diversity and differentiation occur in a stratified system of higher education. As a result, both, in practice, tend to be associated with lower-achieving students. • If this is acknowledged, then there are implications for the ways that teaching and learning are organised to challenge students and to enable students to succeed.

10. Pedagogies for widening participation • Making the `academic experience’ accessible:applied and vocational curricula, active, problem-solving teaching and learning, accessible staff, flexibility (e.g. timetable and deadlines) diverse modes of assessment and opportunities for re-taking courses. (Thomas, 2002, p.426)

11. A seamlessness system of lifelong learning • Osborne and Gallacher: open system of Lifelong Learning • Parry: universal access by breaking down divisions • Garrod and Macfarlane: the value of ‘duals’ - seamlessness

12. Learning and pedagogies • Just making learning and knowledge accessible? AND/OR • A radical review of what knowledge the curriculum should involve and how it should be learned?

13. My concerns • Elision of the ideals of adult and community education with a benign view of the needs of post-Fordist economies, which are supposed to require large numbers of highly skilled workers with diverse skills, who add value and are flexible

14. ‘Vocational’ higher education • Engaging with ‘vocational’ knowledge, linked to occupational practice, but also needing in-depth ‘theoretical’ knowledge to work at higher levels of expertise (Young, 2008)

15. Learning and pedagogies • Draws on Bernstein to suggest that pedagogies here mean the pedagogical recontextualisation of theoretical and occupational knowledge, in ways that make them accessible

16. Socio-cultural approaches • Emphasise the wider context in which studying and learning take place, the ‘social conditions of learning’ both within and without educational institutions. • These influence the construction of ‘learning identities’ Reay, David and Ball (2005) James and Biesta (2007)

17. Learning and pedagogies • Concern with student habitus, dispositions to learning, lecturers’ orientation to learning and relationships with students

18. New HE, new pedagogies • All suggest or imply different pedagogic practices, but from different perspectives, with different implications.

19. The FurtherHigher Project One aspect of the project explored students’ experience of HE, centred around 4 ‘dual sector’ institution. The questions included: • How do students experience the boundaries between further and higher education? • What is their experience of teaching and learning in HE? • What can be learned from their experience about efforts to widen participation in higher education?

20. FH project fieldwork • Fieldwork in 4 ‘dual sector’ institutions • Transition between level 3 (FE) and year 1 of HE AND between short cycle (2 yr) HE and final year Bachelor degree • Interviews with students, tutors, institutional managersdocumentary analysiscollection of fieldwork observation recordsphotographs of space and place

21. Four different ‘dual sector’ institutions 2 Higher Education institutions: Citygate College Southleigh University 2 Further Education colleges: Northgreen Federal College East Heath College All offered FE and HE HE was an important part of current and future provision

22. Pedagogic practices in the FurtherHigher Project • Lectures and seminars • Practical skills development • Working independently • Academic skills (reading, writing) • Tutorials and study support

23. Lectures Yeah it’s Groups A and B in there so like I can understand but it’s just like from 10 til sometimes 12, it’s pure lecture and it’s just like they’ve got powerpoint after powerpoint after powerpoint and I’m just like “do you know what - forget it” and it just bores me because they don’t have a lot of interaction and they’re not making it…. they are literally just giving you facts and it’s just like they will give you their experience but you can’t link it and it’s just like… I don’t understand anything and sometimes I walk out the lesson and I think “what the bloody hell….” luckily enough I’ve got a powerpoint so I can sort of work it out …..

24. Seminars Yeah because you have your lecture and then you have a seminar on your lecture, so possibly that… I’ve been to the seminars and they are good. Like the first week of Marketing I didn’t have that much of an idea of what it was going on about and in the seminar they sort of went back over it. Are the seminars optional or do you have to go? I’m not sure. I think like you’re supposed to go to them but there’s like a few times we did the assignment and that seminar was going to be on about completing your assignment but because we’d finished it we didn’t have to go.

25. Practical skills development No, Monday nights is just… they’re trying to get you into the like… it’s experience really of the whole restaurant, service, pastry, kitchen, management - everything, whereas Thursday is more skills, we’re set on one method each week be it grilling, baking, frying, that kind of thing and we go into depth in it.

26. Work placement It’s really good. I was saying with pre-school, if you can teach those and teach 24 children, that builds your confidence a lot more than someone who doesn’t work in a day nursery. And just does placement there who hasn’t got the opportunity to teach them on their own. Yep! And Tuesday is placement but I work at my placement so I just call it work.

27. Working independently Less, definitely, but the work’s more complicated. It’s a lot more complex, so it’s like in a sense it’s almost the same amount of work you’ve just got to do more thinking. I’ve been - I don’t know, I’ve found it a bit, I suppose I have found it a bit difficult. Like the transition, because obviously we’re getting loads of work and I was getting in a steady stream with my BTEC, but now, it’s more like you’re left to your own devices, you do the work, that’s it. That’s, I don’t know, I like it, but it’s a bit of a difficult transition I think. I’m getting there slowly, but……

28. Reading That’s something I’ve… for example I’m not a very good reader, my English is atrocious to be perfectly honest with you, and the workload in that sense, the amount of reading and so forth is becoming… it’s not I suppose stressful but it is something I am having to readjust myself to, it’s something I have got out of the habit of being able to do. So I’m having to apply quite a lot of attention to it whereas before I wouldn’t find that a problem. For some reason I can write forever and I have no problem writing but I can’t read.

29. Tutorials We’ve got a PBS portfolio that has to be filled in to show progress of something - I’m not sure what it’s for, but you’ve got to take that to your next tutorial and it’s mine next Wednesday. Right, so there’s that on-going that you’ve got to keep up to date. Yeah, they’re checking up so they’re making sure that you’re keeping up on your work by doing the portfolio. But I don’t know, I think it’s to do with like your skills and talk about yourself basically all the way through it so….( AX1001_2)

30. Study support If I don’t understand something where would I go? They have things called workshops and they’re on certain days for different areas. I haven’t actually been to one but I think if you go to a workshop then that’s where you can ask a lot of questions, so possibly I need to go to one to see what it’s like.

31. Constructing HE pedagogies in new forms of higher education Different to FE but how different to ‘traditional’ forms of HE? 1 Practical and practice-based work 2 Support systems in place (though not integral in students’ perceptions of their studies) 3 Otherwise practices appear to follow ‘traditional’ HE approaches

32. Conclusions: constructing ‘new’ pedagogies for the ‘new’ HE • Requires more discussion of what the purposes and goals of different forms of higher education are • May need stronger boundaries around ‘vocational’ and ‘applied’ knowledge, as a basis for learning • Needs to integrate ‘support’ in the form of academic/theoretical skills development within subject study, not adjacent to it

33. Conclusions • Debates about a seamless relationship with FE (or lifelong learning) do not appear to have touched practices found in the FH project • A radical transformation of curriculum and pedagogies was not part of the practices in the dual-sector institutions we visited • Debates about creating productive, enabling and challenging pedagogies for learning get lost in attempts to emulate a ‘traditional’ version of HE

34. The FurtherHigher Project http://www.shef.ac.uk/furtherhigher/ Ann-Marie Bathmaker Ann-Marie.Bathmaker@uwe.ac.uk brilleBristol Centre for Research in Education and Lifelong Learning