New Ways of Teaching for New Ways of Thinking

1. New Ways of Teaching for New Ways of ThinkingProfessor Michael Worton

2. Higher Education has been changing radically over the last decade The next decade will see even greater changes, as many countries prioritise HE as well as school education and invest considerably in them.

3. So, what is changing? • Students are travelling more and more to different countries for their HE • Students have different expectations in terms both of their HE experience and of their employment prospects • Employers expect broader skill sets as well as disciplinary knowledge • Faculty are increasingly mobile • Governments increasingly expect HE to deliver on national priorities • Universities are beginning to define themselves again as a public good, whilst also operating more efficiently as big businesses

4. Strategy Key drivers today of HE institutional strategies: Interdisciplinarity Internationalisation The return of social and moral values to the curriculum

5. Teaching is changing Learning is changing Thinking is changing

6. ‘The Infinite Library’ • An exciting idea, vision and future reality • Also a cause for anxiety • Why anxiety? Because it challenges our conceptions of: • how much we can know • how much we can learn when knowledge is constantly expanding - and changing – and is managed by no single authority • Knowledge and reality in the virtual world are consensually constructed by communities of readers and texts • Hierarchies between teachers and learners are dissolved • Yet scepticism also needs to be taught

7. Technology and Student Research in Learning

8. Students’ Curation of Research Questions • A web-based teaching and learning tool developed for UCL’s first Applied Studies course. • Students draft essays in response to a research question, then publish them online via a wiki for peer scrutiny and discussion. • The student ‘hosts’ discussion of his/her research question, and draws on the comments to revise their original essay at the end of the term. • Students in universities in other countries participate in this online activity.

9. Wikipedia article drafting • Students are encouraged to write articles for submission to Wikipedia. • They are trained in determining the key facts and in drafting full but concise articles • Deliberate mistakes are included in the article • Students check over time to see when (or whether!) corrections have been made to the article

10. Synchronous seminars • Language and Culture seminars between students in London and in Aarhus, Denmark • Work with blogs, wikis and other new technologies incorporated into course design • Moodle used to create a ‘common room’ for all the students, including as a way of maintaining community during the year abroad.

11. Listen again – and again – and again • Began with ‘Listen again’ facility, allowing students to stream/download the audio portion of lectures for revision purposes. • Now expanded with the launch, across UCL, of Lecturecast, a system which allows lectures to be recorded and made available to students for revision.

12. Computer-based interactive engagement exercises • Enhance numerical, practical and subject-based conceptual skills in Molecular Biology • E.g. a virtual laboratory exercise allows students to experience all aspects of an experiment (including calculations, safety, equipment used and data handling) • Exercises are viewed through a course VLE site.

13. New approaches to traditional subjects

14. Student contracts in the classroom The undergraduate module ‘The History of European Political Ideas’ introduces a ‘contractual’ model of teaching that aims to develop a political and learning community • Students are presented with a draft contract in the first session that they are encouraged to debate, amend and eventually sign • The form of the contract draws on the tradition of authors studied in the course (e.g. students agree to give up freedoms, to take on responsibilities and to perform duties for their individual and collective good) • Students also gain a say in how the course is run • Crucially, students have the opportunity to renegotiate the contract as they learn more about political ideas.

15. Post-disaster Interdisciplinary Scenario Seminar • For Masters students in Development Planning, Earthquake Engineering, Disaster Management and Planning • Students in mixed teams are challenged, e.g., to develop a recovery plan for the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake (Pakistan) based on data sourced 2 months after the event • The scenario logically articulates the chain of consequences resulting from the earthquake within the specific setting of Pakistan. • It is designed to provoke a careful examination of all the assumptions on which interventions are based, including the impact on long-term actions, the potential disruption of resettlement, the vulnerabilities of the built environment and rural-urban nexus. • This complexity is useful both for testing students' abilities to respond effectively to practical problems and also as a reflective tool to elaborate conceptual insights on disaster theories and debates • UN staff and NGO activists attend remotely via a Skype connection, interacting with participants in the different phases by providing input, answering questions and commenting on the recovery plans developed by the students.

16. Experiential and Community Learning

17. Legal Action and Research for Communities Scheme • A framework for LLM students (entry by competitive application) to carry out research and provide advice to local communities • The course examines environmental justice from theoretical and practical perspectives, assessing the barriers to environmental justice and the realities of social exclusion and environmental injustices • Based upon fieldwork, and policy and advice work in local communities in London • Training and on-going support provided by Capacity Global, a social enterprise, non-profit making organisation, together with close supervision by a UCL professor • Specific training includes: • identifying communities at risk • providing legal advice • conducting legal outreach work • using the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 • fostering local environmental activism • using EU anti-discrimination law to redress environmental injustices

18. Participatory research • London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) was asked to provide work experience to pupils from Barking and Dagenham • Response was to employ them as trainee researchers and scientists. • Invited pupils to research how their everyday experience of living in one of London’s most deprived communities affects their health and well-being • Widening participation and outreach activities thus combined with leading-edge participatory research in an intellectually stimulating but practical way. • The initial research has since been broadened to include a wide range of subjects such as the impact of disease on global warming, malaria and asthma. • Pupils are invited to LSHTM where they meet scientists, hear about their work, access lectures and specialist laboratories. They are then supported to develop research hypotheses and test them. Once completed, they present their findings to LSHTM seminars of staff and students • Participatory research involving young people is now a standard feature of LSHTM research policy

19. Community views on Healthcare • Community groups invited to make films about their feelings and experiences of healthcare • Training provided by professional film-makers to them, but without input from healthcare professionals • Films shown as seminar-workshops for students, teachers and clinicians • Film-makers and community members invited to further workshops • This helps students to understand better how different kinds of communities respond differently to healthcare activities • Challenges the teachers to re-think their teaching methods • Has led to participatory research whereby community members help to define research questions

20. A new UCL programme for the 21st century • Called a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BAS) • A programme explicitly and determinedly interdisciplinary • Focus throughout on skills development and employability • Language learning at its core • International methodology also at the core • Core programmes: • Foundations of Knowledge; • Quantitative Methods; • Qualitative Methods; • Object-Based Learning; • The Knowledge Economy • A language to be studied in each year • Work placements, internships or placements in charities or NGOs • A research project in the final year • Possibility of a year abroad

21. And in the future? • The world is irrevocably globalised and interconnected • Research and teaching are now necessarily interdisciplinary • Our curricula and our teaching methods need to reflect this and respond to it • Our university communities need to change, blurring both hierarchies and disciplinary boundaries • Communications within universities and with our many existing and new communities must change too • Universities, their staff and students need to recognise, proclaim and implement their responsibilities

22. And then… We really can change the world

23. Professor Michael Worton Vice-Provost UCL michael.worton@ucl.ac.uk