 Hello, hello. Good morning. How are you? Well, thank you very much for your attendance to this conference You know from the click from the Center for Learning Innovation and Knowledge we organize Courses specially devoted to trained teachers in their professional development Thanks to the terrific job of Ingrid Sabatea and Monica Bouffil. We are implementing all the seminars courses conferences Lectures, etc. Most of you have been part of this program of innovation training adaptation to teaching into Into your current activity in the university and now we have one of these special lectures We would we like to organize in our university, you know, sometimes we call And we invite experts specially from Europe to talk about timely subjects in teaching and innovation in research and in different subjects related with The programs we are working on at this moment the university is part of a program to think about the link between research and teaching and We also consider this is a very very important subject for us For this reason we have invited Professor Paul Blackmore from the King's College in London. He's an expert In this field he's an expert in many fields in education. In fact, he belongs to the policy Institute and his main domain is education and Also the link between research and teaching How the education has been implemented in institutions, etc. etc. He received a national award of teaching in fact by the British government and in fact you have also His curriculum and the invitation to this lecture. I'm gonna Pass the microphone to him. We are waiting for another microphone for for this session in order to Make it Make the conference a bit easier, but for the moment we can use this one. We are very glad to have you here Thank you very much for accepting this invitation and I'm sure we are gonna enjoy your lecture today. Thank you very much Thank you very much Manila and good afternoon and thank you very much for coming along on this sunny afternoon when When you probably have many other things you could be doing Thank you also for dealing with the fact that I cannot speak Spanish and I feel very inadequate that I cannot speak Spanish But I I hope you can cope with my English As Manel said I have a background in working in in universities. I have worked in to in particular that are research intensive institutions and My responsibility has been to improve the quality of teaching in them And that can be a tricky business if people are really more interested in doing research than in doing teaching and Therefore I took a very particular interest in this because if you can't find answers to the problem that we're looking at here You can't really persuade people to concentrate on teaching. So what I'm planning to do today This no, no, no, let's try and get this right. Yes I have a plan. So this is to reassure you there is a plan. It may not be a good plan, but it is a plan So to to look at what we mean by teaching and research because as soon as you start to think about linking them together It makes problematic the question of what is teaching and what is research anyway? I want to look at the external changes that mean that universities are having to think harder about what they're doing I'd like to have a think about learning which I would suggest unites the two activities And then think about linking research and teaching now the picture on the right there is deliberately chosen I don't like to say this usually because it tells you about my age, but this computer is 1965 exactly designed in the late 50s was being used there in 1965 and there are people Consulting the ticker tape and of course you have to wear a very old-fashioned suit to do this work and the interesting thing to me is that I was just coming to the end of primary school when this computer was really hot Stuff it was a good computer It did nothing like as much as your phone does or my phone does it took a whole room It had to have special heating and people to look after it and that's well within my working lifetime Because I expect to work for another 10 years possibly Think now how life is going to change in the next 50 years That's what we're talking about a working lifetime and we can't even begin to imagine if we tried to imagine We would be wrong. We don't know what we are preparing ourselves and our citizens for in the future Makes education quite an interesting topic when we don't know what we're preparing people for so I thought that was not a Bad opening because what we think is really good stuff today The the stuff on our on our phones and on our desks will just look ridiculous in 10 years time let alone 50 years time So, okay, so that's by way of a start. We have a microphone. Should we quickly do that? Something's happening. Can you now hear me said okay back right. Thank you very much. That's really really helpful Okay, so that's what we're going to do And I wanted to start with a little bit of a story about what I did to try and Think about the relationship between research of teaching I was in a university where people would tell me of course our teachings brilliant because our research is brilliant In fact, if you just let us get on with our research and in fact give us some more money for research Automatically our teaching will get better. It's simple And I didn't think it was that simple really, but there was no evidence One way or the other and that's typical of universities as I'll say a bit later Who say that their research informs their teaching and you ask? How do you know and there is a big silence because we just believe it's so so I asked Faculty and I asked students in quite an organized piece of research to see well What was the climate like in the university? How much difference did it make that there was research going on? Here are half a dozen comments real comments from real students that that show the range of Things that that real students were saying this is one I used yesterday And if you saw the thing that I did yesterday my apologies a few of the slides are the same But the discussion is different. I hope This is a fairly typical Positive one a student saying thumbs up. Yes research is good It's cool. It's cool seeing articles and stuff written by people in the department I'd like to know these people are at the top of their game. Of course, you would be pleased wouldn't you and this one So you feel that you're actually contributing in some way Particularly in the humanities and social sciences people may feel they're contributing to the the ongoing development of the work And you could argue that it is possible to do that in the humanities and social sciences Possibly harder in the hard sciences or possibly harder in mathematics But so it's different in different parts of the university. You're part of his developing theory. That's nice and warm We like that Then it goes a little bit less positive This was a real comment It was so obvious to him and we're all sitting there going. I don't know. I don't get it So there are problems with trying to present research that is at the cutting edge to students Especially if the person teaching has no conception anymore that it's really quite difficult stuff because it's obvious It's obvious to them here's Another one equally Problematic I think Those involved in research get a bit carried away Let's able to focus on the teaching side is very interesting and this is a damning comment, isn't it? It's not something you can use or discuss Okay, a lot of stuff, but what do I do with it? Yes, he's clearly or she's clearly very interested in it But how does that help me in the world? Which is a perfectly reasonable question and then It's one I used yesterday Give you a second to have a look at that one the famous academic Famous by being on television But actually never present in the university I went to there was an old story about Malcolm Bradbury who's a famous writer who taught creative writing at the university and the question is what is the difference? between Malcolm Bradbury and God and the difference is God is everywhere Malcolm Malcolm Bradbury is everywhere, but not here You can use that joke for anybody you really transfer that if you like But it there's a kind of an unholy alliance going on there, isn't it? So somebody's got great prestige is attached to the university It it raises the the the value of the degree in a sense because the university gets more famous But it actually doesn't improve the teaching one little bit Especially if the academic is not present and one of the things that students said when you're asked How do you notice that there is research going on in the university? They say well the academics are not there All right There's a notice on the door that says I am available for consultation on Wednesday between 12 and 1 I have seen those Notices now how is that helpful to students really and that is how students often experience research in the university This is is a more serious, but thoughtful one. I give you a second to digest that This is a student who's being asked to work like a researcher not just sit there Listening to a lecture and then another lecture another lecture and this is that the awkward feeling that you get from it It's making me work hard. I'm less comfortable, but very grudgingly Yeah, it seems to be do me a bit of good even though it's quite hard work No, I think there's a lot of reality in that comment quite a lot of the time Research doesn't inform teaching because it's easiest for the academic just to talk about their research It's very easy for the students to sit there and take notes Not much learning has taken place the student hasn't processed very much at all, but it looks good It looks as if work has been done, but it might not have been Now coming back to that claim that research good quality research informs teaching the interesting fact Given that universities are full of really bright people. I mean, that's what they're there for be full of bright people And many of them believe that research informs teaching if you look at the evidence It doesn't seem to Hattie and Marsh. Oh, that's changed in the In the wash Hattie and Marsh in the late 90s did a study, which is a meta study of all the research projects that have tried to see What was the relationship between good quality research and good quality teaching? Could you show that because the research quality was good in Research quality was good that their teaching would be better in any way and the sad answer is You couldn't There's no proven link between the two Especially in the areas where most people automatically say yes, of course my research informs my teaching That is in the the natural Sciences in research intensive universities very little obvious carry over Where they could find examples were in American liberal arts Colleges much more humanities and social science based Where they could see there was a low Carry over but not very much. So that's slightly problematic We claim that the main activity many people do in universities makes a difference in teaching but You you can't seem to be able to prove that that's so and Here's a couple of quotes again. My apologies. I used this yesterday, but it's I'll move on to something new in a moment the Boyer report in the 1990s was a very important point in US higher education development because as you will know the higher education system in the United States is is very Competitive and it's also very expensive and The report that came out from the Boyer Commission and it is available on the web if you just Google Boyer report You'll see it is really quite interesting reading said that the Ivy League Institutions were being very dishonest about their offer to students They were claiming that the students would get a distinctive experience, but the professors were off somewhere else and the students got Postgraduate students which is which is fine to an extent of course that can be a very productive thing But it can't be the whole of the students experience And so that was a very very critical report the second quote that you've got there is Just an example of what people said when they came to inspect An institution in the UK, which is essentially that although there's a claim made that research informs teaching When you tried to dig down you couldn't see where it did or how it did and nobody appeared to have got themselves Organized for it So it's an area where there are huge claims and people get very very sensitive If you suggest that perhaps their research is not making a difference to teaching But there's some work to do in this area. I would suggest now I think I'm going to go on to a Question right what I don't want to do is talk to you for two solid hours in a warm room You will be nearly dead and so will I so I'm going to be really cool and ask you questions There's two simple questions there and I presume everybody's got a piece of paper and a pen Would you for yourself just write down what teaching is and what research is Two of the harder questions I can think of to ask you actually But what is teaching and what is research and we'll just take a few answers in a bit two minutes to do that Okay, let's see where you've got to it doesn't matter if you haven't finished now clearly There are no right and wrong answers here because these are words in use in the world And they mean different things in different places But it would be interesting to see if there is a variety of view Among amongst you as a group So would anybody like to chance their arm and suggest preferably in English if you would What teaching is What teaching is Please Can you say that again and very loudly? Yeah, okay giving knowledge and specific tools for learning to students Fine, okay. Thank you. Do you want to say why you think that so and unpack that a bit? Okay. Thank you. I'm the good start for me two words that are important in that which will come to in a minute I'll giving and transfer which is a Interesting couple of words. Thank you Anything else? Please Can you be in the beginning of that again? I missed that the Exchanging experience. Yeah, that's different from giving isn't it? Yeah, okay? And that's your reason for for going for that exchanging experience in order to Right develop knowledge. That's interesting that knowledge has come up twice that it's principally about the development of knowledge Okay, other suggestions Right at the back. Yes, please Nice and loudly if you would Sure. Thank you. I mean that's helpful that's differentiating the ends and the means isn't it the point is to help students learn something Which is different from giving and actually Related to exchanging experiences of so we've got some of this is process and some of this is the end point as you were Yeah, thank you. You were going to say nice and loudly if you would all right empowering students through the development of skills and Knowledge yeah that which is interesting again. We're moving on from knowledge to skills and knowledge this all from half a dozen Examples we gradually getting lots of different nuances in anything different from that Okay, so things you're going to do to enable learning. Yeah, the word enabling coming back in again, right? Okay, that's so that's interesting. You've got you've got you've got a mix, haven't you some of it is about the teaching Active and some of it is about to enable learning and some of it in it There are assumptions about how that takes place that you can transfer it you can give it or you share Experiences or whatever from this group. There's a variety of views. I would suggest Our assumptions about what teaching actually is none of them right or wrong, but all of them actually Obviously current and in the world Let's take research. Can we have a go at defining research anybody care to Pitch in with that one. What is research? Please do propose questions answer questions and And discover knowledge. Yeah, I Think the proposed questions is particularly interesting. Well, Joe. I'll come back to you in a minute proposed questions answer questions and discover knowledge Any any advance on that or changes, please do Research is like digging into the unknown To add to the pile of of what is known. That's interesting. It's very interesting to move into metaphor I think isn't it sometimes you almost really have to yes, that's a really that's a really interesting one digging into the unknown Making the unknown known. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's a really interesting image Other suggestions, please Yes Yes, yes, it's not it's not starting from a basis of total ignorance. So you have to start from what he's known already Yes, yes, thank Yeah, the metaphor stands up. That's good. That's excellent. Right Any additions to that? Please nice and loudly if you would and Okay, so research is about Finding something new that you can then share. It's there's a communicative act going on there as well as actually So you don't just put it on the pile or you then direct people to look at this pile I don't know what they're going to do with the pile, but they're going to interact with it in some way Okay, thank you anything different from that. Could you do that louder? I'm sorry to discover new pedagogies Methodologies so it methodologies. Yes Yes, yes, it's not just what we know, but how we come to know what we know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly Right. Thank you. That is very that's very helpful now We could go on for a long time, but I've got other exciting questions to ask you. So I'm going to move on The point I would want to make there is I mean clearly we've got different Emphasies on what teaching is and if probably fairly unified sense of what research is if you take all of that together There's not too many tensions in that. What's interesting is when you try to put those two things together and Let me just move us on to a framework I think he's quite interesting to look at this and to problematize it further. This is not new by any means This is Ernest Boyer again, who in the late 1980s, I think I think this is published later than he's been talking about it Proposed that we shouldn't just be thinking about research and teaching because Research is much broader than is often thought and teaching is much broader than is often thought and that it'd be better to Think in terms of a group of related scholarships Now if we take the research side Quite often when people think about research, they think about Basic research or pure research quite theoretical research that may not have an actual application yet or ever in the real world and his suggestion is That there's a whole range of scholarships at the top end Well by top it just happens to be at the top of the page doesn't mean it's the best or anything There is discovery learning. She's basic learning basic research pure research Genuinely discovering something that is absolutely new and totally general and is generalizable if you like And that there are two other kinds of research One is integration putting together things that already known into other forms and a third one Which is application making a difference to something in the real world by bringing your research to bear on it and Once you've got that there then teaching can also spread out because teaching May not be teaching of people in a university in this kind of setting. It may well be consultancy It may well be working with companies with people groups outside the university to Improve the way that they they do things so teaching may be a much more Consultate the consultative basis and it may be out in communities and so on and So the point he's making there I think is that when you start to say well How is research related to teaching actually? There's all sorts of different kinds of research going on as we actually know in the university And there's different kinds of teaching going on from really standard undergraduate teaching through to very applied stuff out Out in the world but when we talk about this issue of research and teaching we tend to go to the two extremes and then say Oh, they're different aren't they? They're not related at all. Well, they clearly are Related in some way you can relate them through this continuum and his notion is that these are for all forms of scholarship What do we mean by scholarship? You don't even have a minute to think about that one. What is scholarship? Where we use all the time Scholarship scholarly communities. What is scholarship? It's not a trick question very straightforward. It's that it's educational community Yeah, I absolutely right. It has a social component But what is scholarship if somebody is scholarly? What does that mean? They do their properly. What does properly mean? Yeah. Yeah, I They know how to do this kind of thing. Yeah But if somebody's being scholarly, yeah, thank you, that's gets us a long way What do we mean by somebody who's scholarly or somebody who's unscholarly if you saw a criticism in a in an Academic journal saying this is a very poor piece of scholarship. What would that what would that be? Pull informed Yes Yes Yeah, exactly. So it's it's disciplined inquiry, isn't it? It's knowing what working from what is known and the word methodology comes in as well and Setting about it in an organized way that you could defend it's careful Work that builds on what's known takes the best of what's known And is conscious of the assumptions it's making and the rules that it is using in order to advance The Knowledge even in terms of scholarship. It may only be the individuals knowledge It doesn't mean new knowledge for the world necessarily So the point that he's making I guess which what underlies these is whatever you're doing There's a concern a respect for truth an awareness that you need to know what went before an Awareness that you need to know a good and defensible way of working with that knowledge to find more knowledge And when you start thinking about that It's very hard to see any difference at all I would suggest between research and teaching in terms of approaches and Yet You could argue that research and teaching are set up in universities as if they were to completely Different activities as I will try to show I think yes, okay Well, I'm going to get into more detail about research and teaching in a minute, but I want To just offer you an image here initially and see what we can get out of this one Because what I want to look at is the context for universities really for a bit to see if our job is changing This is a medieval university Image taken straight from from the web. So let's assume. That's probably about 1300 or something of that nature and What I quite like to do is juxtapose it with a modern teaching situation Which is that? well plus a strong as the French might say It looks uncannily similar doesn't it you could come into this lecture room from 1300 or 1400 and You'd know what this is about really you wouldn't think what are these people doing you'd say oh, it's a lecture room It's the same okay So the question to you is What's different and what's the same is has this not changed or has it radically changed both within That space and outside that space if you compared 1400 with the day What are the significant changes as far as teaching is concerned? Put a take a second to think about that because that's quite a hard question. I think really please do and again nice and loud Technology yes, yeah, yes Yes, certainly and we'll come to technology in more detail in a bit. I'm always being pressed. They've all got books actually I think that's pretty good for 1400 for them all to have books Yeah, so the technology has changed and we've come to what impact that has in a bit. Please do yes But they're still sitting listening to this one person here luck. Yeah Yes Yes, so there's a lot we don't Yeah, there's a lot. We don't know by just looking at the still image. We don't know what's happening. Thank you Thank you. Please nice and loud again Yeah That's it. That is very interesting. Obviously. We're not totally free to teach anything that we want within certain ethical constraints But you're quite you're quite right and it's interesting. There is an ecclesiastical. There's a church look to this, isn't there? but where there is one presumes a more careful Selection of the kinds of knowledge that are acceptable to be taught we have a much more broad Sense of knowledge and learning perhaps and of what is acceptable and worth learning and appropriate to learn perhaps than what then used to be the case Anything else, please. Yes. Yes. It is a little bit male Dominated isn't it? I think I think it's a thank you. Well well spotted. Yes Anything else? Yes. Thank you. I think that's really helpful I think yes one sense is that the principal relationship in the top one is with the printed word on the page There which by the fact that how long it took to produce a book then would not be revised very very frequently Whereas now we're looking at something much broader than that There was another comment from somewhere. There was a handsome. No, we've done that. Yes, please do Absolutely. Yes, if you haven't said that I would notice just the sheer size of the person speaking. They've chosen a giant Metaphorically a giant to speak who's bigger than the others and has that authority that and that and that signal by the picture Yeah, so I think this is quite you know It is really interesting because at first sight you can get a little laugh by saying well It's totally the same isn't it but actually it's different in many ways, but those ways are not actually obvious One of the problems though, I suspect is that some things haven't changed that ought to change And and an argument I would make is that I mean I would argue for Lectures in some limited circumstances. They can be very useful for teaching But if they're what most people do most of the time they're probably not helpful and yet It is it remains the dominant way of teaching in many universities across the world and the cost of teaching Lecturing is cheap. It's the cheapest way of teaching everybody cram 500 in a lecture theater with one member of academic staff You cannot think of a cheaper way of doing it really and unfortunately It's not necessarily leading to effective learning, which is presumably the yardstick that we should judge teaching by Okay, so let me just Flesh out some of the things that we touched on just now the difference in the world that Universities are in and you know this you know this because it's your daily experience and you see it on the news Just as I do we know that universities unlike the 14th century are now mass institutions, I think in Spain 41% I heard yesterday of the of the Population of a particular range range go to university in the UK it's around that 45 or something of that nature some parts of the world It's 60 70 even 80 percent of the population go to some form of higher education That's a radically Different thing because obviously it expands the base of the kinds of people who are in universities and the kinds of people who teach Them and the kinds of things that are being taught. It's a very different world than it was when I went to university I mean, did you realize I'm incredibly ancient That only 5% of the UK population went to university and I went in 1973 5% went and now it's 45 percent even in half a lifetime It's absolutely change really significantly and education has now become a market Commodity in ways that it wasn't before we hear students being referred to as consumers in what way somebody who is Constructing themselves in a university how they can be a consumer. I don't know But that's that's that's the metaphor that it is increasingly Used of education being something that's consumed and we have globalization and communication technologies. Well, I'm not going to That's a huge topic in its own right, but let me flip to this Oh Just a little question by the way. Well, where is this? Left-hand picture because anybody identify where it is Are there any contextual clues that would make you think where it might be? It's interesting that it's hard to tell isn't it that is actually China That's Ningbo, which is Nottingham University UK University's campus in China built to look Like Nottingham University in the UK Raises all sorts of interesting questions It depends where the staff come from as well and when the students come from whose culture is this here? What is being taught here, but what it really reinforces is just how International just how global the world has become So we now sort of take that for grant for granted But it just raises interesting questions about okay in a world like that. What kind of skills and capabilities and attitudes are Needed in a global globalized world and the other really significant thing at which I've depicted there with the image of the network is You could argue that universities almost had the monopoly on certain kinds of knowledge Most of the research used to be done in universities Universities had a strong role in validating knowledge. What is good knowledge and what is less valuable knowledge? And universities of course exist to pass on knowledge. There's very much this strength strong tradition of Transmitting knowledge all of that's up for grabs now So many outside organizations do research universities are only part of the game really So much knowledge is in the world and it doesn't get near universities It is so easy for people to Co-operate with one another to communicate with one another the university is not in the position of Sitting there doling out knowledge anymore, and it raises a question of what is a university for then? What is it trying to do especially in this world where we can't predict what the future is going to look like? Okay, so let me address this question. I'm just keep an eye on the time Question to you now here are a number of Proposals as to what a university is for I'd like to use democracy at this point and just ask you this is a daft question Because the answer will be more than one but to choose one of those that you think is The most important thing that a university should focus on Just take a few seconds to decide which you would vote for Should we just see if we all agree on this one if if when you look at that list? You think the main purpose of the university is to strengthen the national economy. Would you just raise your hand? Nobody thinks that Which is interesting because if you asked government certainly in the UK what it was for they would all put Their hands up at that point. So there's a little bit of attention. Isn't there a Safeguard all that is best in cultural life Yes, it's yes. It's a dreadful way of doing this, isn't it? But only one otherwise it gets complicated for me So nobody said no there are no high culture people here That which is interesting in itself distribute educational opportunity fairly To two Right two or three. Yes Reproduce the Academy make sure there are more academics to keep us going It's quite important because who's going to supply the heap of knowledge if we can't reproduce ourselves in a sense There are many countries very very difficult to get academics to do work Because there's just not enough money in their system to do it. So that's not important We're a conduct pure research that has no commercial value to To people can I ask them are you a researcher by any chance? Yes, yes, I thought you might be That's a bit unfair and you're an active researcher as well. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you critique aspects of society I'm beginning to wonder what you think therefore make knowledge freely available to all That's interesting. Okay. That is interesting. Thank you very much. So that's about 20. I should have thought be useful Ah Seven or eight. Okay. Now. That's interesting as it is very hard because you might think both of those things But be useful really is quite an interesting one and that's a real tension in universities at the moment We are moving far more into a nevermind. It's interesting. Is it what uses it? I mean that's a question being asked again and again now in universities not knowledge for the sake of it But for a use the difficulty is we can't predict what the uses are and yet We're told we must be more and more useful. Okay. Encourage international understanding boy. Oh boy. Do we need that? Okay, about half a dozen there and contributing to the local community Okay, five or six. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. I think I think that the one which one the Distributed educational opportunity. No, no, it's make knowledge freely available to all was the one that was That was you've got the most I think the What's the purpose of looking at that the purpose of looking at that? I think is is to illustrate the tensions that there are in Universities as to what they are for because we don't all agree here so clearly why would there be broad agreement in the world and Therefore, it's all the more important to be thinking about Research and teaching and how they interrelate in terms of what's the overall purpose of where we're trying to get to You know, it's all very well having a neat little session that says, you know, how do you link research and teaching together? But that begs the question. Well, what for what's the purpose of education? Because unless you're clear about that then there's no point really in thinking about how you link this with that because you don't know Where you're trying to get to Okay, so let's have a look at that one. Um, what is a graduate? I've thought about half a dozen of the most horrible questions and I put them in a presentation. What is a graduate? We presumably all know we're in an institution that produces graduates Presumably, we can all come up with a definition of a graduate Anybody like to suggest that you're not allowed to say someone who has a degree Okay Although interestingly There used to be a handbook when I first started in higher education because I had to design a course and I wanted to know what the difference was between a certificate a diploma and a degree And I looked in the most authoritative source and it said a diploma is higher than a certificate But lower than a degree and I took that knowledge and it didn't do me any good at all. I was no further forward What is a graduate? Expert in a certain area Yeah, okay, so it's got to have subject content somewhere in it. Yeah Okay, an expert in a certain area any advance on that So essentially a graduate is whatever the university says it is Yeah, but but well in the sense it is isn't it? I mean in the UK you will have a different system here You know an old university have a charter which gave it the right to award a degree And that's what a university is if you like it awards its own degrees Which effectively says exactly that if the university says it's a degree. It's a degree Okay, what else? Anything else if you were employing a graduate as opposed to a non-graduate they say you're an employer What would you expect to get walking through the door somebody taller or what what how would they be different? Other than subject content Okay More experienced more experienced in learning and and teaching. Yeah, okay They should be more experienced that well, maybe That they would understand would that they would have more experience of learning or that they would be better at learning or both Yes Yes Okay, any anything else the graduate walks through the door. What are you expecting? This is this is the products haven't say this is this is a this is a machine that produces graduates So what is the product? Flexible and hard-working. Yeah Open to learning. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you That's that's that's getting into the skills vocabulary now, isn't it of the things that we would expect of graduates Thank you that I mean, it's a really really difficult and but quite an obvious question really here are two We don't need that What is a graduate to? UK universities tried to grapple with a question of what is a graduate and they came up with these two This is Queen Mary University of London in the East End of London which came up with that list and Glasgow that came up with that list But they're all inventing this the reinventing the wheel aren't they there's a sense of a kind of intellectual flexibility and ability and ability to deal with the world in an intelligent and capable way That you would expect would be developed Through an undergraduate degree Really interesting that I mean how does somebody doing a law degree what kind of capabilities that they get? Is it the same as an engineer would get the same as somebody from theatre studies would get really quite interesting questions? I think So that you could argue. I mean, I think it's perfectly fair We are we are trying to achieve something like that. That's the kind of onward movement that we're trying to get and So the basic question is well, how are we going to produce people? Forgive me using the word produce. It's a terribly mechanistic metaphor, but you know what I mean How are we going to encourage the emergence of people who have those broad? Attributes and capabilities and this is where the research and teaching link comes in of course. We're trying to achieve this How can research help us to do this? And I would venture to suggest it doesn't come about just because somebody does a bit of research and then tells it to a student That is not a very developed sense of what the relationship between research and teaching is But it's the one most people think of immediately if you say how is research linked with teaching? Oh, I've learned x in my research and I put it into this masters module something would be the common Answer, but it's not much of an answer because it doesn't really get at this skills issue It doesn't get at this this real question about how you develop people's broad attributes and capabilities. Okay, right? Now One other point I'd like to make in terms of what we're trying to do is this and I Commend this to you. It's the it's about the oldest thing. I know of in in modern educational literature which is and it doesn't sound very interesting does it blooms taxonomy of educational objectives, but essentially Benjamin Bloom in 1956 Suggested that what we're trying to do in education is enable people to work as high up that List as possible. So if we start at the bottom simply knowing something's true Move up a bit comprehending it Understanding it in some depth being able to apply it being able to analyze with it being able to make new knowledge synthesis and the top Evaluation can you stand outside of a whole system and see it for what it is as a system of beliefs and values or? Or whatever and you can? Critique it from there its strengths and weaknesses. So that's his argument and quite a I think it's really powerful They come back to that again and again, you know, if you're really trying to get people more Educated if you like more capable then you want people working at the top end of that and not at the bottom end of that It's a simple and obvious, but incredibly useful Listing coming back to the lecture if the lecture does nothing But transmit facts Then it is at the level of knowledge The lecturer may try to go into some detail and explain it a little Then it's at level of comprehension It's only when the lecturer starts asking questions, which I've been trying to do now and said okay So what do you think and what does that mean and what underlies that that you move into? Application and analysis and we're nowhere near synthesis or evaluation. So so by running the lecture like this You can move into application and analysis you can get it up there a little way But of course if you want to get to those other levels Then it's a matter of people going out doing assignments Discussing quite focused things and so on. You can't do it within a lecture. I've been to to suggest Okay, so I think that's a very useful Apologies that it's so old, but I think it's very very valuable as a list. It continues to be useful It doesn't incidentally quite often people say yeah, well, that's what learning is about it's going up there, but What's missed out of that list? Say motivation That's the next topic, but yeah, well, it is. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's a part of what's missed out. Yeah Communication yes, yes, that's right Yeah, yes, I think you're right it has relatively little to say about learning to learn as it were an awareness of learning The other absence if I may suggest is is the emotional side of learning This is a cognitive model and it's very often taken as being what universities are about. It's of For some reason this has become the dominant paradigm for what universities are for and it forces is very strongly in a cognitive path When actually there are many affective things to do with emotions and values and so on which are equally important But they tend to get neglected Anyway, okay, so let me just ask you one more Question which is about your own learning as as we move into the relationship between research and teaching Now one thing you are all experienced in is learning you are here You are successes in the world of learning and my question to you is Can you think of a time that you would be prepared to share with other people? When you learnt something Really effectively and the question beyond that is well, what aspect of the learning situation? Really worked for you and meant that you really learned it take a few seconds to just cast your mind back about all the learning experience They may not be academic ones necessarily And what when did you learn something most effectively and what where was the effectiveness base? Take a second Okay now We sadly we haven't got time for the long story So what I want to cut to is the what was a significant thing? What was the aspect of the situation that meant you learnt it most effectively? Anybody care to give us something without revealing their innermost secrets. Please do nice and loudly if you would Yes, who set the clear goal? You did yeah, okay. Thank you. All right, okay additions to that Simply repetition to get better at doing it There's nothing this is how to write a type writing. Oh, okay. That's interesting yes because my I'd I'd hoped you'd said writing because What you then have to ask about is well, where did you get feedback to get better and I guess in type writing? Well, you do get feedback in the bank doesn't look very nice Then you know you've got to do it differently, but yeah, okay, and you're gonna say yeah, right? And and you were learning signs Sign language. Yes. Yes. That's right. Very interesting in languages in general There's an awful lot of present of repetition in in the pedagogy of Language and expectation that you've got to go over and over and over in order to learn anything else. Yeah, yeah Yes, it's thrown in at the deep end is the Yeah, yeah, so if you wanted to succeed you had to do this thing. Yes. Yeah, that's an interesting example Thank you. Any anything else any other conditions on yes again loudly Yeah, yeah, thank you that which ties in with what you were saying. It's your goal You'd set a goal and then there's a purpose for learning Okay, let me move on unless anyone's got anything totally different from that Okay Let me let me move on then to just suggest what I suggest is I think as far as teaching is concerned in universities for very good Reasons we're going down exactly the wrong path and one of the reasons is We're more and more concerned that students should succeed and that's absolutely fine We're more concerned that we should know what it is that they have learned there for and The problem with all of that is that you end up Turning a university into a fact factory almost Rather than being a place where genuine Learning occurs and let me just try to illustrate what I mean by that here is a challenge from The late 60s early 70s. I used this one yesterday Carl Rogers who Wrote from a humanistic psychology perspective and he made this claim. I'll give you a few seconds just to digest that Right. So the end point is if you do things very badly in in Education meaningful learning will be at an absolute minimum now that Immediately opens up the question of what meaningful learning means And I think what he means is that it's got Personal meaning to the individual that they have some investment in that process of learning and they think there will be value in Having learned something and it means a little bit more than that. I think but but certainly that now Then compare your experience of university with this list A prescribed curriculum. Is it the fact that the curriculum was set out before you turned up? It was a curriculum that you had to fit into Similar assignments for all students. Did you find yourself doing the same assignment as somebody else? Lecturing as almost the only mode of instruction obvious Standard tests by which all students are externally says evaluated. That's the US meaning of evaluated They mean assessed in in in UK terminology and did the Instructor which is a US term of course it did the teacher choose grades as the measure of learning now I suggest that most of our experiences would be Yes to all of those That's the dominant model and you can see the problem. We've got is that we are Keeping responsibility to ourselves because we're concerned about standards and we're being observed for our standards and so on It's very difficult to let go and we feel we've got to define more and more one of the major things in the UK at the moment is differential attainment that the worry that a Group of students have an experience they go through a program and some of them do better than others Gosh, that's a problem. We've really got to sort that out How do we sort out where we've got to be even clearer about what we're teaching and we've got to make sure that we assess very Very carefully to make sure that everybody has a full chance to achieve You can see how the world closes in as we specify more and more to help the students We specify more and more we take the job of deciding what's to be learned Deciding how it's going to be organized deciding how it's going to be assessed and so on and You can see that in the world. I think this will come up in bits Let me just put all of these on the On the screen. This is the standard way Pretty well across the world now in which we think about designing for teaching That is to say the first thing we do is we develop the aim and the learning outcomes. So be very clear Where it is you want the student to get to at the end of it Okay, and if I can just say as an aside in that is that the same as research does the research project Start from the point where you're absolutely clear what the answer is going to be and Then you do the research project. I would suggest by definition It's the reverse of that Otherwise it isn't research if you know what the answer is it isn't research is just reproduction of something So that's interesting that we've got a model of teaching that is diametrically opposite to the model of research So you develop the aim Then you think of some teaching and learning activities that you think are going to enable people to meet those aims And then you get the students to go through The learning materials the content then you assess them And then you let them know whether they have now got the things that you decided they should get at the beginning This is called constructive alignment. The the guru of constructive alignment is John Biggs And it's become the standard way in which we design curricula for good reasons because can you imagine a university that was totally vague about what it was trying to teach and Didn't really help students to learn There's a there's a lovely little Quote a piece of feedback. I'm not sure if it's really true from a student who was asked Was this a good course and and the students said yes, this was a very comprehensive course Everything that wasn't covered in the lectures was covered in the examination So that's the problem we've got to guard against I'm not speaking against this all together Except along with it comes the danger of over proceduralizing everything and over specifying it and where has the choice gone in That that's the dominant model for good reasons, but it it removes choice and so on so that's not too good and we've got Probably this is probably overregging it you probably don't need that But this is the language of constructive alignment. This is straight from John Biggs and Essentially in that on the right the key point everything is known Just like the research world. I know and you don't and I am going to transmit it to you And that's just not where we need to be in higher education. I would suggest we've got to get some openness Back into higher education Here is my last exhibit that Tries to explain what is what is wrong with where we are in how a lot of teaching goes on in the UK There is a national student survey that is given to all students when they finish their undergraduate degree and it is the figures are then published and That produces league tables for universities of how well they've done It's a really powerful lever on universities It's the thing that universities probably take the most notice of the questions that students are asked To answer have to do with this Now if you look at that and think think of an exam factory where things are provided for students And they just learn stuff and do stuff and do the assessment and get out Think of something which is really Intellectually stimulating where you have to think for yourself. You have to bring a lot to the whole To the whole enterprise and so on I Would have said it's fairly obvious that with the exception of a little bit down the left-hand side most of this is about Customer satisfaction Was the library always open? Did I like the sandwiches at lunchtime was everything given to me to make me happy and comfortable You know who said learning had to be happy and comfortable I mean quite often it's not it's not part of learning is being uncomfortable that you don't know something It's a process of going through to knowing something So there's a problem, you know that for very good reasons we want to know that students are satisfied But once again, we're taking responsibility away from the student Which is where where you would want it to be you want people to have some choice in what they've done to have an investment in it To really feel they've got some control over it and also why wouldn't we ask students to assess themselves to some extent? Here's a very simple suggestion Every assignment that is handed in in a university could have a top sheet where the student then Looks at the assessment criteria and assesses their work against the assessment criteria Before a member of academic staff looks at it. It's very unusual for that to happen in universities Why not? Why wouldn't we require our students to think about the quality of their own work and to give their own view? Not that they would have the final say, but it would give them that exercise It's putting people giving people charge of things getting them to evaluate the quality of their own work Just as you do in research When you're doing research the principal person you're concerned about Satisfying other than the person paying you the money that that you know You have to convince them to get the money but in the end you're trying to satisfy yourself You're trying to do something that is satisfactory as a piece of research So and you have to judge the quality of your research as you go along So why would teaching be any different? You want people to have the responsibility to make judgments of their own? Okay And this leads us to the problem of student disengagement Disengagement This is from a report that was done several years ago about about student engagement in higher education And this is that you know a really a real issue in a current term What a lot of faculty say is you know I put effort into marking and they don't look at what I write They don't even bother to come and pick up their assignment So why am I bothering to give them feedback and so on? There's that extent of disengagement in universities of students thinking well, I've done my assignment That's it. Just tell me what the mark is and that's it. That's the nature of the contract It's surely surely we want people to be more involved in it than that So to borrow some of the way in which people approach research and to apply it to teaching And the second point I think is an interesting point that if Research and teaching are both about learning. Where is the space in universities where we talk about learning? It's the main thing we do but when in your Experiences an undergraduate or a postgraduate you get to sit and talk about Okay, why did I find that difficult to learn? How could I have made it easier for me to learn? You know that happens sometimes and there are the rest study skills options and so on but by and large that whole issue of How am I learning and am I learning effectively doesn't really get asked and yet it's absolutely central I? Would argue now. I've got a question. I think Because I want to keeping on the time again. Yeah, you'll move on from there the role of research then okay I'm Just interested to see what your experience have been you know It's an interesting cross-section of people from from this community. What role did research play in your undergraduate? Experience says take a second to think about and try to think about research quite broadly Was your undergraduate experience quite research? Related research II research informed Was it not I don't have an investment in that I'm just interested to know what your experience was Anybody care to pitch in does that? Comes you're up any ideas, please again nice and loud Yes, okay, so certain amount of teamwork happening. Yeah. Yeah Which is which isn't that very interesting isn't it because so often Education is seen as a solo activity as it were and life isn't like that. Yeah Can you say that again a bit louder? I'm struggling with that Okay being introduced to research skills essentially get the vocabulary of research. Yes. Thank you other. Yes Yes, thank you that's interesting and what that raises with me is the the more complicated issue we have today is it what Constitutes a legitimate source as it were life was simpler in the days that you're talking about and that I recall. Yes The Yeah, yeah, that is very interesting what the outcome of that was yeah, okay other comments. Yes, please Yes, I think I just so you're right one of the major Things that you're trying to get across it seems to mean Undergraduates discipline is criticality. I mean some critical engagement are not simply taking something as it is Looking at evidence and so on and that is something that can much more readily be got out in a world of research where all knowledge is Has been found that is As you know has to be justified is up the question and so on rather than it's in a textbook here It is learn it. It's a different relationship with knowledge and it anything else Again very loudly if you would this Yes Yes, that's interesting people very often say the best way of learning something is trying to teach it. Yes Yeah, that's right, but I think you raise an interesting question about you you you spent a lot of time not not having support and having to Work things out for yourself And that's an interesting pedagogical problem at what point do you step in and offer help and structure? And at what point do you stop because it's just becoming that you're doing all the work actually for the student And that's a very difficult judgment to make I mean my rule of thumb is you give students as much independence and autonomy as they are able to cope with At the time and actually push a little bit. That's where you want to be to be continually Encouraging people to be more autonomous and less Dependent but doesn't mean just abandoning them. That's that's a different. That's a rather old-fashioned, but sadly very commonplace way of viewing University work. Okay. Let me just come to the time. I won't detain you for too much longer because this is a warm room. Let me Just try to bring this together a little bit by saying well What what you know, what are some of the benefits of being this bringing research? processes mainly together With students learning and these are these are the prizes I think I mean and this is Summarizing some of what we've talked about There is a motivational aspect. I think if one of the things that I think there's an awful lot of basic human nature That we we we forget in in life because we've become so technical We're talking with Manel about this yesterday the power of story It's one of those things that we forget but actually stories are wonderful things But actually hearing from somebody who really cares about something who's really interested in it Is a powerful motivator actually we sort of forget it because we think we can be dry and technicist about it And that the facts will speak for themselves. They don't The reason I'm here now is I hope it's more engaging than you just having a book about it because I'm bringing my Enthusiasm I hope that you could see that for this and that's part of the value of having a session such as this one So having people who are really invested in something is an important benefit potentially Provided they're able to explain the nature of their investment to the people in front of them Which is another matter then active learning that we've we've touched on at various times Setting your goals and then actually doing the stuff yourself Rather than having it done for you we so often take all the hard bits out and do it for ourselves And then give the students relatively straightforward things to do because we've taken all the chance out of things and the possibilities for skills development of course Doing research means a whole set of skills have to be developed in relation to knowledge in relation to other people and working with other people and so that provides the Opportunities that quite often aren't there if somebody's just sitting in a lecture Passively listening and so so that the prize is there, you know, there's a lot that we can get That we don't Necessarily now. I think I've just got time to ask this is quite hard actually. I'll be I don't know. Yeah, let's let's see How we go because I had I had I had that experience for some years of trying to persuade people in departments To think about how they could become more research like in there in their teaching and so on and they always come up with a Set of reasons why you can't This is the set of reasons and my challenge to you is If we had more time, I'd set this out as an exercise that would take a little while If somebody said to you and if you were in my position, you were saying could you make your Teaching a little bit more engaging a bit more research like and so on and they said that What would be your response to that a polite response to that? Okay, what would the counter be because you've got to find solutions to this because it's all very well me saying be more research Like it produces teaching problems feel like they have to be solved What's the solution that these people and they may be different solutions? Obviously they're different comments What would be your response to some of these your advice? Yes, thank you really good start. Thank you other other additions to that Different approaches Loud if you would Right but that's interesting because you've thrown it back at me because I was in problem-solving Mode and you've just made it more problematic, haven't you? So if you were then standing observing that what would be your advice to the person in charge of that experience to make it a Better experience Yeah, yeah, thank you. That's really good answers. I think I see excellent I mean because part of the problem is sometimes you give people tasks to do and they don't have the skills to do them Well, who's got the skills? Oh, the researchers got the skills actually and they may not even have thought too much about what skills they've got and this is where you can Start getting some beneficial carry through and of course the lecturer has to think carefully about the level at which they set the problem And and that's and you know an interesting and worthwhile thing to be doing where things often go wrong is somebody saying Well, let's just give you this really difficult thing when they haven't thought through how People are going to build to that So yeah, I think there are there are ways you can do research like activities that work well And as you say sometimes they don't if people if it's not done thoughtfully I think any other any other answers here You may have to think again about how you're marking, you know and about the marking burden I think you're right and of course the student can self-assess to some extent that takes some of the burden away I think that's interesting the students won't like it Yes, that's that's the last refuge of the scoundrel as they say isn't it really and I don't want to do this because the students would hate it and and of course Sometimes students aren't very comfortable with it because you're asking them to do things and doing things Exposes you to the possibility of failure the other interesting part of course is that When people change their teaching techniques quite often they're not going to be very successful It's the same as riding a bike, you know, you wouldn't get on a bicycle once Crash into a wall and say those bicycles are no good You would train yourself to ride a bicycle and then you could take it somewhere you wanted to go and the same applies with teaching techniques If you're asking both teachers and learners to take up different roles It takes a little while, you know It takes a bit of working on it and and you might need a bit of support to do it But if you never try and you and you stick with a very dry teacher-led curriculum You're depriving students of some things really valuable and actually giving yourself a very boring Time because quite frankly if I just stood here talking at you for two hours as opposed to asking questions So not only would you have been even more bored, but I would have been bored as well so there is a benefit to everybody I think about active learning because it means that The teacher is being active and bringing their research abilities into the into the equation So I like that exercise because it's focused on solving problems and not making them Okay, I'm just going to finish in about five minutes from my I'm just conscious that I've been talking for a long time now Just with two things that are Forms of teaching and approaches to teaching that I think lend themselves quite well to people coming at things from a research perspective One is the notion of the threshold concept which you may or may not have come across Can you just raise your hand if you have come across the expression threshold concept? No One I thought no you're just scratching your head aren't you yeah, okay, right? Okay, so one but right the threshold concept then this is quite an interesting Notion what it but essentially saying and this has been developed over the last 15 years by two very interesting people Eric Mayer and Ray land Essentially what they say is if you're working in a Knowledge area there are always some things that are really difficult to get a hold off There's conceptual things that until you get it you can't really proceed And now and we tend to teach as if all knowledge was about the same level of difficulty And you just give some more and some more and some more But if you really think about it and as a researcher you're well placed to think about it You can usually think there are some things that people just get stuck on and they can't go any further Until they got it and then once they got it they move further forward and quite often can't remember what it was Not to know that thing before which is actually why some people find it difficult to teach because they can't see difficulty Anymore so long since they found it difficult Now in my case I would I would say because I teach a lot in the social sciences Getting people to have a sense of what an argument is in in prose is really Difficult how are you going to engage with text and turn it into a Reasoned argument of yours in which there is your own voice It's really easy to say it, but so hard to get that idea across You nearly kill yourself trying to get that idea across my suggestion is that in all disciplines This their suggestions in all disciplines There are threshold concepts if you like and that working out what those are and then thinking well, how can I best? Enable students to learn that How can what processes what situations can I put them in where they are most likely to learn it? Maybe very effective and actually thinking back to your own experience of learning it may be quite a good way of getting a Key into that and the other thing I'd like to swap over that one is the problem-based learning is an interesting way of turning the curriculum on its head and Turning people into researchers from day one The notion is that instead of giving people lots and lots and lots and lots of information and then setting a problem You set a problem and then it's obvious that they're going to need some information To solve the problem and you immediately have a reason for trying to solve the problem even better If they've chosen their own problem, so Laurie falls in ditch What you're gonna need to do to get out of it There's the problem set for you work out what you need to do to do that. So the notion is that students are much more Motivated provide if something's put in a real context if it matters a lot of the problem with things we teach in universities Is why would it matter if I know this or not? What difference does it make except? I'm going to pass an exam if there's a reason then for learning something we look we tend to learn it better and so the principles of problem-based learning Lead us to this sort of of work Where you have People working small groups problem-based scenarios a lot of external activity active learning self-assessment peer assessment and so on And continual feedback, which is very important to improve the quality of learning clearly feedback is really important Now that's hard to do in some cases because you've got to set it up The reason a lot of people teach in a very sequential way of course is because it's the easiest thing to do You're almost reading from a book what you've got to do here is think okay, so what do they need to know? How can I put that into a problem? Can I present them that as a problem and then I've got to be prepared to guide them to the information that they need But if you do it that way around if you flip the curriculum on its head Then you get a much more Engaged curriculum and it's a simple notion, but it's really powerful start with a problem Don't start with a bunch of facts start with a problem, and I'm reminded I'll finish up and say I was talking to ahead of Engineering once who said to me it was in this project that I began telling you about the beginning He said the problem that we have is that we spend Three years giving people more and more facts because we don't believe they can do anything till they've got lots and lots of facts The problem is but the end of the three years they never want to be anywhere near this subject again because they're absolutely bored stiff But and you can kind of see the logic of saying well We need a lot of knowledge in order to solve a problem, but if you flip it around You actually have a very different dynamic in a different relationship with the task in hand I could go on but I won't because you've been very good to follow me all this way So I'll stop at that point. Um, are there any questions anybody would like to ask or any additions? We there please yes Yeah Yeah Even Yeah, I think you're absolutely I think you know my really interesting things there. Yes very often We pick up bad habits from the way we've learned because we were not necessarily taught in a very thoughtful way Or he may have been we could also make the assumption that everybody learns the same way So you design a learning system that suits you so there's a danger in that but I think there is so much to be got out of Thinking about the research process and Bringing that into teaching in the sense that I think what students often see about research It's like they just see the finished articles if you like and it looks really rather worrying This is beautifully written stuff peer reviewed and so on and they never see the doubts the agony that goes into it The repeated draftings and so on so bringing students into your own experience of Researching I think can be very valuable and revealing that it's by no means a certain of process You know it that that researchers are in some ways full of the same kinds of uncertainties as Undergraduates might be and are having to convince other people Of the rightness of what they're thinking about so making research problematic. I think is quite a valuable thing to do Thank there was one other comment and then we should stop I think we're gonna say yeah It's a hard question. I don't think there's an easy answer to that that question I think one has to acknowledge that students Probably more so today than before and maybe because we've got a huge a much broader range of people in universities I'm very very often don't have much time to study You know, they may be supporting themselves for example, they may be supporting their own families and so on maybe part-time students There are there are realistic limitations, but you can't go from there to saying well, I won't Suggest or propose that they do lots of reads reading you can't use that as the reason for taking back Responsibility for reading and thinking and so on you may have to be a bit more structured You may have to suggest what you think will be the most the best readings, you know If you've only got this time read that But you've got to be careful not to take back responsibility Otherwise you fall into the trap that I've been trying to illustrate today. Good question. Thank you Yeah, yeah Yes, yes and transfer does not happen automatically does it we we think in we learn in compartments Absolutely agree and in the interdisciplinarities, which is a is a huge issue that haven't even touched on the here But yet the world has real problems that are Requirement multiple disciplines to deal with them and so we have we need to work in that world and that and yet we are We spend our time in individual disciplines still mainly in universities And so there are learning opportunities lost there. Yes, if I had more time, but I've gone into that. Thank you That's helpful to have raised it Are we there? Right, I'm going to take that opportunity to declare an end to proceedings. Thank you ever so much for participating I very much appreciate it. Thank you Yeah Yeah, yeah, well, yes