Good practice guide in learning and teaching

Once again this publication is produced to celebrate and promote good teaching and learning support and to offer encouragement to those imaginative and innovative staff who continue to wish to challenge students to learn to maximum effect. It is hoped that others will pick up some good ideas from the articles contained in this volume. We have again changed our approach for this 2006/07 edition (our fourth) of the Aston Business School Good Practice Guide. As before, some contributions were selected from those identifying interesting best practice on their Annual Module reflection forms in 2005/2006. Other contributors received HELM (Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management) small research grants in 2005/2006. Part of the conditions were for them to write an article for this publication. We have also been less tight on the length of the articles this year. Some contributions are, therefore, on the way to being journal articles. HELM will be working with these authors to help develop these for publication. The themes covered in this year?s articles are all central to the issues faced by those providing HE teaching and learning opportunities in the 21st Century. Specifically this is providing support and feedback to students in large classes, embracing new uses of technology to encourage active learning and addressing cultural issues in a diverse student population. Michael Grojean and Yves Guillaume used Blackboard™ to give a more interactive learning experience and improve feedback to students. It would be easy for other staff to adopt this approach. Patrick Tissington and Qin Zhou (HELM small research grant holders) were keen to improve the efficiency of student support, as does Roger McDermott. Celine Chew shares her action learning project, completed as part of the Aston University PG Certificate in Teaching and Learning. Her use of Blackboard™ puts emphasis on the learner having to do something to help them meet the learning outcomes. This is what learning should be like, but many of our students seem used to a more passive learning experience, so much needs to be done on changing expectations and cultures about learning. Regina Herzfeldt also looks at cultures. She was awarded a HELM small research grant and carried out some significant new research on cultural diversity in ABS and what it means for developing teaching methods. Her results fit in with what many of us are experiencing in practice. Gina leaves us with some challenges for the future. Her paper certainly needs to be published. This volume finishes with Stuart Cooper and Matt Davies reflecting on how to keep students busy in lectures and Pavel Albores working with students on podcasting. Pavel?s work, which was the result of another HELM small research grant, will also be prepared for publication as a journal article. The students learnt more from this work that any formal lecture and Pavel will be using the approach again this year. Some staff have been awarded HELM small research grants in 2006/07 and these will be published in the next Good Practice Guide. In the second volume we mentioned the launch of the School?s Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management (HELM). Since then HELM has stimulated a lot of activity across the School (and University) particularly linking research and teaching. A list of the HELM seminars for 2006/2007 is listed as Appendix 1 of this publication. Further details can be obtained from Catherine Foster (c.s.foster@aston.ac.uk), who coordinates the HELM seminars. For 2006 and 2005 HELM listed, 20 refereed journal articles, 7 book chapters, 1 published conference papers, 20 conference presentations, two official reports, nine working papers and £71,535 of grant money produced in this research area across the School. I hope that this shows that reflection on learning is alive and well in ABS. We have also been working on a list of target journals to guide ABS staff who wish to publish in this area. These are included as Appendix 2 of this publication. May I thank the contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to write the articles and to Julie Green, the Quality Manager, for putting the varying diverse approaches into a coherent and publishable form and for agreeing to fund the printing of this volume.

Good practice guide in learning and teaching

Once again this publication is produced to celebrate and promote good teaching and learning support and to offer encouragement to those imaginative and innovative staff who continue to wish to challenge students to learn to maximum effect. It is hoped that others will pick up some good ideas from the articles contained in this volume. We had changed our editorial approach in drawing together the articles for this 2005/6 edition (our third) of the ABS Good Practice Guide. Firstly we have expanded our contributors beyond ABS academics. This year?s articles have also been written by staff from other areas of the University, a PhD student, a post-doctoral researcher and staff working in learning support. We see this as an acknowledgement that the learning environment involves a range of people in the process of student support. We have also expanded the maximum length of the articles from two to five pages, in order to allow greater reflection on the issues. The themes of the papers cluster around issues relating to diversity (widening participation and internationalisation of the student body), imaginative use of new technology (electronic reading on BlackboardTM ) and reflective practitioners, (reflection on rigour and relevance; on how best to train students in research ethics, relevance in the curriculum and the creativity of the teaching process) Discussion of efforts to train the HE teachers of the future looks forward to the next academic year when the Higher Education Academy?s professional standards will be introduced across the sector. In the last volume we mentioned the launch of the School?s Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management (HELM). Since then HELM has stimulated a lot of activity across the School (and University) particularly linking research and teaching. A list of the HELM seminars is listed as an appendix to this publication. Further details can be obtained from Catherine Foster (c.s.foster@aston.ac.uk) who coordinates the HELM seminars. HELM has also won its first independent grant from the EU Leonardo programme to look at the effect of business education on employment. In its annual report to the ABS Research Committee HELM listed for 2004 and 2005, 11 refereed journal articles, 4 book chapters, 3 published conference papers, 18 conference papers, one official reports and £72,500 of grant money produced in this research area across the School. I hope that this shows that reflection on learning is live and well in ABS. May I thank the contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to write the articles and to Julie Green, the Quality Manager, for putting our diverse approaches into a coherent and publishable form.

Good practice guide in learning and teaching

This is the second edition of our Aston Business School (ABS) Good Practice Guide and the enthusiasm of the contributors appears undiminished. I am again reminded that I work with a group of very committed, dedicated and professional colleagues. Once again this publication is produced to celebrate and promote good teaching across the School and to offer encouragement to those imaginative and innovative staff who continue to wish to challenge students to learn to maximum effect. It is hoped that others will pick up some good ideas from the articles contained in this volume. Contributors to this Guide were not chosen because they are the best teachers in the School, although they are undoubtedly all amongst my colleagues who are exponents of enthusiastic and inspiring approaches to learning. The Quality Unit approached these individuals because they declared on their Annual Module Reflection Forms that they were doing something interesting and worthwhile which they thought others might find useful. Amongst those reading the Guide I am sure that there are many other individuals who are trying to operate similar examples of good practice in their teaching, learning and assessment methods. I hope that this publication will provoke these people into providing comments and articles of their own and that these will form the basis of next year’s Guide. It may also provoke some people to try these methods in their own teaching. The themes of the articles this year can be divided into two groups. The first theme is the quest to help students to help themselves to learn via student-run tutorials, surprise tests and mock examinations linked with individual tutorials. The second theme is making learning come to life in exciting practical ways by, for example, hands-on workshops and simulations, story telling, rhetorical questioning and discussion groups. A common theme is one of enthusiasm, reflection and commitment on behalf of the lecturers concerned. None of the approaches discussed in this publication are low effort activities on the part of the facilitator, but this effort is regarded as worthwhile as a means of creating greater student engagement. As Biggs (2003)[1] says, in his similarly inspiring way, students learn more the less passive they are in their learning. (Ref). The articles in this publication bear witness of this and much more. Since last year Aston Business School has launched its Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management (HELM) which is another initiative to promote excellent learning and teaching. Even before this institution has become fully operational, at least one of the articles in this publication has seen the light of day in the research arena and at least two others are ripe for dissemination to a wider audience via journal publication. More news of our successes in this activity will appear in next year’s edition. May I thank the contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to write the articles this summer, and to Julie Green who runs the ABS Quality Unit, for putting our diverse approaches into a coherent and publishable form and for chasing us when we have needed it! I would also like to thank Ann Morton and her colleagues in the Centre for Staff Development who have supported this publication. During the last year the Centre has further stimulated the learning and teaching life of the School (and the wider University) via their Learning and Teaching Week and sponsorship of Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF) projects. Pedagogic excellence is in better health at Aston than ever before – long may this be because this is what life in HE should be about.