Brunel's teaching appears on our website below - I have put up some course
guides and so-on.
We began as a teaching-led department, but as time moved
on we have upped our research profile, developed a Masters (also
interesting since it is part-time). Interesting undergraduate teaching
remains prominient, however - there is continuity but also a lot of
innovation and change.
The essential elements that have helped the courses to succeed and
enrolments to increase are
1) engagement with interdisciplinary perspectives (from geology, through
earth sciences, into the social sciences) with a range of options in Year
I. In particular, the environmental focus allows a range of student
interests and abilities to be expressed. We operate many 'degree titles'
that people can obtain after three years, all with slightly different
combinations of 'modules'. My first year environmental course for example
(see http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/modules/gy1001.html ) begins by
defining perspectives on the environment, includes hands-on monitoring of
pollution, but then finishes with exploring hard ecocentric views which
provoke a strong reaction and stimulate anger/debate/critical faculties.
Most students leave woith soem clue abut science, action, critical
thinking combined.
2) sensible use of new technologies - eg CTI student-centered learing
packages and student exercises. Also in a module called 'Active Earth',
students work in groups and design web sites on key geological features,
which are uploaded onto the web (you can view these now - see
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/modules/gy3011.html ). This is very
low-level use of possible technological innovations (such as
computer-aided marking, project submissions) but we have made a start.
3) mixing assessment styles, with a priority placed on group cohesion and
working together. MAny group projects are done, for example on local
environemtnal issues, with group presentations required - use of video,
computer graphics, role playing etc. encouraged.
4) innovative courses. 'Applied Geography in the Community' allows
students to work in a voluntary capacity outside the Uni, for example with
a school or an environmental organisation, and to reflect critically on
this experience through written project work and oral presentations. Thus
most of that particular course is not conducted in the classroom at all.
5) Lots of fieldwork, which I know is harder in North America to organize
6) Pretty much open door policy with students, first name terms -
usually, none of those short office hours and staff to busy to see
students because they are off writing papers!
7) Critical topics enter through specific modules. Eg Fiona Smith's famous
Social Geography course entails a few days in Amsterdam, where topics like
gay space, prostitution, & social housing policy 'come alive' because they
are studied on the ground. Courses with titles like 'social geography' ,
'political geography' might seem old fashioned, but I think they work and
you can do all sorts of things within those titles. Frankly I think a
general course on 'critical human geography' would be a nightmare to teach
- where would you start? 'critical debates' are too complex to be grasped
in three short years - pinning them on specific issues or empirical
material seems to work better.
8) we also make the second years do a proper research proposal which makes
them submit their proposed final year independent research dissertation
(honors thesis) project for (fictitious) funding - this shows how to
organise aims, objectives, methods, budgets etc.
My colleagues, accessible through our general website, can fill people in
on general issues (or may have more to add to these ones, since they
developed most of this stuff). All our web material is accessible to the
world at large. There is also a course guide that tells students what to
do and what to expect when they first start. Comments welcome.
(http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/modules/courseguide.html)
Class sizes only go up to 70 here, by the way - but you can still do group
work and unconventional projects with these numbers. I doubt we could do
all this with the sorts of numbers I used to teach in the USA!
If all this appeals - we desperately need new staff so watch the
papers/net for the job ads, which are delayed but should be out soon.
There - got my advert in!
On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 08:10:11 -0700 Nick Blomley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear everyone:
>
> On the assumption that a critical attention to teaching is very much part
> of our mandate, some questions....
>
> How can one go about reshaping an undergraduate human geography program in
> toto to make it more fun to teach, more interesting for students, and a
> better reflection of human geography today? Any thoughts, anyone?
>
> In particular, what categories or streams have people experimented with in
> an attempt to transcend the traditional streams (urban, cultural, social,
> economic....). These seem increasingly less relevant and confining. Are
> there any undergraduate programs out there that are particularly well
> designed and innovative? Are there any that explicitly foreground critical
> human geography (or with expressly feminist, Marxist, postcolonial
> streams)? Is the very idea of 'streams' worthwhile? Other ideas?
>
> I'd appreciate it if people could reply to the list to encourage discussion
> (if there is any).
>
> Nick Blomley
>
>
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Dr Simon Batterbury
Dept. of Geography & Earth Sciences
Brunel University
Uxbridge Middx. UB8 3PH, UK
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo
tel +1895 274000 fax +1895 203217
[log in to unmask]
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