Message
I wonder if other
colleagues received the e-mail notice about the "19-minute
non-profit award-winning short-film on University teaching recently produced by
the University of Aarhus, Denmark entitled: "Teaching Teaching &
Understanding Understanding", and if so whether you viewed it. If you saw
it, what did you think about it? Would any of you consider using
it?
It seemed to me to
be a gross simplification of all the issues about student approaches to learning
and to teaching for understanding. The point where I laughed out loud was when
the voiceover said, talking about the unfortunate 'Robert' who is the
student with a surface approach who prefers to listen to his i-pod while also
smoking!, that, by following the principles of constructive alignment,
'Whatever happens he ends up learning what the teacher expected' as if there was
an inevitability about this. The final advice is 'teach so that Robert behaves
like Susan' (Susan being the dream student who has a deep approach to everything
she learns). I can't believe that John Biggs, who endorses this film, really
thinks that it's as simple as that.
I am alone in
thinking that this is laughable? Would you give an award to this
film?
David Gosling
Higher Education Consultant
Visiting Research Fellow
University of Plymouth
tel/fax: 0161 456 6148
mobile: 0784 1647275
