Dear James,
Still getting over the shock of realising that Socrates wouldn't have been 'REF-able', I am now wondering if we should add Diderot's Encyclopaedia to our PGCAP reading list...
Best wishes
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James Wisdom
Sent: 20 January 2015 10:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A possibly impossible question
Dear Alison,
From Plato to the parochial - sorry!
Perhaps he didn't look hard, but Robbins did not find any pedagogical research. His report, in 1963, says:
“We have received from both university teachers and student organisations extensive complaints concerning methods of instruction.
The substance of these complaints has been nearly always the same: undue reliance on lectures, often delivered with too little consideration of the needs and capacities of the audience, and insufficient personal contact.”
And he recommended some instruction on lecturing and small group discussions for new staff. By 1974 a system was in place for Academic Staff Development in all the universities as a response to this.
At the same time the SRHE had a “special interest” publication group for this growing area. One of their early and very influential publications was Jane Abercrombie’s “The aims and techniques of group teaching”
(1970) – she was an educational psychologist working with medical students.
Donald Bligh published “What’s the use of lectures?” in 1971 when he was at the Teaching Methods Unit at London University.
Noel Entwistle, whose “Styles of Learning and Teaching” in 1981 was very influential, was an educational psychologist who had been researching since 1969.
So I would locate the origins of the UK's "new" interest in these forms of pedagogical research and practice to the late 1960s.
Peter Swinnerton Dyer (Chairman of the University Grants Committee) devised the Research Selectivity Exercise in 1986, expecting it to only be required once. This was the year Kenneth Baker replaced Keith Joseph as Minister in the Conservative Cabinet.
So I would locate the origins of the UK HE's interest in defensive accountability through competitive research funding to the mid-1980s.
Learning through institutionalised disciplines was the model for medieval universities - the subjects of the trivium and quadrivium, then theology, law or medicine. These institutions did a remarkably good job in defending themselves against pressures from the new subjects
(disciplines?) in the 18th and 19th centuries, but today's universities seem to have developed the skills to institutionalise almost any discipline that can muster an annual conference.
So I would vaguely locate the origins of the (still continuing) expansion in the number of new disciplines to the 18th century enlightenment - a symbolic date could be 1777, when Diderot's Encyclopaedia was finally published with 70,000 articles - supposedly the last time the world's knowledge could be stated.
All the best
James
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James Wisdom
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On 19/01/2015 15:17, Alison James wrote:
> Dear everyone
>
> I have recently attended meetings to discuss outcomes from REF and heard pedagogical research described as 'new' or 'emergent'. This may well be in relation to another discipline but has surprised me - does anyone know if the field of pedagogical research under this defined name has a particular 'start date'? Calling it new seems to exclude some of the great thinkers and philosophers on how we teach and learn.
>
> Would be very pleased to hear your thoughts if you would like to reply to me directly.
>
> All best
>
> Alison
>
> Dr Alison James
> Associate Dean Learning and Teaching
> London College of Fashion
>
>
>
>
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