> The unit of assessment will surely be (in the final analysis)
> institutional?
That would not be sensible.
At the risk of banging on, the REF balances these things very well,
elegantly incorporating indivdual profiles (we all have different
teaching strengths); departmental profiles (no-one teaches without
context); longitudinal effects (learning - and appreciation of education
- can be a slow-burn).
And all of these assessed by disciplinary panels - thus accounting for
what Shulman calls "signature pedagogies", and for appropriate
comparison of innovation (what is novel in dentistry is old-hat in
basket-weaving).
Institutions would likely amalgamate departmental profiles, of course,
but students could nevertheless search for the subjects they were
interested in. After all, if I'm going to study Drama it's of no
interest to me to know how they teach Chemistry, or to know how things
are taught "generally" at an institution.
The downside of such a detailed approach is, of course, cost. But why
should teaching be any less expensive to assess than research?
- Sally
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Sally Fincher, School of Computing, University of Kent,
Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NF, UK
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/saf/index.html
'phone: +44 1227 824061 fax: +44 1227 762811
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