Research Seminars
The Learning Institute runs seminars on research related to Academic Practice and Learning and Teaching. These are ‘one off’ seminars designed to encourage the dissemination of research and start discussions on the results and topics raised.
If you are interested in presenting your research at a seminar, then please contact Dr Matthew Williamson.
Seminar series 2011/12 now launched
We are pleased to announce the seminar series for the 2011/12 academic year.
The research seminars take place on Monday lunchtimes from 12pm-2pm. Please see individual seminar pages for details of venues for the seminar. We would be very grateful if you could book a place on these seminars, as they can get full quite quickly! To book a place on any of the seminars, please email the Learning Institute with your name and the seminar(s) you wish to attend. Lunch will provided for those who book in advance.
Seminars for 2011/12
17th October 2011 Dr Matthew Williamson, The Learning Institute, Queen Mary, University of London What makes an outstanding university teacher? Quantifying and classifying student descriptions of excellence in teaching
14th November 2011 Professor Della Freeth, Centre for Medical Education, Queen Mary, University of London Supporting accomplished facilitation: Using appreciative inquiry to underpin the development of web-based self-directed learning materials for faculty working in clinical simulation centres
12th December 2011 Dr Fiona Denney, Head of Graduate Development, King’s College London Development and Researchers – A “Learning” Perspective
9th January 2012 Dr Giles Martin and Dr Jo Cordy, The Learning Institute, Queen Mary, University of London Lost on a roller-coaster: The first year doctoral student experience
13th February 2012 Stella Ekebuisi, The Learning Institute, Queen Mary, University of London The lecturer’s perspective: an analysis of the feedback practices of academic staff
12th March 2012 Professor Lynn McAlpine, Professor of Higher Education Development at the University of Oxford and Professor Emerita at McGill University, Canada Early career academic identity-trajectory: Constructing an identity through time
16th April 2012Professor Sue Bloxham, Professor of Academic Practice and Director of Educational Research, University of Cumbria Understanding the rules of the game: helping students really grasp what we are looking for when we mark
14th May 2012 Dr Peter Kahn, Educational Developer, University of Liverpool The agency of early career academics: a counterpart to student engagement?
11th June 2012 Dr Kevin Byron, Enterprise Education Coordinator, The Learning Institute, Queen Mary, University of London Creative reflections on brainstorming Please note, this is a change to the originally announced seminar
Previous Seminars
Eoin McDonnell and Brendan Curran, QMUL, Refreshing the Classroom: Using lecture capture to deliver a novel blended-learning strategy in the Sciences
Matthew Williamson and Giles Martin, QMUL, Transitions to Higher Education: reflections on a three-year study. Slides.
Chris Trevitt, Oxford, Research supervision at Oxford: tales from the development experience coalface.
About the seminar This seminar reviews the experiences of the last 5 years devising and running workshops and related support directed at enhancing research supervision at Oxford. A pragmatic account is taken initially, outlining the demographics of participants and their setting, the approach adopted, reactions tendered during evaluations and, importantly, the changing nature of demand and the key adjustments that have been made along the way. This account is then reviewed using the framework posited by Räsänen (2009)* and developed for the purpose of appraising ‘development work’ as practical activity. This framework is connected explicitly to the practice-theoretical literature, and centres around four basic stances or issues: how to do it; what to accomplish in, and achieve by, doing it; why these means and goals are valuable, or at least justifiable; and who to become by doing it. Participants are invited to consider the questions about development for research supervision raised by this exercise, and discuss the merits (or otherwise) of considering academic development work as ‘practical activity’. Note that this account is that of an outsider: someone who is still getting acquainted not just with the myriad idiosyncracies of Oxford, but with the larger picture of UK higher education as well. * Räsänen, K. (2009) Understanding academic work as practical activity – and preparing (business-school) academics for praxis? International Journal for Academic Development 14:3, 185-195. About the speaker Dr Chris Trevitt became the Coordinator, Developing Academic Practice programme, at the Oxford Learning Institute in 2008. This programme comprises a range of seminar and workshop programmes for academics newly appointed to the collegiate University, as well as the further enhancement of these programmes in collaboration with Academic Advisors based in the Divisions. Prior to this appointment, Chris was a Visiting University Lecturer, on secondment with the Institute between June, 2006, and May, 2007. With some 10 years experience in educational development at the Australian National University, Canberra, he completed his graduate studies higher education in 1995, and has a PhD and a research and academic teaching background in the environmental sciences. He has enduring interests in practice-based and work-based continuing professional learning, both in the professions and in academia; action learning as a means for fostering reflective professional practice; and, harnessing information technologies to support such activities.
Stephanie Marshall, Leadership Foundation, Leadership in Learning and Teaching
Margo Blythmann, University of the Arts, Living with change in higher education.
About the seminar
Policy developments in higher education play out through the lives of university staff, both academic and administrative. This session examines the impact and influence on staff of contemporary policies and institutional implementation, and explores how university staff respond to current pressures. The session analyses, through a range of perspectives, factors which encourage and inhibit change in attitudes, working practices and culture.
Sources of pressure are explored as is the impact on staff both directly and mediated through pressures on universities, as institutions, as power relations play out. In particular we will look at the issues from a micropolitical perspective.
The session aims to enable participants to recognise the diverse perspectives operating within the contemporary university, to gain insight into the operation of power relations and the complexity of achieving change in participants’ own institution.
The session finishes by considering alternatives and their viability in the current climate.
About the speaker
Dr Margo Blythman is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design at University of the Arts London. She was till 2009 Director of Teaching and Learning at the London College of Communication, in the same university.. Her responsibilities in that role included faculty development, the quality of teaching and learning, tutorial systems and study support. She has published with Susan Orr on such topics as retention, development strategies within higher education contexts and the development of student academic writing, particularly in the context of art and design. Recent projects include formative assessment in art and design and plagiarism in non-text based disciplines. She is currently working on the evaluation of teaching and learning projects that make significant use of social networking tools. Her academic interests also include the impact of quality assurance systems on the working lives of academic staff and micropolitics in UK higher education.
Roni Bamber, Queen Margaret University, Evaluation: institutional needs versus individual motivations.
Gwen van der Velden, Bath, The student voice: enhancing learning, not just satisfaction (pdf from Bath)
Caroline Walker and Graham Thomas, QMUL, The QMUL Graduate Attributes project (pdf from talk)
Heather Fry, HEFCE, HEFCE and Educational Research
Helen Garrett & Dr Helen Bruce, QMUL, Conceptions of teaching by part-time educators.
Matthew Williamson and Giles Martin, QMUL, Transition to University.
Prof Sir David Watson, Institute of Education, Morale: towards an understanding of happiness and unhappiness in university life.
About the seminar
Why is so much discourse about contemporary higher education structure around (real and imagined) unhappiness? How does this connect with the realities of life inside (and just outside) the institutions? Does it matter and, if so, what should we be doing about it? David Watson offers an historical, sociological and philosophical perspective, based on primary and secondary research on unhappy students (and their sponsors), unhappy staff, and unhappy stakeholders.
About the speaker
David Watson is an historian and Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education, University of London. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brighton between 1990 and 2005. His most recent books are Managing Civic and Community Engagement (2007), and The Dearing Report: ten years on (2007). His current project is a book on “morale” in universities.
He has contributed widely to developments in UK higher education, including as a member of the Council for National Academic Awards (1977-1993), the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (1988-92), and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (1992-96). He is a member of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s National Commission on Education (whose report Learning to Succeed was published in 1993), and the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education chaired by Sir Ron Dearing (whose report Higher Education in the Learning Society was published in 1997). He was the elected chair of the Universities Association for Continuing Education between 1994 and 1998, and chaired the Longer Term Strategy Group of Universities UK between 1999 and 2005. He is a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation, a Companion of the Institute of Management and a National Teaching Fellow (2008). He chairs the national Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, which will report in June 2009. He was knighted in 1998 for services to higher education.
Morag Shiach, QMUL, Managing Teaching Performance: Identifying Encouraging, and Rewarding Excellent Teaching.
Viv Cook, QMUL, Becoming a teacher in medical settings: an enquiry into work-based learning.