Linking teaching to research in higher education

Professor Mick Healey, Co-Director of the Centre for Active Learning (CeAL), University of Gloucestershire, is in Canberra to talk at the ANU Festival of Teaching. Mick is a geographer who became interested in higher education learning. This morning he met with some of the flexible education designers of the ANU's College and I was invited along. We discussed how in a research orientated university you get staff interested in learning about teaching.

On Friday Mick is conducing a "Linking Research and Teaching Swap Shop". My contribution for the swap shop is: "Blended Learning: Using a Learning Management System Live in the Classroom".

The swap shop will use techniques from Mick's book "Engaging Students in Active Learning: Case Studies in Geography, Environment and Related Disciplines". The full text is available free on the web as a 148 pages, 1.45Mb PDF document (also sold as a printed book):

Active learning

Active learning is about learning by doing (Gibbs, 1988). It involves a student-focused approach (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). There is considerable evidence that well-designed active learning is an effective way of student learning (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 2003). ‘Good practice uses active learning techniques’ (Chickering & Gamson, 1987, 3). However, as Ramsden (2003, 113) notes, ‘Student activity does not itself imply that learning will take place.’ For Gibbs (1988, 9), ‘It is not enough just to do, and neither is it enough just to think. Nor is it enough simply to do and think. Learning from experience must involve linking the doing and the thinking.’ The theory and practice of active learning in geography and environmentally related disciplines has been explored elsewhere by one of the editors of this volume (Healey and Jenkins, 2000; Healey, 2004).

Swap shop

All members of academic staff in the School of Environment were invited to the swap shop, as well as several staff from environmentally-related disciplines in other Schools and the University's Centre for Learning and Teaching. Staff were asked to bring one-side of A4 paper to the session explaining an example of active learning which they practised in their undergraduate or postgraduate teaching (Appendix 1). These were then shared in small groups for the dual purposes of dissemination and peer evaluation. There was about 10 minutes for summarising and discussing each case study. Race’s (2001) ‘ripple model’ of student learning was used as a way to evaluate the practices discussed (Appendix 2). Subsequent electronic discussions refined the ideas to those presented here.

The swap shop proved to be an effective way of engaging staff in discussing and transferring good practices. All the participants who completed feedback forms were positive about the usefulness of the event as an opportunity to share ideas and receive constructive criticism ...

Contents
Foreword by Sir Ron Cooke and Carolyn Roberts ......................... vii
Introduction: Active learning and the swap shop Mick Healey and Jane Roberts ...............................1
Part A - Active learning on the campus
A1 Using a video of a football match to introduce structuration theory
Andrew Bradley and Tim Hall .............................................11
A2 ‘In memoriam’: preparing obituaries on key geographers
Margaret Harrison .............................................................14
A3 The use of a simulated consultancy report as a tool in river/catchment management consultancy training
Lindsey McEwen ...............................................................23
A4 The multiple meanings of heritage
Iain Robertson ..................................................................32
A5 Hazard mitigation practical: predicting a volcanic eruption
Phil Gravestock .................................................................35
A6 ‘The best way to learn is to teach something yourself’: an experiment for teaching fluvial geomorphology and management
David Milan ......................................................................38
A7 ‘Teaching each other’: an example of active learning in a lecture, tutorial or workshop
Mick Healey .......................................................................42
A8 Peer group review in design teaching
Nick Robinson ..................................................................45
iv Geography Discipline Network
A9 Three active learning techniques used when working with trainee science teachers
Keith Ross ........................................................................48

Part B - Developing key skills through active learning
B1 Developing students’ communication skills
Carolyn Roberts ................................................................55
B2 Building mathematical confidence: DIY continents
Mike Fowler ......................................................................59
B3 Student think tanks: predicting and debating the future
John Buswell ....................................................................62
B4 Arguing your case: development issues in the postcolonial world in the 21st century
Margaret Harrison .............................................................65
B5 Engaging students in active online participation
Elisabeth Skinner ................................................................68

Part C - Active learning in the field and the work place
C1 The use of ‘live’ development sites in the teaching of landscape architecture
Brodie McAllister ................................................................77
C2 Self-reflective writing: the use of field journals in studying Holocaust landscapes
Andrew Charlesworth ........................................................81
C3 Active participation in development: the Kaliro Link
project
Jane Roberts ....................................................................86
C4 A digital revival of the art of field sketching
Bob Moore .......................................................................89
Engaging Students in Active Learning v C5 The use of group work and presentations on field trips to facilitate active learning
Richard Harper .................................................................95
C6 Live events: active learning through student planned, organised and run events
John Lannon ....................................................................98
C7 Reflective thinking on the experiences of work placements
Angela Tomkins .............................................................. 101

Part D - Active learning through assessment and evaluation
D1 Using a self-assessment marking checklist
John Hunt ...................................................................... 107
D2 Use of peer and self assessment to distribute group marks among individual team members: ten years’ experience
Mick Healey and Mike Addis ............................................. 116
D3 Getting to grips with assessment criteria
Jane Roberts .................................................................. 122
D4 Active learning techniques to improve student preparation for and performance in examinations: results from a five year trial
Christopher Short ........................................................... 128
D5 Improving examination performance through active engagement of students in a mid-semester peer assessment workshop
Mick Healey and Tim Hall ................................................ 134
D6 Student module evaluation using a participatory technique
James Garo Derounian .................................................... 138

From: Engaging Students in Active Learning: Case Studies in Geography, Environment and Related Disciplines, Edited by Mick Healey and Jane Roberts, School of Environment, University of Gloucestershire, March 2004