Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Policy Discourses and the Illusion of Best Practice

Description

This book explores the discourses in learning and teaching policy in UK higher education, traces how these ideas are recontextualised at institutional level and reveals the differences between policy discourses and lecturers’ and students’ experiences. The author argues that policy ideas around learning and teaching are not simply value-free ‘best practice’ but reflect the socio-political context of higher education. The study uses an innovative conceptual framework of critical discourse studies (CDS) and Bernstein’s sociology of pedagogy to provide critical lenses to uncover the underlying messages of policy. The book will interest a wide academic audience including anyone involved in higher education globally. Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Learning & Teaching in Higher Education and Why It Matters 1.1 Introduction: Learning & Teaching in Higher Education and Why It Matters 1.2 The Origins of the Study: From What Students Are Doing, to Why 1.3 The Higher Education Landscape—Global and Local 1.3.1 Key Developments in UK1 Higher Education 1.3.2 Organisations Involved in Policy-Making in Higher Education 1.3.2.1 Government Policy-Making 1.3.2.2 Regulating and Funding Higher Education 1.3.2.3 Learning & Teaching in UK Higher Education 1.3.3 Key Features of the ‘Discursive Landscape’ in Higher Education 1.3.3.1 Markets and Marketisation 1.3.3.2 The Purpose of a Higher Education 1.3.3.3 Roles, Identities and Pedagogic Relationships in Higher Education 1.4 The Rise of Learning & Teaching as a Field of Enquiry 1.4.1 Reasons for the Increasing Prominence of Learning & Teaching 1.4.2 Institutional Centres for Learning & Teaching 1.4.3 Teaching Accreditation Schemes 1.5 Aims and Research Questions 1.6 Researcher Positionality: Insider and Outsider Perspective 1.7 Outline of Chapters 1.8 Main Arguments of the Book Notes References 2 Guiding Approaches and Study Design 2.1 Introduction 2.2 How Education Works: Bernstein’s Sociology of Pedagogy 2.2.1 Pedagogic Discourse 2.2.2 The Pedagogic Device 2.2.3 Singulars, Regions and Generic Modes 2.2.4 Visible and Invisible Pedagogies: Performance and Competence Models 2.2.5 Pedagogic Identities 2.3 How Policy Is Viewed in This Study 2.4 Uncovering the Ideological: Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) 2.4.1 Context 2.4.2 Fields of Action 2.4.3 Genre 2.4.4 Text 2.4.5 Discourse; Discourse Topics; Discursive Strategies 2.4.5.1 Discourse Topics 2.4.5.2 Discursive Strategies 2.4.5.3 Macro-Functions and Macro-Strategies 2.4.6 Recontextualisation: Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity 2.5 The Approach to Interviews 2.6 Complementarity of Bernstein and Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) 2.7 Study Setting 2.8 Data Collection and Selection 2.8.1 Student Assignment Texts 2.8.2 Policy Documents 2.8.3 Interviews 2.8.3.1 Students 2.8.3.2 Lecturers 2.8.4 Ethics 2.9 Conclusion Note References 3 Who the Key People Are 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Discourses of Learning & Teaching Policy: The Institution as a Non-Hierarchical Community with Shared Values 3.2.1 Overview of Community 3.2.2 Individual Actors and Their Representation in the Policy Documents 3.2.2.1 Academic Developers 3.2.2.2 Lecturers 3.2.2.3 Students 3.2.3 Partnership and Partnership Learning Communities 3.2.3.1 The Removal of Hierarchies and Working Across Boundaries 3.2.3.2 Partnership Learning Communities 3.2.4 Reasons for the Focus on Community and Partnership 3.2.5 Advance HE Frameworks on People 3.3 Being a Lecturer, Being a Student and Notions of Community: Lecturer and Student Views 3.3.1 Lecturer Views 3.3.1.1 The ‘Good’ Lecturer 3.3.2 Student Views 3.3.2.1 Constructions of ‘The Good Team Member’ 3.3.2.2 Strategies of ‘Singularisation’ 3.3.2.3 Other Notable ‘Opposites’ 3.4 Implications and Discussion: The Consequences of the Focus on Community 3.4.1 Bernstein’s Concept of Pedagogic Identities Within Particular Socio-political Contexts 3.4.2 Implications of the Portrayal of People in Policy Documents Versus the Reality in Universities 3.5 Conclusion References 4 WHAT to Learn and Teach 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Discourses of Learning & Teaching Policy: A University Education as Developing Future-Fit Graduates 4.2.1 A Future-Facing or Twenty-First-Century Education 4.2.2 Added Value 4.2.3 Authentic Tasks and Curriculum 4.2.4 Reflection and Articulation of Learning 4.2.5 Anticipating Resistance to Policy Ideas 4.2.6 Advance HE 2020 Frameworks on ‘What’ to Teach and Learn 4.3 Complex and Diverse Assessment: How It Reflects Discourses and Decisions on Learning & Teaching 4.4 The Issue of ‘Real Life’: Interviews with Students and Lecturers 4.4.1 The Practical-Theoretical Continuum 4.4.1.1 Students’ Views 4.4.1.2 Lecturers’ Views 4.4.2 ‘Practical’: Reflection and Articulation of Learning 4.4.3 Real Life or Not? Attitudes to the Topos of Real Life 4.4.3.1 Those in Favour of ‘Real-Life’ Assessment 4.4.3.2 Scepticism About the ‘Real-Life’ Justification 4.4.3.3 Rejecting the ‘Real-Life’ Premise 4.5 The Issue of ‘Added Value’ 4.6 Implications and Discussion: The Consequences of a Focus on Employability 4.6.1 Bernstein’s View on Different Types of Subjects and the Influences on Curriculum 4.6.2 The Ideological Character of Skills and the Focus on Self-Development 4.6.3 Backgrounding Knowledge and Reducing a University Education to ‘Practice’ 4.7 Conclusion Note References 5 HOW to Learn and Teach 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Discourses of Learning & Teaching Policy: Learning as Socially Situated and Teaching as Facilitation 5.2.1 Creating Absence and Presence: Backgrounding and Foregrounding 5.2.2 Invoking a ‘Paradigm’: Topos of Social Constructivism 5.2.2.1 Learning as Socially Constructed/Situated 5.2.2.2 Knowledge as Socially Constructed/Situated 5.2.2.3 Power as Socially Constructed/Situated 5.2.2.4 Teaching as Facilitation 5.2.3 Invoking Key Education Thinkers: Topos of Authority 5.2.4 Pedagogy as a Process of Continuous Improvement 5.2.5 Advance HE Frameworks on ‘How’ to Teach and Learn 5.3 Time-Consuming, Extensive Support for Students: Interviews with Lecturers 5.3.1 ‘Socially Situated/Socially Constructed Learning’ 5.3.2 ‘Students Contribution to Improving Teaching Quality’ 5.3.3 The Myth of Effortless ‘Facilitation’ 5.4 Implications and Discussion: The Reasons for, and Consequences of, Backgrounding Teaching 5.4.1 Bernstein’s Concepts of Framing, Visible and Invisible Pedagogies, Pedagogic Identities and their Relevance to Policy Constructions and Practice 5.4.1.1 Framing 5.4.1.2 Visible and Invisible Pedagogies and the Notion of Pedagogic Identities 5.4.2 Reasons for, and Consequences of, This Portrayal of Learning and Teaching 5.4.2.1 Reasons for This Vision of Learning and Teaching 5.4.2.2 Consequences of This Portrayal of Learning and Teaching: Alignment with the Underlying Messages and Issues of Equity 5.5 Conclusion References 6 How POLICY Should Be implemented—And Why in that Way 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Discourses of Learning & Teaching Policy: Policy as Embedded in Processes and Practices 6.2.1 Prescription Versus Flexibility 6.2.2 Embedded Versus Bolt-On and Embedded into the Core 6.2.3 Shared Language 6.2.3.1 Explicitness and Articulation 6.3 How Policy Ideas Travel: The Recontextualisation of Policy from Government to Universities 6.3.1 Evolution of HEA Discussion Documents to HEA Frameworks (2012–14) to Advance HE 2020 Framework Guides 6.3.2 Policy Mechanisms and Embedding: Advance HE (HEA) Fellowship Scheme 6.3.3 From National Policy to Institutional Policy, Guidelines and Practices 6.3.4 Discursive Mechanisms of Embedding at the Institutional Level 6.4 Lecturer Views on Learning & Teaching Policy: Its Influence and the People Involved in Disseminating Policy Guidelines 6.4.1 Changes to Teaching and Assessment Practices 6.4.2 People with Learning & Teaching Roles and Their Contribution 6.5 Implications and Discussion: The Consequences of Policy Recontextualisation 6.5.1 A Bernsteinian View of Recontextualisation 6.5.2 Autonomy Versus Compliance 6.6 Conclusion References 7 Conclusions: Why Policy on Learning & Teaching Matters 7.1 Introduction: Why Policy Ideas on Learning & Teaching Matter 7.2 Discourses in the Field of Learning & Teaching: a Summary and What This Reveals 7.2.1 A Summary of Discursive Strategies 7.2.2 Different but Overlapping Discourses: The Myth of an Alternative Discourse? 7.3 How Policy Ideas Move and Change: The Suppression of the Ideological 7.4 Views on the Ground: The Value of Findings from Students and Lecturers and How This Relates to Policy Views 7.5 The Contribution of Social Theory: Bernstein’s Continuing Relevance to an Analysis of Higher Education 7.6 Learning & Teaching in Universities 7.6.1 Academic Development 7.6.2 Learning Design 7.7 Issues of Inequality and Social Justice 7.8 Ways Forward: ‘Prospective Critique’ 7.9 Conclusion References Index