Engaged teaching and learning

Notes from the Engage 2009 session on "Engaged Teaching and Learning".

Characteristics of engaged learning

• It’s an attitude/mindset - can't be taught > has to be learned experientially
• Service learning > rendering a service to a community group
• Informal settings for learning

Examples

• Engaged teaching > Physiology and Pharmacology final year students (became teachers)
• Engaged learning > BA in English Literature and Community Engagement > participation

Why is it important?

• Experience: "Translating the value of education into the rest of their lives"
• Increases through engaged teaching > affects other people's lives
• Deeper understanding of your own subject
• "One of the best ways to learn a subject is to teach it"

Potential at University of Bristol

• Undergraduates are currently involved in outreach
• Formalise as part of their courses > Dissertation?
• Harnessing what you're already doing
• Engaged teaching as a vehicle for skills development > subject-specific

Benefits

• Give courses a unique dimension, something distinctive
• Experiential way to gain transferable skills > employability
• Understanding the value of your work, education and subject > works with vocational and non-vocational courses > broader view
• "Translating the value of education into the rest of their lives"
• Can harness to what you're already doing
• Employee/student satisfaction
• Students reflecting on their educational experiences

Pitfalls/risks

• Going to lose didactic teaching time
• How are people (i.e. future employers) going to know that this has been part of your course?
• Resource implications
• Unclear drivers
• Lack of student interest/acceptance
• Quality assurance
• What does success look like and how do you measure it?
• "Failure" can have far-reaching consequences – for students and for the communities engaged
• Research is valued over teaching, never mind "engaged teaching"