Events

Wednesday 14th July 2010: Research informed Teaching, delivering participation, engagement and enquiry, 9.30am-4.45pm.

Over 80 delegates from across the UK attended this very well received event.  Keynote podcasts, notes from rapporteurs, photographs of the event, powerpoint presentations and feedback will all appear here in early September.

Press Release:

Alan Jenkins gave a stark warning against the misguided HE policy of the new coalition government to concentrate research in even fewer institutions.  In his address he argued  that it is utterly counter-productive for some Universities to become teaching only when so much of what is taught in our institutions is based  on the research expertise of academic colleagues and involves students becoming familiar with the research process, whether it be for a literature review, experiment or dissertation. Alan was speaking at the first national Research-informed teaching conference to be held at Staffordshire University which took place on Wednesday 14th July 2010.  Alan is visiting professor and prolific writer on the topic of the research-teaching nexus.   The second keynote, Stuart Hampton-Reeves (University of Central Lancashire) talked about students as “fellow travellers” and how they can become involved in being producers of knowledge (not just consumers) and how the institution recognises this by publishing the work of best quality in the undergraduate journal Diffusion.  Eighty delegates from a variety of HE and FE backgrounds chose from 20 parallel sessions presented by academics, librarians and educational developers.  Topics included: the role of technology supported learning, information literacy, pedagogies and communities of practice  The Feedback from the day was very positive:  “Excellent keynotes”, “This conference  has generated more discussion and interaction across attendees than any other conference in the last ten years”,  “a really valuable day, so much ‘out of the box’ thinking, so many ideas and contacts”, “provoking, stimulating speakers”.

Rapporteur's summaries:

For Stephen Merry's summary visit here (mp3, 4MB)

For Joy Sisley's summary visit here (docx, 652KB)

For Fiona Tweed's summary visit here (doc, 36KB)

Delegate feedback:

A summary of delegate fedback can be found here (doc, 25KB)

Keynote speakers:

Prof Alan Jenkins (Oxford Brookes), title of address: Undergraduate Research for All Students?

Prof Stuart Hampton-Reeves (University of Central Lancashire), title of address: The 21st Century Academic: Implementing Research-informed Teaching

Workshop themes:
Papers and posters addressed the following themes, with an overall focus on Research informed Teaching in higher education:

• Pedagogies for the research-teaching nexus for example, inquiry/ enquiry-based learning
• The student voice in Research informed Teaching
• The role of technology in the research-teaching nexus
• The role of information literacy in the research-teaching nexus
• Reports from Research informed Teaching projects – design and impact
• Fostering communities of practice in Research informed Teaching
• Benchmarking Research informed Teaching

Programme available here (pdf, 652KB).

Presentations

Presenters who have papers accepted for this conference can submit a full article to a special edition of Educationalfutures the journal of the British Education Studies Association (BESA), ISSN: 1758-2199.

The seminar series is for RiT project leaders to showcase their projects, present findings and analyse impact.  (A new series will be announced shortly)

The Research informed Teaching journal club is an informal meeting held once a month in the Dolche Vita, College Road, Stoke Campus.  We usually meet on the second Wednesday of the month.  At the meeting, which generally last about an hour, we discuss a paper of interest which has been circulated beforehand.  This group discuss, in a friendly and supportive manner, issues which emerge from the paper.  All are welcome and we have found that the most interesting discussions have emerged when colleagues from a range of faculties come along.