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This paper presents an analysis of the ways in which UK higher education (HE) has become increasingly commercialised and commodified in the post-1980s. It critiques the strategies adopted by successive UK governments to reinvigorate the relationship between educational and economic life, and to facilitate a more corporate and entrepreneurial spirit within the academy in line with the pressures of a 'knowledge-based economy'. Arguing for a more critical exploration of teaching and learning within HE, the paper presents evidence from work carried out by the Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research, a Centre for Excellence in Teaching in Learning (CETL) which adopts a research-based learning approach to teaching and learning at undergraduate level.1 Within the context of ongoing debates surrounding the relationship between teaching, learning and research in UK HE, the paper advocates a reinvention of curriculum design through an engagement with the broader principles of critical pedagogy, and in so doing, presents a critical engagement with the commercialisation of HE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by reviewing some of the different models of third-party observation of university teaching that can be found in the literature. Having analysed these, it argues that - if 'peer' is taken to indicate equality of status - only one is genuinely a model of peer-observation. It proposes an alternative categorisation of third-party observations of teaching dependant on who controls the information generated by the process. A preferred six-dimensional model based on control by the person being observed of the data-flow, and other procedural aspects, is presented and explored. Evaluative comments, by university teachers who have undertaken the process, are presented to illustrate the benefits of adopting this model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the widespread approach to enhancing student learning through separate study skills courses is ineffective, and that the term ‘study skills’ itself has misleading implications, which are counterproductive to learning. The main argument is that learning how to study effectively at university cannot be separated from subject content and the process of learning. The role of ‘study skills’ within universities’ skills frameworks, and as a component of students’ long-term development is discussed. Then, it is examined, with a focus on academic writing, what learning at university entails, and what is needed to support this learning. Finally, effective approaches to the enhancement of learning at university and beyond are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that learning outcomes need to be reclaimed from their current use as devices for monitoring and audit, and returned to their proper use in aiding good teaching and learning. We require a broader, flexible and more realistic understanding of learning outcomes, better suited to the realities of the classroom and of practical use to those teachers who wish to respond to the enthusiasm of their students. To this end, a new model is produced that starts from the idea of an articulated curriculum, and embraces both intended and emergent learning outcomes. The model employs the distinction between predicted and unpredicted learning outcomes, together with the distinction between those that are desirable and those that are undesirable. The resulting account is intended to aid understanding of the nature and proper use of learning outcomes in teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College teachers in the sciences and professional studies have endorsed collaborative learning group strategies for teaching undergraduate statistics courses, but few researchers provide empirical evidence that students' quantitative skills actually increase as a result of the collaborative experience. Assessment of the efficacy of collaborative learning group techniques is frequently subjectively based, and often relies on casual comments from students or faculty. Despite this shortcoming, instructors searching for new and effective ways of teaching quantitative courses continue to experiment with collaborative pedagogy. Consequently, an exploration of the effectiveness of collaborative teaching modalities on students' statistical knowledge seems warranted. This study examined the relationship between performance on collaborative learning group assignments and students' examination scores in statistics. Data were derived from 270 students enrolled in nine sections of a social statistics course, taught between 1996 and 2004. The results both challenge and support the efficacy of collaborative learning groups, and suggest that faculty modify such techniques when evidence of student learning cannot be empirically linked to the collaborative experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This self-study was designed to explore problem-based learning (PBL) as an instructional approach in the contest of a pee-service science education methods course. Through the development and implementation of PBL curriculum, the author's goals were to improve her classroom practice and her understanding of that practice, to contribute to the knowledge base of teaching and learning, and to immerse students in authentic learning experiences that would encourage them to adopt an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. In studying her own practice, the author adopted classroom-based action research as a strategy to explore PBL. Data collection methods and sources included field notes, interviews, and student-generated documents. The author describes how many aspects of her pedagogical content knowledge (conceptions of the purposes for teaching subject matter, knowledge of students' understanding, curricular knowledge, and knowledge of instruction and assessment) and classroom practice were transformed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]