Hi again.

I’d like to follow up on my post last week with a question on different but related topic.

One of the issues which views are being sought on is ‘teaching and the student experience’.

What are your views on how the countries higher education institutes are responding to your expectations and educational needs?

I’m interested in hearing what you think about this issue (either by replying to this post or by going to the blog we have running on this: http://hedebate.jiscinvolve.org/teaching-and-student-experience/).

Thanks.

Sorry, but I find this question a bit vague. What is it that you want to know, exactly? Are you talking about taught research methods courses? Are you talking about tutorials with supervisors? In terms of HE and PhD... at the end of the day, there's not much teaching... it's a case of how you manage your ideas and how you are guided along the way, surely?

Hi.

The questions have been set broadly so as not to limit scope of replies.

Where this is coming from is an understanding that the student experience and point of view has increasingly become a more prominent part of policy making (e.g. the National Student Survey and the Student Forum).

This has led to considering how higher education institutions (HEI) are responding to information from students about their educational and learning experience and needs.

This can be in relation to taught courses or to PdD’s where there is less teaching involved. It can also be about student engagement, student preparedness, flexible teaching, student expectations, etc. There is no set list.
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We are undertaking this exercise with a view to assessing what are the main challenges for the future in maintaining and improving the quality of student experiences in HEIs and to figuring out how to respond to those challenges.

The idea behind this posting is to ask you what your experience are and have been and to use your views to inform thinking in response.

I hope this helps clarify things?

I’m also still not entirely sure what you’re exactly wanting to know here, but I’d like to make a few points that I believe you should raise or consider in your assessment:

First, the vast majority PhDs don’t receive any teaching (I exclude professional PhDs here), so our expectations and thoughts about teaching are relatively redundant. Personally, I would like to see a teaching element being introduced to PhD programmes – more akin to the PhD model found in the US.

Second, you mention public policy and, in particular, the National Student Survey. This policy initiative is a joke (as I’m sure you’re aware after the debarcle that arose from Kingston University some months back). This MUST change - it's a silly, bureaucratic survey, that is now open to abuse.

Third, in many respects, I find that students’ expectations of teaching(with respect to quality and quantity) are too high. I'm sure many believe that an academics job is merely to lecture and direct seminars - unknown to them, the main concern is research.

I'd agree that undergraduates are unrealistic in their expectations. Unfortunately being able to resit exams over and over again at A-level without consequences, teachers all but rewriting coursework in the name of 'feedback' and that they are used to mark schemes that reward conformity rather than originality, means that they are not well-prepared for university. Unless the government is prepared to spend a hell of a lot more on universities, we don't have the staff-student ratio to replicate a school environment nor would there be much enthusiasm for lowering standards in that way, even though it's what students want. Basically a good university experience for many of the students I've taught, would involve having model exam answers dictated to them to learn by heart and the complete redrafting of all their essays so that they could all get firsts in exactly the same way that they got As at A-level. It isn't though what a university education is meant to be about.

Another issue I'd like to raise with respect to teaching quality and expectations is the rather sensitive matter concerning the communication skills of lecturers. From both personal experience, and from feedback from fellow students, I have found that some lecturers have a sub-standard grasp of the English Language when delivering a lecture, and consequently, the quality of teaching is poor as the student audience cannot fully disseminate the information they are presented with.

Notably, my personal experience of this problem, and the feedback of other students, all derive from postgraduate programmes at Russell Group universities.

I agree with your thoughts, bewildered.

I find many undergrads and international postgrad students fail to realise (thanks to the university's failure to explain) that British HE is about a pro-active, self-learning experience (supported by lectures and seminars), rather than the passive-receptive learning environment that one receives during A Level study, or in the teaching environments of some other countries.