Ten Top Scholarly Learning and Teaching Resources for seminar leaders and lecturers starting out, reflecting

on experience or seeking inspiration Eleanor R. OKell

A really effective short survey book of what you need to know about how students learn, which also provides the kind of hints and tips everyone is looking for when starting out or whenever you run out of ideas or your tried and tested methods dont work with a particular group. G. Gibbs and T. Habeshaw, Preparing to Teach: an introduction to effective teaching in higher education (Bristol, 1989).
At first I was uncertain about the Student Learning section but it was useful because, as I was reminded at the time, academics who teach went on to PG work, so as undergraduate learners we were not normal and therefore we do need to review our understanding in this area in order successfully to teach as wide a demographic as possible.

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Gibbs and Habeshaws book is part of the Interesting Ways to Teach series, which I highly recommend.
An excellent resource for ideas for managing seminars, particularly for getting and keeping discussion going. I use quite a few of these, if in slightly modified form (and there are those that I wouldnt use), but I would never have thought of them on my own and go back to this resource when things arent working and Im looking for inspiration. S. Habeshaw, T. Habeshaw and G. Gibbs, 53 Interesting things to do in your

seminars and tutorials (Bristol, 1984)

Books on lecturing increasingly encourage the use of active learning activities and small-group work in the lecture theatre. While this book does pay some attention to making lectures interactive and including activities (111-140), this book wins hands down for me because it sees the lecture itself as a valuable teaching medium and focuses upon structuring material for and within a lecture with the focus on the lecturer as an instructor/demonstrator and the student receiving information; including relating content structure to note-taking.

G. Gibbs, S. Habeshaw and T. Habeshaw, 53 Interesting things to do in your lectures (Bristol, 1988)

We are increasingly needing to train our students in study skills (note-taking, library-use, essay-writing etc.), formally through specialist classes or by embedding skills within modules or informally through our role as personal tutors. This book is a useful starting point for engaging with the issues and has some excellent nonpatronising activities (e.g. the library quiz and paper-chase) that are readily transferrable to other disciplines and have been designed by practitioners and used with students. This book is what is meant by evidence-based practice.

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This volume reviews all the issues (teaching and administrative) that come with increasing year-group sizes and while it offers no hard and fast solutions it does offer a range of approaches to alleviate the difficulties somewhat and good pedagogical reasons to withstand some of the solutions that might be suggested to you.

S. Habeshaw, G. Gibbs and T. Habeshaw, Problems with large classes (Bristol, 1992)

T. Habeshaw, S. Habeshaw and G. Gibbs, 53 Interesting ways of helping your students to study (Bristol, 1989) 2nd edition
The UK Professional Standards Framework (UK PSF) requires practitioners to reflect upon aspects of their practice and this staff-development handbook for doing group activities based upon the books in the Interesting Ways to Teach series is ideal for showing what that process requires. Thinking the activities through will identify particular aspects of the topics on which you do have an opinion and assist to articulate it.

S. Habeshaw, T. Habeshaw and G. Gibbs, 53 Interesting ways to teach: twelve do-it-yourself staff development exercises (Bristol, 1994)

VARK Learn is an excellent website resource by Neil D. Fleming, Christchurch, New Zealand and Charles C. Bonwell, Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. It outlines the different learning modalities and has advice on how to recognise/utilise them. This is particularly useful if you want to a) assess your own learning style and compensate for your inclinations as part of making your teaching inclusive or b) assist students experiencing difficulties in assimilating information (especially in language-learning or if they have learning difficulties, including dyslexia and dyspraxia). All the materials, including questionnaires (which are still being updated in line with Flemings research), are free for use by academics for academic purposes.

See http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp accessed 02/02/09.

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John Biggs (1999): Teaching for Quality Learning at University: what the student does, (SRHE and Open University Press, Buckingham)

Probably the most cited book by educationalists and staff developers when it comes to accreditation. This valuable book introduces constructive alignment the idea that learning outcomes are the result of considering what the goals of a university course should be in terms of content and ability to use that content and that the learning outcomes should relate to learning activities, which in turn relate to the assessment (see right). The concept lies behind the requirement for courses to have explicit learning objectives and grade criteria. However, it is not the easiest read, so I would recommend (although it is a bit slow paced) Claus Brabrands 19-minute award-winning short-film on Constructive Alignment that it inspired (and that Biggs has endorsed). Claus Brabrand (2006), "Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding": http://www.daimi.au.dk/~brabrand/short-film/, can be watched online for free. Biggs also sets out his own ideas in brief in a Higher Education Academy Briefing Paper
J. Biggs (2003) Aligning Teaching for Constructing Learning, (Imaginative Curriculum Project, LTSN Generic Centre) http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/id477_aligning_teaching_for_constructing_learning

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Claus Brabrand, 2007, Teaching Teaching and Understanding Understanding Powerpoint presentation at http://www.daimi.au.dk/~brabrand/dmlf-2007.ppt has the best diagrammatic representation of Briggs SOLO taxonomy that I have found including expanding the acronym (Structure of the Observed Learning Objective)! The reason why this is important for us is that as discursive subjects we are trying to get our students to show competence at SOLO levels 4 and 5 and Biggs/Brabrand provide vocabulary that may be of use in expressing that, particularly in setting essay and exam questions.