Before the lesson we were asked to read the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and then complete a quiz afterward. The TEF is a framework that universities and colleges can participate in to gain either gold, silver or bronze ranking. The ranking will determine if a university can raise its fees in line with inflation.
Universities are measured across three areas: teaching quality, learning environment and student outcomes and learning gain.
- Gold: “provision is consistently outstanding and of the highest quality found in the UK Higher Education sector”
- Silver: “provision is of high quality, and significantly and consistently exceeds the baseline quality threshold expected of UK Higher Education”
- Bronze: “provision is of satisfactory quality”
The TEF has caused controversy as the way it is measured is not necessarily fair, with many of the top UK universities coming out silver or bronze.
Dr Vanessa Cui a Research Fellow at Birmingham City University Centre for the Study of Practice and Culture in Education argues in her blog ‘that in practice the TEF has largely failed to engage with educators and as such it will struggle to function in the way it was intended, to spur innovation and improvement in university teaching.‘
Sir Christopher Snowden, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton, expressed deep concerns about the TEF “I know I am not alone in having deep concerns about its subjective assessment, its lack of transparency and with different benchmarks for each institution, removing any sense of equity and equality of assessment.”
I think in our quiz Lindsay was making this point when she asked the question Persuade me! One student gained an extra mark for commenting on Lindsay’s hair! This question demonstrated that the questions being asked by the TEF assessment are not necessarily related or relevant to the teaching and learning!
We also had to read a chapter from a book by a modern feminist philosopher called Monica Vilhauer. She builds on the ideas of the 20th Century German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer to discuss how we engage with, understand and play with works and forms of art.
This chapter resonated with us all due to the ‘to and fro’ game of play when teaching. You have to have a two-way journey for the teaching to work. Learning is enriched by others experiences not just our own. I love the idea of it being like a ball being thrown, that was a a very visual way of understanding for me. If no one catches the ball and returns it, the game stops. It is the same in teaching and learning, both sides have to be engaged.
‘Play is less of a thing a person does, and more of a thing done to them – or, better, an event in which one becomes caught-up. “All playing is a being-played… the game masters the players”.’ ( Vilhauer, M. 2017)
We had a class discussion about this and it was great to hear others thoughts. One of my peers in the group said ‘ you’re part of the system so anything thrown at you somewhat originates with you. We are all connected through our interactions.‘ I think what I took from this is that everyone need to be ‘active’ in the learning for the learning to work, there is an energy and force at play. That growth comes from being receptive.
For this to work , ‘play’ or ‘to and fro’, both parties need to engage, but we need to also consider that this is not always easy to create in a lesson. As not everyone engages/participates in the lesson in the same way.
To me play is the interaction between the tutor and the students. It is for me to create a space that can facilitate conversation and this can create further knowledge for the students. Depending on the interaction or conversation my role can sometimes be more in the background. For example, in my practical workshops, students need to work together and collaborate. This is where ‘play’ works between the students by sharing their knowledge to support their peers. This reconfirms what they know, fill gaps in their knowledge and build on their teamwork.
We also discussed the physical games Lindsay had used in her workshops. Since doing this workshop I have created a ‘game’ in my teaching. This allowed the students to have ownership of what they brought to the lesson but showed that everyones engagement in the game had to take place for the game to work. For the students this broke down barriers of preconceived ideas of each-other and created a space where ‘play’ could take place. This enabled them to learn and develop skills in problem solving, interaction, creativity, teamwork and good sportsmanship. At the end of the session we related this to the work we had been doing regarding contributor and interviews. When making programmes never presume or have preconceived ideas of their contributors. Be open minded and you might be surprised by what you learn.
I think this session definitely helped with team building, something I think is important for not only the students but for my relationship with them. It created an equal safe space.
Moving Forwards.
From these and other sessions I have seen that by giving work before the lesson there is more time for the deeper learning to take place in the lesson. I have read a lot about the theory of flipped learning ( AdvanceHE, O’Flaherty and Phillips 2015)
This way of teaching allows “students (to) acquire knowledge before the class and (then) use classroom time to practice and apply concepts and ideas through interaction with peers and teachers.” (Source AdvanceHE).