Dr Steve Draper
Rolling with the changes
'I don't think styles of learning have changed so very much over the years,' says Dr Steve Draper, College of Social Sciences.
'A lot of people claim that students learn differently these days, that they are using social media more and teaching must adapt to this; but if you read Cardinal Newman's work The Idea of a University, which details the point of a university education and is 150 years old, one of the things that strikes you is how many of his theories have a relevance to them today.
'One of the things that he highlights as being of significance is having people to talk to who aren't the professors! He even says if he were forced to choose between an education made up of "professors and exams", or only of peer-to-peer discussion, he would choose the latter. And that's what I've tried to promote through my work with Peer Assisted Learning, for example, or the jigsaw classroom project.'
Over the years, Steve has researched new teaching and learning methods, work that has led to the introduction of several new techniques designed to promote active learning within the student body. The Peer Assisted Learning, or PAL, scheme is one example of this.
One theory behind the PAL system, which has been introduced to a number of courses, is to put younger students in contact with more experienced 'mentor' figures who can see them on a one-to-one basis and address any individual problems they may be having.
'Of course there's an element of filling in the gaps for students who are simply missing a piece of information, but equally valuable is just having someone who has been there and done it to reassure students that everyone else isn't ahead of them, they are all going in the right direction and have all the elements they need.'
One of Steve's more recent triumphs is the jigsaw classroom experiment, which involves dividing the class into small groups and getting them to produce learning materials for the other groups.
'The coursework was to produce a wikipage or webpage which would help the rest of the class learn their topic. I don't think a lot of the students thought that they would use it, but I think they were all quite surprised at how useful it turned out to be; it was about teaching them how to organise and present their work and how to write in a different way.'
'It's important to roll with change. People get used to a certain way of being and see anything different as bad. So, although I said that I don't perceive a lot of change at the University, I expect it has, it's just not as perceptible if you're learning and adapting at the same time.'
'Although I said that I don't perceive a lot has changed at the University, I expect it has, it's just not as perceptible if you're learning and adapting at the same time.'
(The above article first appeared in Campus News Issue 14)