Teaching styles in UK higher education

Many new undergraduates are initially anxious about their abilities to “write”, “study” and “learn” in an appropriate way for higher education. They therefore need structured support and encouragement in order to come to terms with their higher education environment and their understanding of their own personal learning styles.

Traditionally, teaching in UK higher education takes place through lectures. Lectures are commonly used in the majority of university courses and are timetabled to last one, or sometimes two hours. Lectures, depending on the discipline, are attended by large numbers of students, as many as 400-500 students in some schools, but more usually 100-150 students in most subjects.

The purpose of the lecture is to communicate effectively key concepts, information and viewpoints to students to motivate their interest and understanding. Many lecturers see the lecture as a place to provide students with an overview of the subject and a framework in which to structure and organise their thoughts and their private study. Lecturers select and organise material so that it is accessible to the level and ability of their students. They then seek to explain it clearly using a range of audio and visual learning aids.

In style the lecturer is aiming to be relaxed but professional, enthusiastic but organised, assured and yet approachable. Maintaining eye contact, modulating one’s voice and avoiding reading from scripts or slides is important. In recent years lectures have become more interactive; lecturers expect students to play a much more active role and thus use brainstorming initiating discussion. Students are allowed to interrupt with questions.

Workshops. The defining feature of a workshop is that it involves student participation and activity – it revolves around students “doing things”. The learning activities are frequently carried out in small groups and will involve discussion and debate. The varied learning tasks are usually punctuated by inputs and plenary discussions led by the tutor or facilitator.

The purpose of workshops is to develop a range of skills, to challenge attitudes, to apply knowledge and to share experiences and views. It is a form of teaching and learning which benefits from having a mixed ability and mixed experienced group of students and aims to allow students to learn from each other and share views and approaches.

So workshops are extended small group teaching sessions, often lasting a whole morning or even a day and involving about 15-30 students. They consist of a series of learning activities embedded in a timetabled schedule and framework which are designed to help students achieve both skills and knowledge-based learning outcomes. Outcomes are also often focused on more nebulous areas of development such as growing confidence and empowering students to take the initiative etc. This may well involve challenging students to work in different ways and outside their “comfort zone”.

Workshops are often used to develop team working abilities and to nurture creativity and lateral thinking so common learning tasks may include problem-solving case studies, mini-research tasks and presentations.

Seminars are commonly used in many disciplines but are very significant in the arts and social sciences. They are usually one hour in length but maybe longer. Student numbers are kept low in seminars (typically 15-25 students in seminars, maybe lower in tutorials) or larger cohorts are divided into small working groups of about five students per group. For larger year cohorts of students it is often necessary to run parallel seminar sessions with a team of tutors. A challenge for course leaders in this situation is to ensure parity and some degree of consistency of experience for the students. In some instances tutors will be provided with set readings, questions and tasks by the coordinating course leader – so that each tutor will be asked to lead the seminar in the same way.

A common type of seminar in the UK is the “student-led” seminar in which a student or students are asked to prepare and lead a seminar on a designated topic. In rotation the students will share the role of seminar leader and be responsible for introducing the key features of the topic to be studied before facilitating a discussion between their classmates. It is very likely that students will need quite a lot of support and clear guidance to do this. Some tutors divide the two roles and give the responsibility of leading a seminar to a pair of students. In such circumstances one student would take the role as the “presenter” whilst the second would take the role as the “facilitator or discussant”.

Personal tutorials. The vast majority of UK undergraduate students are assigned a personal or a pastoral tutor who will keep this role until the student graduates. The role of a personal tutor is to:

· Provide personal support and general academic guidance to the student.

· Act as a gateway to a wide range of personal support services at the university.

· Be the first point of contact should any issues arise.

An important function of the personal tutor system is to provide the students with a first point of contact if they experience any personal or academic difficulties during their studies. To assist the development of the tutoring relationship, students are often required to meet each term or semester with their tutors and to give form and substance to these meetings, many universities ask personal tutors to carry out a range of administrative and personal development planning activities with their students.

Practical or laboratory classes. In the majority of undergraduate programmes taught in the sciences, engineering and medical disciplines students will be required to undertake practical work. Indeed such teaching may contribute a significant proportion of the taught component of the course and account for the majority of a student’s contact time with staff.

The underpinning educational theory for practical work is that of experiential learning or “learning by and through doing”. So a key belief is that the students need to have experience of carrying out learning tasks and then reflecting on them critically. The “writing-up” or reporting of practical work is therefore very important. Students are frequently guided to critique their work and propose improvements on the approaches they took and the results they achieved.

Depending on the discipline practical sessions may run over a whole day or half a day and be supervised by academic staff, laboratory technicians and postgraduate demonstrators. This teaching team is responsible for the effective and safe study of the students.