I am doing some background reading and starting with “Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Ramsden). Only just in the first few chapters but hitting on things that are worth recording.

Chapter 3 “What students learn” has resonated. To my surprise, the chapter seems quite cynical about student learning in Higher Education. Studies with tutors say how they express disappointment at the lack of depth in the student learning. How the goal of students embracing overall ideas and integrating fundamentals into the way they approach novel challenges and questions within their discipline seems to be elusive. Often, it seems. students absorb and hold on to concrete, practical, and technical skills and methodologies. They learn the specifics required to illustrate proficiency, but the overall understanding of the subject seems absent.

I have to say that I often observe this, to my dismay, in my work with students. I often am amazed, working with third-year performance students in the practical development of their work, how they make statements and put forward creative ideas that seem completely uninformed by the course curriculum through which they have travelled. They often make choices that I would expect from a novice or someone relying only on stereotypes of work in performance. “What have they been doing for the last two and a half years” I wonder. I question whether this is a result of the course structure or perhaps simply low student achievement. This experience really does echo the sentiments in the reading.

I should say that as a technician, I feel one step removed from the learning path of the students I work with. I am there to support their learning and input to what they are already doing. I suspect that I could make a significantly larger contribution to their learning if I had a closer connection to their curriculum and learning path, if I really understood what they ere being taught theoretically. If I understood the expected learning outcomes. Also, if I felt more empowered to intercede and interact with them intellectually in the situations which are very much at the “coal face” of the creative process.

I am optimistic that as I continue reading “Learning To Teach in Higher Education” there will be a transition from the rather cynical chapter 3 to more enlightening discussions of the potential for learning.