Position statement on Research and Practice Led Teaching

campus to see how we can build on existing good practice as well as develop
institutional and discipline based strategies to embed these linkages.
2. What is research/practice-led teaching at Swansea 2 ?
There is a considerable literature on what constitutes research led teaching. 3 These
definitions have been broadly categorised into 4 strands;
1. Research-led curriculum content based around the research interests of staff
2. Research-orientated learning where the curriculum places emphasis on the
process of knowledge acquisition
3. Research-based teaching and learning with the curriculum structured around
inquiry/research based projects
4. Research-informed teaching and learning where the process of learning and
teaching is informed by developments in pedagogic research 4
Student learning will benefit from a combination of these approaches and rather than
prescribing a particular approach across all disciplines it would be preferable to allow
Schools and disciplines to decide upon the best combination of these strands for
their students, staff and research priorities and the appropriate ‘model’ for practicedriven
disciplines.
Across the institution we already have considerable strengths in basing curriculum
content around the research and practice strengths of staff and students benefit from
being in a research-led institution through access to facilities. Therefore it may be
more effective to focus on enabling disciplines to develop research-orientated and
research-based initiatives. Some examples of these are given in Section 5.
As acknowledged earlier, there are exemplars of practice-driven teaching at
Swansea which reflect the increasingly vocational nature of the subject provision.
With the external pressures on HEIs to respond to the government’s skills agenda,
such practice-driven exemplars are highly relevant to promote the employability of
our graduates.
3. Raising awareness and staff buy-in in research/practice-led teaching
If research/practice-led teaching is to be a/the distinguishing feature of our approach
to Learning and Teaching and form a major part of the Learning, Teaching and
Assessment Strategy there needs to be significant buy-in and commitment from staff
across the institution. In order to achieve this buy-in we should enable staff to
contribute to setting the agenda. Debate and discussion on research/practice-led
teaching across the University should be initiated through a series of events across
the Institution discussing our approach to research/practice-led teaching.
This process has already commenced with a visit from Professor Jenkins from the
HEA. Following this awareness of the subject should be raised through University,
Faculty and School level committees.
After this it is suggested that a flagship half-day event on research/practice-led
teaching be held. The purpose of this would be to further raise the profile of the
2
The term also includes practice-driven teaching but for the purposes of brevity, only research-led teaching will be
used in this document
3 For more information see the HEA website or the publications by Jenkins and Healey in the further reading section
4 Jenkins and Healey, Institutional strategies, p21
2