A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

146 ❘
Teaching, supervising, learning
healthy scepticism in some of the ‘holy cows’ that sometimes go unchallenged. Much of
the research evidence in this chapter has come from the author’s own subject discipline
of psychology, but readers are encouraged to check the applicability of these findings by
consulting pedagogical research in their own disciplines and contexts. Many of the HEA
subject centre networks publish their own journals which would be a good starting point,
as are many of the chapters in Part 2 of this book. In this chapter, the reader has also been
encouraged to look at their own beliefs about assessment. In considering assessment
design, the place of learning outcomes, assessment methods and constructive alignment
has been examined as a way of thinking strategically about what and how we want our
students to learn (conceptual change, student focused, or information transmission,
teacher focused?). Feedback, in particular, has been given close attention, since this is key
to helping students learn, yet so often we do not do it as well as we might. In terms of
pedagogical impact, this is quite possibly the area where individual lecturers can have
the greatest effect.
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