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

Arts, humanities and social sciences
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A seminar itself (as the inert form) is just as likely to stifle discussion and exchange as
promote it. Teaching forms are loose structures that need to be made taut around their
purposes: if the aim of the seminar is to promote discussion between students on a given
text or topic, then preparation for the seminar must be given proper priority, and the
subsequent arrangement of the seminar requires careful planning to ensure proper
interchange. Large groups, for example, need to be more orchestrated and structured
than smaller groups.
If, on the other hand, the purpose of the seminar is to get students to explore a given
topic, text or document together, then it is important to ensure that they will be in
sufficiently small groups to ensure that their collective explorations are truly beneficial.
There are no slick rules to be adopted here, but there are optima to bear in mind: a cryptic
two-line poem by e e cummings, for example, may be underserved by discussion in pairs;
an extended passage of literary theory, or a complex historical primary document,
however, may be more effectively examined by just two people working together.
Today’s higher education classrooms, with a wider range of mixed-ability students,
many of whom are also from different educational backgrounds, require a far higher
degree of organisation and preparation. Most tutors find that seminars are best served
by a greater structuring of student time outside the classroom, and requirements for
specific forms of preparation. Increasingly, tutors are discovering the advantages of
supplementary forms, such as the virtual seminar, which provides the opportunity for
students to reflect on points in the discussion, read, research and think, before replying.
These synthetic processes, so important in these subjects, can be very well supported by
the new technology. In addition, the virtual seminar can provide confidence-building for
students uncertain of their oral abilities, reducing the performative anxiety that afflicts
the large seminar group. In both respects, virtual seminars can bring benefits to live
seminars, providing a structure for preparation, and an opportunity for shy students to
discover the authenticity and acceptance of their own voices.
Interrogating practice
Bearing specific examples in mind, what might be the group size optima for
particular seminar topics in your discipline, and how might these change in a
typical programme from week to week? How can seminars be organised to
provide sufficient flexibility?
ASSESSMENT
There is perhaps no more contentious area in teaching the arts, humanities and social
sciences than the assessment of students, and no single area, perhaps, that has seen so
much innovation of practice over the past decade (innovations that are being pulled back