Nah, G. (2012) Living the discourse of teaching & learning in higher education : participants of the Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in the Creative Arts. (Ed.D thesis), Kingston University, .
Abstract
Studies of teaching and learning in Higher Education in the UK have focussed mainly on the implications of its macro structures and larger systems or, to a lesser extent, the lives of those affected by them at the micro level (Trowler, 2008). These are both legitimate approaches. However, from a sociocultural perspective it is important to consider the relationship between the individual and their context. The complexity and challenge of doing this is cognisant with the postmodern condition (Harvey, 1990) and reflective of doing research in 'new times' (Quicke, 1998). This study was driven by the desire to challenge my beliefs, deepen my knowledge of context and develop my practice as an academic developer. To do this a Cultural Studies theoretical perspective is employed to provide a contextual framework. A methodological bricolage uses discourse analysis to reveal the political and institutional contexts. From the literature reviewed the response of Higher Education to the policy discourse of teaching and learning emerges, a means for comparison of institutional provision is generated and an interview schedule for the research participants is formulated. From the interviews 'portraits' (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman Davis, 1997: Stronach & McLure, 1997) of the research participants' lived experience of the in-house Post Graduate Certificate course are created. They illustrate the concerns and challenges that confront being and belonging in 'new times' and reveal partial, in-between and borderline lived experiences (Bhabha, 1994; Clegg, 2008; Whitchurch, 2008). The importance of the Post Graduate Certificate community emerges as well as the potential for multi-disciplinary professional development spaces to support identity formation and shift. An effective community of this kind has two essential requirements: first, a curriculum that is the antithesis of technicist approaches is necessary to mediate the performative technologies of the discourse of teaching and learning in Higher Education and second, tools that help academic developers acommodate the mutable identities of participants as they grapple with being in 'super complex' times (Barnett, 2008).
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