‘It’s not what we do, it’s how we do it’

Warren HarrisonTeesside University

Context

Specialist private education provider

Problem-based, experiential learning in groups

Studio-based, 9am-5pm

Pass/fail model (Cert Ed)

Overview of findings

Focus upon learning, not teaching (PBL)

‘More real’

A pedagogy of uncertainty

Induction/enculturation

Learner as teacher

Self-leading & self/peer reflection

Self learning:

‘I think the self awareness, it gives you such selfesteem, and therefore with that you’re able toapproach with confidence and do things foryourself’. (H3)

Self learning:

• ‘I feel the same [referring to H10], I think I used to rely on other people to give me advice a lot , now from some of the methods they’ve taught us I feel like I can

do that myself’. (H2)

Induction/enculturation:

‘…and so I reckon that if we had the Hyper Island Way Week at uni, it would have been so much better and like just understanding the methods of feedback and stuff like that’ (H5)

‘The inductions at university were just soshallow in terms of learning about each other,I mean, you have all of this simulatedbonding, you have the same conversationwith the same person; that is just sort ofbehaviour, there are transactions that wehave, but Hyper cut through all that’ (H3, member checking session)

‘…a lot more emphasis on us as individuals here, whereas at university it was we were students, this is what you will do as students, the syllabus, this is what you will learn. Whereas here they take everyone individually and make you look at yourself and how you learn and what you specifically want to get out of it.’ (H9)

Reflection – a tool, not a task

‘And now all through these projects we’ve tried tokeep that idea of reflection and feedback, andthere has been no one over your shoulder sayingit, it’s more just in me. And I know that in the lastproject that if we hadn’t done a reflection for afew days I was very aware myself, that Oh God, I’vereally got to do that tomorrow, it was like a priority,there was no teacher there…or I didn’t fill out aform or document it’ (H6)

Peer learning:

‘if you’re not in then you are not learning yourself,but that you are preventing other people fromlearning because if you’re not there to maybespeak and up and say something that is maybetotally different to what everyone else thinksthen they are not learning from you; so that theycannot bounce off you, so it was very much thateveryone is meant to be there as a team.’ (H2)

Reflections

Interventions linked to methods?EnculturationAre we using PBL effectively – how do we know?‘learning to learn’ or ‘learning to do’?Reflection as a tool, not a task?Process or product, concept or artefact?