Curriculum 2016 Briefing Note B: Developing
Disciplinary Pedagogies
Dr. Elizabeth Cleaver, Learning Enhancement & Academic Practice (LEAP)
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Introduction
As part of the Curriculum 2016 Change Programme the University of Hull is drawing on,
adapting and synthesising the insights of a number of existing theoretical and conceptual
frameworks for, and empirically-informed approaches to, curriculum design and teaching,
learning and assessment. Together these create a unique model and framework for
curriculum and pedagogic design at Hull.
This briefing document provides further information on Disciplinary Pedagogies 1 and why
they are so important for the success of Curriculum 2016 at Hull. It forms one in a series of
briefing documents which, together with LEAP facilitated curriculum development sessions,
will support programme portfolio teams to consider and actively design the content of their
curriculum and teaching, learning and assessment approaches and practices.
Four key principles underpin this approach to Curriculum and Pedagogic Design:
a) Thinking outside of the module-box: prioritising coherent programme-level curriculum
design over individual module developments;
b) Involving a range of stakeholders: engaging students, staff (from both relevant academic
areas and a range of service areas) employers and professional, statutory and regulatory
bodies in programme-level curriculum design;
c) Making the implicit explicit: developing a shared understanding amongst curriculum
creators and users - teachers and learners - about how and why the curriculum and
associated approaches to teaching, learning and assessment are actively designed to
promote student learning;
d) Starting From the Discipline2: understanding how the epistemic3 and cultural beliefs of
the discipline form an important starting point for curriculum and pedagogic design.
1
Pedagogy is used here to describe both the approaches we take in teaching our subject and the ways in which
we support and encourage students to learn it.
2
In the Curriculum 2016 Briefing Note series, Discipline is used as shorthand to describe the subject areas or
areas of practice that are fundamental to each degree programme; we recognise that many degree
programmes do not draw on a discrete discipline per se, but reflect a field of study or area of practice which
itself draws on a range of disciplinary and practice-based knowledge and understandings.
3
The term Episteme is used to describe particular understandings and perceptions of what ‘knowledge’ is, how
it is created and how it is best communicated. We acknowledge that these understandings and perceptions
may differ across and even within each programme of study. However, it is expected that the core disciplines
and areas of practice that underpin each programme of study will play a key role in formulating each area’s
understanding of knowledge (their epistemic starting points).
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It is the last of the four points above – Starting from the Discipline - that is particularly
pertinent to this Briefing Note and which is explored in greater detail below.
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Starting from the Discipline
Figure 1 outlines the relationship of our discipline to our research focus and methodologies
and to our teaching focus and pedagogies. This may seem self-evident - of course the discipline
is at the heart of everything we do! - but what this particular model can help us to understand
is how connections between our research and teaching can go beyond the models and
assumptions that currently dominate. Research-teaching linkages have now largely come to
reflect a one-way relationship: from research to teaching. This one-way relationship has been
exemplified recently in a Russell Group publication A Passion for Learning (2014) which
reaffirms the idea that students in certain institutions will benefit not only from the reproduction of
the latest research findings in the curriculum (the research-led specialist module), but also
from a training in research methods (the research-oriented methods module), and a focus on
‘doing research’ (the enquiry or research-engaged approach to curriculum or sessional
design). However, while the discipline remains implicit in this approach, it does so through the
medium of research in the first instance.
The approach advocated in this Briefing Note asks us to revisit the disciplinary origins of our
teaching and students’ learning and to show how these, in addition to our research practices,
are fundamentally influenced by the epistemic beliefs, cultures and norms of our disciplines.
It is important to note that we are not suggesting that students should not be taught about
and have opportunities to undertake research. What we are advocating is that our teaching
practices and our understandings of students’ learning should be influenced by, and in turn
should influence the discipline, in the same way that that research practice (and the
production of new knowledge and understanding) is both influenced by and influences its
discipline(s).
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What are Disciplinary Pedagogies?
If we recognise that the very essence of the discipline is central not only the content of our
teaching, but also its pedagogy, we can begin explicitly to acknowledge, identify and develop
disciplinary pedagogies. These are likely to build on disciplinary ‘ways of thinking and
practising’; viz. the thinking processes and discipline or subject-specific skills that staff are
seeking to support students to develop and which resonate with related research
methodologies. The concept of disciplinary ‘ways of thinking and practising’ (Hounsell et al,
2005) arose out of the Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses
research project that formed part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Teaching and
Learning Research Programme (ESRC TLRP). In brief, the project highlighted the importance
of developing not just students’ ways of thinking in the subject but also their ways of going
about it or ‘doing it’ like an established subject practitioner. This includes conventions and
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practices for communicating, subject-related skills and salient values and attitudes (Hounsell
et al, 2005, pp.5-6).
Figure 1: Connecting Research and Teaching through the Discipline
The epistemic
beliefs/cultures
and norms of the
discipline
What we research
How we research it:
methodology
What we teach and
what students
learn
How we teach it and
how students learn it:
pedagogy
But how is it best to teach such ways of thinking and practising? Initial work in this area,
undertaken in relation to professional education argued that the very modes and approaches
– the signature pedagogies - of teaching are key to ‘professional preparation’ (Shulman, 2005).
In recent years this concept of ‘signature pedagogies’ has been extended beyond the
professions, to explore methods of teaching that are appropriate to a range of subjects and
disciplines. The resulting texts explore best practice in developing ‘disciplinary habits of mind’
in our students across a range of pure and applied disciplinary areas (see Gurung et al. 2009;
Chick et al. 2012).
It is in bringing together the insights from work on ‘ways of thinking and practising’, the
literature on signature pedagogies and our starting point of the discipline framing our
pedagogic choices and practices in this Briefing Note that helps us to define Disciplinary
Pedagogies at Hull. Disciplinary Pedagogies are thus discipline informed approaches to
teaching and student learning that make explicit the disciplinary provenance of the why (the
method) as well as the what (the content) of teaching.
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What will programme teams be asked to do?
Programme teams will be asked to reflect on the following questions:



What are the key ‘ways of thinking and practising’ that students should have
opportunities to develop during their programme of study?
What modes of teaching are best suited to teaching the ways of thinking, ways of
knowing and ways of doing that characterise my subject area?
What modes of learning should I be supporting my students to become skilled in and
how do these, in turn, affect my teaching?
We are confident that many of the skills and habits of mind that you identify are likely already
to be embedded in the curriculum. However, it is likely that at times this will be implicit and
not easily recognisable for students. We will therefore be tasking you to identify them and to
make them explicit.
We are also confident that they will be able to be mapped to a number of the Hull graduate
attributes. Programme teams will therefore be supported to make explicit to students how
the skills and habits of mind they will learn in the discipline relate to the more generic skills
outlined in the Hull Graduate Profile. This is important if students are to be able to articulate
the benefits of, say, studying history or sports science, to employers. How to make these
connections explicit is explored in greater detail in Briefing Note D of this series: Embedding
Graduate Attributes and Employability in Curriculum Design. Figure 2 below provides a three
stage process to support the development of this approach:
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What support will be available?
Members of the LEAP team are available to work with programme teams to develop
programme curricula, assessment and teaching and learning approaches. A series of
meetings will be planned with each programme team to support them in the development
work outlined in this document. Future versions of this Briefing Note will include examples
taken from implementation and practice from the Curriculum 2016 Pilot Studies.
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References and Further Reading:
Chick, N.L., Haynie, A. and Gurung, R.A.R (eds) (2012) Exploring More Signature Pedagogies:
Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Gurung, R.A.R., Chick, N.L. and Haynie, A. (eds) (2009) Exploring Signature Pedagogies:
Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Hounsell et al, (2005) Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses.
Final Report to the Economic and Social Research Council on TLRP Project L139251099.
[online] http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk//docs/ETLfinalreport.pdf Accessed 11th May 2014.
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Russell Group (2014) A Passion for Learning: the Student Experience at Russell Group
Universities [online]
http://www.russellgroup.org/StudentExperienceatRussellGroupuniversities.pdf Accessed:
9th May 2014.
Shulman, L.S. (2005) ‘Signature pedagogies in the professions’, Daudalus, 134(3), 52–59.
Figure 2: Putting it into Practice
What 'ways of
thinking and
practising' can you
identify in your
disciplinary area?
These may have
already begun to
emerge from team
discussions around
threshold concepts.
How can learning
activities throughout
the programme be
designed to reflect
these ways of
thinking and
practising to offer
students
opportunities for
learning?
C16 Briefing Note B: Developing Disciplinary Pedagogies_Version1
How can formative
and summative
assessment tasks be
designed to confirm
that ways of thinking
and practising have
been developed?
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