Changing Higher Education: teaching, learning and institutional cultures
Andrew Hannan, Faculty of Arts & Education, University of Plymouth
A paper prepared for the Annual Conference of the
British Educational Research Association
University of Leeds, 13 September 2001
Introduction
Innovation is all around us. We are, we are told, experiencing massive changes reflecting the
impact of new technologies, of globalisation, of a whole new order. Lifelong learning is at the very
centre of this new agenda, as encapsulated in the first paragraph of the introduction to the
consultation paper, The Learning Age (a publication that reflects strongly its publication date and
the millennialism then current):
We are in a new age - the age of information and of global competition. Familiar certainties
and old ways of doing things are disappearing. The types of jobs we do have changed as
have the industries in which we work and the skills they need. At the same time, new
opportunities are opening up as we see the potential of new technologies to change our lives
for the better.
Here the contribution to be made by lifelong learning is identified, in these almost apocalyptic
terms:
We have no choice but to prepare for this new age in which the key to success will be the
continuous education and development of the human mind and imagination. (DfEE, 1998, p
9)
Our institutions of higher education (HE) are experiencing a period where for many they seem close
to a state of 'continuous revolution', at least in terms of internal restructuring, if not with respect to
their methods of teaching and learning. Some universities, or at least some parts of some
universities, are opting to embrace a culture of change to enable themselves to respond flexibly and
rapidly to new demands (Hannan & Silver, 2000). The mania for change is partly driven by
enthusiasm for the new, but very often it is a response to a more basic drive, the fear of losing.
Much of the innovation we are seeing is a defensive response to the perceived threats of competitors
- if we don't change and change rapidly others will thrive at our expense. For HE these 'others' may
be more innovative universities or private enterprises seeking to take our place and, crucially, they
may be from other countries or, indeed, have an international character enabling them to offer
'borderless education' (Bjarnason et al, 2000). The recent proposals for a collaborative e-University
(HEFCE, 2000) are a reaction to this threat, asking UK universities to club together almost as a
cartel, in order to market internationally a nationally branded product, thus minimising competition
amongst themselves and maximising the chances of success globally1.
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It remains to be seen, of course, just how willing erstwhile rivals are to come together in this
manner, especially those institutions which see themselves as ahead of the others and feel they
could be contributing more than they would have to gain through such an enterprise. These
universities might well opt to go it alone or set up their own collaborative networks in the UK and
overseas.
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What does all this mean for methods of teaching and learning in HE? How are universities affected
by the demands for lifelong learning and the imperatives of this new age?
Lifelong learning and universities
One important requirement for lifelong learning is what Knapper & Cropley (2000) call 'vertical
integration' (p 35), ie that educational provision should facilitate learning throughout the life span.
In these terms, lifelong learning is not a synonym for adult education or continuing education, but is
about the whole educational process, including pre-school and compulsory schooling as well as FE
and HE. However, this is not the same as 'lifetime schooling', a prospect that would fill us all with
dread, or at least those who sympathise with the sort of critique Illich (1971) advanced so long ago.
One reason for this is that lifelong learning also embraces the notion of 'horizontal education'
(Knapper & Cropley, 2000, p 37), ie the recognition of the value of experiential, informal or nonformal learning, which, it is argued, needs to be integrated with institutional learning. Lifelong
learning is also intended to open up opportunities to all, to offer learners more control over their
education and to provide for the frequent 're-skilling' that our ever changing economy is held to
require. Although notions of liberal education (Newman, 1976 [1853]), have not entirely
disappeared in this scenario, the prevailing logic is one of technological determinism, response to
the demands of the market place and increased employability. We hear little of the rhetoric of
education for liberation (Freire, 1972) of the kind so powerfully advocated in this poem from
Bertolt Brecht, which presents its own rationale for lifelong learning:
In Praise of Learning
Learn the simplest things.
For those whose moment has come
It is never too late.
Learn the ABC, it's not enough, but
Learn it. Don't let it get you down!
Get on with it! You must Know everything.
You must take over the leadership.
Learn, man in the mad house!
Learn, man in the prison!
Learn, woman in the kitchen!
Learn, sixty-year old!
You must take over the leadership.
Search out the school, you homeless.
Secure yourselves Knowledge, you who are frozen!
You who are starving, grab hold of the book: It's a weapon.
You must take over the leadership.
Don't be ashamed to ask, comrade!
Don't let anything dissuade you.
See for yourself!
What you don't Know yourself
You don't Know.
Check the bill
You've got to pay.
Put your finger on every item
Ask: how did that get there?
You must take over the leadership.
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In terms of the prevailing discourse, however, it would appear that the move to lifelong learning
makes the following demands on HE:

the content of the curriculum and the methods of teaching and learning should meet the needs of
vertical integration, ie facilitating the progression of learners from 'feeder' institutions and
programmes (schools, FE, adult education, access courses, etc) and preparing their graduates for
the continuation of their learning in both formal and non-formal contexts (developing
independent learners who have learnt 'how to learn');

the principle of horizontal integration implies the need for the accreditation of informal or
experiential learning and the permeation of the curriculum and teaching and learning methods in
HE with matters and methods of relevance to the outside world (problem-based learning, workbased learning, employment placements, practical projects, skills that enhance employability,
etc);

HE must become more flexible to allow for learners to study at various stages in their lives to
update their skills and knowledge, which suggests the packaging of parts of programmes
through modularisation, some system of credit accumulation and transfer, the provision of parttime modes and enabling students to learn at a distance (making use of new technologies as
appropriate).
However, universities do not necessarily define these needs as their highest priority. For some
these concerns are peripheral, to be acknowledged and responded to, yes, particularly when there
are financial incentives to do so or it is politically unavoidable, but they are not the core business of
the institution. They have other fish to fry. Such universities see their high research earnings as the
product of a very different approach, an emphasis on the very highest academic quality, on pure
rather than applied science, on the abstract and esoteric rather than the concrete and the practical.
Their courses are mainly traditional in content and delivery, with campus-based students and an air
of elitism. They see their purpose as the induction of the able minority, with an emphasis on the
quality of thinking required, alongside a mastery of an academic discipline and its stock of
knowledge.
A story to illustrate the different approaches. When I was at what was then Birmingham
Polytechnic, I was a member of a 'raiding party' that visited a nearby university with a taught
Masters programme in Education to ask the highly respected professor there for the secrets of its
success. To us the content of his programme seemed highly theoretical and research-oriented. For
us it was a requirement of the validation process to demonstrate that the programme we hoped to
offer had professional relevance to the teachers who would undertake it. When we asked him how
he demonstrated the professional relevance of his MEd his answer was simple; those who
completed it invariably got promotion.
The point here is that the marketability of a qualification is not necessarily related to its content.
For the schools and colleges that employed the teachers who took this course the prestige of the
awarding institution and the level of the award itself were the key considerations. The qualification
obtained indicated the ability of the individual concerned to obtain such a qualification - its content
was of far less relevance.
The sociological critique of schooling has long claimed that it is more about selection and social
control than education (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Dale et al 1976). An important part of this process
is the way that the differentiation of schooling matches the social and economic hierarchies. It is
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possible to argue that we have an HE system in the UK which, despite the best efforts of those who
have extended the university title to include a broader range of institutions and the attempts to
widen access, performs similar functions. The impact of demands for lifelong learning on HE
needs to be seen in relation to such matters, rather than being considered purely in terms of some
utopian wish.
My principal concern here, however, is to examine how universities of various kinds within our
unequal system of HE, have responded to these demands for vertical and horizontal integration and
flexibility, with particular reference to their adoption of new methods of teaching and learning. To
do this I shall make use of some of the findings from an ESRC-funded research project in which I
have recently been involved.
Innovations in Teaching & Learning in HE2
The project
The research Harold Silver, Susan English and I undertook for the Learning Society programme on
'Innovations in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education' (ESRC references L123251071 and
L1231074) examined some of the processes at work in universities responding to factors such as the
increase in the number of students, the recruitment of non-traditional students and the demands for
new sorts of content and pedagogy, all associated with moves towards the creation of a 'learning
society' through the provision of 'lifelong learning'. The first phase of the project (1997-98) focused
on the experiences of innovators, based on 221 interviews at 15 universities that were a balance of
old and new across the UK. The second phase (1998-99) revisited three English and one Scottish
university from the original 15 and added the Open University, to undertake case studies of the
process of change. One hundred and sixteen interviews and six focus group meetings took place.
For the purposes of the research project itself, we decided not to be too demanding in our definition
of ‘innovator’. We were not just looking for mould-breakers who had made global breakthroughs.
We were interested in those who had introduced methods of teaching and learning new to their own
situation, their own course, department or institution. These were planned rather than accidental
changes, designed, but not guaranteed, to improve teaching and learning. We were interested here
in the small as well as the large scale, in one-module innovations as well as those introduced across
an institution or even on a national level, in the unfunded individual initiative as well as nationally
funded projects. We were particularly interested in the learning/teaching interface, in the methods
of teaching and learning, in ‘pedagogy’.
Obviously wider structural changes such as
semesterisation and modularisation were part of this, but our focus was on the mode of delivery
used by tutors and the methods of discovery used by students, the ways of teaching and of learning.
Although we were concerned with curriculum changes and the impact they had on pedagogy, we
were careful not to be diverted from our primary focus on attempts to introduce new methods of
teaching and learning, even though the distinction was not always an easy one to make.
The innovations we looked at in phase one included:




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making use of computers (web, internet, intranet, computer aided learning, computer based
learning, computer mediated communication) for independent and collaborative learning;
teaching and learning intended to develop 'skills' (personal, transferable, key, core,
employability, communication and problem-solving);
team projects, group learning (co-operation and collaboration);
student presentations (individual or group);
For further details visit the project website at: http://www.fae.plym.ac.uk/itlhe.html
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




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interactive seminars or lectures;
work-based learning;
problem-based learning;
resource-based learning (packages, booklets, etc);
distance/open learning;
peer-tutoring, -mentoring and -assessment.
The recent history of innovation
From our review of the literature and our own investigations, we found that over the past half
century there seem to have been three interlocking themes, which have to some extent been
overlapping phases, in the history of innovation within institutions of higher education 3. These
were:

‘individual innovation’ (drawing on the ideas of enthusiasts);

‘guided innovation’ (often supported by institutional funds derived from national programmes
such as Enterprise in Higher Education and somewhat loosely connected to guiding notions
about improving teaching and learning); and,

‘directed innovation’ (driven by institutional imperatives often aimed at maximising returns on
investment in new technologies or promoting more student-centred learning partly for reasons
of efficiency).
It seems that we are now in the age of 'directed innovation', with its associated problems of
management, such as: 



How are practitioners to be convinced of the need to change?
How are the directions of change to be decided and what part do practitioners play in this?
What happens to the individual innovators whose ideas don't fit?
When the senior management of a university decides on a lifelong learning policy or a teaching
and learning strategy that is more than a form of words to release targeted funds, how does it get
its teaching staff to put it into practice?
To answer such questions we need to know more about the motivations of those who introduce new
methods of teaching and learning, and those who choose not to do so.
Reasons for innovation
From our first phase interviews with ‘innovators’ it was apparent how important tutors’ personal
commitment to teaching and to their students was to their individual efforts to innovate. The most
popular reason given for involvement in innovation was to improve student learning. However,
there were many who were obliged to change their methods due to circumstances beyond their
control, particularly an increase in student numbers or a shift in student intake. In general it seems
that innovators will take on extra work, learn new skills, court unpopularity with other staff and take
risks with their own careers so long as they feel that by doing so they can improve the quality of
their teaching, and/or, if they feel that circumstances are such that they have no choice but to depart
from their old methods to cope with new demands (see Hannan, English & Silver, 1999).
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These themes are more fully discussed in Silver, 1999.
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Change in higher education is thus driven by a number of forces including the demands of
employers, government policy initiatives and attempts by ‘teachers’ in universities to meet the
changing needs of students and to reflect the changing nature of their subject matter. But inertia, or
resistance to change, is also heavily supported by a range of factors. For certain institutions the
nature of their intake has remained more or less constant, the demands of employers fairly distant
and the temptations of government advocated reforms generally resistible, despite the necessity of
some token effort. The higher education sector is, of course, highly differentiated, with the obvious
divide between ‘new’ and ‘old’ universities (pre- and post-1992), well illustrated by the league table
of Research Assessment Exercise performance, with a fairly neat division between them in terms of
quality ratings at about the half way point. However, there are also divisions within institutions and
even within departments. Even in the most research-oriented of old universities there are lecturers
who see themselves primarily as having a teaching role and in the most progressive of new
universities, aiming at becoming student-centred learning centres, there are those who strongly
aspire to international levels of research excellence. For many ‘academics’, a term which they
would much prefer to ‘teachers’, their subject remains paramount and their expertise is measured by
their research output rather than the quality of learning experienced by their students. Nevertheless,
one of our second phase case studies was of a research-oriented 'old' university that had developed a
very strong teaching and learning strategy, with a high level of innovation well-supported by
external funding.
Promoters and inhibitors of innovation - institutional cultures
Overall, drawing on both the first phase survey of innovators and the five institutional case studies
of the second phase, we found that Innovation in teaching and learning is most likely to take place when:
a) the innovator feels a degree of security within an understood community or cultural
context, recognises the need for change and has encouragement or support from the head
of department, dean or other person in authority;
b) the institution has a policy establishing parity between research and teaching and
learning, including for purposes of promotion, and the policy is reflected in practice;
c) colleagues and people in authority show an interest in disseminating the outcomes of
innovation;
d) resources are available through the department, an innovations fund or similar fund, and
an educational development or learning support unit.
Innovation is most likely to be obstructed by:
a) low esteem of teaching and learning, compared with research;
b) lack of recognition and interest by colleagues and people in authority;
c) institutional or other policies and action plans laying down firm directions that preclude
individual initiative;
d) excessively bureaucratic procedures for approval, support and resources;
e) quality assessment procedures or other procedures that inhibit risk-taking.
Discussion
To varying extents, then, UK higher education institutions are expanding their number and range of
students, aiming to meet new requirements in terms of the eventual employability of their graduates
and to provide ‘lifelong learning’ for a ‘learning society’. We know that alongside these demands,
other aims for higher education – the development of ‘critical thinking’, education as a means of
empowerment, liberal education – persist, even if they are not currently in vogue. Any changes that
are introduced have to ensure the maintenance if not the raising of ‘quality’ in both teaching and
research, with little hope of extra public funding and with a requirement for continuing ‘efficiency
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gains’. Chief among the various means by which these demands are to be met is the hope that
methods of learning and teaching can be developed and adopted that will meet the needs of more,
and more diverse, students, within resource constraints. Innovations in ‘pedagogy’ are looked for
that will both enhance the quality of the student learning experience and reduce its demands on staff
time, with information and communications technology being widely seen as the means of
achieving this. This is why struggles over the introduction of new methods of learning and teaching
in higher education have assumed such importance.
So, can UK universities respond to the challenge of providing for lifelong learning through flexible
provision and both vertical and horizontal integration? Can their teaching and learning methods be
adapted to meet these needs? The answers must surely be in the positive, but we must be careful
not to be fooled into thinking that all of UK HE will adapt to a similar degree or in a similar
fashion. From this analysis it is to be expected that the differentiation that already typifies our
system, with its in-built inequalities and its prevailing hierarchies, will continue to find expression
in this brave new world.
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