PG Cert Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Started the PG Certificate for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education the other week, and today was the first peer learning group meeting. It was interesting to meet the others and hear about the different backgrounds and concerns. The perceived contrasts between Art and Science for example will provide some interesting discussions in my opinion.

The most important thing for me for now is to find a way to log my reflection. It might be this blog, but it may just be an old fashioned sketchbook or notebook. I may yet create another blog, more tailored to the subject.

The other important thing is to decide on some activities and units I will be focussing on, drawing on the MA Design for Digital Media. I have already made some valuable changes to some of the units on there, which may be written up for this assignment. Art & Design has a wealth of interesting teaching modes and delivery methods, I have noticed this on the DCQE workshops I have been attending over the years - a lot of issues about active learning and experiential learning are inherent in Art & Design teaching practice. This came up today in the conversation about the reflective practitioner, which is an essential idea in design education - iterative processes, problem posing and solving, peer critique are part of the design process and also of design education.
Additionally, my own philosophical standpoint could be identified as within the enactive learning camp, where all thought is intrinsically linked to the body and therefore activity and reflection is paramount.

Oh yes, got one of the books out that I said I would have a look at from the reading list - Light & Cox "Learning & Teaching in Higher Education - The Reflective Professional" (the other relevant one was out). On first glance I am not inspired and I might look to bring in other ideas that I find particularly interesting, such as designing learning for complexity and multimodality.