About Bucks Learning & Teaching
Professor Shân Wareing, Pro Vice Chancellor Learning and Teaching at Bucks New University, is developing a University Strategy for Learning and Teaching 2013-2018, in consultation with the Bucks community.
Bucks Learning & Teaching Description
In 2012 Bucks appointed a Pro Vice Chancellor Learning and Teaching, to provide leadership in this important area of the University’s work. In consultation with the Bucks community, the new PVC, Professor Shân Wareing, is developing a University Strategy for Learning and Teaching 2013-2018 which focuses on staff development, better systems, employability and enterprise, and engagement.
We hope all our students, staff and external partners will join in building a new Bucks approach to learning and teaching. Our aim is to prioritise the enhancement of opportunities which will allow students to achieve their academic potential, for all those who seek it to find work or improve their career chances, and for all our students to develop their skills of leadership.
As part of this strategic approach, there will be opportunities for staff development, to learn new skills, to take part in projects, to share experiences, solutions and achievements with others, to present at conferences, to attend events, to participate in consultations, to improve what you are already doing, and to adopt new approaches to learning and teaching.
Why are we changing our approach to learning and teaching?
• Preparing students for work and leadership, as well as discipline expertise, are recognised as good outcomes from higher education – and the purpose of Bucks.
• Co-creation, student engagement, student agency and active learning are big ideas of the last ten years – let’s harness them!
• Technology has dramatically changed what we can do, and where and when we do it. Our courses need to recognise and employ the rapidly advancing developments in technology.
• We recognise that ethnicity, gender and social background statistically affect degree classifications and it is vital that we work to address this injustice.
• 30 years of research gives us a lot of information about effective teaching and how people learn which wasn’t available to our own lecturers.
• Our grandchildren will thank us for taking sustainability in all university curricula seriously.
For all these reasons, and despite uncertainty around the impact of funding changes, this is a great time in Higher Education - a time for experimentation, of possibilities, when old hierarchies and certainties can be challenged and overturned, when agendas of social justice have increasing traction and when fortune will favour the brave. Working together on making Bucks a place that is recognised for its excellent and progressive teaching and learning will be worthwhile, feasible and fun.