Conference Programme Final June 12

Learning through Enquiry CETL Alliance Annual Conference 2007
University of Gloucestershire, University of Manchester, University of Reading,

University of Sheffield, University of Surrey and the University of Warwick
Learning for a Complex World:

Facilitating Enquiry
Monday June 25th – Wednesday June 27th 2007

at the University of Surrey, Guildford
Conference Programme
LEARNING THROUGH ENQUIRY ALLIANCE (LTEA)
putting enquiry at the heart of learning for a complex world
Learning through enquiry in work and

other social contexts to solve real world
problems or exploit new opportunities and
challenges as they emerge
C
Level of certainty decreases

H
A
EDGE OF O
CHAOS r S y
e n
RATIONAL q u i
WORLD EDGE OF Enquiry to create a
new sense of order
ORDER from a disordered world
Learning through enquiry
in academic study and
disciplinary research
Level of agreement decreases

Ralph Stacey
Six Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning form the Learning through Enquiry Alliance:
• University of Gloucestershire – Centre for Active Learning
• University of Manchester – Centre for Enquiry Based Learning
• University of Reading – Centre for Applied Undergraduate Research Skills
• University of Sheffield – Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences
• University of Surrey – Centre for Professional Training and Education with enquiry as the unifying
pedagogy connecting the workplace with academic learning
• University of Warwick – Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research
All are committed to working together to advance knowledge and understanding of the field of enquiry learning
with the collective aim of influencing higher education teachers in the UK and beyond and supporting the
continuing development of practice. Our annual conference is one of the ways in which we are using our
resources to facilitate networking and the exchange of knowledge, expertise and innovative practices.
University of Surrey Conference Organising Committee

Dr Andrew Comrie, Centre for Learning Development
Dr Viaos Lappas, Surrey Space Centre
Natacha Thomas, Year 2 Law student
Jane Savidge, Director Library
Juliet McDonnell, Learning to Learn project
Vicki Simpson, Head of E-Learning
Professor Norman Jackson Director SCEPTrE
Dr Jo Tait, Assistant Director SCEPTrE
Clare Dowding, Centre Manager SCEPTrE
Di Whitelock, SCEPTrE
George Prassinos, SCEPTrE
Conference Chair Professor Norman Jackson

Strand Chairs
Disciplinary enquiry / pedagogy : Dr Andrew Comrie, Dr Viaos Lappas, Dr John Creighton
Work as enquiry : Dr Jo Tait , Dr Sybil Coldham, Juliet McDonnell,
Student Voice: Natacha Thomas, Karen O’Rourke
Use of Technology: Vicki Simpson, Sally Anderson, Sabine Little
Learning to Learn Symposium Dr William Hutchings
Contents
page
Learning through Enquiry Alliance
Conference organising committee
Contents 1
Foreword 4
Preparing students for a lifetime of living, working 5

and learning in an increasingly complex world
Learning through Enquiry Centres of Excellence 7

for Teaching and Learning Award 2007
Programme overview 8
Keynote speakers 10
Artists in residence 11
Workshops and scholarly papers 14
Learning to Learn through Supported Enquiry Symposium 18
Facilitating collaborative enquiry master classes 19
Guildford adventure 20
Session descriptions 21
1
Foreword
Dr Liz Beaty,
Director Learning and Teaching HEFCE
Dr Liz Beaty has responsibility for policy on learning and teaching including quality
enhancement, the development of the quality assurance system, and review of
the teaching funding method. Before joining HEFCE IN 2002, Liz was Director of
the Centre for Higher Education Development at Coventry University. She has a
PhD from Surrey University and conducted research into student learning at the
Open University. She worked in educational and management development at
Newcastle Polytechnic, and the University of Brighton and Staff and Educational
Development Association (SEDA), and was co-chair from 1996 to 2000. Her
publications span students' experiences of higher education, experiential and
action learning, and strategies for educational change.
Acknowledging complexity and creative problem solving seem perfect companions in this series of papers
and workshops. To work with students through enquiry based pedagogy one cannot simply add on to
existing course designs, the move required is more fundamental. Learning through enquiry is essentially an
exploration. Learners take different routes using available resources and opportunities managed through a
balance of support and challenge by their teachers. Making such a change to a programme of study takes
courage and conviction and there are increasing numbers of cases where this is working and which can
provide good quality research and evaluation.
In England we are fortunate in having Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning that are building on
excellent practice in this field. Investment of over £315 milliion over a five year period will encourage further
exploration and development of the methods of teaching. It will also help to disseminate and embed new
approaches to teaching across the institutions to which these CETLs belong, allowing more students to
experience learning through enquiry and building a convincing evidence base from practice.
I am thrilled that we are building up communities of practice across the CETL network. Through their own
agency and with support from the Higher Education Academy a number of groups of CETL with “things in
common” whether subject area, region or, as in this case, pedagogy have been meeting and forming
partnerships. The Learning through Enquiry CETL alliance is a successful example of such partnership
working. Through sharing practice the alliance will benefit from stimulated interest, an acceleration of
learning and a spur to dissemination. This multiplier effect to the CETL investment will add a further
advantage to the host institutions and to higher education generally.
The themes of your conference are timely. Sir Sandy Leitch has just published his report into the skill needs
of the country and identified a massive job for higher education in working with employers to develop the
skills base needed for a competitive modern economy. Learning through work will require appropriate
pedagogy and enquiry based learning has a great deal to offer. We understand too little about how to
support effective experiential learning at higher levels and so your CETLs will be influential in forming policy
as well as practice. Higher education has always encouraged independent learning. Developing learning
approaches which encourage student-led activity and promote reflection on practice will promote
transferable skills so necessary for students’ future lives. We live in a more technology enhanced world.
Learning to use technology appropriately, in ways that are life enhancing and supportive of diversity and
inclusiveness, is crucially important to the future of higher education. I am sure that the combined
experience from these Centres of excellence will foster discussion and sharing of innovative ideas and
practice.
I commend your aspirations and look forward to learning from your shared enterprise.
June 2007
2
Preparing students for a lifetime of living, working
and learning in an increasingly complex world
Professor Norman Jackson, Director Surrey Centre for Excellence
in Professional Training and Education
In the run up to the conference Joe Trimmer, one of our keynote speakers, kindly sent me a link to a
film clip called ‘Shift happens’? http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift. The film portrays in a
deliberately provocative way the sort of globally connected, fast changing and uncertain world in
which our students’ futures lie. While we might question some of the statistics in the film the central
message is clear. We live in a world where change is exponential and we are currently helping to
prepare students:
• for jobs that don’t yet exist
• using technologies that have not yet been invented
• in order to solve problems that we don’t know are problems yet.
In short, we have a responsibility to prepare our students for a lifetime of uncertainty, change,
challenge and emergent or self-created opportunity.
It may sound dramatic but the reality is that the majority of our students will have not one but several
careers, they will have to change organizations, roles and identities many times and be part of new
organisations that they help create or existing organisations that they help to transform. Many will
have to invent their own businesses in order to earn an income and or create and juggle a portfolio of
jobs requiring them to maintain several identities simultaneously. Gone are the days where
professionals enter a profession that hardly changes during their career.. just look at medicine if you
want to see professions in a state of radical transformation. Preparing our students for a lifetime of
working, learning and living in uncertain and unpredictable worlds that have yet to be revealed is
perhaps one of the greatest responsibilities and challenges confronting universities all over the world.
Thinking about such things raises different questions to the ones we normally consider when we talk
about employability which tend to focus on what we know and understand now, rather than the sorts
of capability, attitude, thinking and creativity that will enable our students to prosper in an
indeterminate and unknowable future. You might argue that this is an impossible and futile task but
simply grappling with such imponderables can be a useful exercise as through it we might come to
see what we are doing now in a new light.
Preparing students for an increasingly complex world is a ‘wicked problem’ by that I mean that what
emerges from all this technical, informational, social, political and cultural complexity are problems
which cannot be solved through rational, linear problem working processes because the problem
definition and our understanding of it evolve as new possible solutions are invented and implemented.
Wicked problems always occur in a social context. The wickedness of the problem reflects the
diversity among the stakeholders in the problem. Most projects in organizations – and virtually all
technology-related projects these days – are about wicked problems. Features of problem
wickedness include1:
• You don't understand the problem until you have developed a solution. Indeed, there is no definitive
statement of "The Problem." The problem is ill-structured, an evolving set of interlocking issues and
constraints.
• Wicked problems have no stopping rule. Since there is no definitive "The Problem", there is also no
definitive "The Solution." The problem solving process ends when you run out of resources.
• Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong, simply "better," "worse," "good enough," or "not
good enough."
• Every wicked problem is essentially unique and novel. There are so many factors and conditions, all
embedded in a dynamic social context, that no two wicked problems are alike, and the solutions to them
will always be custom designed and fitted.
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation," every attempt has consequences. You
cannot build a motorway to see how it works. This is the "Catch 22" about wicked problems: you can't
1
Rittel, Horst and Melvin Webber (1973) "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning," Policy
Sciences 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing, Amsterdam, pp. 155-159.
3
learn about the problem without trying solutions, but every solution you try is expensive and has lasting
unintended consequences which are likely to spawn new wicked problems.
• Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions. There may be no solutions, or there may be a
host of potential solutions that are devised, and another host that are never even thought of.
Wicked problems emerging from socially complex situations require social learning process for their
resolution. Such problems can only be engaged with through groups of people who care about the
problem enough to work together to solve it. Some of the most complex problems (like global
warming) require sustained social, political and technical effort on a global scale, radical changes in
the way people think and behave across different cultures, and huge investment in new technologies
or the adaptation of existing products and technologies.
Problem wickedness demands tools and methods which create shared understanding and shared
commitment. Above all wicked problems require people who are skilled at building shared
understanding, commitment, ideas and possible solutions through collaborative work/learning
processes, and the confidence and capability to turn their ideas into actions and products.
If we are to develop people who can engage with the problems and opportunities of this uncertain and
rapidly changing world throughout their lives, we need to equip them with the knowledge and
understanding of what already exists, the imagination to see what might exist, the capability to find
out what they need to know in order to turn imaginative ideas into reality and the confidence and
capability to turn their ideas into purposeful and productive action.
The importance of enquiry, particularly collaborative forms of enquiry, as a means of working with
complex problems underlies the work of the six CETLs that form the Learning through Enquiry
alliance. We believe that to equip students for an ever changing, infinitely complex and uncertain
world we need to pay particular attention to the skills of enquiry – the package of critical and creative
thinking skills and behaviours that enable us to find, explore and resolve both academic and real
world problems.
Enquiry is the basis for all research and scholarship in the disciplines but it is also the key learning
process in knowledge–rich, inventive and adaptive work environments. Enquiry connects the
academic and professional or vocational worlds of learning. By studying how people learn through
processes of enquiry, and how higher education teachers support and encourage enquiry-rich
learning, we believe that we can help students develop in ways that will enable them to be even more
successful in their future careers.
This holistic view of enquiry as a way of learning to work with the unknown inspires our vision for the
conference. Our four themes of : discipline enquiry and pedagogy, work as enquiry, student voice and
use of technology to facilitate enquiry provide us with rich and diverse perspectives on the way
teachers, students and practitioners in different professional contexts engage with and experience
In designing our conference we wanted to create opportunities for rich experiences. Our Facilitating
Collaborative Enquiry Master classes are designed to enable participants to observe, experience and
experiment with a range of novel techniques and encouragement to adapt them to their work
contexts. Our specially commissioned ‘Guildford Adventure’ is intended to give people a real
experience of exploring the unknown in self-organised teams and our artists in residence will enhance
our perceptions of learning and enrich our experience through music and visual art. Our hope is that
through the conference, you will be a critical and creative enquirer forming, asking and pursuing your
own questions, searching for answers and new meanings and expanding your understandings and
professional practice through this process.
Finally, CETLs have been established as a policy for recognising and rewarding excellence in
educational practice. In keeping with this ideal the LtEA would like to honour the outstanding
contributions to enquiry learning made by Professor Lewis Elton, who we believe embodies the
educational values, principles, practices and spirit of learning through enquiry.
4
Learning through Enquiry Centres of Excellence
for Teaching and Learning Award 2007
in recognition of outstanding contributions to the educational
values, principles, practices and spirit of learning through enquiry
will be made to Professor Lewis Elton

Visiting Professor of Higher Education, University of Manchester
Honorary Institutional Professor of Higher Education, University College London
Emeritus University Chair of Higher Education, University of Surrey
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Surrey Centre for Excellence in Professional Training and Education
One of the things that CETLs have been set up to do is to celebrate and give public recognition to
people who make excellent contributions to the practice of higher education teaching and learning.
There is an embodied form of excellence which only a few people attain through a lifetime of work,
scholarship and learning. It is this form of embodied excellence that we want to recognize in the life of
Lewis Elton.
The award will be made at the conference dinner.
5
Programme overview
Monday June 25th AC Building
10.00-10.50 Parallel workshops
11.00-1150 Parallel workshops
11.30-13.30 Registration: SCEPTrE Reception 01/AC01
12.00 Finger buffet lunch Wates House
12.45-13.50 Keynote Address AC Lecture Theatre

Learning the Complexity of Professional Practice
Professor Michael Eraut, University of Sussex
14.00-14.50 Parallel workshops
15.00– 15.50 Parallel workshops
16.00 Coffee break: 01AC01 & corridor AC03, AC courtyard if dry
16.30-17.45 Keynote Address AC Lecture Theatre

Facilitating Interdisciplinary Inquiry: an immersive approach
developed by the Virginia Ball Centre for Creative Inquiry
Professor Joe Trimmer, Ball State University, Indiana, USA
WATES HOUSE
18.45 Learning through Enquiry Alliance reception
19.30 Conference dinner

After dinner entertainment:
Kai Janson, SCEPTrE Musician in Residence
Tuesday June 26th AC Building
07.00 Breakfast
09.00 – 09.55 Parallel workshops
Learning to Learn through Supported Enquiry Symposium
M u s i c a s a s t i m u l u s f o r e n q u i r y : a concert pianist's perspective

Emilie Crapoulet, Studio 1 PATS Building
10.00 – 10.55 Parallel workshops & Learning to Learn Symposium
10.55 – 11.15 coffee break 01/AC02, ‘AC courtyard if dry’
11.15 – 12.10 Parallel workshops & Learning to Learn Symposium
12.15 – 12.50 Final plenary session AC Lecture Theatre
13.00 Lunch at Wates House
6
Tuesday June 26th AC Building
14.00 – 17.00 PARALLEL MASTER CLASSES (details in separate programme)
The aim of these sessions is to introduce participants to a range of

techniques and contexts for facilitation that they may not have encountered
before. Participants will be able to observe expert facilitators, experience
some techniques and try the techniques out for themselves. All the sessions
will be supported by a written Guide to Facilitation and parts of the sessions
will be filmed with the intention of creating a wiki to host short film clips of
facilitators in action.
Collaborative, inquisitive and appreciative inquiry

Richard Seel
Creative thinking and problem working

Fred Buining
Exploring with wiki

Maja Jankowska & Mark Gamble
Stand-Up Comedy and the Seminar:

Teaching - An Improviser’s
Kevin McCarron
Making meaning: the art and science of concept mapping

David Hay
Facilitating in the midst of cultural diversity: How does culture

effect how we learn and facilitate learning?
Catharine Slade-Brooking
WATES HOUSE
18.00 Dinner (self-service hot buffet) and introduction to the Guildford
Adventure
19.00 – 22.00 ‘Guildford Adventure’ : team-based experiential enquiry

Devised by Russ Law (SCEPTrE Associate)
Wednesday June 27th AC Building

09.00 – 12.00 PARALLEL MASTER CLASSES as on June 26th
12.10 – 12.45 Concluding plenary AC Lecture Theatre

What have we learnt?
13.00 Lunch Wates House
7
Keynote speakers
Learning the Complexity of Professional Practice
June 25th 13.00 – 13.50
MICHAEL ERAUT is Professor of Education at the Sussex Institute of the
University of Sussex. Michael is the UK’s leading researcher in the field of
professional learning and how professionals learn in work place settings. His
pioneering research has found that most learning occurs informally during
normal working processes and that there is considerable scope for
recognising and enhancing such learning. Professor Eraut’s books include the
highly acclaimed Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence.
Michael’s keynote will focus on the ways in which people learn to become a
professional in their chosen field drawing particularly on the research he has
undertaken in the fields of nursing, accountancy and engineering. He will pay
particular attention to the role of enquiry and the ways in which learning is
facilitated in the process of professional formation. He will also consider how
enquiry features in tackling professional problems with a view to promoting
discussion on higher education’s role in developing the capabilities and
attitudes necessary to master the complexities of professional practice.
Facilitating Interdisciplinary Inquiry: an immersive

approach developed by the Virginia Ball Centre for
Creative Inquiry
June 25th 16.30 – 17.45
JOSEPH TRIMMER is Professor of English and Director of The Virginia B.
Ball Centre for Creative Inquiry at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
The author of numerous articles on literature, culture and literacy, Professor
Trimmer’s books include The National Book Award for Fiction: The First
Twenty-five Years [1978]; Understanding Others: Cultural and Cross-Cultural
Studies and the Teaching of Literature [1992]; and Narration As Knowledge:
Tales of the Teaching Life [1997]. His textbooks include Writing With a
Purpose, 14th edition [2004]; The Riverside Reader 9th edition [2007];
eFICTIONS [2002]; and Sundance Introduction to Literature[2007]. Professor
Trimmer has also worked on twenty documentary films for PBS—including the
six-part series, Middletown [1982], which was nominated for ten Emmys and
won first prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Joe’s interactive keynote will describe and draw lessons from the approach that has been developed
and pioneered at the Virginia Ball Centre for Creative Inquiry. The Centre sponsors four interdisciplinary,
collaborative, community based seminars each year that enable faculty and students to work
collaboratively to:
• explore the connections among the arts, humanities, science and technology,
• create a product to illustrate their collaborative research and interdisciplinary study
• present their product to the community in a public forum
Four faculty members are chosen – two in the autumn and two in the spring – to facilitate the seminars
and fifteen students are selected by application or audition to participate in each seminar. Working with a
community sponsor, each group creates a product [e.g. an exhibit, performance or publication] to
engage the community in public dialogue. Each group is supported with a budget of $15,000. The
Centre provides a summer stipend to enable faculty to prepare for their seminar and covers the cost of a
semester's ‘leave’ for the four fellows to facilitate their seminars.
8
Artists in residence
SCEPTrE’s artists in residence add creative and artistic vitality to our work and play. They help us
engage colleagues in new and exciting ways and help us communicate our work more imaginatively
and creatively. They are helping us connect the worlds of art and science, of emotion and reasoning
and helping us explore how creativity and criticality co-exist in any enquiring process.
Kai Jansen http://www.kaijansen.co.uk/
Kai is a talented musician, singer/song writer/poet. You

can hear some of his music on his web site.
He will be providing a musical contribution to our

conference reception and dinner and who knows what
might happen beyond this?
Aser
Closer than a Tear
A birthday is a strange affair, which some will love or fear,

The hopes and dreams come round again and some may stop off here,
And when all celebrations cease, the wine and every beer,
Will leave a stale reminder of the old and passed on year,
And if these have not fulfilled your time, the question poses near,
Just why we humans count the time at all seems strangely queer,
For in this moment now, behold the thing that you hold dear,
As all that we can ever have is closer than a tear…
K Jansen 2002
9
Music as a stimulus for enquiry: a concert pianist's perspective
Emilie Crapoulet, Department of Music, University of Surrey
Assisted by Dr David Hay, Kings College, London University
Tuesday, June 26th 9.30-11.00, Performing Arts Building Studio 1.
A musical experience combining recital with enquiry-rich conversation and concept

mapping in order to visualise the collective consciousness
Emilie was born in Aix-en-Provence and has dual nationality

French/British. Her interests in music and literature have led her to
investigate the nature of artistic communication and meaning. She
studied the piano in France and was awarded several prizes
before going to the Conservatorium of music in Sydney, Australia
and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, where she
was awarded a Master of Music degree in 2001 and a
Postgraduate Diploma in Music Performance in 2002. She also
has an M.A. in English Language and Literature on Shakespeare
from the Université de Provence (France) where she is now
writing, in collaboration with the University of Surrey, her PhD on
music in the works of Virginia Woolf. She has given many piano
recitals in Europe, Australia and the United States, both as a
soloist and a member of chamber or orchestral ensembles. She
has also brought the arts together in lecture- recitals on music and
literature and collaborative cross-art creations.
Artistic performance provides a particularly rich experiential context for enquiry that taps the emotional
(affective) as well as the analytical cognitive domain. Above all it stimulates our imaginations which
traverse, connect and play with all of our mental responses and capabilities.
This musical recital will be suffused with engaging and interactive conversation. It will not only bring
music into experiential play but also painting and literature. The facilitation methods I use guide the
audience who are active participants, through the interpretative process, by enhancing awareness of
the broad artistic and aesthetic context of the works performed and showing how heightened awareness
affects the whole musical experience, from both the performer’s and listener’s perspectives. By
reflecting on the many philosophical debates surrounding musical meaning and expression, the process
engages the audience in the conversation and enables each participant to be part of the process of co-
creating new meanings. Music can indeed be understood to define and facilitate enquiry by bringing into
play core phenomenological principles, thus giving us a key to a musical understanding of our
consciousness of the surrounding world and environment, enabling the perpetual discovery of those
ever-shifting patterns of life which music so perfectly encapsulates.
During the concert participants will be invited to record their thoughts and feelings as they emerge in
response to the music. Concept mapping, introduced by Dr David Hay, will be used to reveal the
fantastic landscape of collective consciousness resulting from the thoughts and feelings stimulated by
the music and visual imagery. We think that this is the first time that this type of experiential enquiry has
been undertaken in order to understand the nature of enquiry when it is stimulated by musical
performance.
The recital will include works by Debussy and Ravel. It will be performed in Studio 1 in the Performing
Arts building and will last approximately 1hr 30mins. The experience will involve active listening and
meaning making during a recital interspersed with enquiry-rich conversation.
10
Shakeeb Abu Hamdan
Shakeeb is a talented artist and graphic facilitator: he is able to turn words and ideas into pictures
to facilitate the process of visualising conversation.
Shakeeb is our artist in residence during the conference.
11
Workshops and scholarly papers
page
THEME 1 Disciplinary Enquiry / Pedagogy

3 Enquiry-based learning: generic methodologies for learning via the world of work 20
Dr Olwyn Westwood & Professor Frank Hay
EIHMS, University of Surrey
Workshop: discipline enquiry / pedagogy / work as enquiry
7 Practical implementation of enquiry based methods for teaching in electrical engineering 19

Vaios Lappas, University of Surrey, Surrey Space Centre
Scholarly paper: discipline enquiry / pedagogy
17 Dynamics of a process model - enabling integrated learner development for a complex world 27
Arti Kumar CETL Associate Director and National Teaching Fellow University of Bedfordshire
Workshop: discipline enquiry and pedagogy
22 Let’s start at the very beginning: how can an Inquiry-based learning approach facilitate induction? 30
Margaret Freeman, University of Sheffield
Scholarly paper : discipline enquiry / pedagogy
24 Four case studies of adapting enquiry-based learning to a single school 31

Norman Powell, Centre for Enquiry Based Learning and Peter J Hicks, William S Truscott, Peter R Green,
Anthony Peaker, Alasdair Renfrew, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester,
Scholarly Paper: discipline enquiry
26 Examining the Underlying Principles of Enquiry-Based Learning: Two Instances of 31

Where Learning Sessions Start and End
George Allan, School of Computing, University of Portsmouth and Norman Powell, Centre for
Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning, The University of Manchester,
Scholarly Paper: discipline enquiry and pedagogy
27 Enquiry based learning and stand-up comedy: university teaching as the improviser’s art 32
Kevin McCarron, School of Arts, Digby Stuart College, Roehampton University
Something different: stand-up comedy pedagogy
29 Creativity, accident or design? Can the enquiry techniques used in graphic 33

design be applied to problem solving in other disciplines?
Catharine Slade-Brooking, University College for the Creative Arts, Farnham
Workshop: discipline enquiry / pedagogy
32 Developing problem-based interdisciplinary education for sustainable development 34

Charles Engel, Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor
Rosemary Tomkinson, Head of Teaching Support and Development, EPS Faculty
Helen Dobson, Teaching Support and Development, EPS Faculty
Adele Aubrey, Teaching Support and Development, EPS Faculty
Bland Tomkinson, University Adviser on Pedagogic Development,
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Scholarly Paper: discipline enquiry / pedagogy
33 Humboldt’s relevance to British Universities to-day 35

Lewis Elton, University of Manchester and University of Surrey
Scholarly paper: scholarly enquiry / pedagogy
34 Take me to your leader 35

David Jaques, Independent Consultant
35 Interactive conversations: playing with curiosity and shifting perspectives 36

Penelope A Best, Roehampton University / Creative Partnerships/ Private Consultancy
Experiential Workshop: discipline enquiry / pedagogy
38 Using enquiry to identify needs and means of support for enquiring university teachers. 37
Ranald Macdonald, Learning and Teaching Institute, Sheffield Hallam University and Alison Holmes
University Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Workshop: professional enquiry / pedagogy
39 From Coke Bottles to Mole Traps: Collections based learning and independent enquiry at the 38
Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading.
Rhianedd Smith, Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading and CETL-AURS
Workshop / discussion demonstrations of object analysis techniques discipline enquiry / pedagogy
12
40 Bite-sized EBL: incorporating EBL in your teaching 38
Susan Jamieson, University of Glasgow
42 Enquiring Minds: learners' cultures in the classroom 39

John Morgan and Ben Williamson, Futurelab
Scholarly paper : discipline enquiry / pedagogy
44 History as Inquiry: in search of the history of the English language 39

Susan Fitzmaurice and Philip Shaw, University of Sheffield
Scholarly paper: discipline enquiry / pedagogy
45 Learning to learn through supported enquiry: literature review 40

Maggi Savin-Baden, Coventry University, Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Brookes University
Scholarly Paper: pedagogy
48 Examining the underlying principles of enquiry-based learning: 42

two instances of where learning sessions start and end
George Allan University of Portsmouth
Norman Powell, Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning, The University of Manchester,
THEME 2 Work as Enquiry

1 ‘Supervising’ - the ultimate in facilitating enquiry? 19
Dr Anne Lee, Centre for Learning Development
Scholarly paper: work as enquiry
2 The local practice learning scene – investigating enquiry in the workplace 20

Dr Margaret Volante
Centre for Research in Nursing and Midwifery Education, University of Surrey
4 How nursing professionals learn 21

Pam Smith and Helen Allan, EIHMS University of Surrey
Workshop: work as enquiry
6 Phenomenological inquiry into professional practice and learning 22

Josie Gregory Senior Lecturer in Management Learning, School of Management, University of Surrey
8 Reflecting in a complex world: developing a repertoire of models to work with the 23

complexity encountered in the professional world
Julie-Ann MacLaren
European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, and SCEPTrE Fellow, University of Surrey
Workshop/professional enquiry /work as enquiry
16 Preparing to work in the creative industries: individual genius or teamwork? 26

Anne Wealleans, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Kingston University
25 Enquiry learning for academics and academic workplace development 31

Sibyl Coldham and University of Westminster Complementary Therapies Scheme of courses
Interactive enquiry workshop: work as enquiry
31 Re-imagining a performance of theory and learning 34

Caroline Ramsey, Practice Based Professional Learning CETL and Centre for HR and Change Management,
Open University
Interactive Workshop: work as enquiry
37 Collaborative inquiry as social construction 37

Peter Critten, Middlesex University Business School
Scholarly paper: Work as enquiry
13
THEME 3 Student Voice
5 The power of audio-diaries to capture practice learning in midwifery 21
Gina Finnerty, CRNME, European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences University of Surrey
Scholarly paper: student voice
9 Appreciating good teaching and learning: students' as partners in a University-wide Appreciative Inquiry 23
Kathy Jones and Gabby Scholk University of Surrey Students’ Union
Storytelling: student voice
10 New partnerships in enquiry: Tales of a student networker 24

Sarah Cambell, Year 2 Psychology Student University of Surrey
11 Rich stories of enquiry Learning: students’ views of the world of enquiry 24

Natacha Thomas (year 2 law student) and other student story tellers
Norman Jackson and Jo Tait, SCEPTrE, University of Surrey
12 The CoLab story : the role of enquiry learning in the invention of a new student-led enterprise 25
Rob Sharpe, John Kavanagh, Mingyen, Claire Webster, Tony Mackelworth (CoLab Team)
University of Surrey
Storytelling and interactive professional enquiry
15 How did students talk about the problem? The problem as a provoker of a liminal space. 26
Terry Barrett, Centre for Teaching and Learning, University College Dublin
Scholarly paper : student voice
36 First-year students talk about learning and inquiry 36

Robert Petrulis and Philippa Levy, CILASS: The Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social
Sciences, University of Sheffield
Workshop: student voice
41 Ambassadors for Inquiry – The CILASS Student Network one year on 39

Tim Fiennes (Student Co-ordinator, CILASS Student Ambassador Network) and
Sabine Little, University of Sheffield
46 Developing the developing developers: An EBL approach to educational development 40

Karen O’Rourke Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning, The University of Manchester
Greg Tinker CEEBL Student Sabbatical Officer 2006-7
Mary Sattenstall CEEBL Student Intern - Medical and Human Science
Louise Goldring CEEBL Student Intern - Humanities
Jamie Wood CEEBL Student Intern - Humanities
Kate Maull CEEBL Student Intern - Life Sciences
Presentation/workshop : student voice
47 Learning to enquire about the experiences of mental health service users: promoting 41
“Service User” involvement in enquiry based learning
Clark Davison, Megan Earl-Gray, Emma Harding, Mia Harrison, Sally Morgan, Tamsyn Packman,
Gillian Roose and Anna Tickle, University of Surrey
Presentation interspersed with discussion : student voice, discipline enquiry and work as enquiry.
THEME 4 Using Technology to Facilitate Collaborative Enquiry

13 Developing academic and transferable skills through enquiry-based online task 25
Marga Menendez-Lopez, Department of Languages and Translation Studies, University of Surrey
Scholarly paper: disciplinary enquiry, pedagogy and using technology
14 Introducing voting systems to encourage more enquiring student engagement in lectures: 25

Work in progress - the unfolding story of a significant institutional change project
Vicki Simpson, Paul Burt (E-Learning Unit) Peter Robinson and Osama Khan (School of Management). University of Surrey
Workshop: using technology
18 Pre-Seminar and Seminar Online Writing in English Literature 28

Duco van Oostrum, School of English/CILASS Academic Fellow, University of Sheffield
Workshop: discipline enquiry/using technology
19 Drop a pebble, surf the wave: embedding IBL at undergraduate foundation level zero 28
Tim Herrick and Willy Kitchen, Institute for Lifelong Learning, University of Sheffield
Workshop; discipline enquiry / pedagogy / using technology
14
20 I-lit and e-learning : engaging the learner at a distance using information literacy and electronic resources 29
Ruth Hunn and Malcolm Elder, Information Specialist, Science, Cranfield University (Defence College of
Management and Technology)
Scholarly paper: information literacy / using technology
21 Technology by design: exploring LAMS and design for inquiry-based learning 29

Philippa Levy, Sabine Little, Ola Aiyegbayo, CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts
and Social Sciences) University of Sheffield
Workshop: using technology
28 Enquiry through blogging. So many questions, so little time 31

Emma Purnell, University of Wolverhampton
Scholarly paper: pedagogy / using technology
49 First Contact: Boldly going where others should not seek to follow 42
Pauline Brooks Liverpool John Moores University
Presentation/performance: using technology
15
Learning to Learn through Supported Enquiry Symposium (L2L)
Tuesday June 26th 9.00-12.00 AC Lecture Theatre
Chair: Dr Bill Hutchings, Director, CEEBL University of Manchester
Learning to Learn through Supported Enquiry (L2L) is an FDTL5 project which started in January 05 and is due
to complete in July 07. The aims of the project are –
• To improve student learning by deepening the learning experience to emphasis intentional ‘learning to learn’
so enabling students to become self directed learners.
• To support staff as they evolve conceptions and practice in teaching and learning that are enquiry based and
to map lines of development between current and more enquiry based practices.
• To enhance knowledge of how to transfer educational developments through an evolutionary approach to
introducing enquiry processes.
In this symposium we will illustrate the genesis of the project; map our conceptual understanding of EBL; share
stories of enquiry based learning in three disciplinary settings; talk about our learning from the project and show
how participants in the project have moved forward into new cycles of enquiry and development.
9.00 L2L overview: where did we start?

Paul Tosey, Project Director L2L
9.30 Theoretical conceptions: what do we mean by ‘learning to learn’ and

enquiry based learning?
Mary Dickinson, L2L Project Manager
10.0 Invitation to dialogue with leaders of three applications of enquiry

based learning at Surrey – (includes coffee at 11.00)
How can we develop dietetics tutors as facilitators to support enquiry and problem
based learning?
Kath Hart, School of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences & SCEPTrE Fellow
How do nursing students understand enquiry based learning and is it important?

Allison Wiseman & Jacqui England, European Institute of Health & Medical Sciences
How can we support hospitality students to reflect on their enquiry-rich practice?

Peter Alcott, School of Management & SCEPTrE Fellow
11.30 Synthesis: what have we learned from the project and what new
cycles of enquiry are emerging?
Juliet McDonnell, L2L Project Manager
12.05 Finish
12.15 Final conference plenary
1.00 Lunch
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Facilitating collaborative enquiry master classes
Tuesday June 26th 14.00-17.00 & Wednesday June 27th 09.00-12.00
AC Building
To facilitate is "to make easy or easier." One who facilitates is one who makes it easy for others to
interact, discuss things, learn and generally do what they have to do. This applies to simple everyday
situations like when someone says in a meeting ‘why don’t we do this?’ as a way of encouraging
others to share their views and opinions, and in a more profound way when someone engages a
team or group in a planning process which requires everyone to be engaged and involved in idea
forming, evaluative discussion and decision making for action. A facilitator thinks through procedures
and formats that enable a group to gather and share cumulative insights, to order them, and then to
decide on a course of action that has consensus and commitment backing it.
We live in a world of huge social and technical complexity and every day the level of complexity and
the challenges of working with complexity increase. The organisations we work in also become more
challenging as systems are designed and implemented which seem to treat the world as an ordered
and predictable place when we know that this is far from reality. Everyday we are confronted by
problems within our organisations that require us to work with others to create solutions, which often
involve or impact on people we don’t normally work with and which require ‘buy in’ and ‘persuasion’ to
implement. Learning for a world of complexity requires us to learn how to work collaboratively with
others and the ability to facilitate others is an integral part of collaboration in complex and challenging
problem working environments and situations. If the development of facilitation skills is important for
today’s professionals it must be even more important for our students who will work and learn in a
world far more complex than we can imagine.
The idea of the master class sessions is to introduce participants to a range of techniques and
contexts for facilitation that they may not have come across before. The three hour sessions provide
sufficient time for people to both experience a technique and try it out for themselves. We have tried
to bring together a diverse group of people some of whom earn a living from facilitating group
processes in business and industry and others who are teachers, change agents and facilitators in
their institution.
There are six master classes to choose from:

Collaborative, inquisitive and appreciative inquiry: Richard Seel
Creative thinking and problem working : Fred Buining
Exploring with wiki: Maja Jankowska & Mark Gamble
Stand-up comedy and the seminar:
Teaching - an Improviser’s art: Kevin McCarron
Making meaning’: the art and science of concept mapping: David Hay
Facilitating in the midst of cultural diversity: Catharine Slade-Brooking
Each session will run twice between 14.00-17.00 on June 26th and 09.00-12.00 June 27th.
Participants will be able to choose two out of six workshops and groups will be no larger than
15 people.
All the sessions will be supported by a written Guide to this form of Facilitation and parts of the
sessions will be filmed with the intention of creating a wiki to host short film clips of facilitators in
action.
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Guildford adventure – evening of June 26th 19.00 – 22.00
The Guildford adventure has been created by Russ Law, author of ‘Get a life: an introduction to
explorativity’. Its purpose is to provide an enjoyable, recreational, social and mildly challenging
experience through which participants can undertake some light exercise and discover things they
didn’t know about Guildford in the congenial company of fellow adventurers.
The ‘explorativity walk’ (jogging is permitted) operates on the principle that participants have the
freedom to decide how to do it, who to do it with and what they want to gain from it.
The walk proceeds on two parallel levels: questions and tasks. The first level is provided by the
traditional “treasure hunt” elements of the trail, with specific answers to be found to a range of
questions or clues (some of a cryptic nature), by visiting the staging points en route and then
searching and cogitating, individually or in conference with the team.
The other level requires participants to carry out certain activities, and engage in enquiring, co-
creative processes, which are of a less predictable nature and consequence. Some of these may be
challenging, in that they demand some motivation from participants to go beyond their normal levels
of interest and comfort. (By definition, being “explorative” means going beyond limited or routine
habits.)
By the end of the walk, regardless of whether there are any material prizes, the hope is that those
who did it will have been able to gather something that will be of use to them – an idea, some
information, a connection, a friendship, a new way of perceiving themselves or others, or simply a
feeling of having achieved something small but enjoyable through the flow of experience.
“In our studies we found that every flow activity, whether it involved competition, chance or other
dimensions of experience, had this in common: It provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of
transporting the person into a new reality…. In short it transformed the self by making it more
complex. In this growth of the self lies the key to flow activities.”
Csikszentmihalyi, M (1990) The Psychology of Optimal Experience. NY. Harper Collins.
Russ Law
Get A Life – An Introduction To Explorativity

www.lulu.com
Explorativity blog:
http://russellklaw.blogspot.com
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Session descriptions
1 Supervising the ultimate enquiry?
Dr Anne Lee, Centre for Learning Development, University of Surrey
Arguably our postgraduate research students are the sector’s most valuable assets. But is the type of
supervision they are receiving appropriate for the world they are entering? Do we want our PhD students or
those studying professional or practitioner doctorates to become academics, policy makers, senior industrialists,
researchers or highly qualified professionals?
The Roberts agenda has raised the profile of the skills agenda. Employability sits in one corner defined as ‘the
utilitarian view’ opposite ‘proper’ curiosity-driven research. Barnett (2000) suggests that research skills are vital
in a world of supercomplexity. The cultural backgrounds that our students are coming from are diverse and their
expectations complex. They may carry out their enquiries within organisations, for employers or for governments.
These all add to the pressures on the supervisor.
There are co-supervisors, supervisory teams, advisors and supervisors of students taking professional
doctorates will have complex relationships with employers.
From a phenomenological review of the literature, this paper proposes different concepts of postgraduate
research supervision and suggests that the predominant concept of research supervision will affect the type of
student that emerges. This extends the work of Brew (2001) on concepts of research itself and redefines the
work of Pearson and Kayrooz (2004).
The paper provides a neutral framework for examining postgraduate supervision. It identifies different models of
supervision which either the University or the individual may hold and questions whether that view wittingly or
unwittingly creates a particular type of experience or student. The seminar will include updates of the
continuing research into this subject which has been carried out from the Centre for Learning Development at the
University of Surrey.
The different models examined include the ubiquitous list of functions which the supervisor has to attend to (eg:
Cryer 2000, Taylor 2006). This model can be extended to create a ‘PhD factory’. There is a qualities model
which may be used by the untrained supervisor and subliminally be used for recruitment. The mentoring process
is well explored in literature outside PhD supervision and increasingly within it. The enculturation and discourse
literacy approach may appeal to those supervising international students but with what consequences? The
critical thinking model can be either nurturing or confrontational. The quality, effect and expectations of the
developing relationship between supervisor and student is explored and proposals made for further research.
The presentation will include analysis of research carried out with PhD supervisors in both the arts and sciences
and will contrast theory with practice.
Do these models exist? Do they produce different types of students? Do we need to look afresh at the
continuing professional development that we offer postgraduate supervisors?
Activities
Presentation interspersed with opportunity for discussion followed by general discussion.
References
Barnett, R. (2000). Realizing the University Buckingham: SHRE/OU
Bills D (2004) Supervisors’ Conceptions of Research and the Implications for Supervisor Development.
International Journal for Academic Development Vol 9 No 1 May 2004 pp 85-97 Routledge
Brew A (2001) Conceptions of Research: a phenomenographic study. Studies in Higher Education. Taylor and
Francis
Cryer P (2000) The research student’s guide to success. Buckingham. Open University Press
Pearson M and Kayrooz C (2004) Enabling Critical Reflection on Research Supervisory Practice. International
Journal for Academic Development Vol 9 No 1 May 2000 pp 99-116
Taylor S and Beasley N (2005) A handbook for Doctoral Supervisors. Abingdon. Routledge
Wisker G (2005) The Good Supervisor. Basingstoke Palgrave Study Guides. Macmillan
19
2 The local practice learning scene – investigating enquiry in the workplace
Dr Margaret Volante
Centre for Research in Nursing and Midwifery Education, University of Surrey
Scholarly paper: Work as Enquiry
If higher education is to learn from ‘work as enquiry’ the question arises – how do teachers and learners in the
work place do facilitating enquiry and what does it produce? In my doctoral programme I considered learning a
process of interaction, through the actions and activities of individuals involved in workplace learning of one year
community nursing specialist practice ‘top up’ degree . Ethnomethodology provided a methodological orientation
to describe and understand how such interaction is organised and the structuring methods used by participants
to make reality of learning in the workplace. I used an interpretive textual analysis to investigate the naturally
occurring products, a professional practice profile, of the interaction for possible differing orientations of a local
learning scene. How the local learning scene is understood is determinate of the work of the participants in co-
producing and shaping the interaction and any incremental development of the context. Five accessible profiles
constituted a written text of observable evidence: a repository of selected products which could reveal how the
practice learning processes, and within it facilitative enquiry, is structured.
The findings show two patterns of orientation to the local practice learning scene:
A learning practice is constituted through making practice a learning process and the engagement of the learner
in a scholarly practice (how it is learned) that uses experiential and external resources to develop professional
knowledge.
Public institutions is constituted through a process of support and self surveillance that produces the necessary
evidence of practice activity (what is learned rather than how it is learned) to meet the required learning
outcomes of the degree programme. The conference provides an opportunity to present these orientations and
the resources produced to explore ‘work as enquiry’.
Activities
20 – 25mins presentation of paper
25 – 30 mins conversation and discussion to explore following:
How can higher education use such findings to support learner enquiry in the workplace?
Whilst the methodological orientation offered by ethnomethodology was used as a research tool to investigate
the local practice learning scene, do tools for interpretive analysis of text and talk have a place in facilitating
enquiry in higher education? Could the use of these tools possibly enhance learner understanding, for example,
of others and their own professional action in workplace settings? What are the implications for higher education
treating ‘work as enquiry’? Eg How do we know work is enquiry? What are its design and methods, how is it
resourced and supported, what are its outcomes and how can these be recognised and accredited within
programmes of higher education?
3 Enquiry-based learning: generic methodologies for learning via the world of work
Dr Olwyn Westwood & Professor Frank Hay, European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of
Surrey
Workshop: disciplinary enquiry / pedagogy
Within University of Surrey, many degrees programmes have a strong focus and application to industry and/or
public services that prepare students for the world of work. The use of enquiry-based learning, a derivation of
the problem-based learning methods used in medical education, will be explained and discussed. Students are
guided by a facilitator, to identify the learning outcomes needed to solve the problem. This methodology is
generic and may be used in any academic discipline where problem-solving is a required transferable skill. The
session will be interactive session where delegates will be asked to work in groups to use problems in their area
for learning. In addition the Pendleton rules will be introduced which are used to encourage professionalism in
self- and peer feedback.
Activities
15 minutes: Olwyn explaining the use of problem / enquiry-based learning & Pendleton rules
15 minutes: Group work preparing problems they might use in the learning environment
15 minutes Feedback discussion
5 minutes (overflow time)
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4 How nursing professionals learn
Pam Smith and Helen Allan, European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey
Workshop/discussion: Work as enquiry
Using data from a study exploring leadership for learning in the new NHS, we will use the case of nursing to
explore how professionals learn. Four key themes have arisen from the literature and early data collection in this
study:
1. Changes in clinical leadership
2. Evaluation of the move to higher education in the 1990s
3. The nature of professional learning in nursing
4. Student nurses’ learning experiences.
Historically student nurses were the primary care givers as well as learners in wards. estimated 75% direct care
used to be given by students in the 1970s and trained nurses taught and students learned while they worked
(Fretwell 1982); at least until the curriculum reforms of the 1980s and the introduction of supernumerary practice
for students with the Project 2000 curriculum, when student nurses started to work in a supernumerary capacity
(Wilson-Barnett et al 1995; NMC 2004). The introduction of subsequent curricula (UKCC 1999; NMC 2004) led to
debates about fitness for practice and competency among student nurses and trained staff (NMC 2005) as well
as continuing differences in opinion about the place of nursing in higher education institutions (HEIs) (Altschul
1992; Draper 1996; Lahiff 1998)). However in addition to these changes in nursing curricula and the location of
nurse education, the placement experiences for student nurses, especially the structures of ward management
have radically altered since the NHS Plan (DH 2000).
In this workshop, we will explore the three questions posed by the conference theme ‘Work as enquiry’ using
pre-registration nursing education as a case;
• whether the higher education setting is congruent with and values professional learning;
• how different ways of learning and forms of knowledge are valued by students, their teachers and
mentors and
• how students make sense of the distance between clinical placements and higher education.
Activities
Presentation to share the study data – 10 minutes
Defining the questions the participants wish to address in the discussion – 10 minutes
Discussion will be stimulated through reflecting on extracts from the study data – 20 minutes
Participants will
1. Consider the nature of professional learning in a range of contexts.
2. Evaluate the position of professional learning in higher education
5 The power of audio-diaries to capture practice learning in midwifery

Gina Finnerty, European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey
Fifteen student midwives recorded their experiences of learning and support in clinical practice for ten days in
audio-diary format as part of a national midwifery education project (Pope et al, 2003). The diaries have
subsequently been analysed within a narrative analysis framework to capture the ‘voice’ of the learners, who
described the challenges inherent in learning and acquiring the craft of midwifery (Finnerty and Pope, 2005).
Discourse analysis was used to interrogate the data. This method enabled discovery of pattern and order in
everyday language-in-use. Unique information emerged within students’ individual interpretive repertoires.
Metaphors often alluded to student midwives feeling excluded and peripheral, for example, feeling like a “fish out
of water” in theatre or a “dog’s body” on the ward (Froggatt, 1998). One student midwife described getting
“tongue-tied” during an antenatal booking and another found delivery suite “…a baptism of fire”. Expectations
and reality were rarely congruent and learners therefore appeared to use strategies of containment to reduce the
anxiety connected with learning to care (Bion, 1962). Students’ realities of coping in complex practice
placements sometimes led to raw linguistic expressions and swearing, particularly following emergency
situations. For example, one student in the second year of a midwifery degree programme said:
“I shat myself” when she recognised difficulty in delivering the shoulders of a baby during the second stage of
labour.
The intention of this presentation is to promote discussion around the need for new styles of cognitive
apprenticeship which promote deliberative learning and assist the surfacing of the learner’s ‘voice’. Extracts from
the actual diary data will show the power of audio-diaries for recording ‘real world’ practical learning in the
workplace where tensions, anxiety and vulnerability of students are seldom vocalised.
21
Activities
Presentation followed by discussion.
References
Bion WR (1962) Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann.
Finnerty G, Pope R (2005) An exploration of student midwives’ language to describe non-formal learning in
professional practice. Nurse Education Today. 25: 309-315
Froggatt K (1998) The place of metaphor and language in exploring nurses' emotional work. Journal of Advanced
Nursing;28(2):332-338.
Pope R, Graham L, Finnerty G, Magnusson C. (2003) An investigation of the preparation and assessment of
midwifery practice in a range of settings.Guildford: University of Surrey.
6 Phenomenological inquiry into professional practice and learning

Josie Gregory, School of Management, University of Surrey
Workshop: Work as enquiry
We tell stories because in the last analysis human lives

need and merit being narrated. Paul Ricoeur
The session aims

• To offer an experience in phenomenological enquiry; a particular form of deep subjective enquiry.
• To transfer skills of personal phenomenological enquiry to engagement with students
`phenomenologically’.
Phenomenological enquiry is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point
of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an
experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or
meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions. Phenomenological enquiry
is done to obtain phenomenological understanding. This is not primarily gnostic, cognitive, intellectual, or
technical --but rather it is pathic, that means situated, relational, embodied, enactive.
By exploring a deeply held interest or curiosity about the links between our purpose and sense of identity with
our actions or practice. This practice can be our learning, our research, our job, or our engagement with
professional learning.
Activities
The exploration will take the form of a general introduction to the approach followed by dyadic work, where each
in the pair will do a monologue for 15 minutes and 5 minutes feedback on their chosen subject.
At least two dynamics will operate during this exercise: the phenomenological narrative which raises to
consciousness deeply help beliefs and attachments to the chosen subject and the deep listening to understand
the intentionality of the narrator and their interpretive frame. Both say much about how learning and the
motivation to learn (or not to learn) occurs in the deepest recesses of consciousness.
Some theory of Hermeneutic Phenomenology will be sprinkled throughout the workshop so that it sits lightly with
the participants’ experience in the enquiry. Concepts will be explored, such as practice as pathic knowledge;
practice as tact; embodied knowledge; (We discover what we know in our embodied being), intuitiveness and
perceptiveness as a quality of tact. These are all qualities used in complex learning that is rich and holistic.
Outcomes: hermeneutical phenomenological enquiry allows learners and practitioners to engage with all
dimensions of knowing; experiential, imaginal, propositional and practical from a pathic place meaning from a
place of passion, general mood, sensibility, a felt sense of being in the world. Such complex knowing is lived,
rather than just retained in the mind.
7 Practical Implementation of Enquiry Based Methods for Teaching in Electrical Engineering

Vaios Lappas, Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey
Scholarly paper: Disciplinary enquiry / pedagogy
Enquiry based methods allow for greater interaction between students and teaching staff and can result in
achieving better understanding of complex subject in many fields, including electrical engineering. The paper
presents an example of using enquiry-based techniques adapted for a module in Space Mission Design for level
2 students in the School of Electronics at the University of Surrey. A satellite model is used in a practical set of
lectures to complement regular theoretical lessons on how to design a space mission and understanding the
22
main principles of spacecraft subsystems. Preliminary results from the implementation of the new enquiry based
methodology shows students being able to engage in a critical thinking process which allows them to understand
and use theoretical knowledge on the subject based on their practical work. Furthermore, plans are discussed to
implement enquiry-based methods for wider use in the Electronics Engineering curriculum in conjunction with
developing new practical/enquiry based lecturing material.
Activities
Presentation about 25mins followed by facilitated discussion
8 Reflecting in a complex world: developing a repertoire of models to work with the complexity
encountered in the professional world
Julie-Ann MacLaren
European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences and SCEPTrE Fellow, University of Surrey
Workshop/professional enquiry /work as enquiry
Individual reflection and reflective discussion with colleagues about practise have become important notions
within professional practise (Öhlén and Segesten 1998). They form an important strand of professional
socialisation within work based learning, providing a focus for both formal and informal continuing professional
development activities.
Teaching and coaching of reflective practices is dominated by exposure to prescribed models of reflection within
university-centred activities. Whilst such models can provide a clear framework to guide reflective thinking, they
often bear little relevance to reflective enquiry within the practise setting, resulting in reductionist rather than
creative reflective practises, where experience is fitted rigidly to prescribed models, rather than acknowledging
the tacit reflective frameworks of individuals and using them creatively to perceive the nature of experience and
improve future practice (Johns 2002). Ultimately this may account for the cultural and organisational
impediments reported in exporting these models from the classroom into practice areas (Driscoll 1994, O'Connor
and Hyde 2005), where models of reflection are seen as a ‘one size fits all’ solution to reflection about practice.
Within this short session, based on a one-day workshop for health care mentorship students, participants will be
asked to challenge and share their own experiences of using reflection for practice improvement. By developing
their own models of reflection and reviewing those of others, participants will be enabled to deconstruct the
notion of reflection and re-build meaningful reflective frameworks, expanding upon the heuristics of their own
daily practice, and incorporating that of others to create a range of reflective approaches to explore present, and
improve future practice.
Activities
The session will utilise small group discussion and preparation of poster presentations which will be available for
viewing and comment by the larger conference cohort, and editing by group members throughout the remainder
of the conference. The resultant models may be photographed and included in any online conference
proceedings.
References
Driscoll, J. (1994) Reflective practice for practise. Senior Nurse, 13(7), 47-50.
Johns, C. (2002) Guided reflection: Advancing Practice, Blackwell Science, Oxford.
O'Connor, A. and Hyde, A. (2005) Teaching reflection to nursing students: a qualitative study in an Irish context.
Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 42(4), 291-303.
Öhlén, J. and Segesten, K. (1998) The professional identity of the nurse: A concept analysis and development.
Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(4), 720-727.
9 Appreciating good teaching and learning: students' as partners in a University-wide Appreciative

Inquiry
Kathy Jones and Gabby Scholk University of Surrey Students’ Union
Appreciative Enquiry is a process of enquiry-rich conversations designed to allow participants to consider and
reflect on positive aspects of their experiences in a way that those involved can discover more about that which
is good. Following its participation in the Higher Education Academy’s Change Academy, the University of Surrey
undertook an Appreciative Enquiry between February and March 2007 aimed at encouraging staff and students
to share stories of their very best experiences of learning and teaching. Students were partners in this process.
They were involved in the initial visioning and planning, in the training of interviewers, as interviewers and
interviewees and in the event where the results of the process were considered and future actions planned. This
was a novel experience for the university and in this session we will tell the students’ story and consider
23
the results, benefits, challenges and potential effects of such a powerful process. We will also aim to give
participants a flavour of what its like to be involved in Appreciative Inquiry and encourage discussion about how
such an approach might be used in their own contexts.
Activities
Interactive workshop: part story telling, part experiential workshop and discussion.
10 New partnerships in enquiry: Tales of a Student Networker

Sarah Cambell, Year 2 Psychology Student University of Surrey
The concept and practice of Student Networkers is being developed in collaboration with the Surrey Centre for
Excellence in Professional Training and Education. They are integral to the co-creation and implementation of
new ideas and new partnerships and relationships between students, staff and the University of Surrey.
In this session I will tell my story of the way I have interpreted and enacted the role of a Student Networker. I will
describe three different enquiry-rich processes I’ve been involved in:
• A cross-campus- interview-based survey of students interests in and use of technology as market
research for a new student enterprise called CoLab
• A focus group to help a new Academic Skills unit in the university gain rich perspectives on how it might
work with students and provide useful services to students.
• An interactive session using a voting system to gain feedback from third year psychology students who
are currently on their work placement year, on their workplace experiences.
Activities
Interactive workshop: part story telling, part discussion focusing on what I and others have learnt, and how this
type of partnership in enquiry approach might be transferred and adapted to other settings.
11 Rich stories of enquiry learning: students’ views of the world of enquiry

Natacha Thomas (year 2 law student) and other students
Stories are a great way of communicating experiences and transmitting complex information in words, images
and sounds. Story telling2 is as relevant to modern day working, learning and relationship building as it was to
maintaining the cultures of societies in the past and the ability to tell stories is a useful capability for all
professionals and an important way of enabling students to utilize their creative, imaginary, sense making, playful
and reflective abilities.
In March 2006 SCEPTrE in collaboration with University of Surrey Students’ Union and SPLASH, organized a
story telling competition for students. The primary motives were : 1) to promote the idea that story telling is an
important reflective process 2) to see if students could be engaged in reflection in this way; there is no tradition of
using this approach at the University and 3) to use the stories to gain insights into how students see and
understand enquiry in their learning processes. Underlying the approach was the belief that story telling might
enable us to see learning in a holistic way. Believing that changes in students’ knowledge, understanding,
attitude, values, behaviours and capability to do and be are not just based on experiences of learning in an
academic programme, we anticipated that stories of learning through discovery would reveal a more complex
and richer pattern of learning experiences that also drew on non-formal, social and non-academic learning
situations. We wanted to see if students also saw their learning in more holistic ways.
Activities
Working paper / discussion: the session will present the story that emerged from the competition process and
encourage discussion about the implications for holistic and whole world notions of enquiry learning and student
development.
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling
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12 The CoLab story : the role of enquiry learning in the invention of a new student-led enterprise
Rob Sharpe, John Kavanagh, Mingyen Yu, Claire Webster, Tony Mackelworth (CoLab team of students)
Workshop : storytelling student voice
In September 2006, an opportunity (sadly short-lived) for additional funding to support more imaginative and
innovative ways of supporting the introduction of technology into the university spawned an idea for a mobile
interactive technologies laboratory (CoLab). The idea and the necessary institutional partnerships to support it
were fleshed out in extensive conversations through the autumn and five students were recruited in February
2007 to turn the ideas into a real organisation doing and producing real things, facing real world complex learning
challenges and having to solve real world 'wicked' problems.
During the session we will tell the story of how we have brought CoLab into existence and highlighting the
important role played by enquiry in learning for a complex world.
Activities: conversational presentation in which the story acts as a catalyst for participants’ questions and
professional enquiry into the nature of learning in the complex world we have chosen to be part of.
13 Developing academic and transferable skills through enquiry-based online task

Marga Menendez-Lopez, Department of Languages and Translation Studies, University of Surrey
Scholarly paper: Disciplinary enquiry, pedagogy and use of technology
This is a case study on the implementation of enquiry-based online tasks to a level 1 module in the languages
pathway called “Introduction to Language Study”,. EBL is characterised in the literature as a student-centred
approach that promotes a deep approach to learning. It also explicitly fosters the development of academic and
transferable skills such as team-work, critical thinking, independent learning and information management. As
this was one of the main aims of the module, together with more linguistic skills for students to become better
language learners, EBL was used as a pertinent method to achieve these objectives.
The module was blended, with a combination of lectures and seminars in the face to face sessions, and online
tasks delivered through the discussion facility in Ulearn. Apart from limited timetabled face-to-face time, the
rationale for the online component was not only the flexibility for the students to work both independently and
collaboratively at their own pace on their own time, but also the benefits for certain cases of special needs, which
will be illustrated. A demonstration of the course will then follow, with excerpts from students related to skills
development, and student-student and student-tutor interaction.
Finally, evaluation of the course will focus on several aspects: the students’ perception of their own progress
compared with the evidence from the tasks; the role of the tutor as a facilitator, with a discussion around the
quantity and quality of the support provided; the outcomes of the online component in students shier in face-to-
face situations; and very importantly, the challenges designing the tasks, which have to be sufficiently open for
EBL and sufficiently structured and scaffolded for online discussions.
Activities
Presentation and demonstration about 25mins followed by facilitated discussion 25mins
14 Introducing voting systems to encourage more enquiring student engagement in lectures: Work in
progress - the unfolding story of a significant institutional change project
Vicki Simpson and Paul Burt (E-Learning Unit) and Peter Robinson and Osama Khan (School of Management).
Workshop: Using technology to facilitate collaborative learning / pedagogy
Lectures are a common form of teaching but are often associated with the tendency to emphasise content
transmission over student engagement. Although it is possible to introduce active learning approaches into the
lecture environment without using technology, the use of an electronic voting system - where students use
keypad handsets to respond to questions - can facilitate this process and offer additional opportunities beyond
non-technical approaches. Advantages include the ability for all students to respond and participate at one time
and when the responses are collated and displayed, to be able to compare their responses to their peers’.
Teachers also gain instant insight into their students’ understanding.
As with many technologies, the extent to which this potential is realised depends on how the technology is used:
it can be adopted uncritically and thus have only superficial benefit. The E-Learning Unit and 11 academic staff
have been participating in a pilot project to investigate the effective adoption of electronic voting systems within
teaching. This has involved exploring the role of questioning to help develop ideas and understanding: one of
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the most well-known and adopted methods is Peer Instruction (Mazur, 1997) which uses individuals’ responses
to questions to stimulate peer discussion. During the project, it also became apparent that many other factors
influence adoption, including differences in the physical environment, existing teaching styles, ‘classroom culture’
and expectations of the students.
Activities
This session will begin by looking at some of the theoretical principles underlying effective practice: the voting
system itself will be used in the session to promote participation and illustrate different types of use and
questioning. We will also discuss how staff in the pilot have used the voting system within their teaching and
reflected on the impact on their practice. Student feedback about this innovation will also be shared.
15 How did students talk about the problem? The problem as a provoker of a liminal space.
Terry Barrett, Centre for Teaching and Learning, University College Dublin
Scholarly Paper : Student voice
This paper focuses on how PBL students talked about problems in PBL as provokers of liminal spaces,
threshold, betwixt and between spaces, and the practical implications for maximising these liminal space for
learning.
Two teams of lecturers were completing a module on problem-based learning that was part of a Postgraduate
Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, in a higher education institution in Ireland. The lecturers
were problem-based learning students for the module. The research question for this paper is ‘How did lecturers
as problem -based learners talk about the problem? This research is part of a wider doctoral study that
investigated how the two teams talked about four of the key characteristics of PBL, namely the problem, the PBL
tutorial, the PBL process and learning.
Within the paradigm of social constructionism a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach was used to analyse
the talk of these PBL students.. From analysing the talk of these PBL students, I explore three dimensions of
liminality a knowledge dimension, an identity dimension and a professional action dimension. The PBL problems
in this study provoked liminal spaces between current levels of knowing and new levels of knowing, satisfaction
with current identities and a desire to explore other possible identities, habitual forms of professional action and
forms of professional action new to the learner.
The main argument of this paper is that by conceptualising problems as provokers of liminal spaces, educators
will be encouraged and enabled to maximise their potential for learning. Recommendations for problem-design
are discussed.
Activities
Paper Presentation: 25 mins (Using student quotations, visual representations of concepts and photographs)
Discussion, questions and critique of paper: 10 mins
Question for discussion “How transferable is the concept of the problem as a provoker of a liminal space to you
as a student and/or for your students?” 15min.
16 Preparing to Work in the Creative Industries: Individual Genius or Teamwork?

Anne Wealleans, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Kingston University
Workshop: Work as enquiry
According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport:
‘The creative industries are those that are based on individual creativity, skill and talent. They also have the
potential to create wealth and jobs through developing and exploiting intellectual property.’i
The Department then lists thirteen areas which constitute the Creative Industries – advertising, architecture, art
and antiques markets, computer and video games, crafts, design, designer fashion, film and video, music,
performing arts, publishing, software, television and radio. But this definition of the creative industries draws
upon the myth of the creative genius. It would be difficult cite an example of individual creativity in any of the
areas listed by the Department. Advertising agencies work in teams; architects work in practices which involved
other architects, technicians, designers and engineers; the art market relies on a network of valuers, dealers and
auction houses; software is developed by companies which then own the intellectual property rights. A more
useful model is the creative team, where all those taking part value and respect their own, as well as
contributions from others.ii
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The session will include the screening of a film and website created for the Creative Industries project at
Kingston University, where an MA suite which combines creative studio practice modules with modules offered
by the Business School has been developed. Students enrolled on the new MA Creative Industries courses will
develop their self-awareness by means of personal profiling and sharing perceptions in a supportive workshop
environment. They will then work alongside creative practitioners on art and design, studio-based courses to
project manage, add another dimension or reflect upon the activity taking place. This is facilitated by means of a
Learning Contract, whereby each student takes responsibility for their own learning and manages their own
activities on the MA programme. By taking individual responsibility and recognizing the value of teamworking, the
students will be well prepared for working in the Creative Industries.
Activities
5 minutes – participatory session in which the audience reflects individually, then in pairs, on what is meant by
the Creative Industries
5 minutes – feedback session reflecting on what we perceive to be the Creative Industries and also whether it
was easier to arrive at a definition alone or in pairs.
15 minutes – presentation which explores the importance of teamwork in the Creative Industries and viewing of
dedicated website on the Independent Group.
5 minutes – showing of a film made by Anne Wealleans and River House Productions about the sculptor,
Eduardo Paolozzi and his work with the Independent Group.
5 minutes – follow-up questions about the website and film
10 minutes – outline of approach taken on the MA Creative Industries suite at Kingston University as one
possible approach to developing creative teamwork
5 minutes – opportunity for concluding remarks and discussion.
1
http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Creative_industries/. Accessed 30th March 2007.
1
Anne Massey, ‘Developing Creativity for the World of Work: A Case Study’, Art, Design & Communication in
Higher Education, Volume 4, No 1, 2005.
17 Dynamics of a process model - enabling integrated learner development for a complex world
Arti Kumar CETL Associate Director and National Teaching Fellow University of Bedfordshire
Workshop: Disciplinary enquiry and pedagogy
This workshop will introduce SODiT - an integrated model you can use flexibly to facilitate students through a
coherent and continuous process of integrated personal, professional and academic development. SODiT is an
acronym for Self, Opportunities, Decisions, information and Transitions: all essential and dynamically inter-
linked elements within the model. Engaging students with these elements, using EBL, PDP and career
development learning approaches, can lead to wide-ranging benefits for students, institutions, employers – and
for society at large. Many of us are looking for effective ways of ensuring we provide such wide benefits through
the curriculum. This workshop does not say ‘why we should’ but shows ‘how we can’.
SODiT is not meant to compete with existing initiatives – rather to provide a complementary rationale and a
framework within which students can construct personal real-life relevance. The acronym itself – well, some
think it is irreverent (my apologies!) and others like it because it’s memorable and adaptable: you can animate it
with appropriate facilitation within any curriculum, contextualise it to suit your subject field, and students can
personalise it to suit their circumstances and aspirations, through inbuilt requirements for reflection, analysis and
lateral thinking.
The SODiT model can provide solutions for key issues in ‘learning for a complex world’:
• bridging across what seem like disparate and competing agendas such as PDP, employability, career
management skills and academic requirements;
• meeting the needs of different stakeholders (staff, students, employers);
• providing a structure for facilitating students through a process (rather than ‘teaching a subject’)
• clearing conceptual confusion, which often acts as a barrier to productive partnerships;
• delivering holistic learner development leading to lifelong learning and (graduate) employment;
• integrating learning initiatives that engage both staff and students in PDP-CPD processes.
I will draw on my experience of responding to such issues over the past 10 years, and currently writing a book
on the topic. This session will demonstrate a model that is both theoretical and applied, and its associated
learning tools have worked in practice with staff and students across many disciplines in different universities.
Activities
• Welcoming and introductory activities, conceptually and practically exploring the defining features of the
model, creating shared understanding around key terms, concepts and intentions (20 minutes).
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• Evaluating practical learning tools and methods associated with SODiT in different contexts (in small groups)
20 mins.
• Reflections on the transfer and transformation capacity of SODiT, and individual concrete plans to apply this
learning in one’s own context (5 mins.)
18 Pre-seminar and seminar online writing in English literature

Duco van Oostrum, School of English/CILASS Academic Fellow, University of Sheffield
Workshop: Disciplinary enquiry/using technology
In many of my modules in English Literature at the University of Sheffield, I have used pre-seminar writing tasks
as a method of engaging students in seminar discussion. Through this method of inquiry, students come better
prepared, are willing to engage in debate and defend their own articulated position, and become better at
analyzing text succinctly. With the advent of VLEs and improved bulletin board facilities, this pre-writing has
developed into a major inquiry component in my teaching methodology. In this session, I would like to
demonstrate uses of the bulletin board but also investigate some of the actual writing in terms of academic
quality. In my Sports Literature and Film module (typically one that attracts a different type of student from my
other modules—somehow it’s the only one with more men than women), for example, students who are not
strong in the traditional academic essay can produce 200-word entries of excellent quality. Students actively
learn from each other, since this is the only academic forum where they actually see each other’s writing, can
engage, and respond to it. In the new space of the CILASS Collaboratory, moreover, they are able to create
presentations and write collaboratively, using the electronic huddle boards and bulletin boards in creative ways.
When I compliment students on their writing, which feature provocative opening sentences, references to other
texts, textual examples and specific analyses as well as witty style, they tell me that they wouldn’t dare write in
this way for their formal essay assignments—they claim we have actually ‘killed their creativity’ (a student quote).
With this presentation, I will demonstrate and argue for pre-writing and writing as an active inquiry methodology
for student engagement, but I would also like to question assessment methods in English which rely extensively
on the essay as a testing ground for knowledge and quality of writing.
Activities
Presentation about 25mins followed by facilitated discussion 25mins CHECK WITH PROPOSER
19 Drop a pebble, surf the wave: embedding IBL at Undergraduate Foundation Level Zero.”
Tim Herrick and Willy Kitchen, Institute for Lifelong Learning, University of Sheffield
Workshop; Discipline enquiry, pedagogy and use of technology
This workshop explores the outcomes of a project that embedded inquiry based approaches into a part-time
foundation year curriculum delivered to mature learners at the Institute for Lifelong Learning, University of
Sheffield.
Working with adult learners returning to study, often without recent experiences of learning or confidence in basic
writing and IT skills, brings particular challenges. By using the University’s virtual learning environment, and a
variety of shared technologies including a “soup blog” and an interactive photographic map of Sheffield, we have
been able to extend the locus of inquiry far beyond the traditional classroom, making more productive use of the
weeks separating individual learning sessions.
This work had clear benefits for learners, sometimes in quite unexpected ways, and we quickly found that the
discussions generated within and outside the classroom, particularly online, leant a new direction to much of the
week-to-week delivery. This flexibility also provided opportunities to address individual learners’ needs in
relation to their development of basic study and research skills.
The use of new social software allowed closer collaboration across individual modules, so that participants in the
introductory Arts and Social Sciences module contributed to experiments in the General Sciences module by
means of a shared blog. It was likewise possible to explore debates around Global Warming from both natural
and social scientific perspectives, in an information- and media-rich manner, to the benefit of all involved.
Working with foundation level students is always time-intensive, and strategic use of learning technologies
allowed greatly enhanced results from very limited additional tutor inputs.
Developing inquiry based learning at level zero is in some respects a high risk activity but, as this workshop will
seek to demonstrate, it has real potential to transform the learning experience for many mature students and
provide a much firmer foundation for subsequent undergraduate study.
Activities:
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An outline of the contexts of the project (10 minutes) will be followed by participants exploring in small groups
some of the outputs of the module tasks (including the module VLE, flickr map and soup blog). Participants will
be asked to think about patterns of interaction within the groups, the role of the module leaders, and how the
lessons from this Level Zero project might be applied to higher levels of university study (20 minutes). The
workshop will conclude with a plenary session pulling these ideas together, and an invitation for participants to
contribute their own thoughts to the soup blog (20 minutes).
20 I-lit and e-learning : engaging the learner at a distance using Information Literacy and Electronic
Resources
Ruth Hunn and Malcolm Elder, Information Specialist, Science, Cranfield University (Defence College of
Management and Technology)
Scholarly paper: Information literacy and use of technology
DCMT Library has delivered information skills training to its staff and students for many years as part of
introductory study skills teaching and included in-depth training on subject specific information resources and
search strategies. Evaluation and higher level information literacy skills were typically taught in later individual
sessions.
In November 2006 DCMT Library launched its online Information Literacy Tutorial, designed not only for its
students but for all within the UK Defence Academy. Academics were encouraged to engage with the Tutorial by
way of highlighting the lessons on plagiarism and organising information as support and material to assist with
compliance with the recently introduced Cranfield University plagiarism policy.
The Information Literacy Tutorial forms a central component in the development of students as self sufficient
learners. It was designed using the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy giving it a sound pedagogical
foundation. Curriculum leaders in the Department of Information Systems at DCMT considered that enhanced
electronic learning resources would support their new modular curriculum and were therefore receptive to
suggestions and advice from Information Specialists in the use of online tutorials and e-resources.
A blend of resources was recommended comprising a relatively new ebooks package, the in-house Information
Literacy Tutorial and an online study skills learning unit on research methods, academic writing and critical
analysis, written by an Information Specialist at DCMT Library. Subsequently, this formed part of other units in an
online tutorial written by tutors on another academic course.
It was clear that the role of the DCMT Library and particularly the Information Specialist was to act as more than
a resource facilitator and information disseminator. They became key roles in embedding information literacy
knowledge and other more generic study skills directly into the curriculum, thereby facilitating both the virtual and
in-person student learning experience.
Activities
• Introduction to the DCMT information literacy tutorial
• Demonstration of the information literacy key features
• Explanation of how information literacy was embedded into the curriculum by an information specialist
• Demonstration of study skills module
21 Technology by design: exploring LAMS and design for inquiry-based learning

Philippa Levy, Sabine Little, Ola Aiyegbayo, CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social
Sciences) University of Sheffield
Workshop: Using technology to facilitate collaborative inquiry
At the University of Sheffield, the use of a new open source e-learning tool is being explored for creating,
facilitating and sharing digital designs for inquiry-based learning. An evaluation/research project supporting this
work, entitled DeSILA (www.shef.ac.uk/desila), has been funded by HEFCE’s Joint Information Systems
Committee.
The tool, LAMS (Learning Activity Management System), facilitates the design of sequences of online
collaborative learning activities (e.g. small group discussion followed by web research followed by sharing and
discussion of the results and personal reflection) with associated content, which can then be worked through
online by students. This can be either at a distance or during face-to-face activity where there is individual or
collaborative access to the web. LAMS also facilitates the sharing and reuse of sequences, for example when a
member of academic or professional services staff adapts an existing design sequence to their own teaching.
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This workshop will invite participants to explore questions relating to ‘design for learning’ as this has been
conceptualised in the context of e-learning, and the use of LAMS as a ‘design for learning’ tool, specifically in
relation to their own approaches to, and experiences of, inquiry-based learning. A presentation of a number of
LAMS sequences generated through the DeSILA project will be used as the point of departure for discussion of
ways in which participants approach designing for inquiry-based learning using technology, how these designs
are facilitated and experienced, and the potential role of a tool such as LAMS in supporting the design and
facilitation process. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to compare their perspectives with those of
participants in the DeSILA evaluation project, and to consider the issues that these raise for the development of
inquiry-based learning practice.
Activities
The session will offer a short ‘inquiry workshop’, revolving around the question: what kind of e-learning tools (if
any!) are really useful for designing and facilitating inquiry-based learning? The session will start with a short
activity focusing on this question. This will be followed by a presentation of learning activity sequences that have
been created and run using LAMS. In small groups, participants will then consider the issues that arise, in
relation to their own approaches to designing and facilitating inquiry, or their experiences as students. The
workshop will close by drawing together the views of workshop participants, briefly comparing these with those of
participants in the DeSILA project, and identifying further issues and questions for the use of technology in
collaborative inquiry-based learning. By attending the workshop, participants will have been able to assess the
potential of LAMS as a tool for their own inquiry-based learning activities, and to share ideas about the use of
technology in inquiry-based learning design.
The workshop will be of interest to academic and professional services staff involved in teaching and learning
support, and also to students with experience of inquiry-based learning. The planned activities will be designed
to facilitate sharing of perspectives amongst students and staff,
22 Let’s start at the very beginning: how can an Inquiry-based learning approach facilitate induction?
Margaret Freeman, University of Sheffield
Scholarly paper : Disciplinary enquiry and pedagogy
This paper reports on our first experience of using an inquiry-based learning approach in the induction of new
students. Our aim was to respond to two key issues: (a) the recognised need for more effective support for the
transition to HE (b) our wish to promote understanding and use of IBL, by engaging with the students at the
earliest opportunity.
The plan of activity, developed in collaboration with current students, is described here. Essentially, we
presented the students with a challenge which would encourage them to explore the department, the university
and the resources. Working in small teams, and supported by student ‘guides’, freshers were asked to seek
information about a (video) topic and to present their findings in a poster ‘exhibition’ for their peers and teaching
staff, by the end of the week. Each team was encouraged to plan their own programme for the week; this
included making ‘bookings’ with the student assigned to their group, who acted as mentor and ‘tour guide’.
The immediate effects included an increase in student presence, purposeful activity and social interaction in the
department. This continued after Intro Week, with a higher level of student engagement and confidence being
reported by all involved in the teaching programmes. Our evaluation, based on questionnaires, focus groups with
the students and tutor reflections after the first semester, indicates strong support for this approach to induction.
We have also, however, identified some interesting differences, when tutors’ and students perceptions of the
project are compared.
Activities
In this session, my aim is to engage with colleagues in discussion about the process of induction. The session
will therefore aim to explore such issues as:
• The role of activity-based induction (Edward, 2003) in facilitating students’ transition to HE
• When and how to introduce students to the concept of inquiry-based learning
• How we can enable students to feel comfortable and confident in their early experiences of IBL.
Reference:
Edward, N.S. (2003) First Impressions Last: An innovative Approach to Induction. Active Learning in Higher
Education: 4. 226-242.
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24 Four case studies of adapting Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) to a single school
Norman Powell, Centre for Enquiry Based Learning and Peter J Hicks, William S Truscott, Peter R Green,
Anthony R Peaker, Alasdair Renfrew, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of
Manchester,
Scholarly Paper: Discipline enquiry
This workshop reports on some of the teaching and learning developments that arose, at the University of
Manchester, from a collaborative Problem-Based Learning (PBL) initiative, supported by the IET and HEFCE.
PBL is an instance of Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL), where students’ enquiry into a topic is triggered by an initial
problem or scenario. The students following this enquiry engage in the subject matter at a deeper level than in
traditional teaching methods, whilst gaining professional, personal and life-long learning skills in a process
integrated with their core subject learning.
Four case studies are presented, all based in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. In each case
the PBL activity had to fit into an established timetable, constructed for modules traditionally delivered through
lectures and tutorials.
1. Second Year Tutorials: Preparing for Team Projects

A series of structured activities was introduced into the second year tutorials (SYT), to prepare students for a
team project in the second semester. The tutorial activities take the form of a series of five linked problems,
which simulate aspects of a practical team project, developing teamworking, project planning, information
searching and group presentation skills.
2. Design and Implementation of VLSI Systems: Problems in Parallel to Lectures

A hybrid format was introduced with lectures running parallel to the problems.
3. Optoelectronic Devices and Systems: An Opening Problem

This module was divided into two discrete subject areas, display devices and communication systems. The first
area, which already contained an element of assessment through a written assignment based on individual
research, was developed into a PBL scenario.
4. Robotics: A Closing Problem

A closing PBL scenario was developed that asks the students to act as consultants engaged in a systems
integration activity for a selected industrial automation process.
Activities
• Introduction to session & Task Briefing: Outline decisions that need to be taken (5 minutes)
• Group Work: Four scenarios are distributed to groups, one to each group – groups work through decisions
for each scenario (10 minutes)
• Feedback decisions and ideas to the whole group (5 minutes)
• Present decisions taken for each scenario in turn, with discussion after each one 4 * (3 minutes presentation
/ 2 minutes discussion)
• General Discussion and Feedback (5 minutes)
• Round Up Session (5 minutes)
25 Enquiry learning for academics and academic workplace development

Sibyl Coldham Complementary Therapies Scheme of courses, University of Westminster
Interactive enquiry workshop : work as enquiry
The Department of Complementary Therapies at University of Westminster offered the first professional entry
validated courses in acupuncture and homeopathy in the UK and now also offers Herbal medicine, Nutritional
Therapy, Remedial Massage, Naturopathy and a generalist course in Complementary Therapies. Although the
Department celebrates its tenth anniversary this year (2007), and has a thriving teaching clinic to support the
learning, the Department has not realised it’s aim to be at the forefront of research to develop the evidence-base
for the therapies that it originally envisaged.
The courses also include effective development of practitioner skills and ethical awareness through experiential
learning in interprofessional groups. However, the structures in the teaching clinic are uni-professional and very
few of the clinical supervisors have experience of working in an interprofessional environment.
The Department is working towards re-designing their curricula around an enquiry-led learning model with a view
to students’ contributing to the critical knowledge-base of these emerging fields. However this will require a
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significant change in their own work practices – as teachers, practitioners and - for many of them – as fledgling
researchers. The group are approaching this task as enquiry-based learning in its own right.
Activities
The workshop will take the form of participants’ vignettes and case studies of their experiences of the early
stages of instigating a significant organisation change. This will form the basis of discussion and small group
activities to explore the issues that arise from the vignettes. In this way it is anticipated that the workshop will
model the enquiry process that it aims to explore.
26 Examining the Underlying Principles of Enquiry-Based Learning:

Two Instances of Where Learning Sessions Start and End
George Allan, School of Computing, University of Portsmouth
and Norman Powell, Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning, The University of Manchester,
Scholarly Paper: Discipline enquiry and pedagogy
An established conception in Higher Education is that learning sessions start at the beginning of lectures and
finish when the lecture ends. This is common among lecturers and students. However, this is not the case in
Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL). At the University of Portsmouth, England a very successful method of EBL has
been developed on the four cognitive processes of student motivation, enquiries, small-group dialectic and
holistic learning. Resultant depths of student learning and understanding far exceed traditional didactic lecturing.
Independently, the University of Manchester derived a number of forms of EBL from Problem-Based Learning,
moving the focus of learning from the problem to the students’ enquiry to fit a variety of disciplinary and learning
contexts. One EBL initiative prepared students for a second-year team project. The principles and practices of
Enquiry-Based Learning are explained by exploring these two models. One principle is the shift from learning
within lectures to the majority of learning occurring between sessions. The learning session is transformed from
didactic teaching of facts, to facilitation of knowledge construction started in students’ enquiries. It is shown that a
learning session starts before the end of each lecture with motivation to engage in the next phase of learning.
Activities
• Introduction: Traditional model of a Learning Session (5 minutes)
• Group Activity: drawing other models of learning sessions from the floor – Flipchart diagrams encouraged (5
minutes)
• Sharing and Feedback to whole group the models drawn (5 minutes)
• Portsmouth’s EBL model described (5 minutes)
• Questions and Discussions in response to this (5 minutes)
• Manchester Steps model described (5 minutes)
• Questions and Discussions in response to this model (5 minutes)
• Group Activity: Generating models for your own practice – Flipchart diagrams encouraged (5 minutes)
• Sharing and Feedback to whole group the models developed for their own practice (5 minutes)
• Round Up and Concluding Comments (5 minutes)
27 Enquiry Based Learning and Stand-Up Comedy: university teaching as the improviser’s art
Kevin McCarron, School of Arts, Digby Stuart College, Roehampton University
Workshop with a difference: facilitative pedagogy
I will suggest that the single most effective way of engaging students in collaborative enquiry, particularly in the
Humanities, is for teaching staff to acquire the necessary discipline to resist preparing too much material for
individual seminars. The over emphasis on research, at the inevitable expense of teaching in UK universities,
has created a culture of caution; one which inhibits the pleasure of teaching, and stultifies the joy of learning. I
have been an academic for twenty years, and for the latter ten of these years I have also worked as a stand-up
comedian throughout Great Britain, France and Spain. The American educational theorist Kenneth J. Eble wrote:
`teachers can learn from the performing arts’. I will suggest that while many University teachers think of
themselves as `performers’, they are vague as to what kind of performer they are; actually, the one branch of
performance they are connected to most closely is stand-up comedy, irrespective of the `comedy’ in their
classes, because only the teacher and the stand-up comedian rely on the continuous interaction between
themselves and the people in front of them. The difference between all other performers and then teachers and
comedians is that we require the people in front of us to also `perform’.
Many stand-up comedians are clearly motivated by a desire to communicate, they obviously set out to teach their
audiences; reciprocally, then, teachers can learn from comedians. I will argue that EBL could be most effectively
realized if teachers learned specifically from stand-up comedians; in particular, the great value of spontaneity
and flexibility. Many teachers delude themselves, and cheat their students, in maintaining that their intensive
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preparation for classes is to help student learning; but by hiding behind a wall of preparation they are actually
protecting themselves from their students and thereby arresting their learning.
Activities
I would like to respond to the conference organisers’ suggestion regarding `other format’: `please surprise us
with a creative idea’. My presentation will be partly stand-up comedy routine and partly interactive workshop. I
will begin with some of the material I regularly use on the UK comedy circuit, but then I will show how exactly the
same material can serve a much wider agenda in a seminar. Finally, I will practice what I preach: using EBL as a
framework I will invite workshop participants to suggest issues connected to higher education; these might
include, for example, class sizes, marking, learning students’ names, issuing students with bibliographies …
Without a prepared script I will show how virtually any teaching and learning issue in HE can be connected to the
performance of stand-up comedy.
28 Enquiry through blogging. So many questions, so little time…

Emma Purnell, University of Wolverhampton
Scholarly paper: Pedagogy and use of technology
This paper will discuss how enquiry based learning can happen outside of assessment and curriculum,
independent of any formal academic recognition or reward. The richness of a non compulsory, peer driven
community of enquiry can be pivotal in the development of student teachers. I was part of a student teacher
cohort in 2006, studying for a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in the Post Compulsory sector. As a student
group we were introduced to a class blog, an online discussion tool that was part of the Universities ePortfolio
system. This was initially put in place for us to share hopes and fears about becoming new teachers. Even
though there was initial apprehension to use technology by a few, the blog quickly evolved into a community of
enquiry. It was driven by peer engagement and enthusiasm and by skilful teacher facilitation. Many of the
comments developed into complex questions and queries about the new world of teaching ahead of us. As a
group we posed questions to each other about theory and practice. Each question was answered, debated,
argued, persuaded and supported on a scale I could never have imagined. We discussed and worked together to
come up with workable solutions to real life teaching situations being experienced by our peers. Questions posed
by our tutor encouraged us to explore, both as a group and individually, the why and how we were becoming
teachers. As students, and now teachers, we flourished and grew by having a safe, supportive and encouraging
online community where peer enquiry was, and still is, a valuable part of every day life.
Activities
Presentation about 25mins followed by facilitated discussion
29 Creativity, accident or design? Can the enquiry techniques used in graphic design be applied to
problem solving in other disciplines?
Catharine Slade-Brooking, University College for the Creative Arts, Farnham
Workshop: Discipline enquiry / pedagogy
As lecturers we would all like to consider ourselves as creative problem solvers, every day being involved in the
development of exciting and challenging curriculum, but how can be engage our students in the same
processes?
In this session we will explore some of the creative enquiry methods I have developed for my branding students
on the BA (Hons) Graphics course at Farnham. Fundamental to the discipline of design is imagination and
innovation, almost impossible to teach, so how can we integrate these learning outcomes into the curriculum and
facilitate creativity?
In design it is important to appreciate that there are no right or wrong answers only what is appropriate! So how
does a student go about understanding how to develop creative, innovative and appropriate ideas?
Activities
This session will illustrate three specific systematic creative enquiry practices that guide and facilitate highly
individual creative responses. Fundamental to all approaches is student centred learning, where the original brief
allows a great deal of personal choice within the set learning outcomes, how to guide this process to a
successful outcome will be the first example. The second will focus on how visual material can aid creative
enquiry and the final case will demonstrate how the application of active research methods can be used to drive
idea generation and innovation.
33
The session will encourage you to reflect on issues of creative practice in your own field and curriculum. We will
conclude with a discussion that will give you the chance to illustrate your own creative enquiry methods offering
us the chance to share good practice across disciplines.
31 Re-imagining a performance of theory and learning

Caroline Ramsey, Practice Based Professional Learning CETL and
Centre for HR and Change Management, Open University
Interactive Workshop: Work as enquiry
This will be an interactive session where we will explore the possibility of learning without knowing theory,
theorising without pausing from our creative action and performing our learning by making new ‘worlds’.
Surely learning and knowledge go together like horse and carriage? What could possibly be meant by a non-
knowing type of learning, what on earth would such an activity be doing in a bastion of knowledge, like a
university? What would scholarship look like if we took it out of dusty libraries, spruced it up a bit, refused point
blank to apply it and re-invented it as a scholarship of practice?
These questions, and others, will be tackled, if not answered, in a social poetic session where interplay between
Caroline and other participants will seek to lift new ways of playing with ideas, inquiring into practice and
attending to generative, social relations in a scholarship of practice.
So, if you want to find out what improve, postmodern poetics, John Keats, a Russian Literary critic and Austrian
philosopher have to say to modern managers this may be your only chance! (thankfully?)
32 Developing Problem-based Interdisciplinary Education for Sustainable Development

Charles Engel, Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor
Rosemary Tomkinson, Head of Teaching Support and Development, EPS
Helen Dobson, Teaching Support and Development, EPS Faculty
Adele Aubrey, Teaching Support and Development, EPS Faculty
Bland Tomkinson, University Adviser on Pedagogic Development,
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Scholarly Paper: Discipline enquiry / pedagogy
In recent years (see, for example, Engel and Tomkinson 2006) some of the authors have been proposing an
approach to education for sustainability literacy that is both inter-disciplinary and enquiry-based. We received
support from the Royal Academy of Engineering for a pilot project, focusing on issues of sustainable
development, largely within engineering schools. That pilot project started in February 2007 and features a
problem-based approach with five student exercises covering a range of sustainability issues. Students come
from four streams - Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Earth and
Environmental Sciences – and work together in small inter-disciplinary teams, tackling problems that new
graduates might realistically be asked to pursue. There is strong focus on teamwork and on generic and
profession-specific competences for engineering practice, focused on the challenges of sustainable
development, including cultural, economic, environmental and social imperatives. The final assessment is
divided between demonstration of skills and understanding of course content. The pilot is a step towards
developing the application of imaginative and persuasive proposals for change in professional practice. The
team facilitators are Postdoctoral Research Assistants from an even broader spectrum of disciplines, including
Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Computer Science, as well as the student disciplines. The project is also
associated with a Delphi consultation, supported by the Engineering Subject Centre of the UK Higher Education
Academy.
This paper reports on the inter-disciplinary PBL method, including the curriculum design process, and on training
of the facilitators and methods of evaluation, including the attitudes of students and staff towards the project. In
particular we look at the use of advisory groups to underpin the process and at the design of the student
exercises, or case studies, that form the core of the enquiry-based approach. We outline the challenges that we
have faced in the process of gaining acceptance as well as in implementation and also look at the future for the
project - notably, whether this can be developed into an interdisciplinary strand across all undergraduate years
and a broader group of disciplines - particularly in the light of the time required to introduce new ideas into the
curriculum.
Activities
Presentation about 25mins followed by facilitated discussion 25mins
Reference
34
Engel, C.E. and Tomkinson, B.(2006), 'Changing higher education to face the global challenges of sustainability',
in Hunt, L., Tomkinson, B. and Bromage, A. (eds). Realities of Educational Change in Higher Education.
Routledge, Falmer.
33 Humboldt’s relevance in British Universities to-day

Lewis Elton, University of Manchester and University of Surrey
Scholarly paper : disciplinary enquiry / pedagogy
Humboldt’s memorandum of 1810 (English translation: Humboldt 1970) for the new University of Berlin was
amazingly far sighted, and I believe still represents a blue print for the best type of university for the 21st century.
Humboldt’s ideas originated in the situation that arose from Prussia’s huge defeat by Napoleon in 1806 and they
st
were intended for universities which were in the service of the State, a concept not unknown in 21 century
Britain.
The dichotomy in Humboldt’s thinking is not between either research and teaching or between teachers and
students; it is between university and school; it is best represented through the slogan ‘Learning based on
Scholarship’. This postulate leads to the most thought provoking sentence of his memorandum:
“in universities, the teacher is not there for the sake of the student, but
both have their justification in the service of scholarship”.
This principle underlay research from the start, but it has rarely if ever been put into practice in teaching until very
recently in the UK, first in applied disciplines through Problem Based Learning (PBL), and then in all disciplines
through Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) – starting with English Literature (Hutchings and O’Rourke (2002). Its
main but very radical change from university tradition is that it puts the student and not the teacher in the driving
seat. However, in this, it is much older than Humboldt, for it was Lao Tse who said that ‘of the best teachers the
students say “we did it all ourselves”.’
Activities
Presentation inviting inquisitive questioning and the development and contesting of ideas by participants.
Questions
1. How should the teacher change, as the student develops?
2. Is this approach of putting the student in the driving seat appropriate in all circumstances? Suggest instances
where perhaps it is not.
3. What do you think of Lao Tse's wisdom?
References
Humboldt, W. von (1970), ‘On the spirit and organisational framework of intellectual institutions in Berlin’,
Minerva 8, pp. 242 – 267
Hutchings, B. and O’Rourke, K. (2002), ‘Introducing Enquiry-Based Teaching Methods in Literary Studies’, Arts
and Humanities in Higher Education 1, pp. 73 – 83.
34 Take me to your leader

David Jaques, Independent Consultant
All forms of enquiry and problem-solving comprise several elements, some of them used consciously and some
unconsciously, but all available as experiences and therefore as sources of learning.
• How does the problem present itself?
• What prompts us to engage with it? (or not?)
• How does the context (physical and temporal) affect the way we approach it?
• Who, or what, are we doing it for, and how does that affect our approach?
• What processes of thinking and engagement with others do we choose, and how?
• How do we handle the frustrations, and enjoy the rewards, it offers?
• What counts for ‘completion’ and how important is that?
• What do we, can we, learn from the above about the problems, about problem solving, about ourselves and
how can we bring that into our consciousness?
In negotiating and making choices in these processes, whether for ourselves alone or with others in a group, we
are usually having to exercise a form of leadership, one of the most important of which is within ourselves (the
35
intrapersonal); and this carries with it some risks – being ignored, rejected or even mocked. It can arouse a fear
of failure (vis à vis the problem) or of the unknown (playing with new ideas or adopting unfamiliar methods).
Activities
In this workshop we shall study how we experience the interplay between the individual, the group, the problem
itself and the environment that enfolds it; and how we might handle its flow. The core activities will be two
learning games for small groups which my or may not emerge in the expected way.
35 Interactive conversations: playing with curiosity and shifting perspectives
Penelope A Best, Roehampton University / Creative Partnerships/ Private Consultancy
Experiential Workshop: Disciplinary enquiry and pedagogy
This workshop will offer participants opportunities to engage playfully with ideas about reflection as a means of
supporting enquiry. Play is basic to generating change and provoking learning. To play with an idea one must
be prepared to take the risk of letting go of set patterns and allowing in the possibility of something new, even if
only for a moment. Participants will look at ways of safely promoting reflections. Reflections upon one’s playful
interactions can provide participants with insights into ways in which meanings are created. While playing with
ideas can become a catalyst for change, it is within the active reflections which follow that potential change
begins. Being able to play with ideas is increasingly essential within our complex world.
Participants will be encouraged to be curious about ways in which they create hypotheses about actions,
observations, and reflections in their work. The workshop will be experiential and will make use of creative
activities and metaphor as stimuli for observing processes and moment to moment interactions. These
interactions will sometimes be between people, and sometimes between participants and their own creations
(e.g. drawings, movements, writing, images). Moving between expressive modes facilitates distance and
creates opportunities to re-engage with material from a new perspective.
The main thrust of the workshops will be to encourage curiosity about one’s ways of viewing and engaging with
the world. Participants will move through action –reaction-action reflexive loops and will be encouraged to make
direct links with professional material and application. The facilitator will share theme from her present research
into creative processes within supervision of therapists and identification of significant learning moments. The
work is informed by post modernist paradigms which position the creation of meaning between people, unfolding
moment to moment. Interacting and reflecting with others, rather than on one’s own, assists positional shifts
which can create fresh perspectives, thus facilitating relational enquiry.
Activities: interactive and experiential
36 First-year students talk about learning and inquiry

Robert Petrulis and Philippa Levy, CILASS: The Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social
Sciences, University of Sheffield
Workshop: Student voice
In the autumn of 2006, CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences) embarked
upon a cohort-based study of undergraduate students’ experiences of inquiry-based learning at the University of
Sheffield. Twenty-nine first-year undergraduate student participants, drawn from the Faculties of Arts, Social
Sciences and Law, have volunteered to participate in the project, which is exploring their perceptions and
experiences of learning, inquiry and research at the University. Participation includes interviews three times per
year and other activities (e.g. research blog).
CILASS has recruited a wide variety of participants for this study, including students from many different
undergraduate degree courses and programmes; both women and men; and a range of ethnic, cultural and
socioeconomic backgrounds and national origins. The study will develop detailed case studies of undergraduate
students’ learning experiences, focusing in particular on their experiences of inquiry-based learning in its different
forms across disciplinary contexts.
This session will draw upon data collected in the first two rounds of interviews. The first round consisted of focus
groups and the second of individual interviews. Preliminary analysis of the data has yielded themes relating to
the first year experience of inquiry that offer interesting perspectives on both practice and theory relating to
inquiry-based learning, and that will be explored in this workshop session.
Activities
This workshop session offers participants a chance to interact with data from the CILASS Student Cohort Study.
It will feature a short video of a ‘readers’ theatre’ presentation of quotes taken from the interview data, read by
students who are not members of the student participant group. The video will explore some of the themes that
are emerging from the interview data. Workshop participants will be invited to share their reflections about the
video, with particular attention to the implications regarding the development of inquiry-rich learning
36
environments for undergraduate students. Outcomes of the workshop will include a set of questions for further
inquiry and tentative theories about the data.
37 Collaborative inquiry as social construction

Peter Critten, Middlesex University Business School
Scholarly paper: Work as enquiry
As the latest CIPD survey into Learning and Development points out ‘there have been significant changes in
workplace learning’ over the past decade. (1) Industry has realized value of coaching and supporting
development of individuals in the workplace as an alternative to formal training sessions. Institutions of Higher
Education have developed systems of accrediting learning from work towards an academic qualification. But, this
paper argues, what has been undervalued in this change of practice is the process of inquiry which underpins
work based learning and, more importantly, how this collaborative inquiry can lead to organizational change.
Middlesex University Business School provides a route to a Masters in Leadership and Management Practice
through the accreditation of learning in the workplace. This paper draws on a current programme with managers
in a Financial Services Company to illustrate how the methodology, or more properly the epistemology, of inquiry
in the workplace is leading to continuing ‘learning conversations’ which are capable of changing the way the
organization is perceived. The paper draws heavily on the work of Patricia Shaw and the notion of change as
emergence in the complex social process of communicative action:
‘I have been describing work in terms of people making narrative sense of being and working together by
responsively weaving stories that make sense of their presence in the communicative action that is evolving.
This conversation is reconstructing the past and constructing the future.’ (2)
Activities
Following on from the paper there will be an opportunity for the audience to share their stories about
conversations in the workplace and how they have been or might be the context out of which change emerges. It
is also hoped that those wishing to continue these conversations will sign up to a Social text website to continue
to tell and learn from their stories
References
(1) CIPD (2007) Annual survey report 2007: Learning and Development CIPD
(2) Shaw P (2002) Changing conversations in organizations – a complexity approach to change Routledge
38 Using enquiry to identify needs and means of support for enquiring university teachers.
Ranald Macdonald, Learning and Teaching Institute, Sheffield Hallam University and Alison Holmes
University Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Canterbury
Workshop: Professional enquiry / pedagogy
As academic developers we are interested in how we can most effectively support the development of enquiring
university teachers, teaching and institutions. We want to explore with teachers, other academic developers and
institutional leaders a four-stage approach to achieving this objective.
Stage 1: What?
What do you want for your students in terms of graduate profile or learning outcomes? On the assumption that
you want your graduates to be able to think critically, what does this mean in your discipline?
Stage 2: How?
How can you use enquiry to get to this outcome? What are the implications for curriculum design, teaching and
learning practices, learning environments, values, institutional infrastructures, etc.?
Stage 3: Needs
What are the needs of the university teacher in addressing the issues in 2? What are the models, good practice
examples and principles, confidence-building activities, support for risk-taking and innovation, etc. that will
enable you to promote the desired attributes in your discipline?
Stage 4: Ways and Means
37
What can academic developers do to support teachers to become more enquiring? What evidence, ideas,
models, etc. can they bring and what means can they use to promote a departmental and institutional culture of
enquiry?
Activities
Through a facilitated group discussion based on an enquiry-led model, participants will explore the four stages
proposed and consider disciplinary differences and similarities so as to guide academic developers about the
nature of interventions they might make or the support they might provide A range of methods likely to emerge
from the discussion. might include: literature summaries; generic adaptation of discipline-specific models,
examples and principles of good practice; curriculum planning; observation; mentoring; etc.
Depending on the numbers attending, we will either start with small groups or in a whole group so as to ensure
that everyone is able to contribute from their unique perspective.
39 From coke bottles to mole traps: Collections based learning and independent enquiry at the Museum
of English Rural Life, University of Reading.
Rhianedd Smith, Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading and CETL-AURS
Workshop / discussion demonstrations of object analysis techniques Discipline enquiry / pedagogy
Museum learning theory has long argued that the polysemic and multi-sensory nature of objects encourages
discussion, creative thinking, independent learning and appeals to a range of learning styles (Hooper-Greenhill
2000 , Pearce 1994). However, this has rarely been used in HE and engaging with primary resources can
present a challenge to students who are well versed in library based research. Support in the form of online
research guides and structured activities need to be used to facilitate this engagement. This paper/ workshop will
investigate the issues associated with problem/enquiry based learning in collections and will demonstrate the
range of resources and activities that our project has developed to address this.
The Museum of English Rural Life is a research institution with an outstanding Designated collection of objects,
archives, photographs paintings and films. It has always attracted scholars and school groups but students have
rarely used the facilities. However, over the last year the Museum of English Rural Life has developed a range of
teaching initiatives aimed at facilitating undergraduate enquiry across their collections. The creation of the CETL-
AURS funded Undergraduate Learning Officer post has allowed the museum to offer optional ‘modules’ which
teach research skills and allow undergraduates space to undertake independent research projects using the
collections.
Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and has praised the opportunities for moving outside the
classroom, working with professionals and experiencing hands-on and self-led learning. The modules are all
taught at the museum site using our gallery space, store and reading room and utilising the skills of existing staff.
The research undertaken thus far has been of such a high standard that it is feeding back into our knowledge of
our collections. In this way students from the Arts and Humanities (and in the next phase from the Sciences) are
able to experience a working environment while developing a range of subject specific and transferable skills.
Activities
1. Discussion of project at MERL
2. Activity: Object observation (‘mystery object activity’)
3. Collections based learning
4. Activity: Object interpretation (‘coke bottle activity’)
5. Supporting research
6. Activity: Online resources (SOAR, Blackboard and self assessment demonstration)
40 Bite-sized EBL: Incorporating EBL in your teaching

Susan Jamieson, University of Glasgow
Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) is advocated for the potential benefits it brings to the learning & teaching
situation, which have been described by O’Rourke (http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/ceebl/ebl/ as including
increased student engagement with the subject; learning that is perceived as more relevant by students; flexible,
student-centred, self-directed learning; and the development of transferable skills, including group-working and
communication ability.
Indeed, in the author’s own institution, EBL forms a plank of that University’s Learning & Teaching Strategy, and
staff are encouraged to adopt EBL as a learning & teaching methodology. But how straightforward is it to
incorporate EBL into established courses? Or to employ EBL when the format of one’s teaching is dictated by
Course Co-ordinators?
38
This workshop will encourage participants to consider how they might incorporate the principles of EBL in the
face of constraints imposed by time, class size, rigid course structures, etc.
Activities:
Participants will:
• Consider case studies provided by the author and identify which aspects of these constitute EBL;
• Consider hypothetical and actual ‘teaching challenges’ with a view to incorporating EBL
The aim of the workshop is to encourage participants to think more flexibly about how to employ EBL in their
teaching.
41 Ambassadors for Inquiry – The CILASS Student Network one year on
Tim Fiennes (Student Co-ordinator, CILASS Student Ambassador Network) and
Sabine Little, University of Sheffield
Scholarly paper: Student voice
The Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences’ (CILASS) Student Ambassador Network
(SAN) began its life in March 2006, bringing together students from each department in the Arts, Social Sciences
and Law to facilitate inquiry in their own departments, and to function as a strategic student input group into
CILASS. From September 2006, a student co-ordinator has been facilitating the network in collaboration with
staff, and students have had the opportunity to put forward their work completed for the SAN for recognition of a
Generic Skills Award which rewards reflective, collaborative and other transferable skills. This session will build
on research conducted jointly between staff and students, exploring how the role of ‘student ambassador for
inquiry-based learning’ (IBL) has influenced both the development of new skills and the awareness of existing
skills, and how these skills have been put to use to engage other students in inquiry-based learning. Through the
discussion following the session, we would like to explore what can be learnt from the experiences of our student
ambassadors in relation to other students engaging with IBL, but also what kind of a journey a student engaging
in IBL might undertake, and how this might influence their experience at university. The session will be jointly
presented by at least one student and one member of staff, but will make extensive use of the student voice
throughout the session. The feedback from other students present at the conference would be particularly
welcome.
Activities
Following a very brief overview of the SAN, the session will mainly focus on feedback gathered from student
ambassadors regarding their experiences with and changed perceptions through IBL, leaving the second half of
the session open for discussion around the issues raised.
42 Enquiring Minds: Learners' Cultures in the Classroom

John Morgan and Ben Williamson, Futurelab
Scholarly paper : Discipline enquiry / pedagogy
This paper will explore emerging findings and observations from the three-year research project Enquiring Minds,
which is currently being run by Futurelab. Enquiring Minds is an approach to teaching and learning which starts
from the assumption that learners have valid and important knowledge and ideas that they can bring to the
educational experience. It is an attempt to bring about engagement in learning by starting from learners’
identified interests and needs, rather than by delivering a prescribed curriculum alone, with knowledge regarded
as something to be worked on rather than received. The situation parallels higher education social learning
environments which aim to share and develop knowledge through culturally diverse communities of enquiry.
Participating teachers in the secondary school context have based their involvement in Enquiring Minds on the
understanding that school children are insufficiently prepared for the independent and flexible working methods
demanded by higher education and increasingly by employers.
The authors will describe how Enquiring Minds has been established in two schools in the south west of England
and, in particular, how participating teachers have managed the complex task of welcoming children's cultures
into the classroom and then to work with learners to turn their ideas and interests into enquiry-based learning
experiences that are relevant and authentic. The challenges and opportunities that have emerged in the first two
years of the project will be discussed, and relevance to the higher education community established.
Activities
Conversational presentation with plenty of opportunity for discussion based on the personal enquiries of
participants aimed at understanding the significance of the results for higher education teaching and learning.
44 History as Inquiry: in search of the history of the English Language

Susan Fitzmaurice and Philip Shaw, University of Sheffield
39
Scholarly paper: discipline enquiry
The History of the English Language has traditionally been taught at the introductory level as a narrative. In
consequence, these courses do not equip students to engage with problems of explanation and interpret data.
We therefore sought to foreground inquiry and interrogation of the historical record rather than a grand narrative.
Since this represents a major challenge for students whose A-level experience turns around this sort of narrative,
we designed a project to facilitate development of information literacy and key skills in historical approaches to
language through inquiry-based exercises.
These exercises were designed to equip the first-year contingent to tackle the module curriculum through
problem-based learning, an approach intended to challenge them to develop and apply methods for working with
primary sources. The project brought third-year students into a first-year core module, History of English, to act
as mentors for small groups of first year students. It was envisaged that the mentors would also benefit from
reflecting on their own research practices and learning to communicate their methodologies in small-group
situations. We expected both year groups to develop valuable social networks explicitly focused on supporting
their learning, and wanted both groups to become more effective in posing their own research questions and
establishing viable approaches to answering those questions. Academic staff worked closely with mentors to
enable them to interact effectively with their groups, and we assessed the direction and impact of the project
through a number of meetings with mentors - and focus groups of first-year students - during and after the
module. We will report on the results of this project and discuss the ways in which evaluation and reflection on
the outcomes will inform the sustainable delivery of the module as an inquiry-based course.
45 Learning to learn through supported enquiry: literature review

Maggi Savin-Baden, Coventry University, Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Brookes University
Scholarly Paper: EBL pedagogy
This paper will present the findings of an interpretive meta ethnography that focused on key themes in the
literature relating to learning to learn through supported enquiry, funded by University of Surrey. It examined:
1. What approaches to E/PBL are being undertaken in UK HE?
2. How learners and teachers learn through engaging in enquiry?
This review focused on identifying approaches to E/PBL which have been implemented and evaluated over a
period of time. Like other areas of pedagogic research, E/PBL suffers from a growth in the number of publication
descriptions of practice but little serious research. This literature review adopted meta ethnography, which in
short is a literature review and qualitative systematic review that enables comparison, analysis and
interpretations to be made that can inform theorising and practising about E/PBL. The findings indicate a focus in
the literature on Role expectation; Forms of disjunction apparent for staff and students; Learning through
collaboration; Notion of curriculum.
The diverse yet overlapping themes that emerged form the findings indicate a need for considerable further
research in E/PBL, particularly in the UK, where qualitative studies into tutor roles, student experience,
assessment, learning through collaboration and understanding of curriculum are to date the most prolific. Yet
issues of context, difference, learning approach, understanding and impact of innovation, along with notions of
identity and improvement are areas that remain relatively unexplored.
Activities
Presentation followed by discussion.
46 Developing the Developing Developers: An EBL Approach to Educational Development

Karen O’Rourke Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning, The University of Manchester
Greg Tinker CEEBL Student Sabbatical Officer 2006-7
Mary Sattenstall CEEBL Student Intern - Medical and Human Science
Louise Goldring CEEBL Student Intern - Humanities
Jamie Wood CEEBL Student Intern - Humanities
Kate Maull CEEBL Student Intern - Life Sciences
Presentation/workshop : student voice
The Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning (CEEBL) recognises that students and staff need to make
transitions in adopting new approaches to learning and assessment, especially with the more open-ended
approaches involved in EBL.
The CEEBL facilitates activity that impacts on staff as well as students and we are committed to engaging students to
inform our overall programme. This workshop will engage participants in thinking about ways to involve students as
40
‘co-developers’. The current CEEBL student interns, working as an inter-disciplinary team and advocating the
principles and processes of EBL, will outline key areas of their current activity that impacts on educational and staff
development, for example:
• Offering advice and support to staff developing EBL modules

• A student-produced ‘Guide to EBL Facilitation’ for staff
• Student preparation for EBL (induction)
• Engagement with staff-led teaching and learning projects
• Co-authoring and publication of project case-studies
• Contribution to evaluation activities
• Dissemination
Activities
The students will lead activities and will facilitate a discussion on their contribution to the CEEBL’s learning,
teaching and research activity using their own resources as a starting point for open debate.
47 Learning to enquire about the experiences of mental health service users: promoting “Service User”
involvement in enquiry based learning
Clark Davison, Megan Earl-Gray, Emma Harding, Mia Harrison, Sally Morgan, Tamsyn Packman, Gillian Roose
and Anna Tickle, University of Surrey
Presentation interspersed with discussion‘ : student voice, disciplinary enquiry and work as enquiry.
This session will provide a student perspective about the involvement of service users in clinical psychology
training. As trainees, we represent the University of Surrey and its Service User Advisory Group, the NHS, and
the British Psychological Society. We are encouraged to enquire about individuals’ experiences throughout our
training. Learning in our complex world has meant that enquiry into the experiences of service users has needed
to become a professional stance, rather than isolated enquiry-based learning activities.
We will reflect on how we have facilitated enquiry, and sought to influence the training programme. There can be
ethical and moral dilemmas in involving service users and we will offer examples of resolutions to such
dilemmas. We seek to influence training through the university and the work of practitioners in order to
continually develop service user involvement within the discipline. As a trainee it can feel risky to challenge the
practice of others who do not involve service users. Yet we are passionate about the need to enquire about the
experience of service users, and are motivated by the mutual benefits of involvement. We will also offer some
ideas for increasing service user involvement within an enquiry based learning approach.
Activities:
The presentation will provide brief introductions to clinical psychology training and its context within a complex
world and the service user movement and why service user involvement is important generally and explain why
trainees have been motivated to increase enquiry into the experiences of service user involvement. We will
provide examples of how we have enquired into the experiences of service users, both at university and on
placement, consider occasions when it is not appropriate for trainees to directly facilitate enquiry in order to
ensure a safe environment for service users, highlight some of the challenges of attempting to facilitate enquiry
and reflection on how enquiry has enriched our training and practice. There will be plenty of opportunity for
questioning and discussion aimed at helping participants appreciate how our learning might be connected to their
own situations and contexts.
48 Examining the underlying principles of enquiry-based learning: two instances

of where learning sessions start and end
George Allan University of Portsmouth
Norman Powell, Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning, The University of Manchester,
An established conception in Higher Education is that learning sessions start at the beginning of lectures and
finish when the lecture ends. This is common among lecturers and students. However, this is not the case in
Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL). At the University of Portsmouth, England a very successful method of EBL has
been developed on the four cognitive processes of student motivation, enquiries, small-group dialectic and
holistic learning. Resultant depths of student learning and understanding far exceed traditional didactic lecturing.
Independently, the University of Manchester derived a number of forms of EBL from Problem-Based Learning,
moving the focus of learning from the problem to the students’ enquiry to fit a variety of disciplinary and learning
contexts. One EBL initiative prepared students for a second-year team project. The principles and practices of
Enquiry-Based Learning are explained by exploring these two models. One principle is the shift from learning
within lectures to the majority of learning occurring between sessions. The learning session is transformed from
41
didactic teaching of facts, to facilitation of knowledge construction started in students’ enquiries. It is shown that a
learning session starts before the end of each lecture with motivation to engage in the next phase of learning.
Activities
Introduction: Traditional model of a Learning Session (5 minutes)
Group Activity: drawing other models of learning sessions from the floor – Flipchart diagrams encouraged (5
minutes)
Sharing and feedback to whole group the models drawn (5 minutes)

Portsmouth’s EBL model described (5 minutes)
Questions and discussions in response to this (5 minutes)
Manchester Steps model described (5 minutes)
Questions and discussions in response to this model (5 minutes)
Group Activity: Generating models for your own practice – Flipchart diagrams encouraged (5 minutes)
Sharing and feedback to whole group the models developed for their own practice (5 minutes)
Round Up and concluding comments (5 minutes)
49 First Contact: Boldly going where others should not seek to follow
Pauline Brooks Liverpool John Moores University
Presentation/performance: using technology
This presentation/performance, (somewhat influenced by Star Trek), seeks to engage peers in the trials and
tribulations of exploring technology for facilitating collaborative teaching and learning in dance in two institutions,
one situated in Liverpool, UK the other in Philadelphia, USA. To become the leaders of tomorrow, students need
to be introduced to innovative teaching and learning methods today, so that they will be inspired to use and
develop such innovations in their own working practice for the future. First Contact, is a pilot project that has
sought to enable students to work with peers from 3000 miles away by communicating via email and web cam.
After first contact, it is the intent that students will be paired, one from each institution, to work together to create
a short dance for camera work using I-Movie. Following this step they will, with lecturers, then evaluate the
works and the project, in order to inform future shared collaborative dance projects using technology
The pilot project aims to:

• To investigate how web-cam and e-mail technology can be used in teaching and if it will engage students in
the use of technology for their own learning.
• To use technology on a shared international project to encourage the development international links and
the practice of networking.
• To see if results will impact on the development of curriculum design and modes of delivery.
• To provide the basis for developing a model that could be used by other subject areas as a way of
broadening network links for staff and students and for shared research in teaching and learning.
Results and advice will be shared with peers so that they too can boldly explore new horizons and be part of the
next generation of explorers in H.E. who use technology to facilitate collaborative international teaching and
learning.
42

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Learning through Enquiry CETL Alliance Annual Conference 2007

University of Gloucestershire, University of Manchester, University of Reading,

Learning for a Complex World:

Monday June 25th – Wednesday June 27th 2007

Learning through enquiry in work and

Level of certainty decreases

Level of agreement decreases

University of Surrey Conference Organising Committee

Conference Chair Professor Norman Jackson

Learning through Enquiry Alliance

Conference organising committee

Preparing students for a lifetime of living, working 5

Learning through Enquiry Centres of Excellence 7

Workshops and scholarly papers 14

Learning to Learn through Supported Enquiry Symposium 18

Facilitating collaborative enquiry master classes 19

will be made to Professor Lewis Elton

The award will be made at the conference dinner.

11.00-1150 Parallel workshops

11.30-13.30 Registration: SCEPTrE Reception 01/AC01

12.00 Finger buffet lunch Wates House

12.45-13.50 Keynote Address AC Lecture Theatre

14.00-14.50 Parallel workshops

15.00– 15.50 Parallel workshops

16.00 Coffee break: 01AC01 & corridor AC03, AC courtyard if dry

16.30-17.45 Keynote Address AC Lecture Theatre

19.30 Conference dinner

Tuesday June 26th AC Building

09.00 – 09.55 Parallel workshops

Learning to Learn through Supported Enquiry Symposium

M u s i c a s a s t i m u l u s f o r e n q u i r y : a concert pianist's perspective

10.00 – 10.55 Parallel workshops & Learning to Learn Symposium

10.55 – 11.15 coffee break 01/AC02, ‘AC courtyard if dry’

11.15 – 12.10 Parallel workshops & Learning to Learn Symposium

12.15 – 12.50 Final plenary session AC Lecture Theatre

13.00 Lunch at Wates House

14.00 – 17.00 PARALLEL MASTER CLASSES (details in separate programme)

The aim of these sessions is to introduce participants to a range of

Collaborative, inquisitive and appreciative inquiry

Creative thinking and problem working

Exploring with wiki

Stand-Up Comedy and the Seminar:

Making meaning: the art and science of concept mapping

Facilitating in the midst of cultural diversity: How does culture

19.00 – 22.00 ‘Guildford Adventure’ : team-based experiential enquiry

Wednesday June 27th AC Building

12.10 – 12.45 Concluding plenary AC Lecture Theatre

13.00 Lunch Wates House

Facilitating Interdisciplinary Inquiry: an immersive

Kai Jansen http://www.kaijansen.co.uk/

Kai is a talented musician, singer/song writer/poet. You

He will be providing a musical contribution to our

A birthday is a strange affair, which some will love or fear,

Tuesday, June 26th 9.30-11.00, Performing Arts Building Studio 1.

A musical experience combining recital with enquiry-rich conversation and concept

Emilie was born in Aix-en-Provence and has dual nationality

Shakeeb is our artist in residence during the conference.

THEME 1 Disciplinary Enquiry / Pedagogy

7 Practical implementation of enquiry based methods for teaching in electrical engineering 19

24 Four case studies of adapting enquiry-based learning to a single school 31

26 Examining the Underlying Principles of Enquiry-Based Learning: Two Instances of 31

29 Creativity, accident or design? Can the enquiry techniques used in graphic 33

32 Developing problem-based interdisciplinary education for sustainable development 34