[...]... intellectual effort 2 It was not until 1976 that a landmark study by two Swedish researchers, Marton and Saljo, shifted the traditional research focus from teachers and teaching onto what students actually think and do in real situations They reported that all students have distinctive approaches to learning that we now understand are influenced by many factors, as shown in Figure 1.1 The chain of events... as much as you can This means enquiring about such things as: what students have been taught (and what they may know), what the purpose of your teaching session is to be, what resources, such as library materials, are available for students, what the assessment arrangements for the course or unit are, what methods have been used to teach students in the past This last point is most important You may... journal article or medical treatment plan; apply earlier learning to a novel situation To construct an academic argument Example: Present the pro and con arguments with respect to a health policy issue To present students with information about a subject Example: Review and comment on the research on a particular subject To demonstrate a procedure, a way of thinking, or approach to problem solving Examples:... assessment, and so on Modifying teaching approaches Evidence is being found that there is a relationship between a teacher’s approach to teaching and the quality of student learning outcomes Research and thinking about teaching over nearly thirty years shows that teachers hold rather different ‘theories’ of teaching and learning which influence their approach to teaching Very broadly, there are teachers. .. Having clarified the context of your large group teaching session you need to ask yourself ‘What is its purpose?’ This is a question you should always ask so that you have a clear idea about matching ends with means A possible range of answers is given below, many of which will overlap To encourage thinking skills Examples: Interpret a set of statistical data; evaluate a research proposal; criticize a journal... surface approaches Surface approach students intend to fulfil the assessment requirements of the course by using learning processes such as acquiring information, mechanical memorisation without understanding it, and reproducing it on demand in a test The focus is on the material or task and not on its meaning or purpose The learning outcome is, at best, a memorisation of factual information and perhaps... a logical step-by-step approach with a cautious acceptance of generalisations only when based on evidence There is an appropriate attention to factual and procedural detail which may include memorisation for understanding This process is most prevalent in science departments On the other hand, the comprehension learner uses a process in which the initial concern is for the broad outlines of ideas and... broad approaches to learning, commonly called surface, deep and strategic 3 Students adopting a surface approach to learning are predominantly motivated by a concern to complete the course or by a fear of failure In fact, the emotional aspects of students’ perceptions of their context is beginning to receive attention and it is emerging that anxiety, fear of failure and low self-esteem are associated... examination These lifelong learning skills can be developed in your courses and include self-organising skills; skill in deeper learning strategies such as analysis, judgement, synthesis and application; locating, retrieving, interpreting, evaluating and managing information; and the skills of breadth and depth of vision and the capacity to appreciate the interrelated nature of knowledge It is clear... 2000, and P Candy, G Crebert and J O’Leary, Developing Lifelong Learning Through Undergraduate Education, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1994 Both contain many exemplars of lifelong learning practices in higher education Recent editions, from around 1997, of the journal Higher Education Research and Development have included several helpful papers about Asian students A particularly .