‘Teaching excellence’ in Higher Education policy making and leadership
- Dr Stephen Walsh, Manchester Metropolitan University, Dept of Psychology & Dept of SLT
- Dr Bernard Lisewski, Manchester Metropolitan University, UTA
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This webinar will contribute to an emerging and more nuanced debate around the nature of ‘teaching excellence’ in Higher Education policy making and leadership in the face of those discourses of ‘employability’, ‘graduate earnings’ and ‘student outcomes’ currently prevalent within the English Teaching Excellence Framework. We will argue that a Social Identity Approach (a psychological meta-theory incorporating social identity theory and self-categorisation theory) is a viable alternative to the currently dominant economic emphasis on the development of human capital as the main purpose of the English Higher Education system. We contend that the Social Identity Approach offers a coherent conceptual framework for regarding students as embryonic citizens and equips Higher Education policy makers, and leaders, with an alternative discursive language that facilitates and allows those in leadership roles to re-imagine and pursue university outcomes for the public good, rather than as merely market place for individualised student consumers. Social justice and an informed citizenry have got to be our goal in HE. Education is not a commodity, but rather it is key to a better world. To unlock the most beneficial future, education must build on an understanding of what is important for ‘us’. ‘Us’ as a society, not a marketplace.
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Dr Stephen Walsh is an academic psychologist whose research focuses on the application of a social identity approach in ‘real world’ scenarios. Stephen gained access to university education for the first time, as an adult learner, with the Open University. As such, Stephen has a personal interest in the transformational power of education. His IRC funded PhD, a Social Identity Approach to Acquired Brain Injury (University of Limerick), was completed in 2014. A senior lecturer at MMU since 2016, Stephen’s ongoing learning includes gaining a PGCert, and MA, in Higher Education. His wider social identity research, and publication, is ongoing.
Dr Bernard Lisewski was originally an Economics Lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University. He subsequently worked at Salford and Manchester Metropolitan Universities as an Educational Developer where he was the Programme Leader for their respective MA programmes in Higher Education Research and Practice. His Doctorate is in Educational Research from Lancaster University. He currently mentors academic staff at Manchester Metropolitan University who are seeking to publish in Higher Education Educational Research journals particularly in the areas of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Higher Education Policy, Culture and Change.
