Been a bit of a hiatus in posting, because I have been so busy at work and the doctorate’s been sitting on the back burner a little. – I’ve also just had a tutorial with my supervisor about my first draft, which turned out to be quite an interesting discussion. The general drift of the conversation was about how I could perhaps look at where some of the ideas around university teaching are coming from. We discussed what’s sometimes called the “Sputnik Shock” of 1957 – essentially the West got a big wake up call when the Soviet Union successfully put a satellite into orbit. But having googled the phrase (I’m not that old!) it seems to have been as much about the realisation that a new age was dawning, as it was a feeling of being threatened. It’s tempting to make comparisons with the events of September 11, 2001, but I think the reaction to that was more about punctured complacency. After all, in the cold light of day that was little more than an extraordinary well executed terrorist plan, where all that was really new, was the scale of it.  I’m not sure it changed the world in the way that the launch of Sputnik did. Both generated fear and panic, but looking back at the reactions in 1957 there seemed to be a lot of hope as well. (Might be interesting to think about some other world changing events as well!)

But what does all this have to do with Educational Development Research? Well, Obviously there is a sense that “our” nation is getting left behind so we need more graduates, who will keep us technologically competitive. But that isn’t necessarily a sophisticated argument for more higher education.  Let’s face it, there are very few degrees (even at postgraduate level) where graduates are immediately qualified to practice in their area.  On the other hand, there is an emerging market of mid career professionals who are already practicing, but want to enhance their career. Is the pedagogical approach taken for this market likely to be the same as that for fresh faced 18 year olds straight out of school.  Arguably, the University has much to learn from them. I think I’ll have to return to this topic later though. It’s tempting to spend far too long blogging!