Conference attendance - ISATT 2007 Off to present a paper at ISATT 2007 on Wedesday in the Higher Education Contexts theme. The title for the paper is "Talking Teaching: Engaging Engineers":

In 2005 the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) created 74 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) in order to promote and investigate the excellence of teaching and learning in higher education institutions (HEIs). It is seen by some as a counterbalance to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) (Gosling & Hannan, 2006) which emphasises excellence in research including pedagogic research (hefcw, hefce, SFC, & DfEL, 2006), something which is a key part of the CETLs initiative.

HEFCE expects a CETL to “acquire and utilise a capacity to draw in pedagogic research and evaluation and to undertake research into its own practice” (HEFCE, 2004, p.2). This in effect means the building of a pedagogic research capacity which in the case of engCETL, the engineering and industry focused CETL based at Loughborough University, a research intensive university in the English East Midlands, has led to the creation of pedagogic research posts and a requirement to discuss teaching and learning with academics. This has brought about two sets of issues: a need to explain what pedagogic research is to colleagues who have little understanding of what this entails and engaging with engineering academics who do not view themselves as teachers or feel, because of positive student feedback, QAA teaching review scores, employer satisfaction and professional body endorsement (Loughborough University, 2004) there is little need to provide further evidence for their excellence. This paper will illustrate how we have begun to engage with colleagues within and without the engCETL.

Gosling, D., & Hannan, A. (2006). Theoretical underpinnings: an analysis of Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs). Paper presented at the 14th Improving Student Learning Symposium.

HEFCE. (2004). Guidance Notes for Stage Two CETL Bids [Electronic Version]. CETL bidding process. Retrieved 15th January, 2007 from http://www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/tinits/cetl/guide/guide1.pdf.

hefcw, hefce, SFC, & DfEL. (2006). Generic Statement [Electronic Version]. RAE 2008 Panel criteria and working methods, p.8. Retrieved 15th January 2007 from http://www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2006/01/docs/genstate.pdf.

Loughborough University. (2004). CETL Stage 2 Proposal: Industry and Employer Linked Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

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