THE LEARNING AND TEACHING SUPPORT NETWORK IN THE UK: AN UPDATE

At the GSA conference in Reno last year, I reported on a new initiative in the UK: the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN – http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/). This Network is funded by the four UK higher education (HE) funding councils and aims to support the enhancement of learning and teaching at the subject-level. This initiative is timely in that UK HE is undergoing a period of rapid and extensive change. This change is mostly driven by the Government’s plans to expand the proportion of the population participating in HE but also reflects the increasing enforcement of quality assurance procedures.

Within this structural change to HE there is also a change in approach to learning and teaching with more emphasis towards student-centred, interactive learning and increasing use of information and communication technology. And this change may be enhanced, enforced or stalled (depending on your point of view!) due to the introduction of new legislation with respect to the full inclusion of students with disabilities. Ironically, whilst there is a national move towards expansion the disciplines of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (supported by LTSN-GEES – http://www.gees.ac.uk/) are also faced with problems of student recruitment.

In this context, LTSN-GEES is working to support staff by providing various activities, such as workshops, conferences, publications and projects. This presentation will outline our activities to date (including links with the USA, Europe and Australia) and will pose the question: should support bodies such as ours be promoting change in HE, or should we be encouraging staff to be reflective practitioners and provide support to whatever changes they wish to implement?