The Joy of Teaching

Gave my last formal lecture of the semester today.  It’s quite a big class and I haven’t taught this material before, so it was a little daunting but I really enjoyed preparing it and learning some new things.  It’s also been quite a proactive class, so it’s been fun to teach.  I really like it when students ask questions during the lecture.  Partly it forces me to stop for a minute and clarify something, but it’s also just nice to have some interaction.

Today I had a really clever question that I couldn’t actually answer.  It’s slightly embarassing when someone asks a question to which you don’t know the answer, but it also shows that there are some really bright students out there who  get some of the subtleties really quickly.  I do often try to think of what I could be asked during a lecture, but it is hard to predict.  Generally the students completely ignore what you think might be obvious and ask something you hadn’t considered.  I’ve since worked out the answer to the question I was asked and have posted an explanation on the course’s discussion board.  I’ve been a slow convert to some of the technology that we use today, but when used properly it can be very helpful.

Despite not being able to answer a question during the lecture, I received what seemed to be a very genuine round of applause at the end of my lecture.  Never quite sure how to respond to this.  It certainly feels good to get a round of applause at the end of a series of lectures, but also a little embarassing.  Was also asked to autograph someone’s lecture notes.  I did do it, but this may well have been someone taking the p**s.

HE funding

Interesting speech by Phil Willis about Higher Education (HE) funding that makes a number of very valid points about how the current funding situation is likely to influence the HE sector and, in particular, those who are currently applying for places at HE institutions.

Although he has openly criticised the Russell Group universities’ take on the recent funding cuts for being somewhat over the top, he does feel that this is not the right time to be cutting funding to Higher Education. I probably agree that using scare tactics – especially ones that are probably not demonstrably true – is not going to convince the government to reverse the proposed funding cuts, even if this decision does verge on the insane. I do also agree that now is not the time to reduce funding for Higher Education.

What is of more immediate concern is the real possibility that, despite the increase in the number of applications for university places, Russell Group universities are likely to reduce the number of places that they fill. There seems to be two reasons for this decision. One is that universities generally have a quota that sets a limit on how many places they can fill. There is currently a threat that English universities will be fined £3500 for every student over this quota. The quota essentially reflects a maximum amount of money that a university can expect to receive. If this maximum also reflects a real limit on the number of places that can reasonably be accommodated, then a fine may also make sense. It’s not fair on students if there aren’t sufficient resources for them all to get the support that they need to perform well during their degree. On the other hand, there is probably some flexibility in most programmes. Fining universities for going a few percent over quota probably achieves nothing (and effectively reduces the available resources) and the threat of such a fine probably means that universities would rather reject potentially good students than go slightly over quota.

The other reason for this reduction in places this coming year is also probably because the actual quota is not on a single year, but a total over the first 2 or 3 years. Many universities over-recruited last year, probably as a result of the financial crisis and people choosing to go to university rather than look for a job (One reason for this over-recruitment is that universities use data from previous years to work out how many students will accept their offers. To fill 100 places universities may make offers to 800 applicants. The current financial crisis means that data from previous years is not really valid and so guessing how many offers to make is very difficult). Many universities are therefore worried that if someone notices that they are coping with more students than their quota allows, their quota may be increased without a corresponding increase in funding. Balancing their overall quota by under-recruiting this coming year (and maybe next year) may make some sense, but it does mean that students who would have been accepted last year and would be accepted in future years, will be excluded to match what might be a somewhat artificial quota. It is probably also largely correct that under-recruitment this year won’t really make up – in resource terms – for the over-recruitment last year. Students in different years generally don’t sit in the same lecture theatres and don’t use the same laboratory space. It would seem reasonable for universities to argue for an exception during what are clearly exceptional times.

Something that Phil Willis’s speech highlighted is that although there is a quota for local students (essentially UK and EU) there isn’t a quota for foreign students who pay their own fees. The under recruitment this coming year probably means that universities can fill what will essentially be spare places by making more offers to foreign students (assuming they can attract them). Having foreign students in our universities is, in my view, generally a good thing. They tend to be quite good students so have a positive effect on those around them, and they bring extra money into the HE sector (and in return hopefully get a valuable degree). However, the more foreign students in our universities, the fewer local students we can accept. Under-recruiting local students this year and effectively freeing up places that can be filled by foreign students seems wrong to me, especially if those being excluded would have been accepted in the recent past and would be accepted in the near future.

What is more, there must be some value associated with our graduates. It has been argued that Physics, for example, underpins something like 6% (~ £100 billion) of the UK economy. If we graduate 3000 Physics students a year each of whom work for 30 years, there will be something like 100000 Physics graduates in the UK economy at any one time. One could then argue that each graduate underpins about £1 million. This is clearly an oversimplification and increasing the number of Physics graduates isn’t going increase the UK economy by £1 million per graduate. Foreign students also, of course, bring new money into the UK, which is clearly a good thing. However, reducing the number of local physics graduates could, however, have a very detrimental effect on the economy since there must be some minimum needed to sustain this part of the economy. There must be a point at which increasing the number of foreign students – at the expense of local students – could damage the UK economy. The same must be true in other areas and reducing the intake of local students, particularly in the sciences, at a time when we need to stimulate the economy seems like a potentially damaging decision. It feels like another short-sighted decisions that will appear to save money in the short term (although even this may not be true) but potentially cost us in the long term.

I think I understand why universities are doing this. It may even be true that during these difficult financial times, predicting how many students will accept offers is very difficult. Over-recruiting again could be very damaging if we don’t have the resources to accommodate all the incoming students and so under-recruiting may well the sensible option. I do, however, feel that we will be disadvantaging students who won’t get a university place simply because of the year they finish school. Although I don’t necessarily think the current situation will lead to a sudden change in the ratio of foreign to local students, I do think we have to be very careful about the balance between foreign and local students. Foreign students do bring money into the UK economy now (in exchange for a good degree), but local students contribute to the economy for the rest of their lives. We have to make sure that we get this balance right.

As an aside, I believe that Phil Willis is not intending on standing again at the next election which is, I think, a great shame. From what I’ve seen, he’s been a very good chairman of the Science and Technology committee and I find his views very sensible and well informed. He also seems to be well regarded and has some influence. It is possible that his criticism of the cuts to research and HE funding could have some impact. I hope that we get a few more equally sensible MPs after the upcoming election.

Degrees from 2 different universities

Not many people are reading this blog, which may actually be quite a good thing since it is turning into a bit of a personal core dump. Someone did, however, end up here after doing a search about whether or not they should get degrees from 2 different universities. I don’t know the answer to this, but it did remind me of some discussions I’ve had in my own department about attracting and keeping good PhD students.

A few years ago – prior to my arrival back in the UK – it was apparently fairly common to encourage students not to apply for a PhD place at the same university from which they got their undergraduate degree. The idea, which is probably quite reasonable, is that it would be advantageous to study at more than one university and if everyone does this, good students will ultimately be shared around evenly. This, however, seems to have changed a little. More and more departments are starting to offer PhD places to their own good students. This is probably because we have many more places to fill than was the case a decade or so ago. Trying to fill these places with potentially good students can be hard, and so if you can attract a few good students from different universities, and offer places to some of your own good undergraduates, you will do better than if you encourage your own students to go elsewhere.

Of course, the above policy will only work for a short while, since eventually all departments will be trying to keep as many of their own good students as possible. This may not seem to make much difference but I think it has the potential to make future generations very narrow. Not only do different departments focus in slightly different areas, they also have different research philosophies and practices. Exposing students to a wide range of different topics and different research practices and styles will help our future research leaders to have both a broad understanding of their general area, as well as a detailed understanding of their particular topic. It’s not that those remaining at a single university will not have a broad understanding, but it may be harder to gain that if they’ve never been anywhere else.

I should at least acknowledge that I actually did all my degrees at a single university, but did hold postdoctoral and faculty positions at a number of different universities and in a number of different countries. This too can help – I think – develop breadth and an understanding of different possible research styles. I do think that studying and working in different universities and countries can be very advantageous. It does, however, have some side effects and can disadvantage those who are not able to easily move around – although that is probably a topic for a future post.

University inclusion policies

I hate to admit it, but I actually agree with something Peter Mandelson has said. He is suggesting that we should use “contextual data” when evaluating students’s university applications. There is quite a lot of what he is proposing that I disagree with, but I agree that we need to make universities more inclusive and that the way to do it is to consider information about an applicant’s background and circumstances.

It’s almost certainly the case that there are academically capable people from all backgrounds and from all walks of life. It’s also probably true that using school leaving grades as the prime factor in determining whether to accept a student or not will mean some potentially very capable people will miss out on university places.  I also believe that it is in everyone’s interest to try and get the “best” students into universities.  By this I mean the ones most likely to excel at their chosen subject irrespective of what kind of grades they have achieved at school.

The difficult thing is working out how to identify those potentially good students who have been disadvantaged in some way and who – consequently – don’t necessarily satisfy a simple grade requirement.  Some kind of analysis of contextual data seems like a reasonable thing to consider.  My personal view would be that determining how well they have done relative to their peers would be a decent place to start.  It seems reasonable to assume that the top students in schools who traditionally do not have many students who satisfy university entry requirements, may well have more potential than those who do satisfy the entry requirements but who are not the top students – or even near the top – in their school.

Whatever method is tried, what I do feel strongly is that we have to start trying something.  At the moment we don’t have much data to work with, so don’t really know what works and what doesn’t.  If we make some educated guesses as to which students from disadvantaged backgrounds may have the potential to do well at university, in a few years time we will be able to analyse how well these students have actually done and adapt the process accordingly.

Interestingly, having started writing this, I have found an article by Zoe Williams suggesting that Peter Mandelson’s comments are typical new labour spin.  A “diversionary row between universities and the government”.  If there is a big row about universities now, the review into students fees will not be complete before the election and the opposition will have nothing concrete to complain about.  Although I do agree with what Peter Mandelson has said about inclusion, I suspect that his real reason for saying this is more along the lines of what Zoe Williams is suggesting than because he truly cares about universities being inclusive.

Dumbing down?

Quite an interesting article in the Guardian this morning suggesting that university degrees have been dumbed down in the last decade or so. This is based on a parliamentary enquiry that shows that the number of students getting first-class degrees has doubled in the last 10 years.

The report seems to suggest that different universities require different levels of effort to get similar degrees. It also suggests that the value of a good degree from a Russell Group university could be very different to the value of a good degree from a non-Russell group university (or at least one that is low on the league tables). Although there may be some merit to this, I can’t really make an informed comment since I don’t have any real experience of the standards at different universities. I would, however, be surprised if there wasn’t some truth in this.

What about the University where I work. Although I haven’t actually been there for 10 years, it doesn’t seem like the level of the material that is taught has really changed (we aren’t making the material easier). We are however replacing some content in the later years with courses that teach skills (research methods, literature surveys). I found this slightly worrying, but suspect that it is probably necessary and since it is at the 10% level, probably doesn’t really substantially change the degree.

What does seem to be happening, though, is an implicit pressure to maintain high pass rates, especially in the earlier years (this pressure does apparently become more explicit if reasonable pass rates are not achieved). Although we haven’t really changed the level of the material that is taught, we do seem to set our exams with some thought to what kind of pass rates we may want to achieve. This isn’t necessarily the overriding consideration, but does seem to play at least some kind of role. In later years this is not as crucial on an exam by exam basis because students can fail some courses and still progress or graduate. Even this, however, worries me slightly. I don’t have a problem with students not being required to pass all courses in the final year of an Honours degree (or 2 years in the case of students doing taught Masters degrees), but I think we introduce this a year too soon, when the students probably do need to have a reasonable understanding of all the material.

Do I think we are giving many more first-class degrees and as a result have dumbed down our degrees. I’m not entirely sure: it still seems pretty hard to get a first-class degree, especially a good one. The high pass rates in early years, however, probably does put students through to later years who maybe won’t cope as well as they should. We also seem reluctant to fail students in these later years since they’ve already committed so much of their time to the degree. My impression is that it may well be easier to pass an advanced science degree than it was 10 years ago, but is probably not significantly easier to get a first-class degree. This is essentially why, in an earlier post, I was arguing for more granulating in the degree structure. This way students could graduate at appropriate times and there wouldn’t be as many students in later years who were struggling to cope, but who may pass anyway because of the reluctance to fail students at this stage of their degree.

Too many university students?

Last night on BBC Radio 4 there was a programme about whether or not the UK has too many university students. I don’t remember quite who was on the panel, but it included Sally Hunt from the University and College Union (UCU) and the vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, the UK’s only private university.

I found it fairly interesting, although my 5 year old son had decided to tidy the kitchen and kept interrupting me to ask for help, so I didn’t hear as much as I would have liked. The vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham kept promoting – rather predictably – the idea that there should be more of a free market approach to Universities in the UK. I don’t really agree with this, but since I’m trying to keep this post shorter than normal, I won’t go into this here.

What I did generally agree with is that the real issue is not whether or not there are too many students in the UK, but whether or not they are getting an appropriate University education. One of the main views on the programme seemed to be that not enough students were taking science degrees. This may well be true, but the problem in my view is subtler. It seems to me that UK universities have not structured their degrees to be appropriate to the current student intake. In most science degrees it appears that students are assumed to be doing a degree that will ultimately allow them to basically be professional scientists (i.e., most students start off doing Honours degrees or Masters degrees and a Bachelor’s degree is really a failed Honours degree).

It would seem much more reasonable – in my view – to have more granularity in the system, allowing students to graduate at various stages with various different degrees. This isn’t meant to penalise any students, but simply to be more honest about different students’s abilities and skills and to then design the degree structure appropriately. This would optimise the amount of time students spend at university and also allow employers to have a much better idea of potential employees’ actual strengths and skills.