The author explored how the oral tradition is currently "voiced" in tribal college and university classrooms. He asked a number of instructors how they approach literature and writing--particularly if the texts that they assign represent the value that Native people have historically given to traditional stories, teachings, speeches, tribal…

The paper reports a small-scale research on the predisposition of adult ESOL learners in a further education college to the components of autonomous learning. The research is based on the perception that there is an untested assumption that all students will react positively to the concept of autonomous learning and by implication are positively…

This article sets out to offer the reader an opportunity to engage with our emerging ideas about a reflective, person centred model for students and facilitators using problem-based learning (PBL). The model developed initially through several strands of qualitative inquiry including research with students, immersion in the existing literature and…

This article presents an analysis of the policy rhetoric of partnership and the reality of the process of partnership working using data from a qualitative case study of a sub-regional partnership. The purpose of the partnership is to widen participation in post-16 learning in the Black Country, a part of the Midlands in England. Data collected…

This article is a shortened version of an inaugural professorial lecture given at the University of Greenwich on 19 January 2005 as an intervention in the debate at that time within that university and other English further and higher education institutions over the appropriate level of fees to charge in 2006. It anticipates the likely effects…

This paper explores the decision-making of students entering full time UK taught masters degree courses. The findings come from an ongoing research project, "Career progression and employability for full time UK resident masters students". Little previous work has focused on these students and their process of transition (however long) from…

This paper draws together two major strands in current Government policies for higher education -- the promotion of collaborative partnerships in higher education and the widening participation agenda. Both of these also contribute to the enhancement of workforce development. The paper explores the interface between these two policies through a…

Since the 1997 Dearing Report, generic skills development has become an essential part of higher education in the UK. Generic skills programmes are, in the main, either run in parallel with existing curricula or "embedded" within them. In 1993 the General Medical Council introduced student selected components (SSCs) into the UK medical curriculum…

This paper describes two innovative and linked approaches to teaching and student learning in the environmental and development geography of the Mekong region, a region remote from students' normal experiential options. The first approach is field-based learning through Field Schools carried out in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. The second approach…

Recent political and economic developments in Slovenia, especially its accession to the European Union in 2004, have led to a significant reappraisal of the geography curriculum in higher education, and particularly those elements dealing with the teaching of soils. Physical geography, and especially soils geography, has long been an important…

A self-assessment schedule has been developed for first-year geography students at Curtin University of Technology. Its purpose is to guide students towards independent learning by encouraging them to reflect more on "what" and "how" they learn. Results of the 2003 and 2004 trials showed that the self-assessment schedule had a positive impact on…

How, where and why GIS is taught has been debated heavily in the geography literature. This article is a contribution to that debate, because it offers a new perspective from which to teach GIS: problem-based learning. In a problem-based learning classroom, theoretical foundations and the real world of problems are understood as constitutive of…

Voluntary work with local communities has been advocated as beneficial for geography students, higher education institutions and the public. In England, the Higher Education Active Community Fund (HEACF) has recently been established by the Government to encourage staff and students in higher education to undertake voluntary work in local…

Case study research aims to explore and depict a setting with a view to advancing understanding. This note explores the dimensions of case study research in higher education, with special reference to geographical fieldwork. It explores Stake's three categories of case study research: intrinsic, instrumental and collective. It provides guidelines…

This paper attempts to unravel the complexities of including the personal in geographical teaching. Drawing on email responses from 10 academics and her reflective teaching diary, the author differentiates the "personal" as experiential and "personal" as private in these accounts of teaching practices, revealing the contingent (re)constitution of…