Resource Database: Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Summary: This case study examines how a set of carefully structured activities can be used to replace a set of lectures by independent study. The reduced amount of contact time is focused on a series of seminars based around ideas and judgement. The assignments are designed to meet the knowledge and skills specified in the learning outcomes.

Background

• he did not believe that lecturing benefited student learning because it reinforced a culture amongst students that learning was a passive process;
• he was particularly concerned that his students were not 'thinking' as final year honours students and that there was a need to help them develop the intellectual qualities that would mark them out as graduates;
• due to other responsibilities in the Institution he was not able to commit himself to regular weekly sessions.

Aims

• to move students into active learning through a structured engagement with the course material;
• to get them to appreciate the processes of making a judgement and reaching a conclusion and to understand that decisions are reached on the basis of the quality of the argument.

Student workload

The classroom based work became a seminar built around ideas and judgement. Either the course leader or a student takes a predetermined theme and presents ideas and develops task questions that help others in the group to form their own views. Topics include 'Can we apply ideas about individual personality to a place?', 'What value frameworks are there in heritage management?'.

Most of the individual workload is based around a structured set of assignments. Each student undertakes four out of five topic assignments, a project report, an oral presentation and a seen three hour examination paper. The module mark is based on the project report and the examination, the other two elements are formative, but failure to complete them constitutes failure of the course. Each student completes a weekly learning diary.

Suggested readings and videos are given for each of the assignments. A maximum of 800 words is set for each assignment. The five topic tasks set the last time the module ran were:

• Construct a diagram which shows how a range of agencies and bodies might be involved in the decision to demolish buildings in a conservation area in order to construct a shopping centre and car park. You may make any assumptions you wish. Write notes to explain the diagram.
• You have been retained by the Department of the Environment to draft an executive brief which summarizes the evidence for the role conservation can play in area regeneration. You should identify those situations in which it is/is not effective.
• Take any tourist/heritage townscape (this might be part of London if you attempt this topic during term time or a town accessible to you during the vacation) and from personal observation collect evidence on the type and degree of impact of tourism upon the built environment and on urban character. You should explain how you assess 'degree of impact' and how you identify 'urban character'. You should also classify the impacts. Present your results in an appropriate form and comment upon them.
• Summarise the importance of the property market for conservation.
• For any case study assess how far conservation principles were able to withstand growth pressures. By reference to other situations discuss how conservation could have been better supported.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this module you should have achieved the following outcomes:

Knowledge

• built a model of key agencies, their powers and interests;
• understood how conservation can relate to other social and economic objectives;
• have an in-depth understanding of conservation issues in an area through an in-depth individual study.

Skills

1. improved your research skills in particular
   1. identifying and specifying a 'problem'
   2. analysis and classification
   3. gathering qualitative data of a judgemental or attitudinal nature
2. developed your ability to write succinctly
3. improved your presentation skills
4. understood the process by which you confront a research issue.

Relationships between outcomes and activities

Outcome	Where achieved
	Assignments					Projects
	1	2	3	4	5	Research	Presentation
Knowledge 1	X
Knowledge 2		X	X	X
Knowledge 3						X
Skills 1a						X
Skills 1b	X					X
Skills 1c			X			X	X
Skills 2	X			X
Skills 3			X				X
Skills 4			X			X

Evaluation

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