Global University, Local Issues: Taking a Creative and Humane Approach to Learning and Teaching

Abstract

The chapter explores the value of dialogue and the dialogic for developing student and staff agency, “voice” and ethics in the context of a first-year undergraduate module of the BA Hons Education Studies, an undergraduate course at The Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design and a Postgraduate Certificate of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education module, at London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. The authors take a case study approach, making use of Freire’s ideas of critical pedagogy, to reflect on their personal learning and teaching experience as well as the feedback received from students and staff. The aim of the chapter is to explore how to empower (non-traditional) students and staff – and bridge the gap between students’ and teachers’ understanding of what this might entail. Rather than trying to bring students “up to speed” to prepare them for successful study and a professional career, or better “train” staff to deliver policy and strategy, we argue that we need to welcome them for the people they are as we help them to navigate a Higher Education system in need of humanizing.