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I'm Peter Reddy, I'm a National Teaching Fellow and I teach Psychology here at Aston University.
I originally came into the university as a teaching fellow with a background in
teaching psychology for many years at sub-degree level
but what's interested me about teaching in Aston has been the employability side.
I knew we had a national and international reputation for the employability of our
graduates but I wanted to understand that better, so
I've - along with colleagues - worked on looking at the quantitative benefits
to taking a placement - the better degree grades, the faster start to the career and so on
but I'm more interested in the qualitative side of that, at the moment.
So what is it about work experience that does things for the individual
and helps them to become who they want to become? And helps them with that kind of ontological development?
What I enjoy about teaching is the contact with students and the
context it gives me for really helping to develop my understanding of what I'm talking about.
I am a traditional lecturer in some respects. I enjoy the traditional lecture
a great deal and I almost feel like I become a different person with the traditional lecture.
And I really see the value of it in motivating
students to go and do their own work, where the real learning takes place.
But I also really like supervising students individually for research purposes
and also small group work, I think this can be very very enjoyable too.
I think Aston students have a tremendous joie de vivre -
that's bad French...a tremendous enthusiasm
and capacity to enjoy life. They're also very ambitious, very keen to do well and to make the most of themselves.
They get from me - hopefully - some enthusiasm, some energy,
some interest and perhaps a different perspective, a different take on things.
So they get information in a context which they can make use of and think about.
So getting students and helping students to think and reflect and
use that to grow and develop is what I really like doing.
I'm informed by notions of what higher education's ultimately meant to be about.
I go back to a number of key figures in in the development of
the European University, including Wilhelm von Humboldt -
the idea that we're not just communicating facts but we're communicating
as you get deeper into something, then the facts become much less certain and it's about
a shared inquiry into something, shared by staff and students, we're all here for the learning,
I think that comes from von Humboldt. And with... from Newman in the nineteenth century in Birmingham,
perhaps the idea that ultimately we're trying to come up with the universal ability to detect...erm...
"sophistry" if you like. Other might give
a different 'term' for that but the ability to
see beneath the surface of an argument, detect when a false argument is being made to you,
detect when the wool is being pulled over your eyes, and it's that capacity - I want
students to leave with that capacity.
And that goes back - I think - to people like Newman in the nineteenth century.
I think they see me as somebody with great enthusiasm, possibly
a kind of passionate advocate of what it is that I'm wanting them to understand,
so that they respond to the energy,
the enthusiasm, the passion, the engagement by returning that engagement themselves, so
engaging students in learning in lots of different levels, lots of different ways is really what I enjoy doing, and I think
that's how students see me, as somebody able to engage them.
I get a great pleasure out of helping students to grow and develop;
I develop myself - the process of teaching is
one of explanation and honing down and pinning down ideas
so I get a tremendous amount out of learning through teaching.
So that's me, I think. Somebody who - perhaps - learns through teaching.