As many of you will know, there may now be ten planets in the solar system. Probably less well known is the fact that the PLANET in your hands is certainly our tenth. As we break into double figures, this is probably therefore a timely moment for some brief reflections on the PLANET story and more widely on the Subject Centre as a whole, it being exactly three years since we became fully operational.
Our tenth edition is PLANET’s sixth standard issue, there having been another four special issues on particular themes such as careers education and special educational needs (SENDA). PLANET now has a distribution list in excess of 2500, an increase of over 100 per cent since our first edition. Most of our readers are UK academics teaching geography, earth or environmental sciences (GEES) but PLANET is also widely read amongst UK educational developers and staff in other disciplines. In addition, we now have an extensive overseas mailing list and have benefited from several overseas submissions. UK-based GEES academics are our first concern, but because it is good to learn from international experience, PLANET from time to time likes to go global.
Laying the GEES Egg
PLANET is of course only one of the range of actives which our Subject Centre (LTSN-GEES) was established to undertake. The original funding bid set out a wide spectrum of activities and services including conferences, workshops, publications, small-scale projects, an enquiry service and a resource database. LTSN-GEES was designed by a working group made up of representatives from the relevant professional bodies and subject associations, plus senior academics drawn from the three disciplines. Central to their philosophy was the idea that the three subjects should work closely together and have a sense of shared ownership of the LTSN-GEES Centre. While recognising the distinctive character and needs of each of the individual disciplines, the Subject Centre team have tried hard to maintain the collaborative ethos developed during the original bidding process.
Those responsible for the initial design and structure of LTSN-GEES had extensive experience in curriculum innovation and in the management of major education projects. The Subject Centre was therefore built on established discipline-based networks and was able to harness the expertise and resources of several existing projects and programmes, including for example the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) and the CTI Centre for Geography, Geology and Methodology.
As a result, we were able to hit the ground running and were quickly able to start providing the full range of activities and services which the design group had envisaged. In addition to the ten PLANETS, we have also now provided over a dozen national conferences, over sixty departmental workshops, four new lecturers residential workshops, funding for fifteen small-scale projects, a pedagogic research programme, learning and teaching guides for Earth and Environmental Sciences and a resource database and website. The LTSN-GEES team have also been busy writing articles and contributing to education conferences both in the UK and overseas.
Over the last three years the Subject Centre has provided resources and professional development activities on many different areas of learning and teaching. The range includes: fieldwork, lab work, dissertations, computer-aided learning, key skills, large group teaching, small group teaching, problem-based learning, student transition and retention, careers education, quality assurance, reflective practice, sustainability, SENDA, pedagogic research, learning outcomes, assessment linking teaching and research and work-based learning.
The GEES disciplines have a particularly strong record in learning and teaching and so the Subject Centre has been keen to showcase our subject’s work and to collaborate with, and learn from, a wide range of other organisations and colleagues. These collaborations have included other LTSN Subject Centres, the Generic Centre, TechDis, the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE), the National Centre for Recording Achievement and our own professional bodies (the RGS-IBG, CHES and The Geological Society). Within our three disciplines, over 80 per cent of GEES departments have contributed to, or participated in, our activities and it is particularly pleasing that we have enjoyed broadly similar levels of involvement from both the pre-1992 and post-1992 Universities and from the HE College sector.
These successes owe much to the efforts of the LTSN-GEES team, our three discipline-based Senior Advisors, our Steering Group, our external evaluator and above all to the active support of so many GEES academics with a strong commitment to teaching.
The Future of GEES
Looking ahead, our first priority will be to respond to the changing needs of our GEES communities and so, (in part through our network of departmental contacts) we shall once again be seeking the views of GEES academics about the kinds of issues on which we should now focus. In addition, we will also be addressing newly emerging national issues and filling gaps in our current provision. We will, therefore, be looking at areas such as:
Widening Participation
Employability
Personal Development Profiles (PDPs)
Education for Sustainability
Linking Teaching and Research (the subject of PLANET’s special edition)
Foundation Degrees
E-Learning
We shall also be trying to make the Subject Centre more inclusive by doing more to engage with our communities in Scotland and Wales.
The next year or so will be a period of considerable change for LTSNGEES. On a local level we will soon be moving offices to a different part of the University of Plymouth campus but more significantly the whole of LTSN will soon become part of a wider organisation to be known as the Academy for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching. It seems likely that we will be working alongside the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE) and the Higher Education Staff Development Association (HESDA). Another significant part of he new national context will, of course, be the recent White Paper on ‘The Future of Higher Education’ and in particular Centres of Excellence for which it seems likely that the LTSN Subject Centres will play a key role in dissemination.
However, whatever challenges and opportunities the future may bring, the LTSN-GEES team look forward to building on and extending further our network of contacts, friends and enthusiasts across our three disciplines. We will be working hard together to promote the cause of GEES learning and teaching.
As of today there are ten PLANETS. Soon there will be many more!