Fay Short
Short, F. & Gilder, T. (2013). Inspiring Teaching. Workshop at the Bangor University Academy of
Teaching Fellows annual conference ‘Flexible Learning’.
William Yeats claimed that education is not the filling of a pail but the light of a fire (attributed). Arguably, students arrive at University with at least a small spark of enthusiasm about their chosen area of study, and we propose that our teaching should seek to fan this flame into a raging fire of academic passion. Research suggests that passion can help us to focus on positive experiences and minimise the impact of negative events: consider the tendency to overlook the annoying habits of a romantic interest during the first passionate weeks of a new relationship! Similarly, passion for a subject can help a student to minimise the negativity of the less interesting elements (dull stats, boring biology, etc) and forgive the inevitable mishaps that may occur during a course (canceled lecture, timetable error, etc). For these reasons, both student retention and satisfaction can be substantially enhanced by fanning the flame of passion for the degree topic. This workshop will present five activities designed to fan the flames of academic passion. Each fillip will be presented by a student at a different level of study (UG yr 1, 2, 3, PGT, PGR), and delegates will then be invited to discuss the applications of these fillips within their own disciplines and identify other opportunities to excite and inspire within their schools.
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