In recognising that students no longer possess or, in fact, in many cases value the kind of ‘deep attention’ that University education has always fostered it is necessary to come to understand the expertise that is involved in what Katherine Hayles called ‘hyper attention’(1). Students’ ability and even expectation that they can and will tackle several tasks at once can be usefully integrated into a creative model of teaching. In facilitating ‘hyper attention’ in the classroom not only can a new kind of social interaction evolve but new kinds of creative outcomes might be developed. Through the work of CETLs (Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) many students have been given greater power to influence the process and outcomes of their own learning. This is not to say that old methods of teaching should not continue or that ‘deep attention’ should be abandoned. At the July 2007 Renewals Conference Richard Miller convincingly argued in favour of the benefits of attentive reading. On the contrary, we must acknowledge that greater social diversity and economic pressures in education can be addressed through a number of innovative strategies. Students seem to come to university less prepared to study in some respects but they are infinitely more technically proficient than they have been in the past. If the students’ skills in this area can be usefully harnessed to enhance their learning experiences then this must be seen to be a positive development.
In their plenary talks at Renewals both Alan Liu and Richard Miller indicated how technology has helped redefine the role of the lecturer inside and outside the classroom. Alan Liu’s extraordinarily expansive approach to addressing the Web 2.0 world not only detailed the way in which developments in web technology have changed attitudes towards authorship and authority but also how our current anxiety mirrors ideas about loss of control and loss of inward knowledge, dating back to the development of the technology of writing. For those of us trying to engage our students with ideas about academic rigor the ‘cloud of contributors’ who create collective documents, such as Wikipedia, present real questions. While Liu has developed a research policy for the use of this particular online resource he highlighted how difficult it is to push students, who are pressed for time, to move beyond the answer that is ‘good enough’.(2) Richard Miller emphasised an approach to teaching students in the ‘age of distraction’. His answer is to give students encouragement and training in the art of focusing their attention. The job of the Humanities, he said, was to teach the students to grapple with complexity and ambiguity, not to try to erase it. The aim of his teaching, which attempts to gain the benefits of ‘reading in slow motion,’ is to engage the students in the importance of addressing multiple perspectives.(3)
I believe it is essential to gain a balance between deep and hyper attention and while other hierarchies are usefully breaking down in the universities there must remain a hierarchy of experience or else the purpose of a university education disappears. The activities which surround the CETL programme have raised these issues in an important first step towards looking at the university experience in the 21st century. The national CETL conference held at the University of Warwick in March 2007 began by looking at the very specific work of individual Centres but ended by beginning to address the much bigger question of the future shape and function of the university as well as the future role of the academic. By bringing teaching colleagues into a national dialogue about the nature of specific practices in specific institutions it has been possible to open up quite fundamental but extremely important and pressing questions that must be addressed about our future.
For many of us working in a university today is a very different experience from the one we witnessed as students or even experienced as junior lecturers. What has been interesting in speaking to colleagues who are working in these Centres for Excellence is to discover how similar their stories are. While most have passed through a period of resistance or frustration with the current state of affairs, by pursuing personal and often quite institutionally specific approaches to teaching, these colleagues have developed new skills and wider recognition for their work. Therefore one of the more general outcomes of the CETL work has been a reinvigoration of the profession from within. Those colleagues who have had the opportunity to be involved in the pedagogic discussions instigated by the CETLs in their own institutions or in institutions they have visited have repeatedly reported their surprise and delight to discover other colleagues tackling similar problems and challenges in the classroom. If it has done nothing else it seems that the CETL initiative has made it possible to be unashamedly passionate about teaching once more.
The activities of the CETLs might be seen to be somewhat removed from the daily activities of some colleagues. However, I would argue that what this initiative has developed is a much greater engagement with pedagogic research both in the discipline and across disciplines. The discussions around and coming out of the CETLs have helped to highlight the fact that the issue of a changing student body is not localized. In coming to understand how universal this social trend is, it has become essential to acknowledge the necessity of making changes in pedagogy that address the students we have rather than the students we once had or would like to have. The focus of these changes has been a movement towards social and collaborative learning. Therefore to understand the activities taking place in the CETLs is to understand the changes that are taking place in the profession more generally.
Notes
1. Professor N. Katherine Hayles, English Department, University of California, Los Angeles, set out the difference she sees between ‘deep attention’ and ‘hyper attention’ in a Keynote address entitled: ‘Literature as a Computational Practice’ presented on 5 September 2006 at the Digital Resources in the Humanities and the Arts Conference at Dartington College of Arts.
2. Alan Liu ‘Knowledge 2.0? – The University and Web 2.0’ a plenary talk at Renewals: Refiguring University English in the 21st Century, Thursday 5 July, Royal Holloway University of London www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/archive/mediaplayer/player.html
3. Richard E. Miller ‘Reading in Slow Motion: The Humanities and the Work of the Moment’ a plenary talk at Renewals: Refiguring University English in the 21st Century, Saturday 7 July, Royal Holloway University of London www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/archive/mediaplayer/player.html
