Vision for education

Keele was set up in 1949 as an experiment in university education. The founder, Lord Lindsay, saw the need for a broad-based liberal arts style education that prepared graduates for the uncertainties of the post war years. Towards the end of his life he noted:

"If we are going to try and keep a democratic country and maintain understanding of one another, we have to send out people from our universities who can do the technical stuff and who at the same time have an understanding of political and social problems and of the values that lie behind them".

He could have been commenting on society as it is now.

Our Vison for Education has reimagined the original Lindsay vision for current and future students who need to flourish in what has been termed the 4^th industrial revolution.

There is increasing interest in the role that Universities can play in supporting the mental and physical health of students. In our Vision, the educational experience specifically supports students’ wellbeing. Evidence from the Positive Psychology movement is influential in this area and there are many approaches and frameworks. What they have in common is the recognition of the need for a strong sense of engagement and of having a stable set of social networks. We have interpreted this as Social Learning – one of the Keele Fundamentals.

Social learning is learning that fosters a sense of community, engagement and belonging for students and staff. It encompasses all of the active learning strategies that are well known to contribute towards this sense of community such as active learning, project-based learning, problem-based learning, case based learning, collaborative and team based learning, students as partners and co-producers, civic engagement and employer engagement. Critical to achieving social learning is the notion of Designed Programmes – where students develop the skills needed to be effective active learners, where learning activities are built upon across modules, and where assessment supports social learning rather than detracting from it. Social learning is supported by online activities and applies just as much to fully online programmes as to those that are campus based.