((( watch movie | order DVD | script | contents | credits | pictures | john biggs | trivia | translations | press | calendar )))

IN 62 WORDS... "Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding" is a 19-minute award-winning short-film about teaching at university and higher-level educational institutions. It is based on the "Constructive Alignment" theory developed by Prof. John Biggs. The film delivers a foundation for understanding what a teacher needs to do in order to make sure all types of students actually learn what the teacher intends.

IN 179 WORDS... "Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding" is an award-winning film about university and tertiary teaching generally. We follow Susan and Robert in their studies. Susan is a model student using learning activities that deepen her understanding; Robert uses low level activities that only just scrape him a pass. The teaching challenge is to engage Robert to study at a deep level too. The key is "Constructive Alignment", a design for teaching developed by John Biggs, which builds our knowledge of how humans learn into the design of teaching. The learning activities needed to achieve the intended outcomes are embedded in both teaching and assessment. Robert now has the support and incentive to learn like Susan does. Filmed through the eyes of Robert, Susan and their teachers, this DVD is a joy to watch. It is used in universities around the world for teaching teaching to new teachers, for providing a theoretical foundation for experienced teachers, and for provoking debate about what good teaching is. Lasting 19 minutes, it has subtitles available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Danish. -- by Professor John Biggs, author of "Teaching for Quality Learning at University".

IN 425 WORDS... "Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding" is a 19-minute award-winning short-film about teaching at university and higher-level educational institutions. The film looks at higher-level education from three different perspectives; the student's perspective, the teacher's perspective, and the perspective towards the subject matter being taught and learned. Finally, all these insights are integrated - and the film presents one of the most important insights from research in the area of teaching/learning; namely, "Constructive Alignment" (developed by John Biggs). In the film, we follow two prototypical student strategies, personified as "Susan" and "Robert", who have very different motivations for being at university. Susan is internally motivated - and attends university in order to learn exciting new things and skills. Robert is externally motivated - and his goal is, not necessarily to learn, but to pass exams, get a degree, and get a decent job. We follow the two students (student strategies) through their endeavors at university and the film traces them through the three perspectives of the film (mentioned earlier). In addition to presenting "models of students" on which teachers may act, the film also presents a categorization of different types of teachers according to their main teaching focus, presents taxonomical models of different cognitive levels of understanding (with concrete examples), looks at how we humans acquire new knowledge and competences, and how to use all this to understand concretely what a teacher can do in order to make sure both types of students actually learn what he or she wants them to. The genre of the film is "edutainment" - a contraction of EDU(cation) and (enter)TAINMENT: with primary emphasis on the EDU part; however, the film employs substantial and carefully dosed portions of humour in order to engage the viewer, to provoke reflection, and to make it a joy to watch. The film is already in use by teaching/learning units at various universities and institutions around the world, for teaching teaching to new teachers - and to "upgrade" and provide a theoretical foundation for experienced teachers. The film is primarily intended for educational development units and for teachers, but students will also take away valuable insights and knowledge from it (which may positively impact their learning behavior). We expect the film to have the strongest impact when used in a learning context. It is excellent for "big-screen presentation" as a basis for and to start a debate about teaching. The DVD includes a menu and subtitles in the following seven languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Danish.

SYNOPSIS (FOR TV) "Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding" is a 19-minute award-winning short-film about teaching at University. Filmed through the eyes of teachers and students, the film portrays what a teacher needs to do in order to make sure all students actually learn what the teacher intends. We follow two students, Susan and Robert, in their studies at University. Susan is a model student that is at University to learn, to get to the bottom of things, and reach understanding. Robert, however, is merely at university to pass exams, so that he can get a degree, so that he can get a (decent) job. Based on the "Theory of Constructive Alignment" - a design for teaching developed by John Biggs, which builds our knowledge of how humans learn into the design of teaching - the film shows how to create the necessary incentive and support for Robert to learn like Susan. In 2006, the film was awarded "The Golden Ratio" for best educational video.

FILM STRUCTURE The film is logically structured into four parts: Part 1: ((( 4'20'' ))) Learning ((( Student Perspective ))) Part one looks at university teaching from a student perspective. We meet Susan and Robert who are prototypes of two very different kinds of students with very different motivations for being at university. Part 2: (((( 3'07'' ))) Teaching ((( Teacher Perspective ))) Part two adopts a teacher perspective. We meet teachers at levels 1, 2, and 3, (according to John Biggs' "three levels of thinking about teaching") who respectively focus on "what students are", "what teachers do", and "what students do". Part 3: ((( 6'10'' ))) Understanding ((( Knowledge Perspective ))) Part three takes a knowledge perspective on teaching. We look at how we, homo sapiens, acquire new information in terms of old - and how 'understanding' can happen at five different levels (according to "The SOLO Taxonomy"). Part 4: ((( 3'43'' ))) The Solution ((( Constructive Alignment ))) Part four integrates all previous parts and presents one of the most important insights from the research area of teaching and learning, namely: "Constructive Alignment" (developed by John Biggs).

Claus Brabrand (August 22, 2007)