1. Weirdo Punk Pedagogy
(Confessions of an Arm Waver)
By Nathan Loynes
(NB: This is just a ‘warm up’ exercise,
Take it a seriously as you want)

2. What the heck is this ‘teaching’ thing?
• I began ‘teaching’ people in 2005 when I was
involved in a Local Authority ‘change
programme’ – developing Extended Schools
and Children’s Centres.
• However, I’ve worked in social care since 1998,
and I think that business is all about getting
people to ‘change the way in which they look
at the world’… so…

3. The Powerpoint ‘security blanket’
• I began teaching in Higher Education at the University
of Leeds and University of Huddersfield in 2007.
• I once ‘presented’ after a lecturer on Mental Health in
Huddersfield, who covered about 104 Powerpoint
slides over the course of an hour.
• Each of the Powerpoint slides looked something like
this one.
• He also essentially ‘read’ the Powerpoint slides back at
the audience.
• Everyone had the slides printed out for them (Like you
have today!) and every now and then someone would
make a note in biro on their hand out)

4. Look at all these ‘words’ – Wow! That
is value for money!!!
• So, I used to think – That’s how you deliver a lecture!
• I’d spend a few hours reading the literature on a topic and then condense
this knowledge into maybe 20-30 slides.
• I’d then present these back to my students…
• Maybe they thought I was ‘really smart’ as I ‘knew so much stuff’…
(However, I had had the advantage of reading stuff that they hadn’t…)
• Some students were better than others at hiding their boredom!
• After being subjected to 16 hours of this, students had a folder of
Powerpoint printouts with minimal biro marks on them.
• They were now required to submit an assignment – so they ‘read their
Powerpoint handouts (Usually took them about 20 minutes) and then
went to the library to get some books.
• At this point they began reading and understanding the subject (but they
only had about 2 weeks to do so, because we’d wasted 10 weeks of them
sitting bored, and me reading slides at them – like this one)

5. Does ‘this’ really make it interesting?
• Every now and again,
to counteract the
boredom, I’d insert a
clip art picture file to
convince the
students that
‘learning’ was ‘fun’!

6. I’ve experienced University Education
Four Times Now
• And this has influenced me…
1. My first degree was in Sociology in ‘97 –
There were no Powerpoints. Lecturers would
talk at us, and we had to make notes. This
was ‘good’ because you had to ‘translate’
what the lecturer was saying to make sense
of it.

7. Distance Learning – ‘You have to do the
work’ (You need high self-motivation)
2. I got my Diploma in Social Work (Whilst
working full time) in 2000. I did this at The Open
University. The packs that you get on a weekly
basis are heavily influenced by the format of
material we were expected to read at the OU.
We met with other students and a tutor in
afternoon long tutorials to discuss the emerging
issues. This was ‘good’ because there is
information overload out there! And the
selected pack materials gave us a focus.

8. Manuals and Videos (Play, take notes,
rewind, play, take more notes)
1. I did a Graduate Diploma in Law in 2005
(whilst working full time)
• [Monday nights 6-9pm, and Wednesday nights
6-9pm since you ask]
• We were given manuals with the key
information in (like you student packs). Also in
my second year we were given DVD’s of the
recorded lectures (This influenced me, as we’ll
see).

9. I can’t learn boring stuff (or rather I
have to make it interesting to me)
• The GDL lectures were like the Mental Health
guy’s 103 Powerpoint slides: (You couldn’t ask
questions in class, ‘cos the other students would
start ‘tutting’ and stuff).
• The vast majority of the students were there for
‘career progression’ purposes. (i.e. they were
Legal Execs, wanting to become lawyers). They
did not appear to fined the subject ‘interesting’ –
it was purely a qualification.

10. Aaahhh! LEARNING not teaching
4 The fourth time I entered Higher Education was to
do my PGCE (2008-10).
It was now that I really started challenging my own
misconceptions about learning and teaching.
I studied theories of learning, but also reflected on
my own past and ‘what helped and hindered my
own learning?’
I was also exposed to tutors who, ‘knew their stuff,
but were inspiring and genuinely fun to ‘learn
WITH’.

11. So ‘that’ is why I do ‘this’
These experiences have given me the pedagogical confidence to develop my
own ‘style’ which you see today. Including:
Learning is a social activity.
• If lectures can be replaced – do it! This might mean presenting content in
videos (like the GDL).
• Students are primarily motivated by the assignment, why waste 10 weeks,
and give them 2 weeks to access the reading and learning? Provide this
incrementally. (The packs).
• Students are all different (Diverse) some, will want deep knowledge, some
will want ‘just enough to get by’ (The packs take account of this… You can
also be amazing and find your own literature too!!!)
• Students want things to be ‘fair’. This means everyone needs to ‘start at
the same place’. Hence, everyone has access to the same reading
materials, and these reading materials can be integrated into the
assignments. How much effort you put in with the reading materials will
determine your grades. (This is true of all your subjects).

12. Well that’s it…
• I hope that this ‘warmed you up’ as we start at
9.00am
• I start at 9.00am on Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Fri.
• I’m generally up at 5.45am (my drive to work is
about 45 minutes each way). My 2 year old
daughter got up twice in the night, last night).
• I know ‘but THIS is my job… I’ve been to
University 3 times whilst holding down a full time
job too, because I want to ‘better myself’
• What do you want to do…?