We want our students to profit from Birmingham’s culture of learning and its ethos of critical enquiry, debate and self-motivation. We will encourage and support them to engage with complex, challenging 21st-century issues.
We encourage our students to choose a field of study about which they can be passionate. In partnership with academic supervisors, students acquire skills that enable them to move successfully into the competitive graduate employment sector and to flourish professionally.
Enquiry-based learning
Enquiry-based learning is an approach in which learning is driven by a process of enquiry shared with the student. Depending upon the level and the discipline, it can encompass problem-based learning, evidence-based learning, small scale investigations, field work, projects and research.
Enquiry-based learning enables students to take control of their learning as they progress through their degree programme. It encourages them to acquire essential skills for today’s highly competitive graduate employment sector. Such skills are central to the personal development of our graduates, enriching their capacity for lifelong learning.
The skills of a Birmingham student
With appropriate support from academic staff, the learning culture at Birmingham encourages students to:
- Engage with complex, challenging problems and real-world issues
- Proactively use a range of resources to address problems, construct solutions and answers, identify new questions and create new knowledge
- Question, reason, and think critically about what they see, hear and feel; weighing up evidence and the opinions of others and reaching their own conclusions
- Reflect constructively on their own learning, not least through use of feedback
- Share their knowledge and experience with fellow students and staff
- Manage their individual and collaborative learning processes well
- Understand and communicate effectively with individuals from differing backgrounds and perspectives
- Be equipped through their learning, skills and personal development for the demands of the careers to which they aspire
- Enjoy their learning, making it rewarding and fun
- Make a difference