Teaching and Learning Example

One of the biggest changes between school and university is that between taught lessons and the mixture of lectures, seminars and individual study. On this page, we offer an example of one week’s teaching and learning from the Level One Course ‘The Road from 1945: Britain since the Second World War’:

Week Two: ‘Was there a post-war consensus in the decade after the Second World War?’

Individual Preparation
We would normally expect students to be able to draw on at least three different texts – books, chapters, or academic articles – in the weekly seminar discussion. At this early stage of the year, however, many first years will still be getting used to the large quantity of reading required, so many seminar leaders will be more lenient.

All students should have read one of the following:

  • P. Addison ‘The Impact of the Second World War’ in P. Addison and H. Jones, eds, A Companion to Contemporary Britain,1939-2000(London,Blackwell,2007),3-22.
  • H. Jones, ‘The Post-War Consensus in Britain: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis?’ in B. Brivati, J. Buxton and A. Seldon, eds, The Contemporary History Handbook (Manchester, MUP, 1996), 41-49.

The student responsible for presenting this week’s key issues to the group should also have read:

  • H. Jones and M. Kandiah, eds, The Myth of Consensus: New Views on British History 1945-1964 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996) and
  • P. Hennessy, Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties (London, Penguin, 2007), particularly 6-62 and 360-61

Students are also asked to consider a small selection of primary sources, for example this picture of squatters in 1946 from the TUC archive.

Students’ thinking will then be stimulated by a fifty-minute lecture from Professor Peter Hennessy.

Seminars
After the lecture, students move to their seminar groups of 10-14, led either by a permanent member of academic staff or by a teaching assistant (usually a PhD researcher working in this field and in their final year of study). This is the opportunity for students to discuss their reading and develop their understanding.

A typical hour-long seminar on this topic might run as follows:

  • Small group discussion of the changes experienced by Britons at different levels of society 1945-1955, followed by collection of points raised by seminar leader.
  • Whole group discussion of chronology and definition/discussion of key terms, including ‘austerity’, ‘nationalisation’, ‘welfare state’. Students have a chance to check on terms they may not fully have understood, to show their knowledge, and are encouraged to debate the complex realities of these broad brush terms.
  • Student presentation to answer main question: students put across their argument, with the specific aim of generating and managing group debate. In this case, the students asked the group to consider whether a wartime, let alone a post-war consensus, had ever existed, and then offered examples and counter-examples in support of a case for a post-war ‘settlement’ – a term preferred by some historians in the reading. The presenters were expected to make sure that all students contributed, either by answering specific questions, providing information, or asking pertinent questions. One way they chose to stimulate thought was to make use of primary sources. In the case of the photograph linked above, for example, they asked the group to think about not just what the image tells us about Britain in 1946, but why and by whom it was taken and preserved.
  • Group discussion generated out of presentation and managed by students with seminar leader support over the historiography of the topic – why did historians in the 1970s perceive a post-war consensus? How does this highlight the particular problems of contemporary history? Seminar leader summarizes main points students need to takeaway from this session. 
  • Feedback by seminar leader and group on presentation and guided preparation for next week