Towards a Concept of Solution Focussed Teaching: Learning in Communities, About Communities, for the benefit of communities

This chapter has a somewhat unusual origin. As a product of my holding similar (perhaps heutagogic) values as the editors, I was invited by them to offer a presentation and discussion session entitled ‘Solution-Focused Teaching’ at an event centred on ‘Community Development and Engagement’ at the Higher Education Academy (HEA) York, U.K., in 2014. I initially perceived this as being somewhat outside of my immediate field as a higher education and rogogue, even though I have a longstanding interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) per se (see Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990) and the theorisation of curriculum and design for learning. However, a search of the literature indicated a relative dearth of publications linked to my immediate brief for the event, with the main connections allied to ‘solution-focused’ being in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) (see Handbook of cognitive behavioural therapies, 3rd edn, Guildford, 2010), notions of ‘Solution-Focused Thinking’ (http://www.barrywinbolt.com/angermanagement/ solution-focused-thinking) and Solution-Focused Therapeutic approaches (see Solutions-focused approaches (theory into practise), Russell House, 2007). The sources are predominantly orientated toward clinical issues, with some emerging work in Solution-Focused Nursing (International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 3(1), The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2006). However, as each has a focus on learning, cognition and links with feelings and behaviours, they offer insights into the notion of being ‘Solution Focused’ as a curriculum and teaching mission in broader terms.