ABSTRACT
Innovation in British HE has been common, but this has often been innovation in what was taught, less frequently in how things were taught. So, the geography curriculum has been changed as quantification and generalization replaced the regional studies of the 1930s, while there are now signs that these modelling approaches may themselves be challenged. Likewise, the natural science curricula continue to grow, and it is even rumoured that sometimes topics are deleted as obsolete. Now, while a change from regional geography to quantitative methods, or the adoption of semiotic theory, or the introduction of microcomputer-based statistics packages all clearly mean a change in what is taught, they do carry with them changes in how teaching proceeds. However, our claim is that innovation in teaching, learning and assessment in their own right has not been common. Practices may have changed as a by-product of change in what was taught, but they have less often been changed because it was seen as proper that they should change.
