“Geography…so what do you actually study?” Co-production of knowledge: a postgraduate reflection on teaching and learning in higher education

"What do you study" is a question which I have been frequently asked over the last five years since I began as a geography undergraduate at the University of Birmingham, and now as a postgraduate at the University of Bristol. In this journal style paper I reflect on how my understanding and explanations of geography have changed throughout my time in higher education as a means to reflect on wider practices of teaching and learning of geography in higher education. It will be shown that co-production of knowledge in learning and teaching in higher education occurs through a variety of means; distinctions between human and physical geography which relate to the understanding of school students, co-production beyond formal learning environments, co-production through community impacts of research, and the co-production of knowledge relating to differing expertise of higher education institutions both within the UK and beyond. Co-production was the theme of the 2014 Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Annual Conference. This paper was originally written on this theme for the RGS’s Higher Education Research Group reflective essay competition, for which the paper was the winning entry. I consider the co-production of knowledge to reflect on teaching and learning as a geography student in higher education. For reflections over space and time I use a journal style paper inspired by the style for a piece of undergraduate coursework at the University of Birmingham. The first column gives vignettes of experiences of co-production which are analysed in the second column. I will show that I have experienced coproduction of knowledge in relation to secondary school geography, beyond formal learning environments including community based research, and across UK and international higher education institutions.