Professional learning for academics teaching first-year undergraduate students (original) (raw)
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Novice university teachers' professional learning: to follow traditions or change them?
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Her research interests include professional identity and professional development of academics. MARI KARM is an academic developer and lecturer of university pedagogy at the University of Tartu, Estonia. She holds a PhD in Education and her research interests include professional identity and professional learning of academic staff.
Novice university teachers' professional learning: to follow
2012
Her research interests include professional identity and professional development of academics. MARI KARM is an academic developer and lecturer of university pedagogy at the University of Tartu, Estonia. She holds a PhD in Education and her research interests include professional identity and professional learning of academic staff.
A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Enhancing Academic Practice, Third edition
A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education is sensitive to the competing demands of teaching, research and scholarship, and academic management. Against these contexts, the book focuses on developing professional academic skills for teaching. Dealing with the rapid expansion of the use of technology in higher education and widening student diversity, this fully updated and expanded edition includes new material on, for example, e-learning, lecturing to large groups, formative and summative assessment, and supervising research students.
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Professionals working in a range of contexts are increasingly expected to engage in ongoing professional learning to maintain their skills and develop their practices. In this paper I focus on professional learning in Higher Education (HE) and challenge the standardisation of professional learning that is becoming prevalent in a number of countries. I argue that professional learning must challenge accepted wisdom, and that this is possible while still adhering to the standards required for professional legitimacy. Developing praxis is suggested as a way of producing relevant and active professional learners while still addressing the professional standards required for quality assurance.
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shared theories and concepts that can organize the body of knowledge and provide direction for further advancement, common research methods, a body of specialized knowledge, and institutional presence in the form of academic programs taught in universities and professional associations affiliated with the discipline (Krishnan, 2009; Kuhn, 1962). Given these characteristics, what do the literature and the papers in this volume tell us about where we stand as a discipline? Our first observation is that a plethora of terms are used in the chapters to describe formative processes intended to foster improved pedagogies and teaching. The terms used in the chapters and those used in the broader literature (see for example, Amundsen
A New Approach to Professional Learning for Academics Teaching in Next Generation Learning Spaces
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The promise of Next Generation Learning Spaces appears to remain unfulfilled. This chapter explores why and how the design of professional learning for academics teaching in such spaces can and should be transformed. It takes a fresh look at why old professional development is failing and proposes a new way to engage academics in their own professional learning. Rather than continuing with traditional professional development that is most often, ad hoc, formal, and centrally driven, comprising mandated professional development workshops and a website that may only be visited once, the chapter explores the move from 'old' professional development to 'new' professional learning. It draws on the fields of organisational theory, cognitive theory and behavioural economics. New professional learning is characterised by a 'pull' rather than a 'push' philosophy. Academic staff themselves drive their own learning, choosing what, when and how they want to learn to become better teachers. Multiple and various learning opportunities embedded in day to day work are just-in-time, self-directed, performance-driven and evaluated within an organisational system. In this way the institutional setting influences behaviour by 'nudging' habits and setting defaults resulting in academics making the "right" decisions and doing the "right" thing. By addressing the compelling issue of how to enhance academic staff teaching capability, this chapter can help university leaders to think beyond the professional development approaches of yesterday. Aligning with this new direction will result in enhanced learning and teaching in the future.
Promoting Professional Learning: Integrating Experiences in University and Practice Settings
Professional and Practice-based Learning, 2011
This chapter discusses some ways in which practice-based learning experiences can be used in sustainable ways within professional education. It proposes that learning through engagement in authentic practice-based experiences is increasingly seen as an essential component of initial occupational preparatory programs offered through universities. Yet, how those experiences are organised and enacted, and integrated with the other experiences that comprise students' curriculum will be central to the quality of the learning outcomes they secure. In particular, it is proposed that a scholarly teaching practice needs to be developed by those who organise and enact these experiences (i.e. university teachers) that effectively engages, supports and integrates the contributions arising from student engagement in practice settings. It is proposed that existing concepts and practices within educational science may not always be helpful in guiding the effective utilisation of these experiences in educational programs, because its base is limited and new challenges are emerging. Hence, academics need to develop their understandings and these practices, and thereby inform both their practice and that science. This case is made through considering the nature and contributions of learning through practice, how that relates to the provision of professional education and ways in which the utilisation of these experiences can be sustainable and effective. In doing so, it draws upon the findings of a recent national teaching fellowship program involving 20 projects across a range of disciplines within six Australian universities that comprised university teachers engaging in projects that addressed practice-based concerns.
Professional development program to embed inclusive and explicit teaching practices in higher education first year units The Victoria Institute, Victoria University and Edith Cowan University, Final report, 2016 Support for the production of this report has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. THE PROJECT The project was designed to address the professional teaching experience and learning needs of higher education educators, in light of the fact that the majority of academics in Australian universities, whether employed on a sessional basis or on-going, have not engaged in formal teacher training or regular professional learning to improve their teaching skills. A customised version of an established American higher education professional learning program – Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) for Higher Education was trialled to explore whether it could be adapted for Australia to stimulate more engaging teaching, particularly in first year foundation units. PROJECT OUTPUTS Project outcomes may be found in a report at www.vu.edu.au/the-victoria-institute/publications. The key findings were: • No single professional learning activity can provide a short cut to the years required to master the complex art of becoming and remaining an effective, accomplished teacher. • Programs need to be engaging and model effective teaching practices, be collaborative, scaffolded, practical, sustained, supported and ongoing; one-off sessions do not work. • Paying sessional staff to attend professional learning programs appears to provide a return on investment that improves the quality and engagement in higher education teaching, but payment alone is not sufficient to overcome institutional factors that restrict which staff are able to attend and invest in professional learning opportunities. • Video exemplars of effective higher education teaching should include clear standards and encourage supportive peer observation to raise the quality of teaching. PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS The AVID collaborative, inquiry-based, immersion model of professional learning was very positively received. It stimulated more engaged teaching by providing regular professional learning combining both generic skills and discipline-specific material. Findings from this project identified the need for universities to address both teaching and institutional factors to improve the quality of teaching. These are detailed in the project report.
Reflections on professional learning: Choices, context and culture
Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2015
Understanding factors that enable and constrain the professional learning of academics for their teaching role provides insight into the complex space within which this teaching resides. The work of social realist Margaret Archer informed an analysis of multiple data sources as part of an exercise towards critical reflection and introspection about professional learning at the university. The data confirms previous work, but also takes the conversation forward. The university teacher -seen to be making choices, within a particular context and informed by her perceptions of the prevailing culture and her personal priorities -is central to this discussion. Academic development practitioners should consider how they might influence dominant discourses, and enhance the dispositions of teaching academics to support quality teaching. ß