Teaching and learning is the core business of all Australian universities. In their institutional missions and strategies, over 90 per cent of them make explicit reference to valuing and rewarding the development of teaching (Ramsden & Martin, 1996). Despite this, academic staff habitually identify a mismatch between what they experience and what universities claim when it comes to recognizing and rewarding teaching (Ramsden et al, 1995).
It has been said that teaching will never be properly valued and supported in higher education until it becomes a more scholarly pursuit: until, in other words, it is grounded in research into teaching and learning, based on critical reflection on practice, and more open to investigation by colleagues, and reflects the interplay between investigation, knowing and communicating (see, for example, Boyer, 1990; Gibbs, 1994).
'Scholarship in teaching' implies improving university teaching in a way that takes account of the interplay between disciplinary research and the education of undergraduates; of research into teaching and learning in a specific subject; of research into teaching and learning in higher education in general; and of a need to consider university teaching as a process of critical reflection on practice, open to collegial scrutiny.
The four universities involved in this Project contain significant numbers of staff who have a major commitment to teaching but who did not develop their academic careers through the scholarly apprenticeship associated with research. Each institution declares a commitment to scholarship in teaching in its mission or strategic plan, and each is engaged in pursuing or planning, a project designed to help staff to improve their teaching in ways consistent with the idea of scholarship in teaching.
The present project is relevant to advancing all four universities' goals in learning and teaching. RMIT's Teaching and Learning Strategy emphasizes that it expects teaching staff, at all levels, to improve professional practice through research, reflection, discussion and innovation. Each faculty's Teaching and Learning Strategy makes specific recommendations as to how staff will be supported in this endeavor. One of the goals of the UTS's mission statement is to ensure the highest quality in all teaching activities; its teaching management plan includes the aim: 'to enhance teaching conceptions and skills of academic staff'.
At La Trobe University, two of the mission statement's three goals expresses a concern for scholarship in teaching; at Griffith University, the Teaching and Learning Management Plan stresses the importance of scholarly work and publications based on teaching initiatives.
The Project is initially aimed at academic staff working on strategic teaching initiatives within four universities. Involvement with the Project will help these staff to develop scholarship in teaching, enable them to present evidence of their commitment to improving teaching and learning, and contribute to the outcomes of the strategic initiatives. More broadly, the Project will enable staff throughout the UNS to develop scholarship in teaching through the dissemination of resources which will be made available through a Clearing House of CUTSD.
Expected outcomes include:
A report will be prepared and published on the use of the materials within the strategic staff development initiatives. It will include a description of the development of the modules, comments on the experiences of the participants together with recommendations for the development of activities using the modules. It will include the results of a questionnaire administered at the completion of the Project which would collect feedback on the advancement of the desired outcomes of the Project. These would include:
Eighteen months after the launch of the materials nationally, a Report will be published on their use and on the outcomes achieved by the staff accessing them and working with them. Data will be collected during the first quarter of the second year. It will include information on how teaching practice and thinking about teaching has changed for the participants, as well as how many participants have developed teaching portfolios, conference papers, journal articles, etc., and how the modules have helped and how they could be made better.
This evaluation will result in a revision of the two modules which will themselves then be made publicly available.
The team members have between them developed workshops and seminar series and authored significant publications in one or more of the areas being addressed by the Project. Three members have current or past experience as editors of Higher Education Research and Development, the internationally refereed journal of HERDSA (Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia). All team members are actively engaged in a variety of academic staff development activities designed to support individual university teachers develop and improve their scholarship in relation to their teaching in their own disciplines.
They would welcome your inquiries about any aspect of the project
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| Elaine Martin, Project
Director Educational Program Improvement Group RMIT University Telephone: 03 9660 2972 Fax: 03 9639 0439 |
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Michael Prosser Academic Development Unit La Trobe University, Bundoora Campus Telephone: 03 9479 1533 Fax: 03 9479 2996 |
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| Linda Conrad Griffith Centre for Higher Education Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus Telephone: 07 3875 5985 Fax: 07 3875 5998 |
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Keith Trigwell Centre for Learning and Teaching University of Technology, Sydney Telephone: 02 9514 2196 Fax: 02 9330 2217 |
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