University teaching in focus : a learning-centred approach

286 Pages·2012·4.776 MB·English

by  Lynne Hunt, Denise Chalmers

First published 2012
Published in Australia and New Zealand by ACER Press, an imprint of
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Text copyright © Lynne Hunt and Denise Chalmers 2012
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Title: University teaching in focus : a learning-centred approach / edited by Lynne Hunt and Denise Chalmers.
ISBN: 9781742860312 (pbk.)
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: College teaching.
Effective teaching.
Classroom management.
Educational leadership.
Other Authors/Contributors:
Hunt, Lynne.
Chalmers, Denise.
Dewey
378.125
Number:
FOREWORD
Mantz Yorke
University Teaching in Focus draws on a number of theoretical propositions about teaching
and learning as well as evidence for the effectiveness of teaching practices. What we have
here is a ‘thinking person’s guide’ – useful, because teaching is not a simple matter that can be
expressed in a set of rules applicable to all circumstances. Rather, it has to be approached in
terms of a set of principles to be applied in a manner appropriate to circumstances. Some
approaches are more likely to meet with success than others, but none guarantees universal
success. As Hunt, Chalmers and Macdonald indicate in Chapter 2, ‘Effective teaching is the
outcome of decision-making based on evidence arising from research, experience of teaching
students in different contexts and responses to students’ feedback. Good … teaching takes
place when teachers create positive and effective learning experiences for their students.’
Hence this book is much more than a set of prescriptions, as is evident from the invitations
throughout its chapters to consider your own responses to the evidence.
Academics must have the double capability of discipline and teaching expertise. Whilst they
possess the former as a matter of course, many will need to develop the latter and this book
will help them. Of course, all academics who made their way through the educational system to
get to their current positions have gained an appreciation of good and bad aspects of teaching.
This can, however, lead to experience being mistaken for expertise. This book bridges the gap
in ways that will help students to benefit from their programs of study. New teachers are not
the only potential beneficiaries of the knowledge and expertise within the pages of this book –
those who have been teaching for some time are also likely to find ideas for the development
of their pedagogic practice. I can truthfully say that I have.
Higher education has broadened the demands on students in that the possession of a first
degree is not the passport to a career that it once was. Looking at a list of expectations
produced by the Confederation of British Industry (2011), I reflected that I left university
having obtained a degree but with little of the ‘extra’ that employers currently demand from
today’s graduates. My time at university coincided with a participation rate of less than 10 per
cent of the cohort of school-leavers, and the demand for graduates exceeded the supply. It was
generally sufficient to pass the exams in order to gain graduate-level employment, and there
was no pressure on teachers in respect of retention and completion – indeed, a high failure rate
was often taken as evidence of an insistence on high academic standards. If students failed
their assessments, then it must have been a reflection of their personal failings and nothing to
do with the teaching that they had received. Things are very different today, and governments
around the world are concerned to assure the standards of teaching in higher education. This
book addresses such matters of quality assurance by focusing on the knowledge and skills that
higher education teachers need to facilitate student learning.
I once used the phrase ‘quality as moral purpose’ (Yorke 2000, p. 21) in an unavailing
attempt to turn the discourse relating to ‘quality’ away from procedures and technicalities
associated with assurance and towards a focus on student development. After all, if student
development is ‘got right’, then the assurance activities ought to pick up the achievement. Or,
put another way, the key is for the institution and its organisational units to insist on a culture of
learning, and to create and sustain the conditions for this to take place. The pressure on
students, teachers and institutions to achieve rapid results (for example, as represented
respectively in terms of grades, progression or completion and position in ranking tables)
makes sustaining a commitment to ‘learning goals’ in preference to ‘performance goals’
(Dweck 1999) a considerable challenge.
The challenges for today’s teachers in higher education are multidimensional. In addition to
teaching their academic subjects, they are expected to facilitate the development in students of
a broad slew of graduate attributes (or ‘employability’). They also have to engage with a
student body that is diverse in demographic background (for example, age, gender, ethnicity
and disability) and mode of engagement (full-time, part-time or at a distance). The pressures
are readily apparent. Resources, such as this book, that support teachers in their teaching roles
have an important part to play in mitigating the pressures as well as contributing to the
development of a satisfying level of expertise as a teacher.
However, teachers of today have an advantage over their predecessors, in that there is an
ever-growing accumulation of evidence – well represented in the chapters of this book –
regarding approaches that are likely to lead to success in their students. The style of this book
emulates the student-centred approach espoused by providing theoretical, practical and
memorable discussion to facilitate teaching and curriculum development. Angelo, for example,
exhorts you to apply the parrot test: ‘is there any way that a student could pass your subject
simply through rote memorisation – or by plagiarising or cheating – and without demonstrating
deep learning? If the answer is yes, then the subject fails the parrot test’.
The chapters in this book accord with the best of contemporary thinking about higher
education, such as, for example, the conclusions reached by Pascarella and Terenzini (2005)
regarding the value of active learning:
With striking consistency, studies show that innovative, active, collaborative, and constructivist instructional
approaches shape learning more powerfully, in some forms by substantial margins, than do conventional lecture-
discussion and text-based approaches.
(Pascarella & Terenzini 2005, p. 646)
Converting a conclusion of this sort back into teaching sessions suited to the specific
educational context is the challenge addressed in University Teaching in Focus. It involves
consideration of how to maximise student engagement in learning and the extent to which the
proposed approach fits with other components of the curriculum, including assessment. Tales,
not entirely apocryphal, of multiple demands across a program for student presentations and
assessments based solely on the writing of essays illustrate a need to focus on a diverse range
of assessment to enhance students’ skill development.
Students often take time to ‘get it’ as regards the demands that higher education makes of
them. The first year is particularly important in constructing a shared appreciation of
expectations which include independence (and at times collaboration) in studying; a
preparedness to engage actively with the subject matter; a willingness to go beyond mere
regurgitation of received materials; the avoidance of plagiarism; and a commitment to learn
from formative assessments. In a diverse student cohort none of these can be taken for granted.
Newly enrolled students may have to unlearn some of their existing assumptions and practices.
All this adds to the intriguing challenges for teachers in higher education which they will be
able to face in an informed and considered manner after reading the overview of key issues
provided in the chapters of this book.
Whilst teaching may, for some teachers, be an individual activity, the curriculum as a whole
involves a collection of teachers. If that collection is a cohesive group, or perhaps a set of
coherent sub-groups, then pedagogic advantages can accrue. Gibbs (2010) points to the benefit
to teaching and learning that can arise from group discussion:
Studies at Oxford Brookes University concerning why some subjects regularly produced better student performance
than others found no differences in any quantitative measure of presage variables [i.e., funding, staff to student ratios,
the quality of teaching staff and the quality of students]. However, a qualitative follow-up study found that the high
performing subjects were characterised by healthy ‘communities of practice’ involving much discussion of how to
solve teaching problems so as to make the entire programme work well for students. In contrast, subjects with
consistently low average marks were characterised by a corresponding lack of talking about teaching, and a
fragmented focus on individual courses ...
(Gibbs 2010a, pp. 47–48)
The considerate institution, via its academic organisational units, does not leave its teachers to
wrestle alone with the challenges of teaching and assessing. Indeed, most now offer foundation
courses in teaching, for which this book has been written.
Whilst writing this foreword, I recalled the first single-handed transatlantic race that took
place in 1960. The rules were simple – to cross the starting and finishing lines, but with an
open choice of route. The sailors had to judge how to make best use of weather and wave,
given the rig of their yacht and their own physical capabilities. What would be best for one
would not necessarily be best for another. Of course, some actions would necessarily be
determined by general principles of sailing. In regard to teaching, this story illustrates the
importance of doing things in a way that combines the teacher’s individuality with principles
of teaching for charting a path to quality student learning. So, too, does an anecdote involving
the celebrated psychologist Robert Sternberg:
Once, while listening to a lecture ... Sternberg marveled at how well the teacher was able to establish rapport and
communicate with the audience. He commented to the person sitting next to him that he wished that he could deliver
a lecture so effectively. She looked at him for a moment and then commented, ‘He does it his way; you do it your
way.’ Her point was right on target. Each person has to find his or her own path. There is no one path that works for
everyone.
(Sternberg & Grigorenko 2000, p. 9)
May all who read this book find a personal path that gives a sense of achievement through the
successes of their students, together with the satisfaction of a job well done.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Mantz Yorke
List of figures
List of tables
List of cases
About the editors
About the contributors
Introduction
Lynne Hunt and Denise Chalmers
PART 1 Focus on teaching
Chapter 1 Understanding learning: theories and critique
Martyn Stewart
Chapter 2 Effective classroom teaching
Lynne Hunt, Denise Chalmers and Ranald Macdonald
Chapter 3 Discipline-based teaching
Ray Land
Chapter 4 Teaching graduate attributes and academic skills
Denise Chalmers and Lee Partridge
Chapter 5 Using effective assessment to promote learning
Sally Brown and Phil Race
PART 2 Focus on curriculum
Chapter 6 Designing subjects for learning: practical research based principles and guidelines
Tom Angelo
Chapter 7 Designing online and blended learning
Thomas C Reeves and Patricia M Reeves
Chapter 8 Research-led or research-based undergraduate curricula
Alan Jenkins and Mick Healey
Chapter 9 Problem-based learning
Lyn Brodie
Chapter 10 Authentic work-integrated learning
Jonathan Garnett
PART 3 Focus on students
Chapter 11 Inclusive teaching
Christine Broughan and Lynne Hunt
Chapter 12 Teaching international students
Michelle Barker
Chapter 13 Indigenous knowers and knowledge in university teaching
Michael Christie and Christine Asmar
PART 4 Focus on quality and leadership
Chapter 14 A quality approach to university teaching
Kerri-Lee Krause
Chapter 15 Scholarship of teaching and learning
Keith Trigwell
Chapter 16 Leadership in teaching
Paul Blackmore
Bibliography
Index
FIGURES
Behaviourist teaching methods could be authoritarian, transmissive and downplay
Figure 1.1
the role of the learner
Figure 1.2 Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development
Examples of how a specific learning outcome or more general teaching and learning
Figure 1.3
aims can draw from theoretical principles to inform teaching designs
Figure 4.1 Graduate Attribute Map
Figure 8.1 The nature of undergraduate research and inquiry
Figure 9.1 Flowchart to help determine a PBL outline
Figure 9.2 A model for online teaching and learning
Figure 9.3 The problem-solving cycle scaffold
Figure 11.1Flexible learning options of core resource packages
Figure 14.1University of Western Sydney Learning and Teaching Standards Framework
Figure 15.1Presage-Process-Product (3P) model of student learning
TABLES
Table 4.1 Example of ways to describe graduate attributes in disciplinary terms
Example of graduate attributes of information literacy and interpersonal skills
Table 4.2
described at increasing levels of complexity
Examples of teaching and learning activities to enhance the development of
Table 4.3
graduate attributes
Appendix 4.1 Graduate attribute subject alignment matrix for a marketing strategy subject
Table 5.1 Diverse assessment methods and approaches
Table 9.1 An example of turning topics into problems
Table 9.2 A sample assessment scheme to include adequate reflection
Table 9.3 Sample assessment rubric of team meeting strategy
Table 9.4 Framework for supporting the problem-solving cycle scaffold
Table 11.1 An Open University example to explain academic discourse
Table 14.1 Student survey types, purposes and typical levels of application
Checklist to develop strategies for quality assurance and enhancement of
Table 14.2
teaching practice
Table 15.1 Items from a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning questionnaire
Table 15.2 The Carnegie Foundation’s six standards of scholarship
Levels of teaching/learning investigations showing relations between the
Table 15.3
purpose, process and outcomes
Table 15.4 Example investigation questions and relevant data sources