Pursuing Teaching Excellence in Higher Education

Book excerpt: Teaching excellence is a topic of international significance, having importance for higher education worldwide, yet is generally considered to be poorly defined and understood. The current discourse of teaching excellence is narrowly framed, instrumental and performative, with an onus on measurement and quantification. Wood and Su investigate and rethink excellence in higher education, connecting this to the understanding of the role and purpose of higher education. Stakeholder perspectives on teaching excellence are explored, and the authors argue that it is through engaging with higher education constituencies, to examine teaching excellence from different angles and stances, that more inclusive understandings may be built. These stakeholder perspectives, which form the central chapters of the book, include higher education institutions, academics, students, employers and parents. The importance of a commitment to engaging with understandings situated in the diverse experiences and contexts of stakeholders for an 'inclusive perspective' on teaching excellence is affirmed. At the close of the book, the Coda examines some of the implications of the responses to the COVID-19 global pandemic for inclusive perspectives on teaching excellence in higher education.