EBOOK: Reconstructing Professionalism In University Teaching

Book excerpt: * How can academics carve out new and effective ways of working with students against a background of constant change and policy pressure? * How can university teachers both enhance student learning and realize their own educational values? * What might be the shape of a new professionalism in university teaching? At the heart of this book is a small group of academics from very different disciplines making sense of their teaching situations. We witness each of their struggles and celebrations in designing a new course, engaging a large first year class, introducing a mentoring programme, nurturing independent learning through project work, using debates to develop students' critical thinking, and evaluating the success of their teaching. This book is the story of a higher education project, and central to the story are the attempts of university teachers to enact a critical professionalism in their everyday lives in teaching and learning; and also their development of a shared and collaborative dialogue. Each of the team seeks not only to improve their practice of teaching but also to explore amongst themselves what kind of professional they want to be and how to realize it in their work with students. Reconstructing Professionalism in University Teaching reveals how academics working together on researching their own teaching can both improve their students' learning and start to redefine their own professional roles.