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Annotation 'University Teaching in Focus' provides a foundational springboard for early career academics preparing to teach in universities. Focusing on teaching, curriculum, students, and quality/leadership, this resource offers university teachers a straightforward approach to facilitating effective student learning.
Prosser and Trigwell argue that the question to how university teachers can improve the quality of student learning lies in determining how students perceive their unique learning situations. Their book outlines the key principles underlying successful teaching and learning in higher education, and is a key resource for all university teachers.
Research into how teaching affects the quality of student learning at university is a rapidly changing field. University teachers are increasingly required to develop their own strategies for effective teaching, often with limited guidance from their institutions. Teaching for Understanding at University not only outlines a wide range of recent developments in the area, but shows how approaches can be brought together to help university teachers think more imaginatively about ways of encouraging students' learning. Written in a way designed to be interesting and accessible to university teachers across disciplines, the volume concentrates on how students reach a personal understanding of the subject they are studying. Covering academic understanding, approaches to teaching, assessment methods and evaluation of teaching, the book provides a comprehensive introduction to the latest ideas on teaching and learning. Avoiding unnecessary jargon and 'business speak', this is the ideal book for the newly qualified lecturer, as well as the more experienced academic who is keen to consider their teaching methods from a fresh perspective. Noel Entwistle is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Edinburgh. He was previously the editor of the British Journal of Educational Psychology and Higher Education, and has an international reputation for his work in the field of student learning in higher education.
Why does understanding really matter?Why do some learners fail to understand?At a time when league tables can be everything, examination grades matter. Perhaps more than many would admit, the cost is a lack of understanding.The new edition of Teaching for Understanding provides practical advice about how to support understanding in both children and adults. It is for all teachers and lecturers, experienced or otherwise, who want learners to do more than simply memorize and regurgitate information. It describes what understand.
Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education offers a combination of critical perspectives and practical advice that is ideally suited for individuals interested in enhancing their practice through analysis and critique. The aim is to promote a critical understanding of one’s own practices: to foster personal and professional formation through a reflexive engagement with one's environment and circumstances. At a practical level this means to continuously think about how to adjust practice rather than following a formulaic approach derived from any particular educational theory. Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education argues that academics can find space for their own agency in the midst of institutional policies and practices that serve to frame, as well as delimit and constrain, what counts as good academic work in teaching and research. This text bridges a gap between those books that provide a high-level analysis of contemporary higher education, the more practical texts on how to be a good teacher in higher education, and those texts which aim to improve teaching through better understanding of the learning process. Topical chapters include: Teacher-learner relationship, Learning groups, Practice-oriented learning, Teaching for diversity, e-learning, Assessment, Approaches to Staff Development, Quality assurance, Supervision and Research education, Doing research, and Teaching & Research. A must-have resource for higher education professions, academic developers, professionals, and anyone looking to improve their teaching and learning practices, Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education is also appropriate for continuing and professional development courses in the UK and teaching and learning courses in the US. Mark Tennant is Dean of the University Graduate School, University of Technology, Sydney. Cathi McMullen is Lecturer in the School of Marketing and Management at Charles Sturt University. Dan Kaczynski is Professor in the Educational Leadership department at Central Michigan University.
The book discusses the complex nature of understanding and what it means to teach for understanding. The processes and strategies that can support teaching for understanding are then exemplified in the context of different areas of the primary / elementary (4-11 years) school curriculum.
"One feature of this book that sets it apart from others is the care that is taken to clarify the authors’ interpretation of the phrase 'teaching for understanding'. Each component of this interpretation – connections, representations, reasoning, communication and misconceptions – is then successfully incorporated as a theme in the subsequent chapters that develop important mathematical topics." Ian Thompson, Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University and Northumbria University, UK This important book aims to support and develop teachers' understanding of the key primary mathematics topics. It takes an innovative approach by defining exactly what is meant by 'understanding' and uses this model to examine and explain various mathematical topics. The authors emphasize the importance of the different representations that can be used for mathematical concepts and inform the reasoning process. By focusing on understanding, the book also draws attention to common misconceptions that teachers may encounter in the classroom. Key features: Specific focus on 'understanding' to offer new insights in to how to teach the topics Case studies to demonstrate how to communicate mathematical topics in the classroom End of chapter questions to stimulate discussion The authors integrate research and theory throughout, to highlight core issues. This theoretical background is also linked directly to classroom practice and informs suggestions for how topics can be communicated in the classroom. This offers valuable guidance to trainee teachers on how to teach the topics and presents experienced teachers with the opportunity to develop their subject and pedagogical knowledge.
This book focuses on university teachers’ experience of teaching and learning. Following on from the 1999 volume Understanding Learning and Teaching, which focused on student experiences of teaching and learning, this book provides guidance on how teachers’ experiences can be understood in ways which can support the continued enhancement of student learning experiences and learning outcomes. Drawing on the outcomes of a 30-year research project, this comprehensive volume discusses the qualitative variation in approaches to university teaching, the factors associated with that variation, and how different ways of teaching are related to differences in student experiences of teaching and learning. The authors extend the discussions of teaching into new areas, including emotions in teaching, leadership of teaching, growth as a university teacher and the contentious field of relations between teaching and research. “This important book offers an accessible, research-informed guide to understanding student learning and university teaching. Written by two world-leading experts in the field, it provides rich insights and practical responses to the challenges faced by those who care deeply about teaching and learning in higher education.” —Professor Paul Ashwin, Lancaster University, UK "Enhancing discipline-specific evidence-based development of the quality of teaching and learning in higher education has been my strategy during my whole career. Therefore and with great pleasure I read the book by Trigwell and Prosser which distills their teaching and learning research into a guide for those seeking to better understand their teaching environment. Building on their discovery of relations between the ways of teaching and the ways of learning, they expand on what is known about variation in teaching and how it links to course design, to research and to academic development. This book will be a valuable resource for many academics." —Professor Sari Lindblom, University of Helsinki, Finland “In an international higher education context going through much change and uncertainty, Trigwell and Prosser have produced a scholarly, timely, evidence-based, view of teaching and learning suitable for universities world-wide. The experience, quality and satisfaction of university leaders, researchers, teachers and students will benefit enormously from the ideas in this addition to their first book.” —Professor Robert A. Ellis, Griffith University, Australia
