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This paper explores the concept of good teaching and discusses lecturers' beliefs about what constitutes good teaching in higher education. The paper draws on documentary material in the form of philosophy of teaching statements written by lecturers in higher education. Thematic analysis is used to examine the philosophy statements and the analysis of the data reveals that for academic staff, the moral stances of honesty, respect, responsibility, care and compassion are fundamental to good teaching. The results do not support a narrow view of teaching focused on strategies and technical knowledge, but shows evidence of academics engaging strongly with the values base of their work as teachers. The voices of the academic staff as captured in their philosophy statements are cognisant of the moral purpose of teaching and speak powerfully to a practice that is responsible and effective. Both dispositions are important in terms of teaching and the challenge is to integrate the two concepts in professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores students' conceptions of good teaching in three different disciplines. Moreover, the aim is to explore the relation between these conceptions and students' approaches to learning by combining qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 695 students from the Faculties of Behavioural Sciences, Law and Veterinary Medicine participated in the study. The students' conceptions of good teaching were analysed using a qualitative content analysis. Furthermore, the students were assigned to homogenous subgroups on the basis of their responses to items measuring approaches to learning and the differences between these subgroups and the students' conceptions were examined. The association between the conceptions, disciplines and approaches to learning were examined using Chi-square tests. Twenty-one dimensions were created from the data and 12 of them differed between the disciplines. Only one dimension differed between the student groups. The study suggests that there is disciplinary variation in students' conceptions of good teaching and universities should take this into account in the development process of the student evaluation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem • What alternative strategies from our experiences using a Piaget-based radical constructivist pedagogy might have more and better results than the current practice of responding in debate form, each side trying to prove the other wrong? > M ethod • Use of Slezak's paper to illuminate the point that the central problem with the interpretation of RC generally used in such writing is that the authors seem not to be able to operate from the central tenet of RC, which is the opposite of that used in realism. Description of how this failure to use the central tenet of RC results in claims that RC is irrelevant to education and to definitions of good teaching. > R esults • A specific approach shown to be useful in facilitating the construction of new understanding in science is adapted in order to guide interaction between an RC and a realist, which can result in the realist understanding the RC point of view. > I mplications • Instead of debating with critics of RC, where each side is trying to prove the other side wrong, we need to change the interaction to one in which members of opposing sides attempt to understand the other's position. In this situation we are in a position to use a pedagogical strategy in which the realist examines her own fundamental assumption that we can know a mind-independent world, and considers the implications of a starting assumption that is exactly the opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities now have a lot to say about tertiary teaching. University policy, teaching units, and promotion criteria have a very specific understanding of good teaching within the academy. This case study of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) found that good teaching has two central features: it is necessarily student centred, and it is `innovative', a characteristic that, at QUT at least, is increasingly equated with the use of technology. This paper – based upon interviews with twenty-four QUT academics across three faculties (Education, Science, and Law), an analysis of QUT's teaching and learning policies, and some additional historical research – will suggest four things. First, that the concept of student centred learning, based on ideals of progressive education, is neither an historical inevitability nor theoretically unproblematic. Second, that irrespective of discipline, all lecturers espouse an underpinning `progressive' teaching philosophy, even though, in practice, teaching style appears to be determined primarily by subject-matter. Third, given that, in practice, the progressive model seems to suit some faculties and subject areas better than others (i.e. Education, as opposed to Science and Law) this has significant professional implications for the lecturers concerned. Finally, that rather than promoting a `progressive' pedagogy, the use of technology in teaching actually appears to reinforce traditional teaching techniques. Consequently, it is suggested that monolithic understandings of good teaching, when applied across the academy irrespective of context, are often inappropriate, ineffective and inequitous, and that universities need to think through their teaching policies and programmes more thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]