Search

This paper examines 'good teaching' within a policy ensemble where teachers' subjectification and practices are underpinned by new modes of evaluation and enforcement. Although the paper is written with specific concern for teachers in the Republic of Ireland, the literature demonstrates that concerns raised resonate internationally. Theoretical frameworks are drawn from Bernstein's pedagogic device and 'rules of evaluation' (2000, p. 34) and the tyranny of number, networks and superstructures found in policy research. The study includes a limited analysis of the policy ensemble in 'Austerity Ireland' and contextual understandings and perspectives of a purposive sample of experienced teachers (n = 54). Critical analysis generated three themes: multiple perspectives about 'good teaching', a strongly perceived pedagogy of oppression and low ethical trust in reported interactions at some schools and with the state inspectorate. Conclusions position 'good teaching' within the super-complexity of a messy narrative of change and flows enacted with a diversity of inquirers and institutions. The study questions the role of state inspectors as arbiters of 'good teaching' and challenges the academy of teacher education in assuring productive discursive gaps for education as a social responsibility for public-interest values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In both Australia and Malaysia where there is strong central oversight of education, reflective thinking is promoted as integral to an effective pedagogy that leads to good quality learner outcomes. Besides providing tools and resources for teachers and pre-service teachers to use, increasing the systemic procedures for teacher advancement and accreditation require documented evidence of reflective practice. While the idea of the reflective practitioner has taken hold in the Australian and Malaysian education sectors, there are questions about the value of externally driven approaches for developing the internalised and meaningful reflective practices that are sought. This scoping review seeks to draw together the existing literature, and to identify emerging themes, opportunities, barriers and challenges for researchers in relation to the way reflective practice is manifested in Malaysia and Australia; how widespread its adoption is; and the effectiveness of different practices. The overarching finding is that this area is under researched. [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]

The growing need for good teaching practices in Engineering Education (Eng.Ed) that will improve the graduate's complex engineering problem-solving skills, has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers in recent years. This increasing interest demands that practitioners should examine their teaching practices from all corners, particularly from students' lenses. This study aims to investigate the conceptions of good teaching as conceived by students from the engineering discipline by using a phenomenographic approach. A cohort of 15 students from five engineering universities of Bangladesh was interviewed to explore their different ways of understanding and experiencing good teaching. From the phenomenographic analysis, five categories of good teaching were revealed: managing the classroom effectively; simplifying the concept; ensuring communication between teacher and student; engaging students; and practicing in the real world. The five dimensions of variation were identified and a hierarchical relationship among the categories was constructed. The findings play a significant role in the clear understanding of good teaching practices in Eng.Ed from a new perspective. The findings also provide insights necessary for the development of a more robust engineering curriculum that takes into consideration a conducive learning environment (classroom management), logical arrangement of curricula content, engaging activities, and industrial attachments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest to improve teaching on a wide scale is an enduring challenge globally. Yet demonstrable improvement in teaching quality is both elusive and slow. In this essay, I explore some of the complexities that contribute to the slow pace of change, including: the slippage between teachers and teaching as the object of improvement; the poorly defined concept of good teaching; the difficulty of demonstrating improvement in teaching; institutional constraints on improvement efforts; the growing web of marketing; and conflicting conceptions of professional development itself. Using my ongoing work on Quality Teaching and Quality Teaching Rounds, I illustrate how we have addressed these matters to produce measurable and sustainable effects. Finally, I elaborate the key principles of our approach, while acknowledging the challenges of wide-scale improvement, given the institutional and discursive character of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature supports the moral development theory as a justification for teachers to care, where teachers should care for their students because it contributes to their moral education as caring persons. If no causal relationship can be established, the question remains whether we would want teachers to care, preferably one that does not merely import its external normative significance into teaching. I argue that an understanding of teaching, and moreover, of good teaching already has embedded within it conceptions of care. Understanding that teaching involves care would then challenge virtue/character-based conceptions of the good teacher. While these clarifications are modest in scope, taking caring seriously in teaching has implications on how we conceptualize the good teacher, which in turn affects how both teacher education and professional ethics might be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions assess teaching effectiveness in various ways, such as classroom observation, peer evaluation and self-assessment. In higher education, student feedback continues to be the main teaching evaluation tool. However, most of such forms include characteristics of good teaching that the institutions deem important and may not adequately reflect what students perceive to be good teaching. This study explored students' understandings of good teaching via a survey with students from two faculties at a Singapore university. Students were asked what characteristics they thought constituted the following categories of teaching: preparation and organization, knowledge, learning and thinking, enthusiasm and delivery. It was found that while distinct characteristics were highlighted for the first four categories, the last saw recurring characteristics of teacher attributes and teaching strategies. These two aspects weigh in significantly in the way students perceive whether the teacher is effective. The study has implications for teacher development programmes and the design of student evaluation forms for more accurate assessments of teacher ability and foci on areas of improvement. This study is potentially useful to teachers, as knowing the characteristics of teaching that matter to students could help teachers determine for themselves how to maintain or improve their performance in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the attempted reform of education within an emerging audit culture in Australia that has led to the implementation of a high-stakes testing regime known as NAPLAN. NAPLAN represents a machine of auditing, which creates and accounts for data that are used to measure, amongst other things, good teaching. In particular, we address the logics of a policy intervention that aims to improve the quality of education through returning ‘good teaching’. Using Deleuze’s concepts of series, events, copies and simulacra, we suggest that an attempt to return past commonsense logics of ‘good teaching’ as a result of NAPLAN is not possible. In an audit culture as exemplified by NAPLAN, ‘good teaching’ is being reconceptualized through those practices and becomes unrecognizable. Whilst policy claims to improved equity and quality are admirable, this article suggests that the simulacral change to logics of good teaching may actualize something very different. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]