Academic teaching and pedagogical skills
Being an academic involves the roles of both teacher and researcher. For higher education to be research-based and to give students opportunities to develop the abilities that characterize a researcher is a complex task that requires specific competence in academic teachers. But how does one understand competence in academic teaching? What are the characteristics of the teachers who contribute to students developing deep and complex knowledge and realizing their full potential? Traditionally, the path to a lectureship is through postgraduate education followed by a research career. The high status of research, together with high demands for research publication and research merits, makes the issue of pedagogical merits when it comes to appointments and promotions particularly problematic for a teacher’s pedagogical development. How can pedagogical skills be demonstrated in the context of assessment, and how can the university develop its assessment processes? Examples of ongoing projects can be found here.
Exploring patterns between educational research and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
In contexts where competence in academic teaching is discussed, a scientific approach to one's own pedagogical practice is often emphasized as desirable. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a knowledge-creating and development-oriented approach where the object of knowledge is close to one’s own teaching profession and its content and contextual circumstances. Students’ learning has a central position. SoTL is often contrasted with pedagogical research, e.g. in terms of both purpose and object as well as the nature of the resulting knowledge. But what does the difference between SoTL and pedagogical research look like in practice?
Would you like to know more? Contact Maria Larsson