Quality enhancement of university teaching and learning

Claus. Nygaard, Nigel. Courtney, Paul. Bartholomew

    Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

    Abstract

    The challenge addressed by the international scholars and academic practitioners contributing to Quality Enhancement of University Teaching and Learning is how best to enhance the quality of university teaching and learning, and thereby generate a culture of quality in higher education. The book focuses on approaches to quality enhancement (QE), a process which has significant differences to the interrelated concept of quality assurance (QA), particularly in relation to aspirations for change. The contributors believe that the status quo is no longer a viable option if the role of higher education as a fundamental part of the knowledge (and wider) economy is to be safeguarded. Believing that the primary purpose of every institution's quality enhancement work should be the improvement of students' learning experiences, they argue that innovative QE initiatives offer better ways of handling students' intricate learning processes than does a focus on QA paradigms. Higher education institutions (HEIs) need to establish quality enhancement frameworks that focus explicitly on the relationship between the activities of learning and teaching and students' learning outcomes. All institutions need to follow approaches that seek out and value novel and effective practices and disseminate these where appropriate. Focusing on the dynamic and complex processes and relations that create their learning environments is necessary if HEIs are to move from cultures of compliance to cultures of enhancement. When successful, the outcome should be a culture where ownership of the institutional quality enhancement agenda extends down to the point of delivery. Since successful QE initiatives must always involve jointly the student, the teacher and the institution, the three sections of the anthology address the practice of QE in relation to each of these constituencies. Examples of quality enhancement in higher education from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, Iceland, Portugal, Scotland, and United Arab Emirates are presented, with each section starting from contributions offering microlevel approaches and progressing to those offering macrolevel perspectives. ch. 1 Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives on Quality Enhancement in Higher Education / Paul Bartholomew -- ch. 2 Students Constructing the Curriculum -- An Experiment to Increase Responsibility / Pentti Moilanen -- ch. 3 Differentiated Assessment Activities: Customising to Support Learning / Swapna Koshy -- ch. 4 Independent Studies in Higher Education: Great Expectations or Hard Times? / Andrew Green -- ch. 5 Enhancing Music Students' Learning and Pedagogic Understandings through Cultural Exchange / Peter Dunbar-Hall -- ch. 6 Developing Undergraduate Students' Generic Competencies through Research Activities / Carla Ferreira -- ch. 7 Using Computer Supported Collaborative Learning to Enhance the Quality of Schoolteacher Professional Development / Andrea Raiker -- ch. 8 Quality Enhancement through the Peer Review of Teaching for Learning and Learning for Teaching -- a Process and an Outcome / Steve Drew -- ch. 9 Quality Attributes and Competencies for Transformative Teaching: a Theory of the Transformative Teacher / Sigridur Halldorsdottir -- ch. 10 Enhancing the Enhancers: Action Research as a Quality Enhancement Tool / Helen Corkill -- ch. 11 Course Evaluation Systems for Open-ended Quality Enhancement / Jens Smed Rasmussen -- ch. 12 Quality Enhancement through Student Engagement / Luke Millard -- ch. 13 A Comparison of Two Learning and Teaching Centres in the E.U. Area: Strategies for Quality Enhancement of Teaching and Learning / Laurent Ledouc.
    Original languageEnglish
    PublisherLibri Publishing
    ISBN (Print)9781909818125
    Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 2013

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