Enhancing professionalism through collaboration between teachers and administrators in University Pedagogy courses

Abstract

This article reports on the experiences and opportunities that two University Pedagogy courses offered to University of Helsinki Language Centre personnel in 2011–2012. The Language Centre and Language Services working community shares an understanding that everyone is working towards the same goal: to support university students' language learning. Thus the courses were open to all academic personnel, both teachers and administrators. This article introduces three voices: two administrative staff voices and one University Pedagogy course instructor voice. The main concern of the article is to identify how collaboration between teachers and academic administrators can enhance professional development and quality in Language Centres. We aim to show how University Pedagogy courses are not only suitable but also, more importantly, fruitful for those members of staff who have no teaching duties. We describe how participation in such courses opened up new perspectives on the participants' work, and summarize the insights they achieved while carrying out their course work in collaboration with their teacher colleagues. The stories we include show how one's individual learning experiences can refine working processes at the Language Centre, with important implications for long-term collaboration between teachers and administrators and also for quality assurance.