Abstract
The paper presents a study of students’ significant and ideal learning experiences as triggers of university teachers’ professional development. Students’ feedback and teachers’ own reflection on their teaching act as important triggers for quality shifts in their teaching and professional development. The results of empirical research, during which we used a questionnaire with predominantly open-ended questions, will be presented. We were interested in the degree of students’ satisfaction with the quality of education and what conceptions about teacher’s and student’s role they had formed during their studies. Of the many research questions, this paper only deals with analysis of learning experiences which had a particular impact on students, and their notion of an ideal study environment. In this manner we attempted to reflect on the quality of studying and, based on significant learning situations, gain insight into the influence a teacher’s teaching may have on their students’ professional and personal development. Thus the question arises of how much university teachers are prepared for in-depth reflection on their own practices, to what degree they are ready to take into account feedback they receive from students and whether they are prepared to abandon their customary teaching practices.
Highlights
Effective higher education teaching is an “elusive” concept that is very hard to define precisely as its meaning needs to be constantly rediscovered within a changed and changing context (Devlin & Samarawickrema, 2010)
The question arises of how much university teachers are prepared for in-depth reflection on their own practices, to what degree they are ready to take into account feedback they receive from students and whether they are prepared to abandon their customary teaching practices
In order to classify an answer into this category it was not enough for the students to mention that a teacher helps, leads and steers them—on the contrary, they had to be more explicit and clearly point out the teacher’s role in encouraging their independent construction of knowledge, critical thinking and personal growth: “...encourages students towards their own critical thinking.”, “...presents subject matter to students or organizes lectures, discussions, role plays, through which students reach conclusions themselves
Summary
Effective higher education teaching is an “elusive” concept that is very hard to define precisely as its meaning needs to be constantly rediscovered within a changed and changing context (Devlin & Samarawickrema, 2010). In empirical studies it has been confirmed many times that conceptual change/student-focused approaches are more likely to lead to students adopting deeper approaches to learning, because of that they can be considered higher quality approaches to teaching Trigwell (2008) emphasized: “The scholarship of teaching is about inquiry that has, as the main focus, the facilitation and improvement of student learning” The teacher’s fundamental role is to provide conditions for students’ learning This assumes that teachers cannot understand their role only from the point of view of teaching as the transmission of knowledge. This is the perspective needed for reflecting and regarding students as partners in the educational process
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