9789144124025 by Smakprov Media AB

Academic Teaching M aja E l mgr e n A n n-S ofi e H e n r i k s s on

Translation: Claire Englund, Arnold Pears, Anthony Burden, Sara HÃ¥kansson, Cormac McGrath (first edition)

ACADEMIC TEACHING Donald MacQueen (second edition, supplements and revisions) Second Edition

MAJA ELMGREN ANN-SOFIE HENRIKSSON

Original title: Universitetspedagogik (3rd edition) Published by Studentlitteratur AB, 2015

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Art. No 38367 ISBN 978-91-44-12402-5 Second edition 2:1 © The authors and Studentlitteratur 2018 studentlitteratur.se Studentlitteratur AB, Lund Translation: Donald MacQueen (2nd edition, supplements and revisions) Claire Englund (chapter 1 & 5), Arnold Pears (chapter 2), Anthony Burden (chapter 3), Sara Håkansson (chapter 4 & 6–8), Cormac McGrath (chapter 9) Cover illustration: Erika Jonés Printed by GraphyCems, Spain 2018

CONTENTS

Preface to the second edition in English 7 Preface to the first edition in English 9 Preface to the first swedish edition 11

1 Introduction 13

2 Knowledge and learning 21 What is learning? 22 Approaches to learning 25 Knowledge, competence and attitudes 31 Theories of knowledge: a brief overview 35 Pedagogical research traditions 36 Memory 46 Theories dealing with the brain and nervous system 52 Questions for reflection 54 Further reading 54 3 What promotes learning? 57 A positive learning climate 58 Motivation and engagement 59 Working with preconceptions and cognitive conflicts 61 Clear and carefully chosen outcomes 63 Constructive alignment 65

Contents

Active collaborative learning 66 Variation 68 Feedback 68 Control of learning and metacognition 69 Questions for reflection 70 Further reading 71 4 Students 73 Prior knowledge and preconceptions 74 Understanding essential concepts 75 Formative assessment 78 Expectations and motivation 80 Different learning styles 92 How can diversity be accommodated and utilised? 105 The Swedish Discrimination Act 109 Meeting students and the role of the teacher 113 Students as co-creators 114 Summative course evaluations 117 Questions for reflection 128 Further reading 129 5 The role of the teacher 131 Teacher development 132 The didactic triangle 137 The relationship between teacher and student 139 An exploratory approach 141 Finding your own teaching style 150 Frameworks 152 Demonstrating pedagogical skill 155 Questions for reflection 158 Further reading 158

Contents

6 Choosing and formulating outcomes 159 Starting points when choosing outcomes 161 Course outcomes for various competences and levels of knowledge 173 Constructive alignment 189 Questions for reflection 190 Further reading 191 7 Teaching and learning activities 193 Choosing teaching methods 195 Activating students 205 Rhetoric 226 Activities that develop presentation, dialogue and debate 238 Research basis and scientific approach 240 Labour market links and employability 243 Supervision in work placement 244 Supervising degree projects 248 Supervising groups 254 Comparing various problem-based methods 259 Constructive and fruitful feedback 263 Questions for reflection 269 Further reading 271 8 Assessment 273 Why assess? 274 Assessment methods govern 275 Varied assessment 278 Assessing complex knowledge 291 Systematic test design and scoring 295 Assessing with the aid of criteria and taxonomies 300 Built-in feedback 308 Formal aspects including cheating and plagiarism 312 Questions for reflection 314 Further reading 316

Contents

9 Educational development 317 Points of departure 317 A model for teacher development 322 Creative educational environments and academic leadership 325 Forms of collaboration and development 326 Implementing educational development projects 333 Balancing ambition and reality 340 Questions for reflection 341 Further reading 341 References 343

Books and journal papers 343 Web links 357 Government Publications 358 Index 361

CHAPTER 3

What promotes learning?

Chapter three, in which we discuss the factors that can promote learning, and how they can interact with each other.

Learning consists of interaction; interaction between individuals and interaction between individuals and the material being studied. In the previous chapter we described how information becomes knowledge when it is worked on and processed by the learner; a process that more often than not takes place in interaction between individuals. All the same, each individual learner is unique, with their own personal interests, their own preconceptions and their own personal motivation to learn. Hence, each individual’s learning is also unique. This learning also depends on the material being studied and the resources that are available. Consequently, it is difficult to state clear and simple rules for the teacher to follow. They just would not work for each and every learner, in all disciplines areas, for all teachers, in all contexts or in all the difficult situations that might arise. To provide support for learning, the teacher must of course be knowledgeable in the discipline, but this is not all that is needed. Bain (2004) investigated what, besides expert knowledge, distinguishes truly skilful teachers and found that these teachers have a strong sense of the history of their discipline and how it has evolved with different, sometimes opposing, academic discussions. They apply this in-depth understanding of the subject to reflect upon what thinking looks like in the field and what this entails for other people’s ability to understand the subject. They know where to start when someone is right at the beginning of learning their subject and where this learning will probably encounter difficulties. They have metacognitive competence, meaning that they have the ability to “think about their own © T he au tho r s and S t u dentlitte r at u r

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thinking”. But besides the teacher’s subject knowledge and metacognitive competence, more factors must be in place for good learning to occur. These factors are what this chapter is about. What we are describing are thus a number of factors that can promote and support quality learning aimed at deep understanding. None of these factors can, on their own, ensure that quality learning actually takes place. On the contrary, the various factors interact in a complex way with each other. With interest and respect for the student, the teacher needs to aim at creating a stimulating and unthreatening learning environment with challenging goals, support for their achievement, and opportunities for the learner to reach new insights; insights into the world around us, into the learner’s own learning and into the learner’s deeper being. These factors that support learning provide a framework for reflection that can support the teacher to develop his or her teaching and that can indicate appropriate ways of handling new situations as they arise. Nonetheless, it is in the actual doing of teaching that this knowledge is established and gains significance. It is essential not only to reflect on the principles presented in this chapter but also to start applying them. You will find plenty of ideas about how to get going further on in this book. It is important that you carefully consider how you can develop your teaching by exploiting the various factors that promote and support learning. You are the one person who knows your teaching contexts best, who can make suitable priorities, and who can determine how your teaching can be developed.

A positive learning climate Quality learning is promoted by a positive learning climate. What does that actually entail? It is based on mutual respect, interest, motivation, engagement and effort. Both the teacher-student relationship and the student-student relationships need to be based on mutuality in all these aspects. The teacher is in a position of authority and needs to wield this power consciously and sensitively. The teacher is the leader of the group and needs to lead in much the same way as the cavalier is expected to lead in traditional European dances. A positive and unthreatening climate is achieved when the teacher shows respect for the students, their interests 58

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and their needs. More often than not this leads to the students showing a corresponding respect for the teacher. One way for the teacher to show respect is to ask the students for their opinions and then, whenever possible, to take their opinions into account. Teachers who do this are often amazed at how little is required for the students to feel seen and listened to, and this often has a dramatic effect on the learning climate. By showing respect for the students, their preconceptions, previous experience and background, the teacher can establish a sound basis for a positive learning climate and also a good starting point for adapting the teaching to the student group’s particular characteristics and requirements, thus optimizing the teaching. Since each individual’s learning is unique, the teacher needs to continually and dynamically interact with the students as a group and with each individual student. This would appear to imply significant and demanding changes each time a course is given but it is often no more than a question of offering alternative assignments, more variation in the examples used, and so on. This dynamic interaction can only work optimally when the teacher maintains a dialogue with the students and is responsive to what they have to say.

Motivation and engagement Interest for the students should include curiosity about why they want to learn. If the students were totally unmotivated they just would not turn up in class at all. On the other hand, they might not be motivated in the way that you would want them to be. Students can be extrinsically motivated, i.e. their study is driven by external factors such as passing the course, achieving a degree, getting a good job, pleasing their parents or quite simply demonstrating their potential. Teachers would usually like their students to be intrinsically motivated, i.e. to be curious, interested in learning, and to have an ambition for developing abilities that will be beneficial to themselves and others in the future. A student who is extrinsically motivated does not cope very well with setbacks and needs more encouragement to carry on working. A student who is intrinsically motivated is more likely to appreciate challenges and does not get as easily discouraged in the face of setbacks. Learning works

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best when students have high intrinsic motivation or both high intrinsic and high extrinsic motivation (Eppler & Harju, 1997). A teacher can promote intrinsic motivation by demonstrating the relevance of the material being studied but it is still necessary to stimulate curiosity and interest. One way of doing this is to clearly show your own burning interest. An enthusiastic teacher meets more motivated and engaged students. Think back to your own time as a student. Think of an enthusiastic teacher who had a burning interest for his or her subject area, for the students, and for his or her teaching. What did you feel about that subject? What did it feel like to go to class? Now think back to a teacher who did not appear to be interested in the students he or she met and seemed, more than anything else, to want to get the teaching over and done with. What did you feel about this teacher’s subject area? What did it feel like to go to class? Sometimes a teacher will have to make an effort in order to overcome impediments and become committed to teaching. Perhaps it feels like teaching takes time from research or just that it has to be carried out in time that does not really exist. The particular part of the subject area might be only weakly related to the teacher’s own research and interests. The course group might be large and difficult to relate to. The teacher might feel uncomfortable, even anxious, in the classroom because he or she does not feel that he or she possesses all the necessary tools and abilities. Perhaps the economic resources are too tight to allow for teaching that feels satisfying. All these factors will affect the teacher’s commitment to the job of teaching the course and this, in turn, will affect the students’ commitment to their studies. The teacher needs to work at overcoming these impediments, however difficult it may seem. It is essential to find your own motivation and your own commitment so that you, in turn, can motivate students to become committed to their learning. There is nearly always something inspiring in a teaching situation. A focus on this potential, rather than on the impediments, can make the difficulties feel less daunting. Teachers who expect more from their students also inspire their students to achieve more. Positive expectations on the part of the teacher are an important motivational factor. Basically students need to feel that their investment of time and effort is matched by a corresponding investment from 60

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the teacher. If the teacher does not seem to think that the goals for learning are important then what could get the students to think that they are?

Working with preconceptions and cognitive conflicts A teacher’s interest in the students’ ways of thinking will benefit their learning in the long run. Successful teachers view knowledge as something that is constructed and assume that the learner will make use of alreadyexisting knowledge to understand new information. They teach by stimulating the construction of new knowledge, rather than conveying information. They want their students to construct new mental models of reality, which can be quite a challenge considering that the learners will need to change their way of viewing reality (Bain, 2004). This means that learning involves constructing one’s own knowledge, which entails that the understanding of new information will depend on the knowledge the learner already has. Anyone who is going to help someone learn needs to understand how that person thinks. This means that teaching must start with the students’ understanding of different phenomena and concepts. The teacher will not be able to effectively support the students to develop their understanding until he or she understands their way of thinking. It is not just a question of finding the right level or specifying formally required prior knowledge. Teaching has to start with the students’ prior understanding and proceed from there. The students become more and more capable of making new information meaningful as their knowledge grows and becomes richer. In Piaget’s terms, they become more able to assimilate the new knowledge into the existing structure. The more the teacher knows about this prior knowledge the more he or she is able to promote connections between the new and the old. Then the new knowledge becomes part of a whole and not just a fragment of information. Prior knowledge does not necessarily come from formal studies. The students’ everyday experiences of, e.g., reading the newspaper, social interaction, exploring the world around them or previous experience of work can all be part of the structure that the new knowledge can connect to. This prior knowledge structure can, however, sometimes cause problems © T he au tho r s and S t u dentlitte r at u r

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since the everyday understanding of a phenomenon is not necessarily identical with the scientific understanding. Students often have one way of thinking in a formal learning situation and another contrasting everyday way of thinking. For instance, when students of physics are posed questions about everyday phenomena that can be answered using elementary classical mechanics, they often answer as if they have never heard of Newton’s laws despite being able to routinely solve standard problems in mechanics. Sometimes they are even aware of this discrepancy: “Professor Mazur, how should I answer these questions? According to what you have taught us, or by the way I think about these things?” (Mazur, 1997, p. 4). Sometimes the understanding of an important scientific concept is hindered by the simple everyday use of a particular word. For instance, biologists refer to bananas as ‘berries’, and not as ‘fruit’ as in everyday language. This tends to make learning more difficult since the learner has to cope with both the academic definition and the everyday definition simultaneously. In other instances, pure misunderstandings or gross oversimplifications from earlier studies can make the understanding of complex phenomena difficult. Effective teaching does not only take students’ formal prior studies into account but also students’ troublesome preconceptions, since these earlier conceptions do not just simply pass away when a layer of new knowledge is laid on top of them. Many learners tend to try to force new knowledge into an old structure, even when it does not really fit in, instead of using the new knowledge to develop the structure. In Piaget’s terms, they assimilate when they need to be accommodating. In order to promote accommodation the students, as well as the teacher, need to become aware of their preconceptions and get to work on them. The teacher may need to create “cognitive conflicts” by letting students study new material that does not agree with their prior, naïve understanding (Limón, 2001). Merely presenting inconsistent information is not effective. The students may well need assistance to realise that the new knowledge does not fit into the old structure. One way of doing this is to let students predict the result of an experiment in advance and then later compare their prediction with the actual result (Buncick, 2001). The students also need to be highly motivated to get the different ways of 62

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thinking to fit together. It is difficult to let go of established conceptions and accommodation is demanding. The students need to feel that the problems they are being asked to work on are relevant and important. Collaboration with other students and guided opportunities for reflection can yield further perspectives and ways of understanding to compare with, and thus support the development of deep understanding (Nicol & Boyle, 2003).

Clear and carefully chosen outcomes The teacher’s engagement in the students and their learning is essential but they also need to know which knowledge and which abilities the teacher considers to be important. This needs to be clearly presented as outcomes for degree programmes, for courses, and sometimes even for sections of courses. Students should not be left guessing. This is especially important for students from non-academic backgrounds since they are in a particularly unfamiliar situation. When the outcomes are clear, efforts can be devoted to achieving them rather than to working out what they might be. When the outcomes are carefully formulated the students can consider them from their own point of view and relate them to their personal goals. The formulation of outcomes needs to take into account: what the students bring with them, both their prior understanding and their personal goals; the knowledge and abilities they will require in the future; and how the course, or section of a course, fits into the degree programme as a whole. Teachers will also find clear outcomes useful since they clearly indicate the learning to be aimed at. This provides a firm basis, which is particularly important for inexperienced teachers. All teachers should, however, reflect on the outcomes. Discussion of concrete outcomes can lead to improved agreement and collaboration amongst the teaching staff, or expose differences in attitudes and beliefs which can further the development of the pedagogical discussion. Outcomes should be set at a high level, but without becoming unrealistic. Aiming at the heavens can instil a sense of failure even in students who have climbed the highest peaks. Outcomes set at a high level but still possible to achieve, combined with sufficient support from the teaching, lead to progress. Daloz (1999) describes how mentors are best able to help their students through support, challenge and a vision for the future. High levels © T he au tho r s and S t u dentlitte r at u r

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High challenge

Retreat

Growth

Low challenge

Stasis (stagnation)

Confirmation

Low support

High support

Figure 3.1 The consequences of different combinations of challenge and support (Daloz, 1999, p. 208).

of support and challenge make progress feasible. Major challenges, together with low levels of support, lead to “retreat”; a feeling of hopelessness and failure. A low level of support cannot be compensated for by small challenges. It just leads to “stasis” (stagnation); a feeling that effort is pointless because no one bothers about what one does. Low-level challenges and high levels of support lead to “confirmation” (affirmation), which can be necessary at times, but challenge is required for real growth. These ideas can be applied to learning within higher education and the significance of high expectations and clear outcomes has been discussed by Paul Ramsden (2003) amongst others. There is a risk that intended learning outcomes can lead to a mechanical approach in which students and teachers tick off the goals without achieving a holistic understanding. This should be borne in mind when the outcomes are formulated. Intended learning outcomes should be formulated carefully so that they support quality learning. All the same, learning is too complex to be possible to be completely described in terms of outcomes for courses and degree programmes. Students have their own personal goals for their studies and these cannot be included in the formal course descriptions. Neither is learning always aimed at some sort of goal. Unplanned and unexpected learning outcomes can be just as important as the intended outcomes. It is difficult to plan a discovery. They are unpredictable by nature. Furthermore, learning that is connected to, or consists of, personal development is so complex and so dependent on the individual that it can rarely be fully described in written words. 64

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Constructive alignment Learning outcomes can only play a significant role if the teacher takes them seriously. The students will not take them seriously unless the teachers do. Summative assessment, e.g. a final exam, will steer the students’ learning to a greater degree than the stated outcomes (Wiiand, 2005). Students naturally want to know how their learning will be assessed and they adapt their studies accordingly. They have good reason to believe that teachers will assess the essential outcomes. Rather than disparaging the students’ focus on the exam, the summative assessment, it can be designed so that it lets the students know whether they have achieved the intended outcomes or not. The teachers’ hope that the students will be driven by curiosity and a burning interest does not free them from the responsibility to use the summative assessment to steer learning towards the intended outcomes. Teaching and other learning activities should also be planned to provide students with the best possible support for achieving the outcomes. The students need a chance to practise the things they are intended to be able to do when they have completed the course. For example, you cannot improve your oral presentations without practising. Nevertheless, courses are often given conventionally in the form of a series of lectures followed by a written, invigilated assessment. That is fine if the outcomes for the course are that the students should become proficient at listening and taking notes, and then writing answers to questions without recourse to course material. Otherwise it would be advisable to analyse whether the course is effective for supporting and assessing the achievement of the intended outcomes. There can be perfectly good reasons for a conventional design. The students might need to learn the subject matter of the course, and demonstrate that they have done so, so that they can subsequently apply this knowledge in another context. Principles for rhetoric, presented in a lecture, can unquestionably contribute to students and teachers improving their oral presentations, provided they study the principles and try them out in practice. One and the same goal can often be reached in many different ways so the intended learning outcomes do not fully determine the way in which the teaching should be designed and planned. The particular group of students, the particular teachers, and the further context all have to be taken into © T he au tho r s and S t u dentlitte r at u r

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account when teaching and other learning activities are designed to provide the best possible support for the achievement of the intended outcomes. It is even possible that when students actually get going on the course it becomes necessary to modify the original plan, e.g. because the chosen form of teaching did not work or because some of the intended outcomes were more difficult to achieve than the teacher had expected. A carefully designed plan provides a firm basis as well as allowing for flexibility. Being well prepared implies that the teacher can modify his or her planning if necessary. The strong coupling between intended outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment can be felt to be obvious but it has been neglected in higher education in the past. John Biggs has developed the concept under the term “constructive alignment” (Biggs & Tang, 2011). The concept “constructive” indicates its basis in a constructivist perspective on learning: The students construct their knowledge. The term “alignment” is used to emphasise the clear coupling between intended outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment. The intended learning outcomes define what the students should be able to do, the teaching and learning activities describe how they can achieve the intended outcomes, and the summative assessment describes how they will demonstrate that they have achieved the intended outcomes. In the U.S. this is also known as “backward design” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). In the more general concept “constructive alignment”, Biggs includes alignment between courses, e.g. planning for progression in a degree programme. In constructive alignment the outcomes should steer but there is also a coupling in the other direction. While teaching, or during the assessment, the teacher may find that the intended learning outcomes are unrealistic, unclear or lack meaning. Intended learning outcomes might need to be reformulated when they have been used in practice.

Active collaborative learning There may well be many ways to reach one and the same goal but the choice of taking one particular way is still significant. We have emphasised above that it is what the student does that is important. Active learning is essential in a deep approach to learning. But what exactly is active learning? The necessary activity is sometimes primarily an inner process. The 66

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students sift through new information, establish connections to prior knowledge or analyse and evaluate models or theories. Some students can do this without it being noticeable for an onlooker. It is not at all certain that all students are passive just because the form of the teaching does not require visible activity from them. Many students will, however, in fact be passive. Most require activating forms of teaching, in which knowledge processing, critical analysis and problem solving are explicitly required, if they are going to take a deep approach to learning (Biggs & Tang, 2011). Furthermore, it is rarely the inner activity itself that is the ultimate goal. The knowledge is intended to be used in some way, either communicated to others or applied in practice. This will need to be practised by the students. Interaction with others is an essential component of active learning. Collaboration expands the zone that the learner can work in. The role of the teacher is different in activating teaching, and fellow students play a significant role in each other’s learning. Activities in which the students collaborate, discuss and solve problems together are important in studentfocused teaching. They enable the study of complex phenomena, providing different perspectives and laying the foundation for a critical approach. Both weak and strong students benefit from learning together with other students. Weak students get further support and strong students get an opportunity to articulate their understanding, for instance, when they explain things to other students. Everyone who teaches knows how much one learns from developing an explanation. It is the same for students. Furthermore, the ability to collaborate is worth developing for its own sake and is a skill that has a rightful place in many degree programmes. Even when teamwork or collaboration skills are not an explicit goal for a course, group work can be an effective way in which to achieve the intended learning outcomes. Some students do, however, prefer to study on their own and a course should be flexible enough to allow for this when collaboration is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Interaction between students has such a strong effect on their learning that the students do not just have a responsibility for their own studies but can also to a large extent affect how successful their fellow students are in their studies.

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Variation A variety of teaching and learning activities together with varied forms of assessment are both beneficial for learning with high quality and necessary for inclusivity and fairness. Teaching and assessment, which is confined to a narrow framework, cannot support students to achieve broad knowledge and understanding. It is essential to vary the forms of both teaching and assessment in order to avoid giving students with particular learning styles an advantage. Variation gives as many students as possible the opportunity to learn, and to demonstrate what they have learnt, in their own way. Even so, most people have a range of learning styles rather than one single, distinct style. A variety of opportunities to listen and to do, to see and to feel, to use different senses and to look at the material from different perspectives provides a greater potential for support for deep learning. Moreover, it is not really possible to know exactly what demands students will face after graduating. Variation in teaching and assessment supports the development of an ability to adopt new ways of learning, new ways of tackling problems, and new ways of applying knowledge in practice. The student becomes prepared for meeting new situations in the future.

Feedback Students need feedback on their work in order to progress. They need to know that the teacher is involved in their learning; that their learning is progressing in the right direction, and how close they are to achieving the learning outcomes. At first, students need to know what they are expected to do and to be given clear instructions for their learning tasks. Feedback, however, is just as important. The teacher can initiate activity through instruction but research on human behaviour shows that the consequences of an action or behaviour have greater significance for maintaining and steering the activity. Consequently, the response students receive on their work will have a strong influence on how they conduct their on-going and future studies. Of course, a grade, which is one form of response from teachers, will be

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significant. It is not only the form of summative assessment that influences learning but also the marking and grading. Assessment, however, is not the only significant form of feedback. The students need to feel that they do not just get assessed but that they also receive effective support in their development. Positive feedback is the most effective form of support. Successful teachers do not categorize their students as “weak” and “strong”. They offer everyone non-judgmental feedback that stresses the potential for improvement, which provides everyone with the opportunity to develop (Bain, 2004). A person can learn a great deal by being told what has been done well and by reflecting on how these parts of the work can be expanded. In this process both teachers and fellow students can contribute from their different perspectives. In order to support positive progress it is important to clearly state what was good and why it was good. All the same, general, non-specific feedback also has its part to play and it is better to say something generally supportive than to not say anything at all. More care is required when the teacher needs to give negative feedback. Hence, it is extremely important to be precise and to make it perfectly clear that it is the student’s piece of work that is being discussed and not the student. It is also important to establish a dialogue and to point to possible ways forward. It is easier to accept negative feedback, and to make use of it to improve your work, if it comes from someone who is supportive and concerned about your progress. Abraham Lincoln expressed this succinctly: He has a right to criticise who has a heart to help.

Control of learning and metacognition It is important that a student is given alternative perspectives and feedback on his or her work but he or she then needs to evaluate this response and to develop his or her own assessment of the work. Students need to feel they have control of their own learning if they are going to engage in their studies. They must be allowed to decide both how they study and what they focus on (Ramsden, 2003). The likelihood of strong engagement and deep approaches to learning increases when students are allowed to choose what is to be learnt. Students © T he au tho r s and S t u dentlitte r at u r

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are often given the answers to questions they have never posed. Sometimes that is inevitable but asking students for their questions is more likely to support them to develop a deep understanding. The formulation of relevant questions is, moreover, a valuable ability or competence in itself. It is often possible to allow students to focus on something that particularly interests them within the framework of the general outcomes. The ability to consciously choose how to learn requires metacognitive competence, and this, in turn, implies an ability to reflect on one’s own thinking and learning. Students need to be able to determine the limits of their own knowledge and how they are best able to learn different things in different contexts. This requires an understanding of the outcomes to be achieved and the challenges they carry with them. It also requires insight into the different strategies that are appropriate for different tasks and an ability to relate this to the repertoire of learning strategies that they own (Pettersen, 2008). Strong metacognitive competence is not only useful at university but is also important for lifelong learning and is thus an important outcome in higher education. Metacognitive competence can be developed just like other competences. Students should be given information about various learning strategies, opportunities to try them out, feedback from others, and opportunities to reflect on their own and others’ learning. In this way they can learn about their own knowledge and how it can be developed.

Questions for reflection • In what ways do you establish a positive learning climate? • How are students’ interests and motivation supported and • • • •

strengthened? How do you find out about the students’ preconceptions? How do you make use of this knowledge? What challenges would your students benefit from? Are the intended learning outcomes formulated in a way that is clear and supports learning? Do the different elements of the course (outcomes, teaching and learning activities, assessment) correspond systematically to each other, i.e. are they constructively aligned? © T he au tho r s and S t u dentlitte r at u r

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• How is student activity and collaboration planned for and

supported? • How and when do students receive formative assessment (feedback)? • What opportunities are students given to influence how and what they study?

Further reading Presentations of the factors that support quality learning can be found in a number of different books. On the whole they tend to have the same contents but are structured in different ways. Other books deal with support for learning less directly. Bain, Ken (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Biggs, J.B. & Tang, C.S. (2011). Chapter 2 in Teaching for quality learning at university, what the student does. 4th Ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Marton, F. & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum. Ramsden, P. (2003). Chapter 6 in Learning to teach in higher education. 2. ed. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Wiggins, G.P. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. 2., exp. ed. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Translated by Anthony Burden, educational developer, Stockholm university.

Maja Elmgren is a senior lecturer in physical chemistry and a pedagogical developer at Uppsala University. Ann-Sofie Henriksson is a former lawyer and former Head of the Unit for Teaching and Learning at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

ACADEMIC TEACHING Academic teaching is a comprehensive, research-based textbook on teaching and learning in higher education. It is written from the point of view of teachers engaged in teaching and learning practices in higher education. New challenges require university teachers to work very efficiently. This book forms a contribution to advancing integrated perspectives, increased knowledge, personal development, pedagogical competence and raised awareness. The authors, Maja Elmgren and Ann-Sofie Henriksson, provide a starting point, based on many years of experience as university teachers and pedagogical developers, for reflections on teaching and learning practices by posing a number of questions such as: • What factors contribute to the promotion of learning in higher education? • What is my own fundamental view on teaching and learning? • How do I base my teaching on students’ requirements and needs? • How can I vary teaching activities and assessment in order to promote learning? • How can I develop as a teacher? Academic teaching can be used in higher education teacher training. It is also suitable for individual teachers’ competence development.

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