A new edition of this book is available `The focus of the book is on the "professional", developed through an overall professional language and an insistence that academic freedom must be matched by academic responsibility. To the best of my knowledge, this makes it different from all other existing books on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and it is for that reason that it must be read′ - Lewis Elton, Professor of Higher Education, University College London, British Joural Educational Technology
`For too long we have waited for a book that brings together the best contemporary thinking about learning and teaching and that connects with academics′ everyday teaching practice in an engaging way. At last, in this book, we have it′ - Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, University of London
This book addresses the practice of learning and teaching within higher education. Higher education is currently a sector challenged worldwide by increased numbers and diversity of students, tougher demands for professional accountability, increasing calls for educational relevance, thinning resources and the exacting demands of a global education market.
This book brings together key issues of theory and practice to develop an overall professional `language′ of teaching situated within communities of academic practice. This `language′ provides teachers with a conceptual `vocabulary′ and` grammar′ for understanding and improving practice, enables them to critically reflect upon their teaching in a range of key `genres′ of practice and proposes a strategy for conducting and producing evidence for continuous professional development in learning and teaching. It provides a structure for developing teaching and learning strategies appropriate to the distinctive subjects and conditions of the individual university teacher and their academic community.
Learning & Teaching in Higher Education: The Reflective Professional is intended for lecturers, researchers, staff developers and others providing and/or supporting teaching in higher and professional education. The book covers a wide range of practical elements of teaching and learning in higher education curriculum. It draws upon theory, practice and current educational research to provide a distinctive way of thinking about and integrating the many aspects of learning and teaching in higher education into a comprehensive and coherent professional practice.
Dr Greg Light is Associate Director of the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University in Chicago. He is also an associate of the Institute of Education, University of London where he is a member of the Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHES). He was a lecturer in higher education studies at the Institute and has worked for 15 years on faculty development programmes in higher education, consulting widely with universities throughout the UK. In 1998 he established the Professional Accreditation of Teaching in Higher Education programme at the Institute of Education of which he was the director. His primary research and scholarship interests include the theory and practice of learning and teaching in higher and professional education; their implications for professional and organizational development; the relationship between research and teaching, academic literacy, writing and communication; social discourse and identity. Recent publications have focussed on student learning and the professionalization of teaching in higher education.
With a background in psychology and philosophy Dr Roy Cox has a wide experience of research and practice in learning and teaching in higher education. He helped to establish one of the first centres for learning and teaching in higher education in the world at London University, where he is currently a visiting academic. His many publications draw on his educational research in many disciplines, teaching at all higher education levels and experience in over thirty countries.
