NGP SeminarConstructing and representing ourselves as teachers

Macro perspectives on teaching effectiveness� Teacher identity perspectives

� Knowing, doing, being literature (Ronald Barnett’s work; Peter Knight)

� Daniel Pratt’s work on conceptions of teaching

Macro perspectives on teaching effectiveness� Teaching as reflective practice and

teachers as reflective practitioners� Brookfield on critical reflection and the four

professional lenses: self; peers/colleagues; students; literature/theory

� Schon on reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action; tacit and visible knowledge

� Boud, Keogh and Walker:

Macro perspectives on teaching effectiveness � Teaching in the neo-liberal discourse

� Narratives of ‘best practice’/techniques and tips

� The teaching quality debates� Benchmarking; gold standards� Students as ‘clients’/consumers

Macro perspectives on teaching effectiveness� Teaching for transformation

(contextualising teaching)� Deconstructing curriculum� Colonialism and post-colonialism� Decolonising the curriculum� Critical race theory; gender; class; and so

on

Macro perspectives on teaching effectiveness� Relations between ‘good’ teaching and

‘good’ learning� The student-learning frameworks� Prosser and Trigwell’s work� Teaching with learning in mind

Teacher and teaching effectiveness� What does all of this mean for practice?

� In disciplines?� At UCT?� In South Africa?� On the continent?� In the world?

Contextual focuses

� Why do we wish to construct a teacher identity?� What are the enabling and constraining factors

that contextualise obtaining information?� What are the micro, meso and macro contexts

that influence the ‘reading’ of feedback?� What do we do with this feedback?

Different kinds of feedback� Informal – formal� Opportunistic – systematic� Written – oral� Online – face-to-face� Individual – group� Self-directed – other-directed (peers; students;

disciplinary community; online; HoD; etc.)� Quantitative – qualitative� Formative – summative

Structure, culture, agency(apology to Margaret Archer)

� What are the formal and informal / hidden and explicit contexts and systems within which feedback is located?

� How are feedback processes and practices understood at UCT/more broadly?

� What power and interest groups/individuals are served through these processes?

� How do you/we respond to these?

The notion of ‘representation’ as an academic� ‘Telling the story’ of oneself as a teacher� How does this balance with one’s research

persona? One’s other ‘persona’?� What are the opportunities and the costs?� Where does agency lie in these processes

and choices?� Think micro; meso; macro� And enduring and transitory HE impulses and

practices� Linking these to formal ad hominem processes

Engagement with teaching portfolios� Representations of ‘excellence’ (look at the

discourses!)� https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/cher

tl/documents/2014%20Brief%20guide%20to%20Teaching%20Portfolio.pdf

� https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-portfolios/

� https://education.adelaide.edu.au/downloads/teaching-portfolio.pdf

� http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/634321/teach_portfolio_guide.pdf

� http://heltasa.org.za/awards/teaching-portfolio/

Revisiting the notion of teaching ‘presence’� Online forms of teaching ‘presence’:

� Making teaching and teaching resources available to peers (Vula; podcasts; vodcasts; …

� Blogs; social media; ...� Contributing to conversations about teaching � ‘Public intellectual’ spaces

� What do you want to ‘profess’ around teaching?

� Publicising sources of feedback: students; peers; experts; other

Challenges� The disciplinary contexts and discourses

balanced against ‘edu-speak’� The opportunity costs – making teaching

‘count’, but at what expense?� Collecting evidence of good teaching

that is not self-generated� Creating coherence in the context of

episodic/’sound-byte’ communication