A Critical Approach

Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education offers a combination of critical perspectives and practical advice that is ideally suited for individuals interested in enhancing their practice through analysis and critique. The aim is to promote a critical understanding of one’s own practices: to foster personal and professional formation through a reflexive engagement with one's environment and circumstances. At a practical level this means to continuously think about how to adjust practice rather than following a formulaic approach derived from any particular educational theory.

Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education argues that academics can find space for their own agency in the midst of institutional policies and practices that serve to frame, as well as delimit and constrain, what counts as good academic work in teaching and research. This text bridges a gap between those books that provide a high-level analysis of contemporary higher education, the more practical texts on how to be a good teacher in higher education, and those texts which aim to improve teaching through better understanding of the learning process.

Topical chapters include:

Teacher-learner relationship, Learning groups, Practice-oriented learning, Teaching for diversity, e-learning, Assessment, Approaches to Staff Development, Quality assurance, Supervision and Research education, Doing research, and Teaching & Research.  

A must-have resource for higher education professions, academic developers, professionals, and anyone looking to improve their teaching and learning practices, Teaching, Learning and Research in Higher Education is also appropriate for continuing and professional development courses in the UK and teaching and learning courses in the US.

Mark Tennant is Dean of the University Graduate School, University of Technology, Sydney.

Cathi McMullen is Lecturer in the School of Marketing and Management at Charles Sturt University.

Dan Kaczynski is Professor in the Educational Leadership department at Central Michigan University.