QUALITY TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

What is Quality Teaching ?

Quality teaching has become an issue of importance as the landscape of higher education has been facing continuous changes. The student body has considerably expanded and diversified, both socially and geographically. New students call for new teaching methodology.Modern technologies have entered the classroom, thus modifying the nature of the interactions between students and professors. The governments, the students and their families, the employers, the funds providers increasingly demand value for their money and desire more efficiency through teaching.

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How can teaching be effectively enhanced?

The standard used quality initiatives seem to aim to enhance teamwork between teachers, goal-setting and course plans. However scholars have developed holistic theoretical models of how quality teaching initiatives should unfold. Gathering information and reading the literature – looking outside the classroom – are important tools to improve quality teaching, but they are still under-employed.Another important point to consider or keep in mind is that in order for student learning to be enhanced, the focus of quality teaching initiatives should not always be on the teacher.Instead it should enclose the whole institution and the learning environment.

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How can we make sure quality teaching is effective?

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Assessing the results of quality teaching initiatives has proven to be difficult, and this issue has received increasing attention in the literature. Many researchers now address the numerous paradoxes that the measurement of quality sometimes induces. For example,a well-rated programme or a rewarded teacher feels less encouraged for change and becomes therefore more likely to maintain the status.Teachers who follow-up on quality assurance schemes are also those who believe that it is in their power to improve student learning. Lastly,most teachers will try to improve the quality of their teaching only if they believe that the university cares about teaching.Therefore, if an institution wants its teaching to be of good quality, it must give concrete,real,sure enough,factual,and tangible signs that teaching matters.