1st Edition

The University and its Disciplines Teaching and Learning within and beyond disciplinary boundaries

By Carolin Kreber Copyright 2009
    272 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    270 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    University teaching and learning take place within ever more specialized disciplinary settings, each characterized by its unique traditions, concepts, practices and procedures. It is now widely recognized that support for teaching and learning needs to take this discipline-specificity into account. However, in a world characterized by rapid change, complexity and uncertainty, problems do not present themselves as distinct subjects but increasingly within trans-disciplinary contexts calling for graduate outcomes that go beyond specialized knowledge and skills. This ground-breaking book highlights the important interplay between context-specific and context-transcendent aspects of teaching, learning and assessment. It explores critical questions, such as:  

    What are the ‘ways of thinking and practicing’ characteristic of particular disciplines? How can students be supported in becoming participants of particular disciplinary discourse communities?

    Can the diversity in teaching, learning and assessment practices that we observe across departments be attributed exclusively to disciplinary structure?  

    To what extent do the disciplines prepare students for the complexities and uncertainties that characterize their later professional, civic and personal lives?

    Written for university teachers, educational developers as well as new and experienced researchers of Higher Education, this highly-anticipated first edition offers innovative perspectives from leading Canadian, US and UK scholars on how academic learning within particular disciplines can help students acquire the skills, abilities and dispositions they need to succeed academically and also post graduation.

    Carolin Kreber is Professor of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and the Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment at the University of Edinburgh

    Table of Contents

    Part I: Context

    Chapter One: Introduction: Challenges in supporting student learning (3500 words)

    (Caralin Kreber, University of Edinburgh)

    Chapter Two: From unity to specialisation: The modern research university and its disciplines (9500 words)

    (Carolin Kreber, University of Edinburgh)

     

    Part II: Research Perspectives

    Chapter Three: The Commons: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Encounters

    (Janet Donald, McGill University, Canada) (8800 words)

    Chapter Four: Ways of thinking and practicing in biology and history: Disciplinary aspects of teaching and learning environments (7700 words)

    (Dai Hounsell and Charles Anderson, University of Edinburgh)

    Chapter Five: Guiding students into a discipline: The significance of the teacher (7200 words)

    (Andy Northedge, Open University; Jan McArthur, Napier University)

    Chapter Six: Educating for Self-Authorship: Learning Partnerships to Achieve Complex Outcomes (8000 words)

    (Marcia Baxter Magolda, Miami University, Ohio, USA)

    Chapter Seven: Beyond Epistemological Essentialism: Academic Tribes in the 21st Century (8200 words)

    (Paul Trowler, Lancaster University)

    Chapters One to Seven are included with this proposal. (Given that these are much more comprehensive chapters than those that will follow, the manuscript is half complete at this stage)

     

    Part III: Exploring practical applications

    Chapters Eight to Seventeen: two shorter reactions (3000-4000 words) each to the five chapters included in Part II

    • Professor Bob Matthew and Dr. Jane Pritchard, Learning and Teaching Centre, Glasgow University (reacting to Janet Donald’s chapter)
    • Dr. Denis Berthiaume, Director of Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Lausanne, Switzerland (reacting Janet Donald’s chapter)
    • Professor Alan Jenkins, educational developer, Westminster Institute, Oxford Brookes University (reacting to Marcia Baxter Magolda’s chapter)
    • Dr. Vicky Gunn, Learning and Teaching Centre, Glasgow University (reacting to Marcia Baxter Magolda’s chapter)
    • Dr. Joelle Fanghanel, Educational Development Centre, City London University (reacting to Paul Trowler’s chapter)
    • Torgny Roxa and Katarina Martensson, Educational Development Centre, Lund University (react to Paul Trowler’s chapter).
    • Jan McArthur, Educational Development, Napier University (reacting to Andy Northedge’s chapter—she also co-authored Chapter Five with Andy Northedge)
    • Dr. Monica MacLean, Reader, Institute for Research in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (IRLTHE), University of Nottingham (reacting to Andy Northedge’s chapter).
    • Professor David Pace, Department of History, University of Indiana, USA (reacting to Dai Hounsell and Charles Anderson’s chapter)
    • Dr. Nicola Reimann, Northumbria University (reacting to Dai Hounsell and Charles Anderson’s chapter)

    Biography

    Carolin Kreber

    "Professor Kreber draws on an impressive array of scholars and practitioners from the UK, Europe, the US and Canada to explore the central question: are academic disciplines up to the task of preparing undergraduates for life, work and civic engagement in today's complex, uncertain world? This wide-ranging and challenging concern is explored from a number of perspectives which go far beyond the oft-rehearsed notions of graduate attributes." --Fran Beaton, ESCalate, February 11, 2009

    "...Professionals who have the responsibility to ponder the nature of higher education in the twenty-first century will find a provocative and rewarding basis for their work here."--Max Oromaner, Education Review (November 2009)

    "This book is an instructive treasure chest and it can, indeed, help us open up our sense of who "we" are and who our students might become. Thinking through these issues forces us to think deeply and theoretically about our field in new ways."--Teaching Theology and Religion