The University and its Disciplines: Teaching and Learning Within and Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

by Kreber; Carolin

• ISBN13: 9780415965200
• ISBN10: 0415965209
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

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 '¬Üways 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

Figures and tables	p. ix
Contributors	p. xi
Foreword	p. xv
Preface: Background and Structure of this Book	p. xvii
Acknowledgments	p. xxiv
Introduction: Setting the Context	p. 1
Supporting Student Learning in the Context of Diversity, Complexity and Uncertainty	p. 3
The Modern Research University and its Disciplines: The Interplay between Contextual and Context-transcendent Influences on Teaching	p. 19
Disciplines and Their Epistemological Structure	p. 33
(Research-based) The Commons: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Encounters	p. 35
(Reactive) Academic Disciplines: Homes or Barricades?	p. 50
(Reactive) Hard and Soft - A Useful Way of Thinking about Disciplines? Reflections from Engineering Education on Disciplinary Identities	p. 58
Ways of Thinking and Practicing	p. 69
(Research-based) Ways of Thinking and Practicing in Biology and History: Disciplinary Aspects of Teaching and Learning Environments	p. 71
(Reactive) Exploring Disciplinarity in Academic Development: Do "Ways of Thinking and Practicing" Help Faculty to Think about Learning and Teaching?	p. 84
(Reactive) Opening History's "Black Boxes": Decoding the Disciplinary Unconscious of Historians	p. 96
Exploring Disciplinary Teaching and Learning From a Socio-Cultural Perspective	p. 105
(Research-based) Guiding Students into a Discipline: The Significance of the Teacher	p. 107
(Reactive) Diverse Student Voices within Disciplinary Discourses	p. 119
(Reactive) Guiding Students into a Discipline: The Significance of the Student's View	p. 129
Learning Partnerships in Disciplinary Learning	p. 141
(Research-based) Educating Students for Self-Authorship: Learning Partnerships to Achieve Complex Outcomes	p. 143
(Reactive) Supporting Student Development In and Beyond the Disciplines: The Role of the Curriculum	p. 157
(Reactive) Constraints to Implementing Learning Partnership Models and Self-Authorship in the Arts and Humanities	p. 169
Disciplines and Their Interactions with Teaching and Learning Regimes	p. 179
(Research-based) Beyond Epistemological Essentialism: Academic Tribes in the Twenty-First Century	p. 181
(Reactive) Exploring Teaching and Learning Regimes in Higher Education Settings	p. 196
(Reactive) Teaching and Learning Regimes from Within: Significant Networks as a Locus for the Social Construction of Teaching and Learning	p. 209
General Observations on Previous Themes	p. 219
Assessment for Career and Citizenship	p. 221
Teaching Within and Beyond the Disciplines: The Challenge for Faculty	p. 231
Index	p. 238
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