Promoting student-centred forms of learning across an entire university

Abstract

Many academics see themselves primarily as experts in their discipline and hold content-oriented conceptions of teaching. It can then be difficult to persuade them to adopt forms of teaching incorporating active student engagement, even though there is evidence for the effectiveness of such forms of learning. This article describes a university-wide initiative to promote student-centred forms of teaching and learning. The campaign included: models of good practice from award-winning teachers, compulsory teachers training courses for new junior teachers and teaching assistants, projects funded by teaching development grants, a diagnostic programme-level survey accompanied by counselling over results and programme reviews. Evidence of impact comes from the overall university-level results of the programme survey, which showed marked increases, over a 2 year period, on each of the nine scales used to obtain feedback on the quality of the teaching and learning environment. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.