My review of the paper “Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers‘ writtien by Gloria Dall’Alba, University of Queensland, Brisbane.

“I regard a conventional student-teacher model as inappropriate. Teaching is even more difficult than learning.” – Gloria Dall’Alba, University of Queensland, Brisbane

The article discusses a course for experienced university teachers that focuses not just on teaching techniques but also on transforming and enhancing the way participants understand what it means to be a university teacher. The study integrates knowing, acting, and being, focusing on ontology (the theory of being) and epistemology (the theory of knowing).

Overall, the article argues that a focus on ontology in addition to epistemology is necessary for achieving skilful practice and transforming the self, which is essential for experienced university teachers.

The article aims to achieve this by exposing participants to educational research literature, critically analysing their practice, and designing an educational collaboration to enhance their teaching through an action learning project.

Integrating knowing, acting and being. (Active learning)

Active involvement of participants through collaboration is necessary to ‘let them learn’. This means that a pedagogical relationship, whose purpose is to facilitate learning, is established between the teacher and course participants and among the participants themselves.

In summary, it’s not just about teaching methods, but also about changing the way teachers think about teaching. They focus on not just what they know, but also how they act and who they are as teachers. The class helps teachers read and talk about educational research and work together on projects to improve their teaching. It’s important to think about not just what teachers know, but also how they see themselves and their role as teachers. The class helps teachers transform themselves to become better in their role.

“I, as university teacher, cannot simply transfer knowledge about teaching to course
participants. Instead, they create, enact and embody the knowledges they encounter
through the course to varying extents and in a range of ways, both individual and
shared. In the process, they are transformed, to greater or lesser extent, as university
teachers.”