Main Content
Session Information
03 SES 11 B, Curriculum Development in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
From a macroscopic point of view, trends that shape European Higher Education policies in recent years are: the importance of attracting more students (European Commission, 2013); the idea that HE must be accountable to society (Nóvoa, 2011) and the clear awareness that there is no university without science (and research) (European Commission 2010) . Never before it was so required that HE institutions train "students to think what others are not able to think; train students to say what others cannot say and train them to do what others have failed, before” (Nóvoa, 2011).
This is a challenge to HE curricula, as well as to HE teachers‘ training, that emphasizes the importance of pedagogical issues, and promote a dialog with other epistemic cultures to develop HE curricula in a close relationship with knowledge society aims (Nowotny, et al, 2001).
The broad awareness of the changing nature of HE purposes is viewed as an institutional quality factor that could be sustained by new ways of teachers’ training. In the present proposal it is argued that multidisciplinary peer observation could be both an effective way of teachers’ training and an opportunity to improve their knowledge of curriculum development.
Encompassing this idea, this paper stresses the importance of the collaborative work between teachers coming from different epistemic cultures. This is also important to challenge the conventional roles of teachers as they are perceived in the knowledge society.
The importance of peer observation as a collaborative training practice is associated with this change in the pedagogical paradigm and its key issues: “ the focus on learning, the strengthening of the teacher-student and student-student interactions, the inclusion of collaborative work strategies and learning based on autonomy and reflection” (Fernandes et al,2013), and the changing nature of teaching in HE.
It is also associated with an improved lecturers’ awareness of curriculum development. In the present study, this is understood as the ability to organize lectures in order to promote learning in a coherent way, meaningful to students, and clearly oriented to a final profile of graduate.
There is a large set of research regarding peer observation, focusing different aims and purposes of the complex world of teaching: evaluation, professional development and peer review (Gosling, 2002; Chism, 2007).The first two are mainly related with unidirectional processes and are asymmetric in the relationship between observer and observed. The third is based in a more balanced and reciprocal relationship and usually allows a mutual benefit for both observer and observed (Bell, 2008).
However there is some reluctance to participate in peer observation activities as it exposes teachers to criticism, namely centered on specific knowledge domain (O’Keefe et al, 2009). Therefore, multidisciplinary peer observation could overcome this problem as peer observation will be focused on teaching and learning and not on lecturers’ knowledge. Moreover, it could provide an external look on the coherence of the process of curriculum development leaded by the observed lecturer.
The University of Porto (Portugal) has been undertaking, since 2009, a program of MPO, among some of its Faculties. The program was launched to provide opportunities for feedback on teaching and constitute a voluntary lecturers’ training model. (Mouraz et al, 2013) After four years, the program is still running and its main advantages are related with the close relationships established between lecturers from different Faculties and the sense of “belonging” it arose. However, the study of pedagogical changes made by lecturers after participating in the multidisciplinary peer observation experience was not performed, neither a further reflection on effects of multidisciplinary approach in teaching roles (namely at networked collaborative learning among lecturers concerning curriculum development).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bell, A., and R. Mladenovic. 2008. The benefits of peer observation of teaching for tutor development. Higher Education 55, 6: 735-752. European Commission (2013). Report to the European Commission on Improving the quality of teaching and learning in Europe’s higher education institutions. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union European Commission (2010) Europe 2020, A Europe Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. http://ec.europa.eu/eu2020/pdf/COMPLET%20EN%20BARROSO%20%20%2 0007%20-%20Europe%202020%20-%20EN%20version.pdf Fernandes, P, Leite, C, Mouraz, A, & Sampaio, M (2013). O lugar da dimensão pedagógica na formação de professores da Universidade do Porto. In Marielda Pryjma (Org.), Desafios e trajetórias do desenvolvimento profissional docente. (pp. 219-238). Curitiba: Editora da UTFPR. Franks, D., P. Dale, R. Hindmarsh, M.B. Fellows, and P. Cybinski 2007. Interdisciplinary foundations: Reflecting on interdisciplinarity and three decades of teaching and research at Griffith University’, Australia. Studies in Higher Education 32, no. 2: 167-185. doi: 10.1080/03075070701267228. Gosling, D. 2002. Models of peer observation of teaching. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id200_Models_of_Peer_Observation_of_Teaching.rtf Chism, N. 2007. Peer review of teaching: A sourcebook. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing. Mouraz, A.; Lopes, A. & Ferreira, J.M. ( 2013). Higher education challenges to teaching practices: perspectives drawn from a multidisciplinary peer observation of teaching program. International Journal of Advance Research. Nóvoa, A. ( 2011). Intervenção. 3ª Conferência Nacional do Ensino Superior e da Investigação. Lisboa, November, 4th. Nowotny, H.;Gibbons, M. & Scott, S. (2001). Re-thinking science: knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. London: Polity Press. O’Keefe, M.; Lecouteur, A.; Miller, J. McGowan, U. 2009. The Colleague Development Program: a multidisciplinary program of peer observation partnerships. Medical Teacher, 31, pp1060-1065. Peel, D. 2005. Peer observation as a transformatory tool?. Teaching in Higher Education 10, 4: 489-504. Sá, C.M. 2008. Strategic faculty hiring in two public research universities: Pursuing interdisciplinary connections. Tertiary Education and Management 14, 4: 285-301.
Programme by Network 2019
00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)
Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations
Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Network 3. Curriculum Innovation
Network 4. Inclusive Education
Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Network 8. Research on Health Education
Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Network 10. Teacher Education Research
Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance
Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network
Network 13. Philosophy of Education
Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education
Network 16. ICT in Education and Training
Network 17. Histories of Education
Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy
Network 19. Ethnography
Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Network 24. Mathematics Education Research
Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Network 26. Educational Leadership
Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching
Network 28. Sociologies of Education
Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education
Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education
Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)
Network 32. Organizational Education
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