Educating Engineering Academics in the Work Place Through Teaching Communities

The quality of education outcomes depends largely on the knowledge and skills of the staff creating learning situations. In Australian universities an expanding use of sessional staff to teach tutorials and laboratories, with a worrying diversity in interpretation of critical concepts, and teaching approaches, has threatened quality. At Swinburne University collaboration between engineering faculty and education experts has resulted in a process of workplace learning about teaching and student cognition that has transformed the education culture. Using problematic, large-intake undergraduate subjects as a context, Teaching Communities have brought together staff in a particularly powerful learning environment as part of normal subject teaching. Guided by the education experts, current student learning is debriefed, concepts to be taught negotiated, and appropriate teaching strategies decided. Academics have since developed an improved understanding of the complex, challenging domain of teaching, and their role within it. Measurable changes in teaching practice, student learning styles and outcomes, and curricula development have resulted.