How should we recognise and
reward teaching in higher
education?
Paul Ramsden
“If the modern economy is built on specialisms, it is also built on a
raft of soft skills such as intellectual confidence, logical thinking,
communication and working and collaborating in teams.
“I believe that these things come above all not from particular
disciplines, but from the discipline of good teaching. And for me,
that raises an important challenge for universities. We have
become very good at developing criteria for assessing research
excellence in universities, and for incentivising research excellence.
We also need to look in my view for ways of incentivising
excellence in academic teaching – which which is not quite the
same thing”
Peter Mandelson, July 2009
Overview
• What’s the evidence base?
• An important distinction
• 1995 - an Australian investigation
• 2008 - a UK study
• Standards and criteria
• An uncertain conclusion
What is the evidence base?
How to improve teaching and the student
experience?
• Name and shame poor departments?
• Provide more ‘informed choice’?
• Design of learning environments?
• Students’ experiences of the designs?
Students’ approaches to learning
Perception of
context:
teaching &
assessment
inappropriate
Perception of
context:
teaching &
assessment
enabling
Surface
approach
Outcome
–
“nothing”
Deep
approach
Outcome
+
“imaginative
acquisition of
knowledge”
40
Deep Approach
30
20
10
0
y = 18.960 + 0.35307x R^2 = 0.401
-10
-40
-20
0
Good Teaching
20
40
30
Surface Approach
20
y = 12.819 - 0.38979x R^2 = 0.472
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-40
-20
0
20
40
Appropriate As se s s m ent
60
80
THEORY 1
TEACHING AS
TELLING
THEORY 2
TEACHING AS
ORGANISING
THEORY 3
TEACHING AS
MAKING LEARNING
POSSIBLE
FOCUS
Teacher and content
Teaching techniques
that will result in
learning
Relation between
students and
subject matter
STRATEGY
Transmit
information
Manage teaching
Process; transmit
concepts
Engage; challenge;
imagine oneself as
the student
ACTIONS
Chiefly presentation
‘Active learning’;
organising activity
Systematically
adapted to suit
student
understanding
REFLECTION
Unreflective;
taken for granted
Apply skills to
improve teaching
Teaching as a
scholarly, researchlike activity
Lecturers
Theory 1
teacher &
content
Theory 3
relation
studentcontent
Students
Perception of
context:
teaching &
assessment
inappropriate
Surface
approach
Outcome
–
Perception of
context:
teaching &
assessment
enabling
Deep
approach
Outcome
+
An important distinction
An important, though imperfect, distinction
Raise status & importance of teaching
Recognise & reward academics
NTFS, CETLs, LTPF (Australia),
performance funding in universties,
Sweden Centres of Excellence,
Academy Fellowships, accredited
programmes …
publication of wastage and earnings
rates …
Teaching awards, specific
changes in promotions/
appointment criteria
Australia 1995
Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching
Australia 1995
Is valued
Should be valued
100
80
60
40
20
0
Teaching
Research
The 1995 investigation
Quality of
research
Quality of
students'
learning
Teaching
postgraduates
Teaching
undergraduates
Quantity of
research
0
Should be
Is
20
40
60
Percentage agreement
80
100
The Recognising and Rewarding recommendations
A1 Articulate more explicit criteria and standards of good teaching
A2 Establish minimum standards of teaching performance
A4 Broaden the base of evidence used to assess teaching
A5 Prepare committee members for their role as assessors of teaching
A6 Help candidates learn how to describe teaching achievements
A7 Expect all newly-appointed academic staff to become qualified as teachers
A8 Link internal quality assurance processes to progress in changing the reward system
B1 Build an academic environment in which it is pleasant to teach well
B2 Acknowledge the crucial role of leadership in recognising and rewarding good teaching
B3 Enhance the effectiveness of academic development units and personnel
B4 Think more creatively about ways of recognising and rewarding good teaching
C1 Accelerate progress towards a profession of university teaching
C2 Extend research-based approaches to teaching improvement
C3 Make senior leadership appointments in teaching
C4 Allocate a specific component of operating grant to improving and supporting teaching
C5 Form networks of people and resources beyond the university who can help improve teaching
C6 Honour teaching and teaching achievements publicly, as part of a coherent system
C7 Monitor the effect of schemes for recognising and rewarding good teaching
Standards and criteria
• Articulate more explicit criteria and standards of good teaching
• Establish minimum standards of teaching performance
• Expect all newly-appointed academic staff to become qualified as teachers
• Accelerate progress towards a profession of university teaching
Resources and QA
• Link internal QA processes to progress in changing the reward system
• Allocate a specific component of funding to improving and supporting teaching
Leadership and environment
• Build an academic environment in which it is pleasant to teach well
• Acknowledge the crucial role of leadership in recognising and rewarding
good teaching
Celebrating achievement
• Form networks beyond the university to improve teaching
• Honour teaching and teaching achievements publicly, as part of a coherent
system
UK 2008
Higher Education Academy
GENIE CETL, University of Leicester
UK 2008
• Survey of promotion policies & criteria (data from
104 HEIs)
• Analysis of impact (e.g. numbers promoted)
• Online survey of academics’ perceptions
• Series of interviews
UK 2008 – research and promotion
In your department or faculty, to what extent are the following regarded as important for promotion?
How important do you think they should be? (% somewhat important+important+very important)
74%
Other
74%
0%
94%
1994 Group
89%
-5%
96%
Russell Group
88%
-9%
Research is
Research should be
Difference
UK 2008 – teaching and promotion
In your department or faculty, to what extent are the following regarded as important for promotion?
How important do you think they should be? (% somewhat important+important+very important)
44%
Other
90%
46%
39%
1994 Group
90%
51%
32%
Russell Group
89%
57%
Teaching is
Teaching should be
Difference
UK 2008: Survey of university policies and
criteria
Out of 104 institutions –
• 104 had research criteria in their promotion policies
• 73 had teaching criteria in their promotion policies
• Only 46 could provide data about which
promotions had incorporated teaching as a
component
• Very few promotions to senior posts in the more
research-intensive universities included teaching as
a component
In principle you can achieve promotion on the basis of teaching but it rarely
happens. So I think that we need to implement the policy [of promoting people for
teaching excellence] with an eye on numbers of promotions that are actually made
this way.
There are cases where promotional criteria have not been consistently applied or
followed through. There are more members of the research community on the
promotions panel than lecturers so there is already an imbalance there. It gives the
message that research is more important than teaching.
We now have a career structure on our website for “university teachers”, but it is
seen as a second-class thing. One of the things that can happen is that if someone
is not as research active as a lecturer or senior lecturer, they’ll get moved sideways
to university teacher.
I think that management style is the key to recognising good teaching. If you have
a manager who is interested in pushing teaching then it will be recognised. If you
haven’t then you really are up against it, aren’t you?
The recognition for my teaching activities is due, in no small part, to our PVC who
is really outstanding in this area. And to my own head of department who has been
very supportive.
The need for change –
our recommendations
• Incentivise excellence in academic teaching to the same
degree as excellence in research
• Record data on grounds for academic promotion
• National effort to develop rigorous criteria for recognising
teaching performance
• Apply the criteria and methods to all academic
promotions
• Review and monitor progress - QAA, UUK, HEFCE
• Review leadership and management for teaching in
higher education
Standards and criteria – an example
Research output assessment (RAE 2008)
Criteria
• Originality (engages with new problems or old problems in new ways)
• Significance (provides new knowledge; influential, challenging)
• Rigour (systematic; robust theory and method)
Quality levels (aka standards)
4*
World leading ‘At the forefront of research of international quality’
3*
International excellence
2*
International recognition
1*
National recognition
( )
Unclassified
Fundamentals
Fundamental things have got to be
simple… we must look for simplicity
in the system first.
Ernest Rutherford
Fundamentals
• Positive attitude towards students?
• Ability to communicate well?
• Lively interest in improving teaching?
And even more fundamental...
The aim of teaching is simple:
it is to make student learning possible.
Performance
A lecturer should appear easy and collected,
undaunted and unconcerned, his thoughts
about him and his mind clear for the
contemplation and description of his subject.
Michael Faraday
Performance
• Planning (e.g. effective subject design, clear objectives)
• Process (e.g. presentation technique, VLE design)
• Assessment (e.g. use of variety of appropriate methods)
• Outcomes (some evidence of link to learning)
• Evaluation (some evidence of use of evaluation to improve)
Research-led teaching
This atmosphere of excitement,
arising from imaginative
consideration of knowledge,
transforms knowledge.
A. N. Whitehead
Research-led teaching
• Imagination and enthusiasm: a shared journey to
understanding rather than delivery of content (top
students expect to find themselves in a community of
learners)
• Effective design of curricula to engage students in
inquiry
• Materials make use of primary sources, recent
discoveries, progress in field
• Clarity of communication
(‘If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough’ –
Albert Einstein)
Student-focused teaching
The two secrets of lecturing from
which everything else follows: first,
to believe that you have something
worth telling your audience; second,
to imagine yourself as one of that
audience.
R.V. Jones
Student-focused teaching
• Focus on relation between students and subject matter
• Use of evaluation evidence to redesign curriculum
• Use of assessment data to modify teaching strategies
• Choice of technique reflects level of student knowledge
• From “Did I make the goals clear?” to “Are the goals
clear to the students?”
Scholarship in teaching
What is needed is for teachers in
higher education to bring to their
teaching activities the same critical,
doubting and creative attitude which
they bring habitually to their
research activities.
Lewis Elton
Scholarship in teaching
• Critical, doubting, creative?
• Systematic use of best available evidence to
select and deploy teaching and assessment strategies
• Publication of refereed journal articles on
university teaching in field
• Esteem: invitations to address international conferences
on university teaching in field
• Esteem: awards, qualifications, recognition as an expert
Leadership in teaching
She successfully inspired us to
transform the course and to re-focus
on our students. She melded a
diverse group of academics into a
team of great teachers.
A lecturer
Leadership in teaching
• Successful re-design and coordination of courses;
team leadership in teaching; inspiration to change
• Policy development and implementation
• Mentoring of junior academics as teachers
• External recognition (e.g. application of teaching
strategies, QA processes and curriculum design in
other institutions)
• Coordination of benchmarking activities with other
universities
In this example, the criteria are hierarchically ordered,
implying the standards (c.f. RAE)
Non-negotiable basis:
Second level:
Third level:
Fourth level:
Fifth level:
Performance
Research-led
Student focus
Scholarship
Leadership
… leading to a structure that can be mapped on to
promotion at different levels.
And the evidence?
• Are the basics in place?
• Use multiple sources and estimate consistency
• ‘Evaluate teaching like research’
• Use peer review if possible
• Use hard data when available
• Consider environment and esteem
• Do the claims made match the evidence?
• How well does the candidate link activities to learning
outcomes?
An uncertain conclusion
“A place of teaching
universal knowledge... Its
object is the diffusion and
extension of knowledge
rather than its
advancement. If its object
were scientific and
philosophical discovery, I
do not see why a
University should have
students”
“Institutions of higher
Newman
Humboldt
learning…always treat
learning as an incompletelysolved problem. They are
engaged in a process of
continual inquiry…
The teacher is not there for
the sake of the student; both
teacher and student are
there for the sake of
learning”