In the wake of the Bologna process, many European universities are undergoing comprehensive educational reform. Our attention in this paper is focused on how a medical university came to terms with the challenges presented therein. We wished to explore how educators identify, understand and deal with opportunities for change at a medical…

Student-faculty partnerships position students as informants, participants, and change agents in collaboration with faculty members. Enacting one form of such collaboration, Bryn Mawr College's SaLT program pairs faculty members and undergraduate students in explorations of pedagogical practice. The program provides both context and case…

Six academics at a regional university in Australia engaged in collaborative research examining their teaching and learning practices, their current understandings and beliefs about teacher education pedagogy and, specifically, the online teaching and learning environments. This collegial self-study project was guided by the goal of achieving…

This paper traces the history and impact of communities of practice (CoPs) in supporting early-career academics, although the primary focus here in the United States is on the faculty learning community (FLC) model, a special type of CoP in higher education. The initial development of this model, beginning in 1979, takes place over two decades at…

Educational development has changed in many ways over the last 40?years and the International Consortium for Educational Development has highlighted the sheer variety of practices by bringing together educational developers from countries where activities differ markedly. These reflections identify the wide range of foci of attention that are…

Many institutional cultures resist change, and within universities academic developers vary their response to such resistance, depending on the type of change, the institution and their own characteristic styles, working preferences and strategic judgements. Variables influencing the successful introduction of innovation in academic practice…

This interview-based study investigates staff perceptions of their involvement in a university centre which focuses on the development of assessment for learning (AfL) approaches. Learning about assessment is examined both as conceptual change and within communities of practice. Involvement in the centre ranged from perceived exclusion to culture…

Drawing on cartography, urban design and visual data modelling, we consider how people navigate, or fail to navigate, the mental, physical and social spaces of knowledge communities. Cartographically inspired critical thinking offers opportunities to re-examine the assumptions and formal maps of post-secondary institutions, visualizing…

Communities of practice are generally known as places of engagement, learning and development. The current research aims to develop understanding of Estonian early-career university teachers' learning and developing possibilities as teachers in the community of practice (in the university). This paper is based on narrative interviews of 25…

The quality of PhD training can be conceived of as being dependent on the learning environment provided by the scholarly community. Our paper explores PhD students' ideas about themselves as a part of this community, and their perceptions of their learning environment in the context of the University of Helsinki, Finland. The study is a part of a…

This paper examines the pedagogic learning of a group of new lecturers at an international research intensive university who were participants on a formal teaching development programme. The lens of situated learning theory is utilised to gain new insights into the learning arising from the development programme but also to reveal certain…

The purpose of this article is to provide a critical review of the motivating factors, processes and outcomes pertaining to learning-centred curriculum reform in higher education. A case study example is provided from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Although academic units on university campuses tend…

This paper explores how academic staff are supported in attempts to develop their use of educational technologies. It identifies the work undertaken by academic staff in the development of an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) application and relates this to the direct support (helping staff to teach using ICT) and professional…