Developing Teaching

Becoming and being a university 'teacher'

Our nine-month ‘Advancing Educational Practice Programme’ supports colleagues with substantive teaching and learning responsibilities to extend their understanding of teaching, learning and assessment. The programme was introduced in 2022-23 and has enrolled more than 120 participants so far.

To evaluate the impact of the programme and inform its development, we devised a qualitative study of the experiences of participants of being and becoming university teachers. Our in-depth study involved unstructured interviews with 25 recent participants, drawn from a range of disciplines.

It has provided key insights into how their thinking and educational practices have changed over time and how they engage with the realities of inclusive teaching, learning and assessment at Cambridge. Our findings highlights the depth and complexity of practices that underpin Cambridge’s unique personalised teaching and learning.

Both the study and the practical examples that emerged from it have shaped the programme itself, as well as our Introduction to Undergraduate Supervision course, and talks and workshops that we have been invited to hold in Cambridge. We presented the project within Cambridge at our annual Teaching Forum and also at the Society for Research into Higher Education international research conference.

For more information, contact Dr Mary Beth Benbenek (mbb37) and Dr Amy Smail (as3394)

Teaching should inspire deeper learning... I want the student to leave the classroom wanting to learn more, to form their own opinion... It’s about empowering them with conceptual tools.