What University Teachers Teach and How they Teach It

Abstract

In this chapter we make three related arguments. The first, is that different teachers have different intentions concerning what students will learn and consequently in their teaching they constitute the topic or subject to be taught quite differently. The second is that a teacher's intentions concerning what it is that students should learn is closely aligned with a teacher's expectation of how students learn and how they can be helped to learn through teaching. The third is that when teachers focus specifically on the teaching of a particular topic within a specific context, there is a close relationship between their intentions and their teaching practice. In this chapter we explore these arguments through an empirical study which considers the different ways in which 26 university teachers intended to constitute a subject or topic for their students to study, how they then taught the subject and subsequently how consistent were their intentions and their practice. The analysis shows that when the context of teaching and learning is tightly defined there is a clear relationship between a teacher's intention and their practice. In particular, university teachers who adopt more conceptual change and student-focussed approaches to teaching constitute objects of study which are more relational and focus on the student's knowledge.