The Role of Teaching in Higher Education: Enabling Students to Enter a Field of Study and Practice.

Abstract Teachers in higher education commonly aim to develop their students' ways of thinking, acting and approaching a field of study and practice. Hence, this should also be the focus of our teaching practice. This view of teaching involves providing students with experiences that enable them to enter the field as practitioners. Those experiences must be directed to developing students' understanding of the perspective that is relevant to the field and what the content of a course means within that perspective. In exploring how teaching can enable students to enter a field of study and practice, some alternative ways in which teachers see the content of their courses are described. These ways of seeing course content were drawn from a study of experiences of teaching in higher education in a range of fields. Some limitations of focusing on skills, knowledge, procedures, concepts, and principles are outlined, particularly in relation to teaching aims. It is argued that a focus on enriching students' experience of the field of study and practice is more closely and directly related to the aims of teaching in higher education.

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