Theorising Learning to Teach in Higher Education

Book excerpt: Theorising Learning to Teach in Higher Education provides both lecturers embarking on a career in higher education and established members of staff with the capacity to improve their teaching. The process of learning to teach, and the associated field of professional academic development for teaching, is absolutely central to higher education. Offering innovative alternatives to some of the dominant work on teaching theory, this volume explores three significant approaches in detail: critical and social realist, social practice and sociomaterial approaches, which are divided into four sections: Sociomaterialism Practice theories Critical and social realism Crossover perspectives. Readers will benefit from discussions on the role and place of theory in the process of learning to teach, whilst international case studies demonstrate the kinds of insights and recommendations that could emanate from the three approaches examined, drawing together contributions from Europe, Africa and Australasia. Both challenging and enlightening, this book argues the need for theory in order to advance scholarship in the field and achieve goals related to social justice in higher education systems across the world. It draws attention to newly emerging theoretical perspectives and relatively underused perspectives to demonstrate the need for theory in relation to learning to teach. This book will appeal to academics interested in how they come to learn to teach, to administrators and academic developers responsible for professional development strategies at universities and masters and PhD level students researching professional development in higher education.