Tanulásközpontú felsőoktatás. Oktatók a tanításról, szakmai fejlődésről és tanulásról

Professional learning and development of university teachers is an important driving force for enhancing quality teaching in higher education. Quality teaching can and should be a debated term because of the various stakeholders and contexts which shape its interpretation. Nonetheless, in most cases quality teaching is related to student- or learning-centred practice which is highly dependent on university teachers’ beliefs about good teaching and teaching competencies as well as how committed they are to their professional development and learning (PDL) as teachers. In Hungarian higher education growing attention has been paid to university teaching and university teachers’ preparedness for teaching. New initiatives have been introduced at national and institutional levels to support the learning outcomes approach, the renewal of teachers’ methodologies, and to reduce the dropout rates of students. These initiatives are typically top-down driven by state, and the incentives are mostly new legal regulations. However, at the institutional level the shortages and dropout rates of students have led to considering new ways of teaching, focusing more on learning-centred approaches, and supporting university teachers’ PDL. In Hungary PDL in higher education is typically voluntary, accountability for and external evaluation of teaching is not prioritised in everyday practice. All in all, in Hungarian higher education it is a moment of change in teaching and learning, a shift has been brought about in acknowledging the quality of teaching instead of focusing only on the quantity of teaching (e.g. the lessons that university teachers have per week). This shift has not yet been reflected in depth nor has it been a pervasive change in the entire Hungarian higher education. This is the right time to try to understand learning-centred teaching practice in more depth and within that it is especially important to pay attention to university teachers’ beliefs about and experience of teaching, PDL, their readiness for learning-centred teaching as well as to build new teaching initiatives, developments on their voice and choices. The theoretical and empirical research studies described in the book were conducted between 2017 and 2019 supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Science. The main aims of these studies are the following: (1) developing a framework for learning-centred teaching and professional development and learning of university teachers (2) exploring Hungarian university teachers’ beliefs about teaching, teaching competencies, PDL (3) identifying those key areas in PDL of academics where changes can be initiated to shift to a more learning-centred higher education teaching practice. The results of these studies will contribute to design more evidence-based teaching and development projects in Hungarian higher education. The theoretical foundations of learning-centred teaching are described in two chapters. In the first one a learning-centred teaching framework is explained which consists of four pillars, namely (1) facilitating active, constructive learning of students (2) focusing on the development of students’ competencies and learning outcomes (3) supporting all students and (4) university teachers as learners. The other theoretical study deals with how university teachers as learners can be supported and identifies three main approaches and highlights the key positive effects and challenges of each. The three approaches are the following: supporting by pedagogical trainings, communities of practice, and scholarship of teaching and learning.