Is ‘teacher training’ at Higher Education level worthwhile? Well, as someone who’s in the Learning & Teaching Development Unit, clearly I think so! I completed my PGCLTHE earlier this year, and found it great to challenge my thinking on the way that I teach, and it’s changed my practice hugely. There’s plenty of comments on this story in the Times Higher Education:
Where academics were instructed on how to teach better, Dr Robson said, peer review of their lectures could be used, although this would only be right for staff that had received “long-term training”.
Dr Robson added that self-evaluation could be useful, with lecturers asked to provide examples of how their training did or did not improve their teaching.
They could also use National Student Survey scores to show improvements, she argued.
Other areas could be assessed more simply (whether staff had absorbed basic health and safety training could be ascertained using a simple questionnaire, for example). But leadership and development coaching needed something “more detailed”, Dr Robson said, such as appraisals by line managers three to sixth months after completion.
Where staff took on much more “intensive” training, scores could be given on performance, which could then be used to calculate the return on investment.
