Recommendations to university managers for facilitating engagement of academics with teaching

Abstract

Research on community-based approaches to academic development has shown the importance of a collegial and supportive environment for teaching and learning about teaching. To investigate the environment in which academics work and teach, the research behind this article has defined a new concept, called 'teaching groups'. Teaching groups are based on membership by default, derived from the positions academics hold in their institutions and on their teaching obligations, in distinction to the voluntary participation emphasised in community-based approaches. The research shows that about 40 per cent of teaching groups identified show community-like characteristics and are seen as being highly supportive of engagement with learning about teaching, with the remainder of the teaching groups providing less than ideal environments. The goal of the research is to build on the teaching group concept to improve these less than ideal environments. The article presented here focuses on findings on motivation of academics and on their views of leadership for teaching. Recommendations are made to university managers to provide stronger leadership for teaching, by officially identifying teaching groups and by using teaching groups as mechanisms for providing academics with a supportive and collegial environment, conducive of engagement with learning about teaching.