Quality teaching in higher education, an OECD approach Fabrice Hénard, December 2010

1. Quality teaching in higher education, an OECD approachFabrice Hénard, December 2010

2. Overview of quality teaching initiatives • Institutional and Quality Assurance Policy • Institution-wide policy (strategy) • Dedicated body, Quality Assurance Systems • Programme Level Policy • Programme design • Programme evaluation • Teaching and Learning-focused activities • Support to pedagogy • Support to teaching and learning environment • Continuing education for teachers • Student support • Support to student learning

3. External incentives to quality teaching • A favourable climate for change • Direct State incentives or regulations • International influence • Competition amongst institutions • The need for institutions to be recognized as a regular higher education provider • Quality teaching “because Teaching is our mission so we must demonstrate we are performing in that field” • Rebalancing Teaching-Research nexus • QT, a future element of choice for students?

4. Does Quality assurance enhance quality teaching? • No • QA hardly embraces the complexity of teaching • How to measure QT? • How to grasp the entire learning process? • Irrelevant criteria in some cases? Yes • QA stimulates the awareness on quality teaching • Ever higher level of standards to improve quality teaching • QA Agencies advise more than control

5. Global aims of the HEIs engaged in Quality Teaching • To upgrade teachers’ knowledge of pedagogical skills • The need to have an institution-wide overview • QT: a distinctive feature for (some) institutions

6. The implementation ofquality teaching initiatives & their related actors CBS

7. Operational / technical To help teachers operate Conceptual / Strategic What the action of teaching means for the academic community and what added-value is gained by students? A learning-focused model The function of teaching in the learning process 3 main approaches to operate in quality teaching

8. From scattered initiatives to a QT Policy Quality A ssurance

9. Making teaching explicit Teaching Do we have the skilled teachers? Are students ready to gain such teaching? Are the teachers aware of the outcomes of their teaching? How the curricula should be refined to match with the expected learning outcomes? What pedagogy would be appropriate to the expected learning? How can the institution support teachers to achieve their mission?

10. Who are the players? • McGill University

11. Mission Composition • To help on practicalities • From 1 to 30 • To collect / process data • QA staff • To provides training • -Practical • -Theoretical • Project manager • Faculty of Education Quality office Implicit role Good practice • To preach! • Staffing • To combine research • with in-service training -A bridge between Top & Down • Political support

12. Organisational structure Quality Office Rector Support services (HR, finance…) Head Head Head Faculty of science Faculty of law Faculty of linguistics Teachers Students Teachers Students Teachers Students New functions New Roles

13. Evaluation and impacts Free University Berlin

14. The evaluation of quality teaching: accepted in principle, challenged in reality • A clear awareness of the need for evaluation in teaching • The institutions appraise the progress of quality teaching support, but not so much the quality of teaching as such.

15. Outputs, outcomes and impacts Intermediateoutcomes Inputs Outputs Immediateoutcomes Ultimateoutcomes Teaching improvement Learning improvement Hours of training Knowledge gain Inclusion in current practice

16. Why are Learning Outcomes weakly measured? • The logical route from teaching input to learning outcome is unknown or only experimentally scrutinized • The teaching-learning interconnection is overlooked by the traditional evaluation and accreditation systems. • Unlike primary /secondary education, the higher learning results from a wider array of factors external to the education provided by the institution

17. Options to make up for the lack of reliable evaluation instruments • More qualitative measurement tools • Opinion surveys • Descriptors • Triangulation of information sources • Clarifying the aims of quality teaching initiatives • A dedicated evaluation on the overall impact of quality teaching • Interpreting the subjective results of the evaluation • Defining quality and teaching • before or along with any quality teaching initiatives

18. Human Resources Quality Teaching IT Facilities Likely impacts due to institution-wide synergy Learning support

19. The impacts of quality teaching(1) • Awareness of the teachers' role beyond their discipline • Discernible impact on pedagogy • Curriculum development (aims / contents of programmes • Work environment

20. The impacts of quality teaching (2) • Research feeds the theoretical background of quality teaching • Research, a promising development for QT

21. The impacts of quality teaching (3) • When QT boosts quality culture • When QT promotes the institution’s identity • QT is a promotional tool to attract and retain teachers

22. Main conclusions (1) • Definitions and conceptions of QT that are highly varied and in constant flux • QT initiatives are empirical and address the institutions’ particular needs • The university’s local environment shapes the extent of its commitment to QT • QT must be thought of dynamically • An effective institutional policy for the QT involves harnessing synergy between external and internal institutional factors

23. Main conclusions (2) • Long-term, non-linear effort subject to multiple constraints • Commitment on the part of all university stakeholders • Balance between technical aspects of quality support and the fundamental issues raised • Innovative evaluative approaches are needed to better understand the correlation QT support/Learning outcomes

24. Report

25. Thank you fabrice.henard@oecd.org