Teaching Excellence Framework

The purpose of the study is to identify the patterns of change in higher education institutions. It examines the contexts of the changing quality assurance mechanisms used by the different types of higher education institutions in England, Japan, and New York State between 2001 and 2007. The paper argues that there were no clear patterns of institutional change in terms of speed, intensity, extensiveness, momentum, trajectory, and consequence between centralized and decentralized institutions and public and private institutions. The study suggests three points for explanation why institutional types do not shape certain patterns of institutional change. The first point is that institutional change heavily relies on agents’ interactions. The second point is that the ideas of centralized or decentralized and private or public per se are becoming ambiguous in the market or market-like systems. The third point is that the relationship between the central authorities and the institutions is far more significant than the types of institutions in the formation of particular patterns of institutional change.

ABSTRACTThis article explores the perspectives of three senior managers in higher education institutions in England regarding their mathematics and statistics support provision. It does so by means of a qualitative case study that draws upon the writing of Ronald Barnett about the identity of an ‘ecological’ university, along with metaphors associated with the notion of organisations as living ‘organisms’, suggested by Gareth Morgan. Using these ideas as a heuristic sheds light upon the view that whilst outwardly universities appear to represent a uniform landscape, mathematics and statistics support alternatively, can be seen as different ‘species’ within the higher education system. The study illustrates how three universities occupying contrasting ecological ‘niches’ are responding to the challenges they face by providing and planning different forms of learning support for mathematics and statistics. In conclusion, it is recommended that senior managers reflect upon the possibilities offered by the idea of ‘ecological’ identities in order to explore how they might respond strategically to a rapidly changing environment. This includes adapting various solutions and the further development of innovative ways of supporting students’ transitions throughout the academic lifecycle. In addition, an ecological approach could also aid the formation of the co-creational relationships and networks required for the future success of those developments.

Combinations of speaking, listening and bodily behaviour have been neglected in accounts of the operation of power. Although often described as fluid and interactionally produced, power has been the subject of few empirically based analyses at micro-interactional scales. Drawing on interviews with undergraduates and extracts from teaching interactions at higher education institutions in England, this article focuses on talk as a situated practice. It describes how verbal and bodily behaviours together are fundamentally involved in the enactment of instructor and student roles and power relations, and the collective interactional (re)production of teaching spaces. It discusses two broad types of teaching interaction in terms of gendered differences in the structure of talk, drawing attention to how these are shaped by differences in how instructors enact power. I suggest that men may routinely engage in conversations with 'feminine' structures in teaching spaces without this compromising heterosexual masculinity, and present reasons why it may be more likely that women be problematized for using 'masculine' verbal styles. I also argue that rather than simply being inscribed on to instructors' bodies in ways that accord with the hegemonic discourses of gender, authority and respect have to continually be earned from students, and verbal behaviour is deeply involved in this process. It is not enough to 'walk the walk', instructors must also 'talk the talk', in ways that students deem legitimate.

The main purpose of the study was to explore the best practices of online teaching during the Pandemic in a private higher education institution in England. The Covid-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption to education systems worldwide. The fast switch to online learning was a monumental task for higher education institutions (HEIs), especially for private HEIs with limited resources compared to public HEIs. Therefore, the HEIs made tremendous efforts to make the transition to online or remote learning as good as possible. Although Oxford Business college (OBC) quickly adapted to online teaching despite some challenges but also demonstrated some best practices. The research presents some of the good practices OBC adopted to make online learning effective during the pandemic. For almost two years (2020-21), the researchers were part of the composition of the OBC team to plan, implement online strategy and train staff and students to make online teaching effective during the global pandemic. This gave the researchers a unique opportunity to observe and understand lived experiences of staff and conduct interviews for more in-depth understanding by divisions (leadership, management). As a result, the goal was achieved by bringing out the good practices used during the pandemic. Findings from this study revealed the best practices in strategic planning and business growth, successful transition to online teaching, the establishment of a research profile, recruitment of highly qualified and experienced academic staff, excellent student attendance and pass rates and lowest student dropouts. Keywords: Best Practices, Online Teaching, Covid-19, Oxford Business College

This chapter discusses the institutional contextual narratives provided as part of the evaluation of universities in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in England. The purpose of the TEF is to allow differentiation between higher education institutions on the basis of teaching quality, but the equality challenge unit has expressed reservations about the TEF’s ability to make sense of, or reflect, diverse student experiences of being taught. The authors follow the methodology of critical policy ethnography using higher education and government policy documents as a field of anthropological data and contend that, in order to understand large-scale transformations, such as the educational experience of students, the authors have to examine the ‘policy field’ and then locate more precise sites, in this case the TEF, for understanding the larger environment. The authors have systematically determined our search terms and used text-mining tools to search all the institutional narratives and obtain a broad ‘policy field’; we then select some key examples to analyse particular cases in more detail. This provides us with evidence from the statements to determine both how the perspective of students has been included in preparing the TEF contextual narratives and how diversity is being addressed.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has often been used to evaluate efficiency in the context of higher education institutions. Yet there are numerous alternative non-parametric measures of efficiency available. This paper compares efficiency scores obtained for institutions of higher education in England, 2013–2014, using three different methods: the original Charnes et al. method and two slacks-based methods (SBM-Min and SBM-Max) developed by Tone. The findings suggest that results are highly sensitive to methodology chosen. Hence caution is required in applying the results in any policy context.

The revamp of the National Student Survey (NSS) has led to the elimination of the final ‘overall satisfaction’ question for Higher Education Institutions in England. This paper develops an index approach that can effectively summarise student satisfaction, utilising a ‘fuzzy poverty’ methodology that assigns weights to dissatisfaction outcomes based on their correlation levels. We show how our dissatisfaction index enables a comprehensive sector-level analysis by combining NSS data with sector-wide data and further show the usefulness by presenting a case study. Our approach can be universally and unbiasedly applied to student surveys globally, while alleviating problems related to the removal of the overall satisfaction question in the UK.

The multidimensional nature of current conceptualisations of learner autonomy combined with the need to access both individual and social constructions presents both ontological and epistemological challenges when researching a pedagogy for learner autonomy. This paper will discuss the advantages and challenges to exploring the development of learner autonomy and its implication for practice from a postmodernist and social constructivist perspective, based on a qualitative case study of the development of advanced specialist and non-specialist foreign language learners and their teacher as a learner practitioner-researcher, in a large Higher Education Institution in England. It will show, in particular, how such methodology facilitates a dynamic research design, providing an opportunity to adapt and use existing theories whilst maintaining a strong emphasis on the learner’s ‘voices’. It will conclude with a set of recommendations together with the limitations of such an approach.

The relevance of the issue considered in the article is substantiated by the fact that at the present stage of mathematical education system development in Russia, there are active discussions concerning the necessity to maintain some institutions of higher pedagogical education.This is in order to provide the opportunity to implement innovative policy in the education system, and to train their graduates in compliance with the requirements for modern society experts in the field of mathematics.The objective of the article is to describe the possibilities of small institutions of higher pedagogical education to realize basic provisions of the Concept of mathematical education development in the Russian Federation.The leading research method of the designated issue is the method of results analysis and modeling of development prospects of a higher education institution, making it possible to transfer the positive experience of the Concept implementation in Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute into the practice of another higher education institution activity.The article represents the ways that Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute, as a typical institution of higher pedagogical education, applies to solve the main problems in the field of general and vocational education declared in the Concept; the major results obtained in the implementation of the Concept provisions; and, proposed guidelines for further development within the context of the Concept implementation.

The marketization of higher education (HE), which positions students as consumers and academics as service providers, may adversely affect students' motivation for learning and academics' motivation for teaching. According to self-determination theory (SDT), high-quality forms of motivation are achieved when individuals experience fulfilment of three psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. This study applied SDT to examine academics' perceptions of whether the marketized HE contextin England, UK, supported or undermined these three psychological needs for their students and for themselves. It also examined their perceptions of the impact that this context had on their teaching. Participants were 10 academics teaching at five post-1992 HE institutions in England, UK. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and subsequentlyanalysed using thematic analysis. Academics observed that students identifying as consumers seemed to display lower levels of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. This contributed to an HE environment that diminished the academics' own psychological needs. Although some felt able to improve student motivation through their teaching, others felt demotivated and disempowered by top-down pressure from managers and bottom-up pressure from students. The marketized HE context may undermine high-quality motivation for students' learning and academics' teaching. Academics should be supported to teach in ways that facilitate competence, autonomy, and relatedness in their students and themselves.

Evaluation of competence-based teaching in higher education: From theory to practice

It is very relevant and timely to conduct an analysis of modern pedagogical approaches to solving such an urgent problem as the organization of teaching the ecology of sports in higher educational institutions (universities) that are engaged in education for the sports industry, both in Ukraine and abroad. This applies primarily to the National University of Physical Education and Sports of Ukraine and the University of Bayreuth in the Federal Republic of Germany, where sports ecology is taught. The purpose of the study: consideration and analysis of modern pedagogical approaches to teaching in higher education institutions (universities) the provisions of sports ecology for the training of specialists who would have the appropriate knowledge, skills and competences both in relation to sports and sports ecology for the implementation in practice of the provisions of the concept of sustainable development of sports, which is primarily aimed at preserving the good state of the environment in the practice of sports activities. Research methods: used methods of theoretical analysis of scientific literature: generalization, formalization, abstraction, synthesis, which are used in ecology and sports ecology. Research results and conclusions. An analysis of promising modern pedagogical approaches that can be used in the organization of teaching the ecology of sports in institutions of higher education, which are engaged in education for the sports industry, has been carried out. The prospects of applying modern pedagogical approaches to the organization of sports ecology education in higher education institutions engaged in sports are determined.
 Conclusions are made that the organization of teaching on the ecology of sports is very timely and relevant and must be implemented in higher education institutions engaged in sports. Conclusions are made that the organization of teaching on the ecology of sports is very timely and relevant and must be implemented in higher education institutions engaged in sports. Two pedagogical approaches can be used to organize the teaching of sports ecology in institutions of higher education (universities) that provide education for the sports industry. The first pedagogical approach is based on the development of interdisciplinary programs for teaching the ecology of sports (Federal Republic of Germany). The second pedagogical approach (Ukraine) is based on the teaching of sports ecology at the second (master's) level of higher education in the specialty 017 «Physical culture and sport», specialization «Sports management», profile direction «Sport ecology». The choice of a specific pedagogical approach to teaching the ecology of sports in a higher education institution can be determined by the higher education institution itself, taking into account its features and specialization. At the same time, the second pedagogical approach to the organization of teaching ecology of sports is, in principle, more suitable for universities of physical culture and sports of Ukraine than the first, as it provides an opportunity to conduct continuous environmental education.

With the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the status of teaching has been moved towards the centre of concerns in the UK higher education (HE) sector. This interest develops further the notion of teaching excellence created through various institutional and sectoral schemes such as the Higher Education Academy (HEA) fellowship. Whilst excellence schemes and the TEF all highlight the importance of teaching, they also run the danger of reducing it to lists and simplified proxies. This chapter argues that reductive characterisations of teaching, through metrics supporting the TEF, such as the national student survey, or ‘idealised’ descriptions of the foundational aspects of ‘excellent practice’, all lead to partial accounts of the teaching process. Such characterisations might lead to creeping performativity and increasing organisational attempts to control. An alternative account of teaching is proposed based on complexity theory. This sees teaching as emergent, multifaceted and contextually based. It refutes notions of ‘best practice’ and argues that any attempt to capture ‘excellent practice’ is to reduce the holistic nature of the processes that bring teaching, learning, curriculum and assessment together.

Earth science education: The current state of play

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to understand from the teaching life world of quality assurance and education actors in the higher education institutions, their construction of teaching excellence. Design: Charmazian constructivist Grounded Theory Method was employed. Hermeneutic constructivist philosophy guided this study and 29 participants were interviewed using criterion i sampling. Findings: Eleven categories of teaching excellence emerged from the data and the constructions of teaching excellence were multifaceted. Based on the participants’ voices, there is no universally accepted definition of teaching excellence. There is no consensus of opinion on what constitutes teaching excellence in all higher education environments. However, research suggests that Teaching Excellence practices were beginning to be applied on an institutional level as a management tool though not recognised by the term teaching excellence. Nevertheless, it was not being practiced extensively, and was implemented in pockets, with emphasis on quality teaching more than teaching excellence, and not generally implemented in a systemic way. Practical implications: The teaching excellence categories that we have generated in this study could be one source of elements our policy makers could consider when developing teaching excellence policy instruments such as Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Such Instruments could support the enhancement of educational provision across our higher education system. Therefore, rather than focusing on developing metrics of teaching excellence, it is could be more effective to focus also on how these institutions could enhance their educational provision. Originality: The study provides empirical contextual individualised constructed constructs of teaching excellence. Conclusion: We stated in the title “No one has bothered to know”. Now we have known that the constructions of teaching excellence are multifaceted. The implication of the findings is that phenomenology is a powerful research strategy that is well suited for exploring challenging problems in quality assurance research. By building a better understanding of the nature of phenomenology and working to ensure proper alignment between the specific research question and the researcher’s underlying philosophy, we hope to encourage quality assurance and teaching excellence scholars to consider the utility of phenomenology when addressing their research questions.