A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

15
Teaching in the
disciplines
Denis Berthiaume
INTRODUCTION
Teaching in higher education is a rather interesting profession. To enter it, people are
trained for years in one area of their occupation (i.e. research) while most often not trained
in another (i.e. teaching). Yet the latter area takes up much time in an academic’s day-today
activities. University teaching staff are often left to develop their understanding of
teaching and learning on their own. But anyone teaching in higher education knows that
it is not so easy to decide what works and what does not work when teaching in their
discipline.
For some time now, educational researchers have investigated the idea that, in order
to be effective, higher education teaching may have to be ‘discipline-specific’. In other
words, teaching in higher education has to take into account the specific characteristics
of the discipline being taught. This means that developing an understanding of teaching
and learning is not sufficient to become an effective teacher in higher education. Rather,
one must also develop understanding of the teaching and learning requirements of
one’s own discipline. This has been termed ‘discipline-specific pedagogical knowledge’
(Berthiaume, 2007; Lenze, 1995). Otherwise, the pedagogical knowledge developed either
through accredited academic practice programmes for new lecturers or through continuing
professional development activities lies alongside one’s disciplinary knowledge,
but the two types of knowledge are not necessarily integrated with one another. In such
a scenario, the university teacher remains a disciplinary specialist with some knowledge
of teaching, but does not necessarily become a disciplinary specialist who knows how to
teach and foster learning within his or her own discipline.
This chapter introduces you to the notion of discipline-specific pedagogical knowledge
(DPK) in order to help you build bridges in your mind, and between the first two sections
of the book. In Part 1, you were presented with various ideas and materials related to
learning and teaching in general, thus helping you develop what is called ‘generic
pedagogical knowledge’ or the knowledge of teaching and learning that is applicable to
all academic disciplines. In Part 2, you are presented with ideas and materials related to
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