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

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Enhancing
personal practice
Establishing teaching and learning
credentials
Heather Fry and Steve Ketteridge
SCOPE OF CHAPTER AND BACKGROUND
The focus of this chapter is on early career academics. In the UK, in most disciplines and
universities, this means those who have a doctorate and hope to have a career in higher
education. They may be working as (postdoctoral) researchers or as lecturers; the latter
will be known in some institutions as ‘probationary lecturers’. However, there are many
variants of employment, with a multiplicity of patterns, so there will be others to whom
this chapter is also applicable, including some more senior academics who want to have
formal recognition of their teaching expertise, and in some disciplines others still taking
a Ph.D.
In the UK and in several other countries early career academics are usually asked to
build their research, publication, management, teaching and supervision expertise while
also undertaking a formal programme of professional development. The latter usually
relates largely to the teaching and supervision role, as generally a research degree will not
have prepared staff for teaching, assessing and supervising different types of students.
Typically in the UK at the moment, such a programme will be accredited by the Higher
Education Academy (HEA) at the level of ‘fellow’, in which case it will also be at Master’s
level, or ‘associate fellow’. In this chapter we focus on the UK experience, but much that
is mentioned has wider applicability.
The early career academic is concerned not only with building a reputation for sound
and well-informed teaching, but for all parts of their role. Some staff have a much heavier
teaching load than others, perhaps with an expectation of scholarship in their discipline
rather than research; for others, the primary emphasis is on building a reputation as an
independent researcher. Whatever the emphasis, the taking of a formal programme
emphasising learning and teaching is still likely to be the institutional expectation,
although the timing, speed, nature, extent and level of this may vary. Both ends of the
teaching/research spectrum gradually accrue a service or administrative element to their
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