MNF Teaching Hub – Concept and basis in evidence

A center for the coordination, support, and training of not only those in the newly created lecturer positions, but also for anyone interested in developing their teaching practices and supporting educational innovation and excellence at the MNF. The Hub offers expert advice, training on evidence-based best practices for university science and math teaching, solution-oriented feedback on teaching and course design, guidance for developing educational research projects, and a sense of belonging to a scholarly community interested in improving teaching and learning for all MNF students.

• Provides onboarding, coaching, and expert support to lecturers and other teaching specialists in the Faculty of Science
• Cultivates a cohort of teaching specialists who can consult with broader circles of colleagues: offer teaching advice, share best practices, provide observation and feedback on teaching, and provide leadership with respect to revising and innovating courses and study programs
• Develops and conducts a range of customized professional development support (coaching, workshops, and 1/2-day to semester long courses) for departments, groups, or the faculty
• Drives educational and technological innovation to ensure modern, evidence-based teaching, courses, and study programs
• Models teaching excellence in our faculty
• Offers training and guidance in teaching-focused research initiatives using the model of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and conducts an annual teaching fair
• Coordinates and collaborates with the UZH Offices of Educational Development and Continuing Education, ETH’s Educational Technology and Development, Office of the Vice President of Education, and Swiss and international networks of faculty developers

Many disciplines, especially in mathematics and STEM fields, benefit from tailored training and course cohorts with similar backgrounds due to their unique:

• teaching methods and required competencies (Bostock, 2022; Geertsema, 2021)
• Drivers and barriers for teaching (Geertsema & Laksov Bolander, 2019; Shadle, et al., 2017)

Professional development with a general pedagogy focus can:

• create confusion as the staff struggle to apply pedagogical approaches to their professionally related disciplines (Bostock, 2022)
• be perceived as having little benefit, as the ideas feel nontransferable (Chadha, 2022), especially among early career instructors (Cox, 2013)

Subject-specific PDPs may be more effective at increasing student learning gains (Andrews, et al., 2019; Baker, et al., 2018; Ilie, et al., 2020; Lund & Stains, 2015). This impact can be linked to the construct of pedagogical content knowledge:

An awareness of “the most regularly taught topics in one’s subject area, the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations – in a word, the ways of representing the subject that make it comprehensible to others…(I)t also includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to learning.” (Shulman, 1987, p. 9)

PCK has an outsized effect on student learning through its focus on student thinking (Coe et al., 2014).

Andrews, T., Auerbach, A. & Grant, E. (2019). Exploring the relationship between teacher knowledge and active-learning implementation in large college biology courses. CBE – Life Sciences Education, 18(28). 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-01-0010   

Bostock, J. (2022), Exploring and developing pedagogical content knowledge in higher education. In H. King, (ed), Developing Expertise for Teaching in Higher Education, (pp. 101-113). Routledge. https://www.doi.org/10.4324/9781003198772-10

Chadha, D. (2022). How do we prepare to teach? Exploring science lecturers’ authentic approaches to teaching in higher education. Research in Science Education, 52, 635-653. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-020-09972-4 

Coe, R., Aloisi, C., Higgins, S., & Major, L.E. (2014). What makes great teaching? Review of the underpinning research. Project Report. Sutton Trust, London. 

Cox, M.D. (2013). The impact of communities of practice in support of early-career academics. International Journal for Academic Development, 18(1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2011.599600

Geertsema, J. (2021). Faculty development in the context of a research-intensive university. Hungarian Educational Research Journal, (11)3, 230-245. https://doi.org/10.1556/063.2021.00073

Geertsema, J. & Bolander Laksov, K., (2019) Turning challenges into opportunities: (re)vitalizing the role of academic development. International Journal for Academic Development, 24(1). 1-6. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2019.1557870

Ilie, M., Maricuțoiua, L., Iancua, D., Smarandache, I., Mladenovici, V., Stoia, D., Toth, S. (2020). Reviewing the research on instructional development programs for academics. Trying to tell a different story: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review. 20(3). 307-323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2020.100331 

Lund, T. & Stains, M. (2015). The importance of context: An exploration of factors influencing the adoption of student-centred teaching among chemistry, biology, and physics faculty. International Journal of STEM Education, 2(13). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-015-0026-8

Shadle, S. E., Marker, A., & Earl, B. (2017). Faculty drivers and barriers: laying the groundwork for undergraduate STEM education reform in academic departments. International Journal of STEM Education, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-017-0062-7

Shulman, L.S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher 15, 4–14.