Becoming aware of student-focused ways of experiencing teaching: Critical teacher experiences and orientations

Understanding how university teachers become aware of student-focused ways of experiencing teaching has the potential for improving teaching and learning in higher education. Student-focused ways of experiencing teaching are more likely than teacher-focused ways to help students to learn for a changing and uncertain future (Bowden and Marton, 1998). These ways of experiencing are characterised by teachers' awareness of a number of critical aspects of teaching and learning. This paper aims to illuminate themes in the experiences and orientations that relate to teachers becoming aware of these critical aspects. It is based on a two year longitudinal interview study of 27 university teachers, with transcripts analysed using phenomenographic and related approaches based on teachers' experiences of variation. Teachers who became aware of student-focused ways of experiencing described particular kinds of experiences which related to their awareness and particular orientations towards these experiences. Four themes in the teachers' experiences were: experiencing teaching from the students' perspectives; experiencing different students; bringing about change in one aspect of teaching and discerning variation in other aspects; being a learner/observer in a situation of learning about teaching. Three themes in their orientations towards these experiences were: being aware of dissonance or dissatisfaction with aspects of teaching and having a desire for improvement; putting teaching into focus for a period of time; engaging in reflective thinking informed by formal learning. This paper will analyse these themes using the theory of variation and learning and illustrate them using quotes from university teachers.