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The influence of discipline on training novice teachers: observations from Oxford’s ‘Developing Learning and

Teaching’ programme

Claire StocksOxford Learning Institute

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Doctoral Training as an Activity System (Hopwood and Stocks, in submission)

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Joelle Fanghanel (2007)

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Factors influencing the design and implementation of ‘DLT’• Disciplinary differences

• Devolved nature of Oxford

• Need to formalise training

• Increasing emphasis on some demonstration of teaching competence

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Interview data: findings• Discipline affects conceptions of what ‘teaching’ is (but so does the institution…)

• Disciplinary patterns of work affect support structures

• Discipline affects access to teaching opportunities

• The opportunity to use research in teaching is affected by discipline

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Teacher as modelFor a non lab-based subject, [maths] is quite demonstrative. I mean, one of the major ways they’ll learn is by seeing me doing what I’m doing, the way that I approach it (Maths)

[P]art of being a good teacher is being a good model […] The teachers that I’ve had who’ve been the best teachers are teachers who do things in a way I absolutely wouldn’t, but made me aware of their process (English)

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(Tutorial) teaching and feedback[T]hat, for me, is the really important thing, that teaching should be communication and feedback because all of this stuff is a sequence of very small logical steps, each one of which (students) should be able to understand, it’s just a question of spotting the ones they haven’t understood. So the more you can get students…I mean, obviously you want them to try and be involved in working out what the right answer is a bit before that, the base level is for them to say what it is they haven’t understood (Maths)

I always start the tutorial by asking them about the reading, you know, what books they’ve found useful, what element of the question appealed to them, that sort of thing (History)

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Different ways of thinking (Maths)

My presumption there has slightly been that the way A-Level works they’re all in the habit of doing it all straight from the equations and plugging through and the algebraic point of view has been sort of pushed quite enough. So, when I’m doing complex analysis which is a very good example of you can think about it all in equations or you can do it from pictures, I really want to push the pictures because I think the students who do think in that way will get a huge amount out of that and the ones who don’t should at least be aware of that because they can have missed that entirely […] And because I think in that way I think it’s a better way of thinking and I should keep an eye on that (Maths)

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Disciplinary working patterns affect access to resources

With the mentor, I feel a bit like he’s doing me a favour, and so I feel a bit sort of unwilling to ask for meetings and things because they’re really busy and this is sort of another thing that they have to do. So, I found that quite difficult really. Especially in the Arts where it’s not really someone in your department who you see everyday in the lab or you could just pop over very quickly at coffee time. You have to sort of plan this meeting that will take time out of their day. (Music)

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Discipline can affect access to teaching opportunities

In my faculty, because we’re very Faculty-heavy, there’s not a huge demand for graduate students to teach unless you happen to work in one of the central, one of the core subjects that everyone has to study, which I don’t. (Theology)

I don’t think the department quite knows what to do about graduate teaching because it sort of sees that in principle it’s a good thing, and really useful for graduates, and we’re cheap labour. But by the same token if we spend all our time just teaching then we’ll never do our research, which I suppose is the priority in every department. My boss has been very supportive all along but he’s always saying ‘Make sure you don’t forget your research’ which is essentially what I’m paid to do. (Biochemistry)

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Discipline affects integration of research and teaching

It’s very very hard in mathematics because the gap is huge. It depends what you work on […] I can’t tell my third year students what I do because…well, I could tell them something but it would be just a bunch of words (Maths)

They [the students] will bring up something that relates to a chapter I’m writing and […] to show them ‘hey, I’m thinking about this’ and to ask them a question that maybe pushes them in the way that I’m thinking about it. I think that kind of integration between scholarship [and teaching] is useful (English)

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Implications for Development• While there is some evidence of disciplinary ‘signature pedagogies’ it is also vital to consider institutional signature pedagogies which may not be replicated elsewhere.• Signature pedagogies might be taken into account when designing the programmes for different disciplines (Golde, 2007) as a way to help participants and mentors to feel more at ease with educational research.• Different working patterns need to be taken into account when designing mentoring programmes and suggesting minimum requirements. • Mentors ought to be briefed to emphasise thought processes, giving graduates an insight into why certain practices occur in their disciplines.• Graduates might be encouraged to think of different ways in which to integrate teaching and research in order to prepare them for demanding academic posts.

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Questions for discussion• From the data here or other experience are there further issues that could productively be addressed in programmes aimed at developing graduates for academic practice?

• If someone was to plan a teaching development programme for new or novice teachers in your subject, what features of the discipline might they have to take into account?