Teaching Methods

"While only a small portion of Faculty can be outstanding teachers, nearly all are capable of being responsible ones."

Renner, Greenwood and Schott, 1996

Flinders University has an Education and Research Policy (2000). Section 2.1 of this policy contains some very specific statements about teaching and what a student might expect. It is expected that your topic design, classroom strategies, assessment practices and interactions with students will uphold these principles.

Teaching should:

focus in desired learning outcomes for students, in the form of knowledge, understanding, skill and attitudes;
assist students to form broad conceptual understandings while gaining depth of knowledge;
encourage the informed and critical questioning of accepted theories and views;
develop an awareness of the limited and provisional nature of much of current knowledge in all fields;
see how understanding evolves and is subject to challenge and revision;
engage students as active participants in the learning process, while acknowledging that all learning must involve a complex interplay of active and receptive processes;
engage students in discussion of ways in which study tasks can be undertaken;
respect students' right to express views and opinions;
incorporate a concern for the welfare and progress of individual students;
proceed from an understanding of students knowledge, capabilities and backgrounds;
encompass a range of perspectives from groups of different ethic background,socio-economic status and sex;
acknowledge and attempt to meet the demands of students with disabilities;
encourage and awareness of the ethical dimensions of problems and issues;
utilize instructional strategies and tools to enable many different styles of learning and;
adopt assessment methods and tasks appropriate to the desired learning outcomes of the course and topic and to the capabilities of the student