PAST EFFORTS
In 2016-2017, the pilot with working title ‘Excellent Teacher Practitioner’ (ETP) was executed. The motivation for this pilot was the EEMCS faculty’s interest to promote the field of academic teaching practices. The ETP focused on all teachers within EEMCS with the ambition to develop and implement excellent teaching practices and develop themselves, regardless of the appointed (UFO) profile. In addition to a UFO profile-based HR policy proposal used to assess the potential for advancement based on teaching practices, EEMCS would like to develop a network of excellent teachers within which the UFO profile does not play a role. Additionally, the ETP working title will now be replaced by a more suitable and engaging name, UTeachers’ Academy.
Information sources for the shaping of the ETP 1.0 pilot were the manner in which Lund University shaped professor development and research conducted by Ruth Graham as commissioned by the Royal Academy of Engineering. While this pilot was not based on the initiative in Lund and Ruth Graham’s research, they were used as inspiration. One of the inspiring aspects is that teachers work evidence-informed on the further development of their teaching practices and discuss the results with their colleagues. The 1.0 pilot, for which approximately 20 teachers provided input during teachers’ meetings, aimed to gain and share more clarity concerning suitable content for the UTeachers’ Academy and to begin the network.
Experiences
The EEMCS Educational Seminars (started in 2010) make an important contribution to further improving education. Teachers who presented their experiences with educational innovations in the last eight seminars have been interviewed. The interviews are published in an ETP special produced by U-Today.