The European Science Foundation brought together 20 scientists to critical reflect on teaching in higher education. Their insights led to a report which exposes current developments and challenges in the European Higher Education landscape. The authors establish a set of nine principles of good teaching and recommend that universities that strive for quality education offer educational development opportunities for their teachers. They claim that well-designed educational development programmes lead to increased satisfaction of teachers and changes in attitudes, behaviours and teaching practice.

The main conclusion is that “excellent teachers are made, not born; they become excellent through investment in their teaching abilities. Leaving teachers to learn from trial and error is a waste of time, effort and university resources.”

The report highlights six recommendations for important advances to be made toward the professionalisation of teaching and student learning:

• define professional standards for higher education teachers;
• measure teaching effectiveness and provide constructive feedback for academics;
• establish the institutional support base for educational development locally;
• promote the idea of the ‘teacher researcher’ and recognise research on teaching as research activity and teaching excellence in hiring and promotion decision;
• allocate meaningful funding for educational development;
• establish a European forum within a currently existing institution that pools and shares resources and existing expertise.

You can download the report here.