Challenging Accepted Wisdom about the Place of Conceptions of Teaching in University Teaching Improvement

Abstract

In recent years, conceptions of teaching held by academic staff have achieved an increased focus in the scholarly and practical work of teaching developers. Views on the impact of conceptions of teaching on improving university teaching, as well as their significance in doing so, vary from those that advocate changing conceptions as a necessary first step in the process of improvement to more recent views that characterize conceptions of teaching as merely artifacts of reflection on teaching. This paper explores this range of views, raises a number of questions about the current accepted views on the importance of conceptions of teaching development work, and challenges the current accepted wisdom in this important area. Teaching development can play a critical role in ensuring the quality of teaching and learning in universities. However, a proportion of teaching development currently carried out and discussed in the literature is underpinned by a set of assumptions that may not be accurate. These assumptions are related to the part that university teachers ’ beliefs

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