In this article we — as academic developers in two different faculties within a large, research-intensive university — discuss the scholarship of teaching and learning as a strategy for institutional improvement of teaching and learning. We focus on three related issues. Firstly, how can individual engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning be related to patterns of communication within academia and subsequently have an effect on issues concerning academic identity and status; and how can this be related to an (...) institutional strategy for development? Secondly, what is the appropriate use of educational theory when academic teachers make inquiries into their own teaching, considering that in most cases they are not scholars in education? Finally, while a higher education institution evolves to become gradually more scholarly in relation to teaching and learning, how could the evolving use of theory be supported and monitored? Related to this third issue we describe two cases from Lund University where this has been done. The first case describes how individual teachers can be systematically supported in a scholarship of teaching and learning-direction through pedagogical courses. The second case describes how a faculty uses a reward system for the same purpose. (shrink)

The teaching of literature is inextr icably connected with face-to-face initiation into the enjoyment of and cr itical thinking about literar y texts. In this respect, the increasingly g rowing sector of Open and Distance Lear ning in higher education poses a significant challenge for literar y studies, no less so as it addresses an emergent student body compr ised mostly of mature students with significantly divergent backg rounds and expectations. The article traces the different answers provided to these challenges (...) by nine European ODL universities. By discussing their objectives and methods along the axes of cur r iculum design, educational mater ial and educational procedures, this comparative survey attempts to describe an emergent profile of literar y studies as well as help promote dialogue about the practice of literar y instruction in higher education. The survey is based on the outcomes of a two-and-a-half-year research prog ramme undertaken by the research team `OpenLit', operating under the auspices of the School of Humanities at the Hellenic Open University. (shrink)

Although primary source work is a major component of undergraduate history degrees in many countries, the topic of how best to support this work has been relatively unexplored. This article addresses the pedagogical support of primary source work by reviewing relevant literature to identify the challenges undergraduates face in interpreting sources, and examining how in two courses carefully articulated course design and supportive teaching activities assisted students to meet these challenges. This fine-grained examination of the courses is framed within a (...) socio-cultural account of learning. The findings show how a skilful drawing of students into the interpretive/discursive practices of source analysis was associated with an epistemological reframing of historical knowledge and dialogical forms of teaching that helped the students to take forward a dialectical engagement with sources. The benefits of an ‘integrated’ approach to source work that fosters students’ affective and intellectual engagement with historical interpretive practices are highlighted. (shrink)