This article presents an ecological frame for reflection on teaching at university. It is suggested here that the process of professional reflection on practice can be better aligned with processes of institutional development by applying the adaptive cycle. This heuristic emerged from the scientific literature on ecosystem maintenance and has…

To equip graduates with the capability to meet complex demands of work and life, it is important that higher education teachers engage students in self-sustained learning--the persistent, self-initiated pursuit of expertise development in one's subject area. This requires building a positive synergy between learning and teaching, which implies…

The paper reviews recent psycho-educational literature to identify features of teacher thinking which enable learners to acquire meaningful knowledge. The review establishes that one powerful mechanism to improve teaching in higher education turns on exploiting adults' epistemic beliefs: beliefs about the nature and the acquisition of…

The academic identities for the twenty-first century conference sought time and space to explore ways of being in a contemporary university sector beset by challenges. As visions for "the university" become increasingly diversified, technologies impact and hybrid roles emerge, it is apposite to question the conditions of work and study…

Effective self-reflection is a key component of excellent teaching. We describe the types of self-reflection identified in tutors' reflective statements following a peer observation of teaching exercise. We used an adapted version of the categories developed by Grushka, McLeod and Reynolds in 2005 to code text from 20 written statements as…

Reflective practice in practice settings can enhance practice knowledge, self-assessment and lifelong learning, develop future practice capability and professional identity, and critically appraise practice traditions rather than reproduce them. The inherent power imbalance between student and educator runs the risk for the reflective practice…