Excellence in teaching and learning: A review of the literature for the Higher Education Academy

The Higher Education Academy commissioned a review of the literature on excellence in learning and teaching in higher education to enhance the higher education sector’s understanding of the varied conceptualisations and usages of the term ‘excellence’ and consider the implications for future policy and practice in relation to promoting and developing excellence. The literature searched included published research in the form of journal articles; books; reports from UK policy bodies and other agencies; as well as ‘grey’ literature. It covered conceptual studies, academic critiques and research studies on learning and teaching, as well as policy documents. Within a diverse and expanding system of higher education, such as in the UK, discourse on teaching and student learning highlights the tensions between different notions of excellence – for example, excellence as a positional good for students, as an aspirational target for continuous quality enhancement, as a form of reputational advantage for higher education institutions or as a means for achieving governmental economic and social goals. The review addressed questions of conceptualisations and usage at different (but interlinked) levels: system-wide; institutional; departmental; individual, and from two different perspectives, teaching and student learning

Principles And Practices Fostering Inclusive Excellence: Lessons From The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Capstone Institutions

Best-practices pedagogy in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) aims for inclusive excellence that fosters student persistence. This paper describes principles of inclusivity across 11 primarily undergraduate institutions designated as Capstone Awardees in Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) 2012 competition. The Capstones represent a range of institutional missions, student profiles, and geographical locations. Each successfully directed activities toward persistence of STEM students, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups, through a set of common elements: mentoring programs to build community; research experiences to strengthen scientific skill/identity; attention to quantitative skills; and outreach/bridge programs to broaden the student pool. This paper grounds these program elements in learning theory, emphasizing their essential principles with examples of how they were implemented within institutional contexts. We also describe common assessment approaches that in many cases informed programming and created traction for stakeholder buy-in. The lessons learned from our shared experiences in pursuit of inclusive excellence, including the resources housed on our companion website, can inform others’ efforts to increase access to and persistence in STEM in higher education

Conceptions of excellence in teaching and learning and implications for future policy and practice

Within a diverse and expanding system of higher education (HE), such as in the UK, discourse on teaching and student learning highlights tensions between different notions of excellence. For example, excellence as a positional good for students, an aspirational target for continuous quality enhancement, a form of reputational advantage for HE institutions or a means of achieving governmental economic and social goals. Concepts of excellence such as these also operate differently at the level of the individual, the academic unit, the institution and an HE system. Discussion about excellence usually focuses on teaching, and there is much less attention given to excellence in student learning, or even students’ perceptions of excellent teaching. The emphasis tends to be on process and form rather than content; so, what is being taught and learned has become increasingly obscured by concerns over whether teaching and learning are performed excellently. In the literature on pedagogy, there is a large body of writing that employs psychologised understandings of teaching and learning processes and which focuses on micro-level transactions between teachers and students. Though there is some conflicting evidence surrounding the idea of a hierarchy of approaches to learning and teaching – surface, deep and strategic – there seems to be consensus that excellence in pedagogy is associated with more sophisticated conceptions of learning and even, perhaps, of knowledge and its construction. However, it is clear that the dynamics of the relationship between teaching and learning are mediated by students’ perceptions of their environment and by their own motivations to study: excellence in student learning may or may not require excellent teaching. Concepts of teaching excellence are linked to two other notions, viz. the scholarship of teaching and the expert teacher, with some suggestion that excellence should be an attribute of any professional teacher – perhaps confusing excellence with notions of good (enough) teaching or even ‘fitness for purpose’. Much has also been written about institutional mechanisms for recognising and rewarding excellent teaching and the need for these to reflect an institution’s values, missions and culture. A recurring critical theme within the literature contends that the current focus on teaching (and to a lesser extent learning) excellence is symptomatic of a ubiquitous contemporary desire to measure HE performance by means of standardised criteria and quasi-scientific practices. Reinforced by the marketisation of HE and the repositioning of students as consumers, commercial publishers draw on these performance measures to compile institutional rankings, which construct broader notions of ‘excellence’ and ‘world class’ qualities in particular ways. These aggregations of available data appear to be biased towards research reputation and academic prestige, and reduce teaching ‘excellence’ to the numerical ratios between students and academic faculty, and learning to the results of student satisfaction surveys. The biases in favour of particular notions of ‘excellence’ are even more apparent in the increasingly influential world rankings of institutions: with Western, English language and ‘big science’ values predominating. This paper draws on two recent research studies undertaken by the UK Open University’s Centre for Higher Education Research and Information: a review of literature on teaching and learning to elicit conceptions of excellence; and research on league tables (rankings) and their impacts on HE institutions in England. It looks at how the term ‘excellence’ is used in the context of teaching and the student learning experience in: policy documents, research literatures, guidance material and the publicity surrounding commercially published institutional rankings. It examines the key concepts underlying such usage and considers the implications of these for future policies for developing and promoting excellence in a diverse system as it moves beyond mass to universal HE

Narrating the Natural History Unit: institutional orderings and spatial strategies

This paper develops a conceptualisation of institutional geographies through participation observation and interviews in the BBC's Natural History Unit (NHU), and the approach of actor network theory. The methodological and theoretical tenets of actor network theory are examined for the insights they offer for understanding the achievements of this pre-eminent centre for the production of natural history films. The scope, scale and longevity of the NHU are analysed through the means by which localised institutional modes of ordering extend through space and over time. Drawing on empirical material, the paper outlines three different modes of ordering, which organise relations between actors in the film-making processes in different ways: prioritising different kinds of institutional arrangements, material resources and spatial strategies in the production of natural history films. Through these three modes of ordering, and through the topological insights of actor network theory, a series of overlapping and interlinked institutional geographies are revealed, through which the identity of the Unit as a centre of excellence for wildlife filmmaking is performed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

The Role of Public Relations in Social Responsibility of Romanian Enterprises

The Excellence study has shown that public relations is an unique management function that helps an organisation interact with social and political components of its environment. These components make up the institutional environment of an organisation, which consist of publics that affect the ability of the organisation to accomplish its goals and that expect organisations to help them accomplish their own goals. Organisations solve problems for society, but they also create problems for society. The value of public relations, therefore, can be determined by measuring the quality of relationships it establishes with the strategic components of its institutional environment.public relations, social responsibility, communication

The Role of the Practice of Excellence Strategies in Education to Achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage to Institutions of Higher Education-Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza a Model

This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for excellence in education, and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model - Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: - The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers’ skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. - The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. - The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: - The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. - There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages

Implementing service excellence in higher education

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the importance of service excellence in higher education. The research upon which this paper is based employed a phenomenological approach. This method was selected for its focus on respondent perceptions and experiences. Both structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect relevant data on service excellence. The focus of the research study was on achieving and implementing service excellence in higher education. Findings are analysed and results are grounded in relevant theories and the principle of service excellence. Preliminary results suggest that implementing service excellence establishes a direct link between a workforce and successful competitive strategies. In order to compete efficiently and effectively in their niche market, higher education institutions need to implement service excellence to ensure both internal and external customer satisfaction. A strong institutional culture that values internal customers can help achieve a motivated workforce, loyalty, high performance, innovation and a distinctive institutional competitive advantage. The qualitative data collected for this study reflect respondent perceptions and opinions. Individuals perceive and experience things differently. Although the service excellence approach is applicable to service organisations, its transferability to other sectors might affect its validity. The paper investigates how service excellence is achieved in industry and how it could be applied to promote competitive advantage in higher education

Reimagining Inclusive Excellence Planning

Emerson College has developed a strategy for implementing Inclusive Excellence (IE) based on the recommendations of the AAC&U by adapting it to Emerson College’s culture and environment. A key piece of this is the Inclusive Excellence Action Planning (IEAP) process that is used in departments to analyze their strengths and challenges and set goals for inclusive excellence. A guiding principle is to have as many staff and faculty as possible involved in the analysis and action planning stages of the IEAP. Within this framework department leaders are creating various models to involve people and set goals. This presentation will highlight the IE structure at Emerson and the IE Action Planning process and document, as well as how this process might be applied to other institutional initiatives and settings