In this paper we focus on the issue of how academic staff experience the understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this understanding to their experience of teaching. In recent years there has been a substantial amount of research into how academic staff conceive of teaching and learning, how they approach their teaching, and how their approaches to teaching relate to how their students approach their learning. In our present project this research is being extended by looking at the way 31 academics from four broad fields of study experience their understanding of their subject matter and how this relates to the way they experience their teaching. Using a phenomenographic approach we show that academics who experience their subject matter in atomistic and less integrated ways experience their teaching in more information transmission and teacher-focused ways, while those with a more integrated and holistic experience of understanding their subject experience their teaching in more conceptual change and student-focused ways.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	experienced taught subject matter, university teaching, teacher-focus, student-focus, object of study, approach to teaching
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Education systems
Research Field:	Continuing and community education
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Learner and learning
Objective Field:	Higher education
UTAS Author:	Prosser, M (Professor Michael Prosser)
ID Code:	145480
Year Published:	2005
Deposited By:	Education
Deposited On:	2021-07-22
Last Modified:	2021-11-17
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