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LEARNING-CENTRED TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION 225
competencies show a more diverse picture. Although one of the most important and
perceived competence is teaching relevant and new knowledge, facilitating students’
learning also belongs to the most relevant competencies. The most problematic
area is supporting all students. Academics find it important to support talented
students’ development but supporting first year students’ learning or mentoring
are found to be less relevant.
Four different types of professional development practices were identified, from
which professional development as reflection and as sharing, developing together
with colleagues were the most typical ones. One of the key findings for designing
university teachers’ professional development programmes, is that all four PDL
activities were predicted by the concept of PDL as supporting students’ learning,
In contrary, the concept of PDL focusing on appreciation and strengthening
teachers’ role only influences PDL as research.
Study areas and teaching experience influence beliefs and experience in different
ways. While learning-centred teaching approaches and competencies as well as
professional development activities mainly differ by study areas, the more teaching¬
centred competencies and the beliefs about PDL vary by teaching experience.
Teaching in more than one study field contributed to more learning-centred
approaches. The concept of PDL focusing on students’ learning was highly relevant
not only for novice university teachers but also those who had more than 20 years
of teaching experience. Interdisciplinary teaching and focusing on both novice
and more experienced university teachers’ professional development should be
key assets for designing professional development programmes.
In the design-based research, four emerging designs for PDL of university
teachers’ communities were analysed by the aims, methods of learning and support,
and outcomes. Besides the difficult alignment of the aims of PDL and curriculum
development, the different designs showed that an effective learning strategy was
co-developing when university teachers and educational developers worked together
on a course design. Furthermore, a key new level of support was identified when
supporting PDL is not focused on the faculty or on the individual level but on an
intermediary level that is the wider community of a key course.