Building Teaching Capacities in Higher Education : A Comprehensive International Model

This book is the culmination of three years’ work by teams from eight institutions in five different European and North American countries interested in developing and disseminating a more profound understanding of university-level pedagogy.

The purpose of the project was, first, to conceptualize what an internationally-appropriate, formal academic program for faculty development in higher education might look like, taking into account differing national contexts in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

The second purpose was to define a common curriculum, or core course with common foundations, for faculty and graduate students, based on a distributed learning model. This book offers practitioners around the world a framework and model of educational development that can serve a number of purposes including professional development, monitoring and assessment of effectiveness, and research, as they seek to meet increasing demands for public accountability.

Alenoush Saroyan is a full Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada. Her area of expertise and research is quality of teaching and learning, and pedagogical development, in higher education. She serves as a consultant to various international organizations including the World Bank, the European Commission, OECD, and UNESCO.

Mariane Frenay is a Professor and the Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Education at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven /Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. She is co-director of the UNESCO Chair of University Teaching and Learning and a senior member of the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Socialization, Education and Training (GIRSEF). She is involved in faculty development at her institution and at other European Universities.

James E. Groccia