Towards a Template-Driven Approach to Documenting Teaching Practices

Abstract

An attractive approach to sharing knowledge in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is offered by Best Teaching Practices (BTPs), which results from the accumulation of academics’ experiences gained through years of teaching. Many universities still struggle in documenting, sharing and applying the knowledge gained by instructors. Low quality BTP documentation can deter the successful implementation of teaching expertise, and this can affect instructors’ teaching performance and may result in lower levels of learner achievement than could otherwise be achieved. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes a comprehensive and practical Computer-based Teaching Practices Management System (TPMS) for supporting the capturing of instructors’ BTPs. A design science research methodology was adopted in order to understand how instructors share their knowledge, and in order to map instructors’ behavior to system features. A mixed-methods evaluation of the users’ experiences of using the system has shown that the instructors were satisfied with the BTP Document Template (a key element of the TPMS) and were mostly positive about its attributes. The results of this evaluation were promising but also highlighted some drawbacks of the system.