Performing good teaching: The front stage and backstage work of Interdisciplinary Working

Abstract

The UK higher education research excellence framework and teaching excellence framework both recognise Interdisciplinary working as a means of helping students prepare for employment and understand a broader range of approaches to problem solving. This has been accompanied by a drive to improve accessibility leading to increased use of flexible learning. The change to students funding their own education via tuition fees has led to higher learner expectations of the student experience.
This paper explores the interdisciplinary learning that takes place between staff when they work together to create and perform good teaching and the impact on learners when they begin to recognise and appreciate the extent of the ‘team behind good teaching.’ Based loosely on Goffman’s work on ‘Identity’ and the concepts of ‘frontstage and backstage’ work, the paper will explore the shift in culture to using technology enhanced learning approaches to enable staff to engage students in learning, maximise time in the classroom and create higher quality learning products to support collective and personalised learning. The paper will explore the tensions around understandings of learning and teaching and what it means to be a ‘ good teacher’ arguing that increasingly teaching is collaborative by design ( if not delivery) and the result of interdisciplinary skill sharing amongst staff working in learning technology and educator roles. This teamwork approach to learning is shifting the culture of approaches to learning to enable increased creativity and responsiveness to student needs.