Nicola Simmons

Caught with Their Constructs down? Teaching Development in the Pre-Tenure Years.

Although there are programs to prepare doctoral students for how to teach in post-secondary education, the neophyte academic must still adjust to the specific context of a new position. This transition is often characterized by multiple adjustments and corresponding anxiety of moving from the familiar role of graduate student to a new one as faculty member. While the first five years is described as a time of stress and discovery, there are discernible patterns of growth and role integration during this period. This paper outlines how seven pre-tenure professors developed as university teachers. Drawing on Kelly’s personal construct theory and Kegan’s developmental constructivism, I describe developing a teacher identity as similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Outcomes of Learning

Against a background of increased globalization in education, and paralleling credit transfer initiatives and commodification of post-secondary education, there has been a trend (in the UK, Europe, Australia, and Canada, to name a few) towards the broad implementation of learning outcomes in post-secondary education. While the specifics vary, in general these outcomes are intended to articulate the quality of education an institution provides its students and what might be expected of these students once they graduate. This chapter is not a summary of the details of those initiatives; others (see Goff, this volume; Hubball, Gold, Mighty, & Britnell, 2007; Kehm, 2010; Nicholson, 2011) have done an admirable job in that regard.