From an individual to an institution: observations about the evolutionary nature of conversations

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how conversations among academics in a particular institutional context evolve, starting from the individual development of teachers and shifting in focus to institutional development. Results of our basic survey (N = 55) and semi-structured interviews with teachers (N = 13) who participated in lunch-time conversations on teaching and learning revealed that these encounters support individual academic development in several respects. Our findings also suggest that the evolution of conversations that are institutionally situated but distanced from the departmental context, may create a path to institutional change via collective learning.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Academic development
• communities of practice
• faculty conversations
• individual and collective learning
• transformative experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation [G-1805-05875].

Notes on contributors

Helga Dorner

Helga Dorner is associate professor and director at the Institute of Research on Adult Education and Knowledge Management at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Hungary. She is also visiting faculty and researcher at the Central European University, Vienna, Austria. Before joining ELTE, she was senior lecturer and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the Central European University, Hungary. She was lead faculty of the Program for Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education for Doctoral Students and taught courses in the fields of teaching and learning in higher education and the socialization of academics. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She researches teaching innovations, academic professionalism, and mentoring for teaching in higher education. ORCID: 0000-0002-9648-9992

Jelena Belic

Jelena Belic is a lecturer in Political Philosophy at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University, Netherlands. She holds a PhD in political philosophy from the Central European University (2018). Before joining the Institute, she held postdoctoral positions at the Center for Teaching and Learning/Central European University and the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Rijeka (Croatia). She was also a visiting lecturer at the Department of International Relations and European Studies, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest. Her research focuses on issues in the debates about global justice and the philosophical foundations of human rights. Her pedagogical research focuses on examining approaches to teaching critical thinking skills in social sciences and humanities. ORCID: 0000-0002-5984-6911