How teaching academies promote interdisciplinary communities of practice: The Helsinki case

Figures & data

Table 1. Background information of the respondents of the two surveys

Cohort (Year)	N	Total number (Applicants/Members)	Female	Male	Academic position (four categories/ percentage)		Experience (years/percentage)
2013 Applicants	46	132	32	14	university teacher	13%	<10	5
					university lecturer, clinical teacher, assistant professor	67%	>10	67
					full professor	13%	>20	28
					Other	4%
2018 Fellows	52	80	34	18	university teacher	0	6–10	6
					university lecturer, clinical teacher, assistant professor	75%	>10	42
					full professor	8%	>20	52
					Other	17%

Table 2. Examples of teachers’ responses to open-ended questions related to their meaningful discussions about teaching and learning in the 2013 and 2018 surveys

Close colleagues	2013	“We design courses together, discuss and test ideas for alternative teaching methods with each other. We discuss the assessment of learning, whether exams can and should be replaced by other types of assignments and whether exam questions can be formulated in a way that does not test rote memory. You dare to implement new kinds of practices when the idea has been tested on a few smart people. And after all, teaching and learning are interesting topics.”
	2018	“(We talk about) teaching content, student involvement, new teaching methods, assessment, feedback, goal setting, teaching, coping, challenging teaching situations and challenging students.”
National and international colleagues	2013	“Teaching, teaching techniques, assessment, practical training and Europe-wide harmonization of education. All are important issues, and discussions always have had an impact on the curriculum reforms and implementation of education. ”
	2018	“Small and big things in a teacher’s everyday life, academic issues related to the content of teaching, big and long-lasting changes in the work and learning environment, coordinating the interests of different actors and finding solutions, national and international cooperation in one’s own field. Why? It is part of the work, on the other hand, I belong to the national and international scientific organizations whose tasks include those matters.”
Pedagogical experts	2013	“When you teach at a university, it is vitally important to achieve a theoretical background in teaching and learning. It has helped me to give students a rationale for the learning methods I have chosen and given me self-confidence … I discuss (teaching and learning) with other university lecturers in my own faculty and with the senior lecturer in university pedagogy … With the pedagogical lecturer the discussions are more theoretical since we have co-authored several publications.”
	2018	“We talk about everything between earth and sky. Teaching formats and methods, teaching techniques, assessment, learning and paradigms in general, … ”
Students	2013	“Primarily, I talk with students. They are by far the most important conversational partners. The students are SO smart.” “I talk to students about their thinking and development ideas, learning technology, and new learning environments.”
	2018	“I talk with my lovely and infinitely talented students about 80% of the time, 10%: with my wife (she is lovely too <3), 10% with some great colleagues, practically all of whom are Fellows of the Academy.”
Family members and friends	2013	“I have three children, all of whom are university students. They often bring me back to earth in terms of teaching and give me valuable perspectives on students” wishes, interests, needs, concerns and fears.’
	2018	“First, with friends who are active in my disciplinary organisation, secondly with students, thirdly with my wife, and fourthly with other friends who are interested in teaching and learning.”
Teachers’ Academy Fellows	2018	“Assessment, essay writing, digitalisation, finding suitable teaching materials, etc. Everything.” “At the Teachers” Academy, we talk about everything possible, especially in thematic groups about their themes. There is just too little time to get involved in everything you want. Then we talk about exam practices, essay writing, the Flipped classroom, workplace learning, entrance exams.’ “(We talk about) the non-existent opportunity for university lecturers to advance in their academic careers. The salary criteria are obscure and unfair. No merit seems to increase your salary, the fact that you are a docent, that you have been evaluated as being qualified for a professorship at two universities and have taken responsibility for the professor’s duties … ”

Figure 1. Teachers’ meaningful conversational partners at the launch of the Teachers’ Academy and five years thereafter, expressed as percentages of coded references in relation to the number of respondents in two qualitative data

Figure 2. In the 2018 survey, the Fellows’ assessment from their perspective, how well the Academy had achieved the goals set for it, reported as means and standard deviations. Rating scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = slightly disagree, 3 = neither disagree nor agree, 4 = slightly agree, 5 = strongly agree