Learning outcomes of university lecturers from a process-oriented university pedagogical course

Abstract

Learning outcomes from a one-year long collaborative inquiry-oriented pedagogical training course for university lecturers were investigated in this study. The course was a long-term, process-oriented university pedagogical course with students from different disciplinary backgrounds, and it was based on the idea of a community of practice and collaborative inquiry learning. The focus of the course was designing learning environment, process facilitation and supporting structures, but the content was not determined in advance; instead, the students produced the content based on their experiences, shortfalls in their current teaching competence and knowledge, and also the educational development needs of their working environment. The follow-up data were collected through questionnaires with open-ended questions on different phases of the course; group electronic learning logs were used as complementary data. According to the results, the long-term collaborative inquiry-oriented pedagogical training achieved predefined learning outcomes even though the actual content of the course was not predetermined, and even went beyond them, especially in terms of empowerment.