This book acts as a highly practical guide for new and experienced lecturers, learning supporters and leaders in Higher Education; and offers plentiful examples and vignettes showing how learning can be brought to life through activity and engagement. It offers numerous pragmatic illustrations of how to design and deliver an engaging curriculum, and assess students’ learning authentically. Sound scholarship and research-informed approaches to Higher Education teaching and learning underpins the myriad accessible and readily recognizable examples of how real educators solve the challenges of contemporary Higher Education. Additionally, guidance is offered on how to present evidence for those seeking accreditation of their teaching and leadership in Higher Education, as well as useful advice for experienced HE teachers seeking to advance their careers into more senior roles, on the basis of their strong teaching and pedagogic leadership. The book will be of great interest to students and researchers working in Education, and will be invaluable reading for both new and experienced lecturers working in HE institutions.

Investigate what it means to be an early childhood professional and acquire the knowledge, skills and traits exemplary early childhood educators possess! Written for those entering the field or striving to grow within the profession, early child care leader and author, Dr. Stephanie Feeney helps readers understand the nature of the profession, what it means to behave in a professional way, and where they stand in their own professional journey in her newest resource, Professionalism in Early Childhood Education: Doing Our Best for Young Children. She devotes chapters to moral and technical competence and explains what the terms profession and professional mean. Complete with self-assessments and first-hand accounts, Dr. Feeney guides readers in understanding what it means to be an educator who embodies the highest standards of professionalism in their work with children, families and colleagues.

What does ‘professionalism’ mean for teachers and trainers in further education colleges or adult education centres? Over the last twenty years, ideas about professionalism and professional identity within the post-compulsory sector have been shaped and reshaped by successive policies, standards, and professional bodies. Yet, these ideas themselves remain controversial and continue to be the focus of debate as well as research. This book gathers together a series of articles published over the last ten years, providing critical and research-based perspectives on professionalism within post-compulsory education and training. The twelve chapters that are presented here explore issues such as professional standards and continuing professional development and their impact on current definitions and frameworks of professionalism, as well as the policies that have shaped these processes. These are issues that are of relevance and importance not only to practitioners and researchers in the post-compulsory sector, but to anyone who is concerned with contemporary debates about what it means to be ‘a professional’ in education and training. The chapters in this book were originally published as articles in Research in Post-Compulsory Education.

Pathways to Professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care is concerned with a growing interest from policy and research in the professionalisation of the early childhood workforce. Illustrated by in-depth case studies of innovative and sustainable pathways to professionalisation, it recognises the importance of a systemic approach to professionalisation across all levels of the early childhood. The authors of this wide-ranging book share insights of professionalism from various European countries and suggest that professionalism in early childhood unfolds best in a ‘competent system’. This book considers a broad range of international issues including Continuous professional support and quality Early Childhood education and care staff with different qualifications in professional development processes. How personal attitudes and competence of educators are related to the wider system of competent teams, leadership, collaboration across services and competent governance From research to policy: the case of early childhood and care Pathways to Professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care is a crucial and fascinating read for professionals working in the sector and contributes to broadening views on what professionalism in early childhood can mean within a ‘competent system’.

Teachers from further and higher education are rarely considered together. This book explores the differences and similarities that exist between these groups. It provides an up-to-date account of developments and brings together arguments and debates about both groups of teachers to challenge some strongly held beliefs. Focusing on aspects of teachers' professionalism, Jocelyn Robson considers what 'professionalism' may mean and ways in which 'professionalism' has been studied. She goes on to consider: professional standards, training and qualifications professional identities and communities opportunities and strategies for professional development and renewal key debates in the literature and the most significant policy developments the main challenges currently facing the teaching profession in further and higher education.

This book takes a fresh look at professional practice and professional education. In times of increased managerialism of academic teaching and a focus on graduate learning outcomes, it discusses possibilities to teach and learn otherwise. A deliberate professional is someone who consciously, thoughtfully and courageously makes choices about how to act and be in the practice world. A pedagogy of deliberateness is introduced that focuses on developing the following four characteristics of professionals: (1) deliberating on the complexity of practice and workplace cultures and environments; (2) understanding what is probable, possible and impossible in relation to existing and changing practices; (3) taking a deliberate stance in positioning oneself in practice as well as in making technical decisions; and (4) being aware of and responsible for the consequences of actions taken or actions not taken in relation to the ‘doing’, ‘saying’, ‘knowing’ and ‘relating’ in practice. Educating the deliberate professional is a comprehensive volume that carves out and explores a framework for a pedagogy of deliberateness that goes beyond educating reflective and deliberative practitioners. As a whole, this book argues for the importance of educating deliberate professionals, because, in the current higher education climate, there is a need to reconcile critique (thinking), participation (doing) and moral responsibility (relating to others) in professional practice and professional education.

By reconsidering the nature of professional work, renowned scholar Douglas E. Mitchell argues for reconceptualizing educational practices and institutional structures in ways that facilitate and protect educator professional responsibility. This book explores ways educators and their political supporters can seize the social and political power necessary to accept professional responsibility for the design of their work environment. Chapters explore how unionization, ethics, public values, political power, school reform, and trust play an important role in the essence of professional responsibility in schools, arguing that we must use organization, management, and accountability mechanisms to encourage responsible civic participation and professional action in support of public education. This new text for graduate studies in teacher and leadership training frames a much needed analysis of where and how professional responsibility for public education is best incorporated into the work roles of teachers, administrators, and university scholars.