Inspirational Teaching: Beyond Excellence and Towards Collaboration for Learning with Sustained Impact

Abstract

Within higher education, there is a continued focus on teaching quality, with teaching excellence often linked to the idea of engaging and motivating students. This article examines the concept of ‘inspirational’ teaching, going beyond notions of excellent teaching, and proposes that inspirational teaching is defined by being transformational in the sense that it has a sustained positive impact on student learning. By exploring current literature on inspirational teaching, including some literature on teaching excellence, four overarching themes are identified as constituents of inspirational teaching: knowledge and passion for the subject, understanding learning and knowledge, constructive and challenging learning environment and students as individuals, partners and colleagues. The practices of the inspirational teachers presented are characterised by their focus on student learning rather than teacher performance and so indicate that inspirational teaching is an outcome that cannot be reduced to a set of characteristics or practices. Finally, we conclude that collaborative and scholarly relationships between students and teachers underpin these four themes and are central to creating inspirational learning experiences.

Student perceptions of teaching excellence: an analysis of student-led teaching award nomination data

“…As in the work of Noddings (2005), students here perceive in their nomination comments that excellent teachers not only care for students as individuals but also develop students' capacity to care -for other members of their learning community and for their academic subject. In this way, inspiring teaching can be seen here and in the work of Jensen et al (2014) as going beyond teaching excellence through having a transformational, sustained, positive impact on students.…”

“…With the UK Government's introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the concept of teaching excellence, its assumptions and approaches to its evaluation have been increasingly debated (Greatbatch & Holland, 2016). Student perceptions of teaching quality, as measured through the proxy of the National Student Survey, are core metrics used in the TEF, although there is a lack of research on student perceptions of teaching excellence with exceptions including work by Bradley, Kirby, and Madriaga (2015) and Jensen, Adams, and Strickland (2014). By contrast, there is a wide body of literature on academics' conceptions of teaching excellence and academic quality in higher education (Astin, 1984a(Astin, , 1993Barnett, 1992;Kreber, 2007;Kuh, 2008Kuh, , 2010MacFarlane, 2007;Percy & Salter, 1976;Skelton, 2007).…”

“…This research is different from other, albeit rare, instances of research analysing student conceptions of teaching excellence. Other studies have been conducted either solely by academics and academic developers (Jelfs, Richardson, & Price, 2009;Jensen et al, 2014;Murphy, Shelley, White, & Baumann, 2011) or have been led by academic staff members with the participation of a student researcher (Bradley et al, 2015;Parpala, Lindblom-Ylänne, & Rytkönen, 2011). By contrast, this research has been conducted by one PhD student and one Masters student working with a Students' Association, and they have identified some instances where students and staff may interpret data differently (for example, see pages 20-21).…”

Inspiring English Teachers: Indonesia Tertiary Efl Students’ Voice

“…In conclusion, Jensen stated that inspirational teaching encompasses a number of things, namely that the teacher has knowledge and passion in the field he is engaged in, understanding his learning and knowledge, his learning environment is challenging and constructive and students are played as individuals, partners or colleagues (Jensen, 2014). Teaching English has different characteristics from other disciplines.…”

“…Inspiring teachings would not emerge without the creation of inspiring teachers; consequently, the teachers have significant roles in the teaching process. They have the ultimate role to build student sustainability (Jensen, Adams, & Strickland, 2014). The inspiring teachers also caused by the design of space of learning such school and campus where the learning process performed (Campbell, 2019).…”