雅思阅读测试卷.pdf

雅思阅读测试卷 TEACHING IN UNIVERSITIES In the 19th century, an American academic, Newman, characterised a university as: a place of teaching universal knowledge...(a place for) the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than its advancement. Newman argued that if universities were not for teaching but rather for scientific discovery, then they would not need students. Interestingly, during this century, while still teaching thousands of students each year, the resources of most universities have been steadily channelled away from teaching into research activities. Most recently, however, there have been strong moves in both North America and the United Kingdom to develop initiatives that would enhance the profile of the teaching institutions of higher education. In the near future, therefore, as well as the intrinsic rewards gained from working with students and the sense that they are contributing to their overall growth and development, there should soon be extrinsic rewards, in the form of job promotion, for those pursuing academic excellence in teaching in universities. In the future, there will be more focus in universities on the quality of their graduates and their progression rates. Current degree courses, whose assessment strategies require students to learn by rote and reiterate the course material, and which do not require the student to interact with the material, or construct a personal meaning about it or even to understand the discipline, are resulting in poor learning outcomes. This traditional teaching approach does not take into account modern theories of education, the individual needs of the learner, nor his or her prior learning experience. In order for universities to raise both the quality and status of teaching, it is first necessary to have some kind of understanding of what constitutes good practice. A 1995 report, comp