Embedded Teaching Practice in Higher Education Curriculum
Abstract
Institutions of higher education learning are tasked with the responsibility to drive initiatives, which are focused on areas that will enrich scholarship in the learning experience of different categories of students as well as to improve the institutions’ practice. This study sought to explore how academic teaching staff and learning development/academic-support staff can be more integrated and closely linked together so as to support the academic learning of the diversity of students within a business school in a UK-based university. The study draws attention to the perspectives of undergraduate and postgraduate students on an intervention (an embedded teaching practice) that was put in place through collaborative practice between the academic and the academic-support staff for the purpose of improving the quality of teaching, fostering active student participation, and promoting academic engagement in the students’ higher education learning. The embedded teaching practice, which provides an immediate advantage of embedding academic writing into the curriculum, offers every student access to learning development opportunities and provides distinctive benefits to students. From the collected qualitative interview data drawn from the perceptions of both undergraduate and postgraduate students, the study identifies themes that inform academic practice on improving the student learning experience and academic success.