The Role and Means for Tertiary Didactics in a Faculty of Science

Until a few years ago, university teaching of science was considered the specialists' private craft in Danish research universities. Excellent research remains the main parameter in young scientists' careers. But for the same reasons as elsewhere — including broader student populations and higher demands on efficiency of educational programmes — universities are increasingly preoccupied by the quality of their teaching, as are funding authorities. The notion of quality may be rather vague, and the means for improvement similarly unclear. This chapter is an attempt to analyze the potential roles and contributions of the didactics of science and mathematics towards the articulation and response to these demands for “quality teaching”. In the continental European tradition, we talk about the didactics of a subject (such as geometry or physics) when we refer to the study of teaching and learning of that specific subject, as explained by, e.g., Chevallard (1999a). Notice that the subject area referred to may be very specific (e.g., “Newtonian mechanics”) or very general (e.g., “(natural) science”), although it is often an institutionally established discipline (e.g., physics)

The pressure on universities for improved “throughput” manifests itself in numerous ways but primarily through a broad scope of “top-down” initiatives (see Horst and Laursen, Chap. 10). Political or administrative demands may or may not originate in genuine pedagogical considerations, and it may or may not result in initiatives that are helpful for improving teaching quality. However, if we leave it to the individual university teacher to interpret these demands, they may often be seen as unnecessary additional administrative burdens rather than helpful tools for improving teaching quality. Since the result of any initiative intended to affect teaching (or learning) depends, ultimately, on the actual educational activities initiated by teachers, un-mediated top-down initiatives are likely to have either no effect or even a negative effect, if teachers spend time on something they perceive as irrelevant extra administration and less time on students and teaching