EdTA Reading List – Level 2, Fellow

Updated 14-September-2016

You will see that your submissions for the Edinburgh Teaching Award ask you to draw critically on relevant literature. We do not expect you to become an expert in educational theory or research but we are hoping that you will find ideas among the sources below which inspire you to try new things and provoke you to think critically about the readings and about your own practice. These are suggestions for places you might want to start but feel free to look more widely or to ask your mentor about topics which particularly interest you.

Introductory texts

Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university. 4thEdn. Maidenhead: SRHE and OUP. [Available electronically through the University libraries]

Fry, H., Ketteridge, S. and Marshall, S. (2009). A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: enhancing academic practice. 3rdEdn. New York: Routledge. [Available electronically through the University libraries]

Entwistle, N. (2009). Teaching for understanding at university: Deep approaches and distinctive ways of thinking. Palgrave Macmillan.[Available at the Moray House library]

Macfarlane, B. (2004). Teaching with integrity: The ethics of higher education practice. London: Routledge. [Available at the Moray House library]

Marton, F., Hounsell, D. and Entwistle, N., (eds.) The experience of learning: Implications for teaching and studying in higher education. 3rd (Internet) edition. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment. Available here:

Prosser, M. and Trigwell, K. (1999) Understanding learning and teaching: The experience in higher education. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. [Available in the Main Library, ECA Library, Moray House Library]

Ramsden, P. (2003). Learning to teach in higher education. 2ndEdn. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.[Available electronically through the University libraries]

Sambell, K., McDowell, L. and Montgomery, C. (2013). Assessment for learning in higher education. London and New York: Routledge.

Other useful introductory sources

The IAD provides a range of advice and suggestions about resources on different learning and teaching topics here:

The Higher Education Academy is a good source of resources about learning and teaching including subject-specific resources:

Relevant journals

Some of the more useful journals which cover learning and teaching in higher education are listed below. These journals are all available electronically through the University libraries. If you do google scholar searches within these journals that is often a way to find good material quickly.

Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education

Higher Education

Studies in Higher Education

Teaching in Higher Education

Some interesting reports and articles

Here are some interesting reads which might set you thinking. You will find almost all of these electronically through the University libraries.

Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning. EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 33-44.

Brown, J. S. and Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. Educause Review,43(1), 17-32.

Barnett, R. (2004). Learning for an unknown future, Higher Education Research and Development, 23(3), pp. 247–260.

Black, P., and Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice 5 no. 1: 7-74.

Cousin. G. (2006). An introduction to threshold concepts, Planet, No 17.

Crouch, C. and Mazur, E. (2001). Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics 69(9), 970-977.

Haggis, T. (2009). What have we been thinking of? A critical overview of 40 years of student learning research in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 34: 4, 377-390.

Hounsell, D. (2008). The trouble with feedback: new challenges, emerging strategies
Interchange 2, pp. 1-10. Available at:

Hounsell, D. & J. Hounsell, (2007). Teaching-learning environments in contemporary mass higher education. British Journal of Educational Psychology Monograph Series 11, no. 4, pp. 91-111.

Mann, S. (2001). Alternative perspectives on the student experience: alienation and engagement. Studies in Higher Education, 26(1), 7-19.

Larivee, B. (2000). Transforming teaching practice: Becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice 1(3), 293-307.

Nicol, D. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31 no.2: 199-218.

Northedge, A. (2003). Enabling participation in academic discourse.Teaching in Higher Education 8(2), 169-180.

Northedge, A. (2003). Rethinking teaching in the context of diversity. Teaching in Higher Education 8(1), 17-32.

Perkins, D. Tishman, S. Ritchhart, R. Donis, K. and Andrade, A. (2000). Intelligence in the wild: a dispositional view of intellectual traits. Educational Psychology Review 12(3), 269-293.

Reynolds, M. (2011). Reflective practice: origins and interpretations. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 8(1), 5-13.

Reay, D., Crozier, G. and Clayton, J. (2009). ‘Strangers in Paradise’? Working-class students in elite universities. Sociology 43(6), 1103-1121.

Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher 27(4), 4-13.

Lindblom-Ylänne, S.,Trigwell, K,Nevgi, A., Ashwin, P. (2006). How approaches to teaching are affected by discipline and teaching context. Studies in Higher Education, 31(3).

Macmillan, J., & McLean, M. (2005). Making first-year tutorials count: Operationalizing the assessment-learning connection. Active learning in higher education, 6(2), 94-105.

Taking things further

If you want to dig deeper here are some suggestions for further reading:

Archer, L., Hutchings, M. and Ross, A. (2003). Higher education and social class: Issues of exclusion and inclusion. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Boud, D. & Falchicov. N. (2007) (Eds.), Rethinking assessment in higher education. Learning for the longer term.Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Barnett, R. (2007). A will to learn: being a student in an age of uncertainty. Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Barton, D. and Tusting, K. (2005). (eds.) Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power and Social Context. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge.

C. Kreber (Ed.) (2009). The university and its disciplines: Teaching and learning within and beyond disciplinary boundaries. New York: Routledge.

Kreber, C. (2013). Authenticity in and through teaching: the transformative potential of the scholarship of teaching. London and New York: Routledge.

Land, R. and Bayne, S. (Eds) (2008). Digital difference: perspectives on online learning. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Land, R., Meyer, J. and Smith, J. (2008). Threshold concepts within the disciplines.Rotterdam and Taipei: Sense Publishers.

Lea, M. and Goodfellow, R. (2007). Challenging e-learning in the university: a literacies perspective. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Mann, S. (2008) Study, power and the university. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

McAlpine, L. and Akerlind, G. (2010). Becoming an academic: International perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Morgan, H. and Houghton, A-M., (2011). Inclusive curriculum design in higher education: Considerations for effective practice across and within subject areas. Higher Education Academy. Available:

Rowland, S. (2000). The Enquiring university teacher. Milton Keynes: OUP/SRHE.

Rowland, S. (2006). The enquiring university: Compliance and contestation in higher education. Maidenhead, Berkshire: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Saunders, M., Trowler, P. and Bamber, V. (Eds) (2011). Reconceptualising evaluation in higher education: The practice turn. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Edwards, R., & Usher, R. (2000). Globalisation and pedagogy: Space, place and identity. London: Routledge.

Usher, R., & Edwards, R. (1994). Postmodernism and education. London: Routledge.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Suggested (by EdTA participants/mentors) Readings from Disciplinary Journals or Web publications

Wood, WB (2009) Innovations in Teaching Undergraduate Biology and Why We Need Them Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology 25 93-112 [Available electronically through the University libraries]