Teachers and staff

Engaged Learning demands of professionals at universities what is also demanded of students – learn, develop, look beyond the boundaries of your discipline, and use what you have learned to contribute to the welfare of society.

Academic staff benefit from enhanced teaching and increased learning opportunities, and enriched teaching practice through the use of more pedagogical tools as well as enhanced knowledge of communities and more impactful research. They can use their community engagement practice in their teaching towards their career progression .

Experience combined with openness to new things, it becomes clear, are important not only
for the students but also for the lecturers when it comes to new Engaged Learning
formats. Engaged Learning, it seems, requires teachers to be able to “constantly
react from your gut” like one lecturer says while another lecturer adds “that I trust
my work is the basis that it works.” The origin of Engaged Learning from experiential learning becomes clear when one of the teachers says, one needs “enough experience to pull something out of the drawer.”

One of the issues evident is the lack of incentives or rewards given to the staff involved with the initiatives from the university or otherwise. The benefits to both the students and community these initiatives are involved with have been demonstrated very clearly, but the benefits to the staff are less clear. Is the intense, and time consuming, dedication for personal fulfilment enough to keep an Engaged Learning initiative sustained; and further, what happens when those involved leave the institution?