The Future of University Teaching

Abstract

In this essay I reflect on what university teaching might be like in the

future. I first consider the context in which universities exist in the twenty first

century and identify some of the pressures for change that currently face

them. These include the changing demographics among students, the calls

by various stakeholders for increased access, quality and accountability,

and the rapidly changing technological environment. I suggest that a dismal

future would be one where university teaching fails to adapt to these changes

and I then envisage a scenario in which many of the changes already begun

through the SoTL movement take firm hold and transform university teaching

for the better.