Editorial

Welcome to the third edition of Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PESTLHE). This journal offers an opportunity for those involved in University learning and teaching to disseminate their practice. It publishes accounts of scholarly practice that report on small-scale practitioner research and case studies of practice that have a focus on enhancement of student learning.

The main themes of this third edition are interdisciplinary courses and the impact on staff and students, the use of a range of learning technologies to support student learning and supporting the development of research skills by engaging lecturers in action research.  

Morven describes an interdisciplinary module in Science ethics and outlines many of the issues encountered along the way as well as the solutions that were proposed, and the challenges and benefits for the staff and students involved. Haigh, Dearnley and Meddings describe how they used personal digital assistants (PDAs) to support the learning and assessment of midwifery students. Following on from this, Draper and Maguire describe a study they undertook to explore the use of podcasting and MP3 audio files to support campus based teaching. Minty et al. report on a small-scale collaborative project to develop research capabilities in Further Education lecturers.

The articles by Morven and Draper & Maguire are examples of works in progress, i.e. work that poses questions or issues for wider discussions. The journal also accepts fuller articles (examples of these are in the first edition) which report on more substantial scholarship-based accounts of practice, the Haigh, Dearnley and Meddings paper and the Minty et al. paper are examples of these fuller accounts. There are opportunities to share discussions and comments regarding works in progress or full articles with other readers and the authors through the journal site (www.pestlhe.org. uk).

The next edition of the journal will be in October 2007. The closing date for submissions to be considered for the 4 th edition is July 15 th 2007. We particularly encourage papers from across the higher education sector. We are also delighted to announce that the April 2008 edition will be a special issue on enquiry-based learning. The deadline for articles to be considered for this issue is January 15 th 2008.

Jane Pritchard, Sarah Mann and Bob Matthew

Learning & Teaching Centre

Southpark House

University of Glasgow

Glasgow

G12 8QQ

UK