Encouraging Teachers’ and Students’ Innovation with the Support of Teacher Learning Communities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to share knowledge generated through the implementation of “Teaching Innovation Teams” as a strategy for teachers’ professional development and innovation at the University of Alcala (Spain). We analyse the contributions of this strategy to the facilitation of curriculum innovation in higher education and reflect on some of the achievements and results of the activities carried out by these teams, identifying the dilemmas and difficulties that teachers experienced and that hinder the development of curriculum innovations. Finally, we outline some educational contributions of Teaching Innovation Teams understood as a collaborative and formative strategy to facilitate educational change.

Keywords

• Collaborative learning
• Higher education
• Professional development
• Teacher learning communities
• Training teachers