Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in the United Arab Emirates: Reflections from the Classroom

Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in the United Arab Emirates: Reflections from the Classroom captures the endeavours that professors from different disciplines at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) have undergone to enhance the learning opportunities for their students. All the authors have deliberately chosen to approach teaching with inquiry and enthusiasm to do this. In every chapter, the authors take a scholarly, reflective approach to explain and examine the innovative techniques and methods which they have employed to identify the needs of the students in order to offer opportunities for them to better understand the subject material. Through topics ranging from introducing active learning techniques to examining the effect of technology on the learning process, the authors describe, evaluate and reflect upon their teaching practice. The fifteen chapters provide inspiration for teaching excellence by combining insight and experience to invoke enthusiasm for and dedication to outstanding teaching, and a commitment to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in institutions of Higher Education world-wide.

About the Author :
Cindy L. Gunn is the Director of the Faculty Development Center and an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the American University of Sharjah (AUS). She holds a PhD from the University of Bath, UK. Before joining AUS in 2001, she lived and taught in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Thailand, Turkey and the United States. Her main research paradigm is Exploratory Practice with an emphasis on how the teaching and learning process can be improved for both the teacher and the students through reflective practice. She has presented her research at international and local conferences focusing on educational leadership, educational technology, SoTL and TESOL in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

Review :
'What is particularly refreshing about this volume is that it is content-based and multidisciplinary. Most scholarly work in this field in the Gulf region tends to emanate from the TESOL perspective, and while often of similar quality, [...] the broadening of the playing field heralded by Gunn's book to include primarily content-based subject matter is long overdue.' - Kay Gallagher, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 11:1.