Communities and scholarship in supporting early-career academics at the University of the Witwatersrand
通过问卷和深度访谈，研究了非洲研究密集型大学中早期职业学者在教学支持方面的经历，发现多数人入职时缺乏教学准备，且学科内支持多为自发而非系统化，提出实践社群作为制度化支持路径。
The present paper reports on early-career academics’ (ECAs) experiences of support for teaching in a research-intensive university in Africa. Through conducting a questionnaire and follow up in-depth interviews greater insight into how ECAs perceive and experience support for developing their teaching practice, is gained. Our analysis suggests that most academics interviewed began their first teaching position with no preparation for all that teaching involves. Many struggled to balance the demands associated with teaching and research, in addition to familiarizing oneself with institutional teaching norms and cultures. Almost all found support from within their discipline, although such support was incidental and spontaneous rather than planned. We offer the idea of communities of practice as an approach to institutionalize support for ECAs and draw on the scholarship of teaching and learning as the theoretical framing for this study and experience from a South African institution.