QUALITY IN TEACHING THROUGH SELF ASSESSMENT

Students are central in the core business of institutions of higher learning. Due to the increase inter alia in competition, the value of teaching is increasingly becoming a determining factor of whether students will opt for one education institution or the other. This leaves teachers with a burden to enhance quality in teaching by reason of enriching student experience. This paper reports the exploration of utilising diary entries in conjunction with student feedback as means of self-assessment. These diary entries were started in the beginning of the semester, recording teacher’s experience with teaching materials and student reactions to the materials and teaching approach. Student feedback was also conducted during the course of the semester on different timelines: some at the beginning of the semester and some towards the end of the semester. The results reveal students’ attitude towards teaching methodology and the clash between course expectations and students’ envisaged experience. The paper argues that students’ expectations are largely influenced by past educational experiences, which they use as yardstick to measure success or failure in their current experience. Furthermore, the paper postulates that teachers’ frustrations are impacted by expectations that are matched against students’ experiences. The paper’s main conclusion therefore is that quality teaching stands to improve when course delivery and outcomes are a negotiated process, taking into consideration students’ experiences without compromising the envisaged course outcomes.