Abstract

SECO, Graça et al. Teacher training in higher education: the experience of Portugal's Instituto Politécnico de Leiria. Rev. iberoam. educ. super [online]. 2012, vol.3, n.6, pp.58-76. ISSN 2007-2872.

The Instituto Politécnico de Leiria (IPL) is a higher-education Portuguese public institution formed by five schools. The IPL's Service for the Support of Students (SAPE) aims to promote the academic success and wellbeing of students by developing its activities along three main axes: psychological and vocational support; psychopedagogical support; and personal counseling and support. Since research has highlighted the importance of the nature and quality of teacher's pedagogical practices in higher education in order to foster the academic success of its students, the SAPE has, since the 2007-2008 academic year, made some of the training proposals for IPL teachers more dynamic. With this article we aim to present the main objectives, topics, participants and dynamics in training actions carried out from 2007 to 2010. Altogether, 376 teachers participated in all five IPL schools in these actions, which were in general evaluated very positively.

Keywords : University teaching; teacher training; teacher development; academic success; competencies development; teaching methodology.