title: Improving student learning on a midwifery education programme by using a benchmark course portfolio as a means of reflection and peer review.
abstract: The idea of scholarship within disciplines has long been discussed in the relevant literature. The concept of scholarship in teaching and learning has its foundations in Boyer's (1990) seminal work Scholarship Reconsidered. In this, Boyer made the case for teaching to be enhanced and made public and to be credited with equal weight as research activity within academic institutions. The activities of teaching and learning are truly academia's raison d'être however they get obscured in the mists of the importance placed on research activity. To this end it is vital that educators begin to critically examine their teaching to fully inform research and practice. One of the lenses through which this can be done is through the act of reflection. Reflection on action as a process first described by Schön in 1983 (Schön, 2005) necessitates not only the critical examination of what we do but also what are the underlying assumptions about why we do what we do. The paper outlines such reflective portfolio submitted as part requirement for Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. It examines student midwives learning using the reflective lens of the benchmark course portfolio.
authors.affiliation: Catherine Mc Auley School of Nursing and Midwifery, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland. mgt.murphy@ucc.ie
authors.forename: Margaret M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.forename: Cathy O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Sullivan
mesh_terms: D007858:Learning; D008880:Midwifery / Q000193:education*; D010380:Peer Review; D013338:Students, Nursing; D006113:United Kingdom