Impacts of three discipline-specific fora for discussing teaching and learning

We explore three examples of teaching-development activities that aim to promote discussions about teaching among academic staff across several Norwegian Earth System Science departments. The three events are a conference-like annual gathering of students and staff from across the country, a monthly Teaching and Learning themed Journal Club held at a large department with a wide range of research interests, and a monthly ‘Teachers’ Breakfast’ at a smaller, specialised department. We explore the impact of these events on attendees through self-reported changes in how they think about teaching and learning and their practices, and the indirect reach through discussions outside the events. We find that the level of self-reported impact corresponds to the scale of the events, and that the different events have qualitatively different types of impact. The annual gathering affects how teachers view students; the Teachers’ Breakfasts develop a departmental Community of Practice around teaching; Journal Club attendees develop a broader view of what it means to be an academic scientist through encounters with a different area of relevant scholarship.