The culture of teaching is often individualistic. Pedagogical training concentrates often for educating individual teachers in higher education (Roxå and Mårtensson, 2011). Despite of this, university teachers would benefit for the opportunity to share their experiences with other teachers and to get support from their home institution teachers (Biggs, 2001; Roxå et al. 2008).

A co-operational and communal pedagogical training for all the university lecturers at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, was designed and conducted at the Faculty during the academic year of 2011-2012. The program consisted of four contact meetings with additional three small group meetings in between and working in Moodle environmentduring the whole training. Teachers aimed at improving their teaching practices in the small groups. Teachers produced a learning diary during the course and they were interviewed after the course. 

Teachers were very pleased with the training. The attitude of the participant teachers was positive towards the training. The teachers felt that they had learned new teaching and assessment practices and they had been able to exchange ideas with their colleagues. They felt that the co-operation between the teachers of the Faculty increased during the course. As one outcome of the training a handbook of teaching at the Faculty of Pharmacy was produced together with all the participants. The handbook consists of the best teaching practices gathered from all the discussions during the project and within the Moodle-environment.

Improving education at curriculum level needs co-operation between teachers. Thus, pedagogical training should include communal aspect and not concentrate only educating individual teachers. The success of this project was mainly due to the practical aspects of the training and working together to reach the common goal which outcome was the teachers' handbook.

This project showed us that pedagogical training including co-operational aspect works well and may increase the sense of community of teachers significantly.

There is an increasing need to improve co-operational pedagogical training for teachers in higher education. 

The planning group of the OAKK-project in Faculty of Pharmacy wishes to express warm acknowledgement for all the university lectures and other middle group teachers who participated in this project for their enthusiasm and creative ideas. 

Biggs, J. B. (2001). The reflective institution: Assuring and enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. Higher Education, 41(3), 221-238

Roxå and Mårtensson, 2011: Understanding strong academic microcultures – An exploratory study.  Lund University, April 2011.

Roxå, T., Olsson, T., & Mårtensson, K. (2008). Appropriate use of theory in the scholarship of teaching and learning as a strategy for institutional development. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7(3), 276-294.