When regarding the field of higher education there is no doubt the Swedish higher educational system has expanded enormously during the last 60 years and gone from being a privilege of the few to being within reach of many. This leads to that university teachers of today have to teach large groups of heterogeneous students. The lack of knowledge, especially of how theories and practice interact in teaching on an everyday and personal level is one of the greatest challenges for universities of today (Dall’Alba, 2009). In order to meet the new challenges many universities starts courses in for higher education. In this paper questions about what kind of knowledge the participants encounter in those courses is in focus. Another issue, perhaps more important; do they use that knowledge and if they do - in what way? The specific aim is to identify themes of interest to the participants in an assignment given to 32 participants in a course in higher education. The concept of  ‘direct oneself’ is used to focus on the aspect of intentionality, and the concept of direct oneself emphasize the tension between bodily-situated actions and conceptions (Claesson 2004; 2007, Bengtsson, 1999). In the first theme there are participants directing themselves towards their own way of thinking and acting as teachers, and in particular their own development as teachers. The second theme focuses on students’ learning and the third theme on teachers who direct themselves on teaching methods. The discussion wills among other things emphasis the papers written by some participants were there are references on learning outside Ramsten (1992) and focus on deep- and surface learning. The issue of situated learning and the importance of language are brought up with reference to Lave & Wenger (1981), Dyste (1996)and Säljö (2000) among others. This can perhaps be expected because it might have been discussed in previous courses. More surprisingly, references like Derrida and phenomenological research is shown in the writing on students learning. It seems as if in social science, art, as well as in humanistic, theories used for studies in the own subject can as well be used in order to understand and develop teaching and learning in higher education.