Developing teaching expertise is a contextualised journey

This four-part series of blogposts draws on chapters from the Routledge SEDA Series book “Developing Expertise for Teaching in Higher Education: Practical Ideas for Professional Learning and Development” (March 2022, Ed: Helen King). The book was the outcome of the popular international Expertise Symposium held online in October 2022, and features contributions from over 30 authors (videos of all presentations are available on YouTube). The second Expertise Symposium takes place live online on Friday 14th October with watch parties the following week. It is hoped that a second SEDA Series book will also published from this event. Take a look at the Routledge website for details of all 32 books currently available in the SEDA Series.

The first post in the series explores a whole-university embedded approach to professional learning and developing expertise:

---

Why do university human relations divisions continue to ignore the fact that professional learning and development of professional expertise – such as teaching – is not something that can be ‘delivered’ in short-term, atomistic activities? And that, if you really want organisational change, didactic, generic “training” is not the way to go?

While expertise in teaching may be a process that is accessible to all, professional development activities can be inaccessible to the very people needing to develop expertise. Often, professional development activities for university teaching staff are offered through central teaching and learning units, meeting governance requirements rather than the individual’s needs.  These programmes can seem to be too generic, irrelevant to those that they seek to engage and perceived a voice for senior management alienated from the trials of the classroom or the culture of the discipline (Trowler & Bamber, 2005, Roxå & Mårtensson, 2009). They can be limited to induction programs, ignoring the learning needs of experienced teaching staff seeking to expand horizons. They can ignore that learning to be an expert is a lived experience, embedded and constructed in practice (Webster-Wright, 2010). Most importantly, these types of programmes can fail to develop the expertise needed to meet long-term, systemic change or the immediate adjustments in teaching practices prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps one of the reasons for this situation is because, when designing professional learning programmes, it appears that the fundamental principles of curriculum design are ignored and the notion of didactic training remains.

We wanted to change the status quo when we came to redesigning our professional learning programmes at an Australian research-intensive university. Instead, we drew on seminal curriculum work (Laurillard, 2010; Fung, 2017) to develop a professional learning curriculum for all university teachers. We wanted a programme that would work for all teachers: from tutors to programme conveners, learning designers to clinical educators. We focused on recognising university teachers’ existing expertise and personalising participants’ professional learning (Keppell, 2014). A centre piece of this work was the development of a Teaching Expertise Framework that foregrounds teaching expertise as a continuum where it is possible for different people to be at different stages of development. The framework now outlines the learning outcomes for our professional learning programmes and as well as our recognition programmes. It has also allowed us to model personalised and learner-centred approaches, that offer relevant and authentic professional learning experiences; core aspects of our University’s vision for our students’ experience.

---

Associate Professor Deanne Gannaway is the Academic Lead for Professional Learning in the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, University of Queensland, Australia

References

Fung, D. (2017) Connected Curriculum for Higher Education. UCL Press, London. DOI: doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1qnw8nf

Keppell, M. (2014), “Personalised Learning Strategies for Higher Education“, The Future of Learning and Teaching in Next Generation Learning Spaces (International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 3- 21.

Laurillard, D. (2010) An Approach to Curriculum Design. Institute of Education, London,

Roxå, T., & Mårtensson, K. (2009) Significant conversations and significant networks – exploring the backstage of the teaching arena. Studies in Higher Education, 34(5), 547–559.

Webster-Wright, A. (2010) Authentic professional learning. In Authentic Professional Learning. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 107–142.

Possibilities for Change – Evaluating Academic Development

Academic Development is a straightforward enterprise.  The idea being that academic development interventions influence lecturers’ conceptions of teaching and learning and this in turn brings about changes in practice.  If these changes are representative of a range of pedagogic approaches that foster student-centred active learning, then this can impact positively on student learning (Gibbs, 2010). Job Done! However, despite this simplicity, evaluating it is a complex task and as a result the literature (and SEDA mailing list e.g.  Hancock, 2021) is peppered with debates about what and how to evaluate; and what value should be attributed to results. These debates have taken place against a backdrop of shrinking funding for pedagogic projects including academic development across the UK sector, which has led to confusion about the purpose of evaluation. Is it to save out skins? Or to evidence how, where, and to what extent our practice impacts on the student learning experience? Luckily – and as you are probably aware, these are the same endeavour. So why are we finding it so hard to do, and how can we do it better? Existential questions beyond the remit of this blog, but I do want to use this space to comment on three issues which if addressed could, perhaps make evaluating academic development less onerous. These are raising awareness of existing practices in evaluating academic development, challenging how we measure learning, and suggesting that we use other trends in HE evaluation to further our own agenda.

In terms of directly evaluating our impact on lecturers and triangulating this with institutional metrics there is some brilliant and very accessible work being done on data use by for example the QAA with Liz Austin and Stella Jones Devitt, and work that has specifically looked at how to evaluate academic development (Bamber, 2020; Baume, 2008; Kneale et al, 2016; Spowart et al., 2017; Spowart and Turner, 2021; Winter et al., 2017). Upskilling ourselves as part of routine academic development practice is a solid first step.

Whilst the sector is good at conceptualising how to evaluate learning it tends to be less good at putting it into practice. A cursory glance at in most in-house module evaluation formats tells us that. The emphasis on Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) instruments over those which capture learning gain, learning transfer, students’ behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement, and subsequent engagement in life long and life wider learning, means that we do not often have the right data to answer our own question. Creating awareness of these alternatives to SET is an essential endeavour because measuring student anything takes place outside of academic development units and so we need others to measure learning for us. This then should be core business via our PGCerts and in our sphere of influence across the institution. Once others are evaluating learning properly, we will be in a better place to evidence our own contribution.

The focus on evaluation as underpinning evidence-based practice is being laid at the door of HE in many ways. One which I see as offering academic development possibilities is the OfS Access and Participation Plan mechanism to eliminate inequality in access and participation in UK HE. This has brought about significant changes in how the sector creates, manages, and uses data on and by students. Within Universities data analysis for the OFS is evolving as its own enterprise as interventions underpinned by theories of change, iterative evaluation strategies carefully developed conceptions of value are put into place. These interventions are often modest but linked through different aspects of the student/university cycle. This sort of project offers academic developers’ opportunities to be part of institutional interventions advising on how learning is and can be embedded, the sharing the data produced – and a seat at the (often senior level) table where these projects are discussed. Evaluation of these projects is often innovative which can be adopted within our own evaluation practice, fostering creativity in method and dissemination.

With the financial pressures on the sector looking set, and the imminent reinstating of institutional TEF, generating positive evidence-based impact ‘stories’ continues to be important. So, let’s ask the right questions, get ourselves sat round the right tables and then shout our value loud!

---

Jennie Winter, Professor of Academic Development at Plymouth Marjon University. Her current research interests are teaching sustainability in Chinese higher education and decolonising curricula in non-diverse contexts.

References

Bamber, V. (2020). Our Days Are Numbered: Metrics, Managerialism, and Academic Development. Staff and Educational Development Association

Baume, D. (2008). A toolkit for evaluating educational development ventures. Educational Developments, 9: 1-6.

Gibbs, G. (2010). Dimensions of quality. York: Higher Education Academy.

Hancock, J. (2021) SEDA discussion ‘Evaluation of the impact of learning and teaching development’

Hughes, J., McKenna, C., Kneale, P., Winter, J., Turner, R., Spowart, L., & Muneer, R. (2016). Evaluating teaching development in higher education: Towards impact assessment (literature review). York: Higher Education Academy.

Kneale, P., Winter, J., Turner, R., Spowart, L. & Muneer, R. (2016). Evaluating Teaching Development activities in higher education. Higher Education Academy.

Spowart, L. & Turner, R. (2021) Institutional Accreditation and the Professionalisation of Teaching in the HE Sector.

Spowart, L., Winter, J., Turner, R., Muneer, R., McKenna, C. & Kneale, P. (2017). Evidencing the impact of teaching-related CPD: beyond the ‘Happy Sheets’, International Journal for Academic Development, 22(4): 360-372.

Winter, J., Turner, R., Spowart, S. Muneer, R. and Kneale, P. (2017) Evaluating academic development in the higher education sector: Academic developers’ reflections on using a Toolkit resource. Higher Education Research and Development. 36:7 1503-1514

The FFYE program: Enhancing inclusion with a community of transition practice

The First and Further Year Experience (FFYE) program at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia represents a sustained institution-wide approach to building an engaged academic and professional community. Implemented in 2011, its commitment to the transition, retention and success of students from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds has deepened inclusive educational practice and enhanced the student experience for all students.

Advancing Practice In Academic Development: Chapter 17

Edited by David Baume and Celia Popovic
Routledge – The Staff and Educational Development Series
Publication January 2016

You can order your copy here

Please add your comments!

Advancing Practice In Academic Development: Chapter 16 Academic development and senior management

Edited by David Baume and Celia Popovic
Routledge – The Staff and Educational Development Series
Publication January 2016

You can order your copy here

Chapter summaries and extracts will on the SEDA Blog over the coming months. (There may be small differences between these and the published versions)

Please add your comments!

Advancing Practice In Academic Development: Chapter 15

Edited by David Baume and Celia Popovic
Routledge – The Staff and Educational Development Series
Publication January 2016

You can order your copy here

Chapter summaries and extracts will on the SEDA Blog over the coming months. (There may be small differences between these and the published versions)

Please add your comments!

Advancing Practice In Academic Development: Chapter 14

Edited by David Baume and Celia Popovic
Routledge – The Staff and Educational Development Series
Publication January 2016

You can order your copy here

Chapter summaries and extracts will on the SEDA Blog over the coming months. (There may be small differences between these and the published versions)

Please add your comments!

Advancing Practice In Academic Development: Chapter 13

Edited by David Baume and Celia Popovic
Routledge – The Staff and Educational Development Series
Publication January 2016

You can order your copy here

Chapter summaries and extracts will on the SEDA Blog over the coming months. (There may be small differences between these and the published versions)

Please add your comments!

The University as Community: lessons from research

Recently I gave a ‘lecture’ in the college of which I am a part, a ‘reflection on my research, both quantitative and qualitative elements’. On the day, just 8 people came along, so in a lecture room that holds 500 that felt a little odd. Cosy though. However, whilst a tad disappointed, I reflected that this event HAD given me the chance to do some reading – on the philosophy of science; to dig out some pics of myself as a postdoc in Japan 30 years ago (below); and to reflect on the nature of the university. I also decided to try Slideshare, and I uploaded the slides (see below).

Advancing Practice In Academic Development: Chapter 12 Researching academic development

Edited by David Baume and Celia Popovic
Routledge – The Staff and Educational Development Series
Publication January 2016

You can order your copy here

Chapter summaries and extracts will on the SEDA Blog over the coming months. (There may be small differences between these and the published versions)

Please add your comments!