There's no I in team: opportunities and barriers to team-based discipline-specific staff

and educational development

Dr Yolande Knight

Associate Director

GEES Subject Centre

“As Mr. Sloan always says, there is no "I" in team, but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "I" in meat pie. Anagram of meat is team... I don't know what he's talking about” Shaun Riley, “Shaun of the Dead”.

Working with the GEES community: a diverse approach• Individuals: funding,

publications, projects, networking, events, queries

• Teams: funding, team activities

• Departments: funding, workshops, event hosting

Projects

Opportunities• Flexible• Evidence of impact• Mentoring

Issues• Internal administration• Same old faces?• Project failure rate

Departmental Workshops

Opportunities• Flexible• Often a 'starting point' in enhancement• Provides 'time out'• Evidence of enhancement• Get high representation of participants• Low cost of engagement• Use of facilitators from the GEES community

Issues• Hard to capture indirect impact• Relying on host/facilitator dialogue• Quality processes• Problems of the 'three line whip'• Cost effective?

Departmental Projects

• Driven by each department• Flexible time-frame- 2 years• Initiated by a workshop in the

department• Serendipitous, but different,

outcomes

• Projects derailed by internal issues• Staff buy-in- at all levels

“Following directly from your continuing work with us on the team-based support pilot on assessment, we have been successful in getting two Institutional awards for learning and teaching projects. I would like to say that this shows a concrete achievement in terms of our collaboration with the GEES Subject Centre…”

Departmental Change Event

Opportunities

• Flexible, yet contained!

• Quick evidence of impact: real change in real time

• Mentoring

Issues

• Cost: money and staff resource

• Small number of departments

Departmental Change Event

Key features for success:• Inclusion of key stakeholders (e.g. students)• An ‘immersion’, away from work• Discipline-based • Pre- and post- support• Respected, experienced ‘peer’ supporters/facilitators• Development of a ‘team’

Departmental Change Event

“[We] meet sporadically face-to-face, but there is a good level… of contact. They still feel like a team.”

“…the project has continued to move forward because of the commitment of the individual team members and because it has been embedded in the curriculum from the start”

“It may no longer be a formal relationship, but it works. All are singing from the same hymn sheet”

What Impact Have We Had?

• Show me the money… KPIs• External Evaluation• Examples of Practice• Hidden impact?

“I have never been a great fan of this sort of activity in the past, but I have had my basic assumptions challenged, not only in terms of this particular project, but in terms of the event, and I have found it enormously helpful, and also in terms of being able to transfer to other situations. I don’t think you could ask for more out of the project than that.”

“It is essential that we, as a School, are able to collectively think about what to do about teaching sustainability. Your workshop provides us with the time, space and facilitation [to do that]”

“Developing successful proposals for GEES [SC] small-scale project funding gave me the confidence to develop bids for larger projects on e-learning. As a result, I have been successful in achieving three JISC projects over the last five years, and am now a partner in the GEES C-change OER project.”

Your Experiences

•What is your context?•What outcomes are you after?

Think of 3 opportunities and 3 barriers to working with departmental teams

Strengths Opportunities

Aspirations Results

Lessons Learned

• There is a ‘market’ for discipline-specific opportunities for L&T support: but the drivers have to come from within• Real, lasting change can be achieved, but it takes time and energy • There is a management overhead to keep things moving• Don’t forget synergies and serendipity• Don’t rely on ‘champions’, how can you engage whole departments?• Buy-in requires trust and recognised expertise• Ensure tie-in with other support within an institution, e.g. Drawing Offices, EDU, Careers • Context is King

http://www.gees.ac.uk

With particular thanks to:

Profs. Mick Healey, Carolyn Roberts, Michael Bradford and Pauline Kneale

The Institutions of: Aberdeen, Aston, Bath Spa, Glamorgan, Lancaster and Newcastle