Workshop: Academic development in Higher Education

Mieke Clement & Sari Lindblom Ylänne

Tempus Project Strategic Management of Staff Development at UniversityDubrovnik March 2005

Expectations

• What do you expect of this workshop?

• What questions would you like to be answered?

Our objectives

• Clarify current definitions of academic development and come to shared understanding

• Discuss issues with regard to academic development

• Reflect systematically on elements involved in designing academic development in your institution: objectives, target groups, organisation, evaluation of impact

Our background

• Research based academic development

• Scholarship of teaching

Definition of academic development

• What does academic development encompass according to you?

• Literature: staff development, faculty development, academic development, educational development …-> many definitions throughout history of faculty

support

Definition of academic development

• Academic development = all initiatives taken -both at the central as at the ‘local’ level- in order to support faculty members to fulfil their different roles (teaching, research, …) throughout their academic career

• Focus in this workshop on ‘formal’ training of faculty members with regard to their teaching

Designing academic development

• Think back of your ‘student’ time: what were the characteristics of the courses that meant most for you! How did they help you to develop your expertise?

• Report on the characteristics that were most powerful

Designing academic development: crucial issues

Objectives of academic development

• ‘Holistic’ approach (Brew & Boud, 1996)– focus on individual needs and career

development– focus on organisational needs

=> academic development = instrument for quality enhancement

Objectives of academic development

• Commonly accepted approach to high quality teaching in Higher Education: student-centred approach (<-> teacher-centred approach)– origins: new insights about learning (Shuell,

1988)– conceptual basis: teaching conceptions

(Kember, 1997)

Objectives of academic development: new insights about

learning• Learning = constructive, active, cumulative,

goal-oriented

• Learning involves 3 kinds of processes: cognitive, meta-cognitive and affective

=> The ultimate aim of teaching is to facilitate learning

Objectives of academic development: importance of

teaching conceptions• Teaching conceptions = specific meanings

attached to phenomena which mediate our response to situations involving these phenomena (Pajares, 1992)

• Two broad orientations: teacher-centred / content-oriented and student-centred / learning-oriented

• Relationship between conceptions, approaches to teaching and quality of student learning

Teaching conceptions and educational practice

Academic develop-ment

Change in beliefs

Change in practice

Change in student outcomes

Ho (2000)

Teaching conceptions and educational practice

Academic develop-ment

Change in beliefs

Change in practice

Change in student outcomes

Guskey, 1986

Teaching conceptions and educational practice

External source of information or stimulus

Professional experimentation

Salient outcomes

Knowledge, beliefs, attitudes

Personal domain

External domain

Domain of practice

Domain of consequenceClarke & Hollingsworth, 2002

Enactment

Reflection

Objectives of academic development

• What objectives do you want to set for academic development in your institution?

• Can you link those objectives to a (shared) view on what is ‘high quality education’?

• Would everybody in your institution agree with these objectives?

Target groups for academic development

• Who would be the target groups for academic development in your institution?

• What is their feeling about academic development?

• What would you do when faculty members refuse to participate in any training?

• Is it possible to link academic development with quality assurance or HRM-strategies? How? What problems need to be solved?

Organisation of academic development

• Types of initiatives:– workshops (stand-alone or ‘route’)– pedagogical courses– individual consult– bespoke initiatives

Organisation of academic development

• Criteria for success (McAlpine, 2003)– free participation – direct and explicit focus on learning and students– attention for transfer to practice + feedback– meetings to support transfer to practice – minimal 12 hours of contact moments spread

over 1 semester

Organisation of academic development

• Typology of Hicks (1999):– central– dispersed– mixed– integrated

• Which model would be possible in your institution?

• What would be (dis-)advantages?

Organisation of academic development

• Changes in teaching or assessment practices take place slowly and require a lot of work by the teacher. A lot of patience is needed from heads of departments, deans and colleagues and sometimes also from students. How to support teachers in their "academic development process"?