Teaching and Teacher Learning (ICLON)

ABSTRACT Academic development is increasingly complex and multi-faceted, and highly contextual. This study investigates why academic developers do what they do, within a continuing professional development (CPD) context. This qualitative research examines how six academic developers value their engagement in CPD and highlights five desired characteristics that form the basis for conceptualising and enacting a holistic approach to academic development. Findings show that academic development practice embraces concepts of dialogue, adaptive expertise, and connected communities with an emphasis on engaging with the disciplines and the larger purposes of higher education, as illuminated by the desired characteristics to sustain its value.

ABSTRACTCentres for teaching and learning (CTLs) often play a brokering and supporting role in student partnerships (SaP), but there is little research exploring partnerships between students and academic developers. Our study qualitatively examined whether students perceived themselves as partners within a CTL, even though this was not explicitly articulated as SaP. Results indicated students perceived themselves as partners and developed transferable skills: professionalism, communication and collaboration, leadership, and research. Additionally, the benefits enhanced the CTL mission for teaching and learning. Our findings imply that meaningful partnerships with students and related benefits can occur in a relationship-rich context outside a formally articulated SaP program.

ABSTRACT Co-teaching and student-faculty partnerships are two approaches that independently facilitate significant conversations about teaching and learning. Written reflections from a module involving both approaches suggest that these conversations took place not only backstage (between co-teachers), but also on the front stage (with student partners). The interaction between co-teaching and student-faculty partnerships encourages the sharing of authority, resulting in shared decision-making (between co-teachers and with student partners) being a frequent topic of significant conversations. Our findings suggest significant conversations at the intersection of co-teaching and student-faculty partnership facilitate shared cognition and mutual trust and have important implications for academic development.

ABSTRACT As the higher education landscape changes, teaching-only faculty face increasing challenges to deliver evidence-based teaching through engaging with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). This transition from discipline expert to SoTL practitioner is often poorly supported and undertaken in isolation. We describe a faculty learning community (FLC) to support teaching-only faculty engaging in SoTL. The FLC was formed to provide a space to share challenges regarding scholarship and give practical support to engage in SoTL. The FLC successfully bridged members’ transition to SoTL, providing a sense of belonging to re-connect faculty and promote scholarship.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the nature of integrated networks of practice, and in particular, the important role of hubs within networks. Hubs are individuals or groups that energize cross-connections, improve knowledge flow, enhance learning across small clusters of expertise, and play critical roles in building and sustaining robust integrated networks. Three examples illustrate how group-based hubs can facilitate professional learning across naturally occurring significant networks. Drawing on these examples and scholarship in the field, we offer a comprehensive framework for cultivating integrated networks for teaching and learning, and highlight some of the lessons we have learned.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this case study was to investigate the perception and experience of ten new faculty member participants in paired teaching. Along with providing evidence for paired teaching as an avenue for professional development in higher education, the study provides experiential narratives of paired teaching relationships as an illustration of the process. Key outcomes of the study include: the value of peer-to-peer engagement for prompting reflection on practice and facilitation of instructor use of active learning approaches within the classroom.

ABSTRACT Globalisation and massification are creating significant expansion in the higher education sector in Asia and forcing institutions to professionalise their teaching. Merely implementing academic development, however, does not ensure improvement in teaching quality. We report an action research project, which demonstrated that the combination of teaching development through Teaching Advantage Global, alongside professional recognition through fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, significantly improved the teaching self-efficacy of academics in China and Hong Kong SAR. The results of this research demonstrate that professional development and recognition can support and evidence sector-wide strategic change.

ABSTRACT Over the past two years, four research-intensive universities in the UK have appointed senior academic leaders from academic development backgrounds, a new phenomenon in this sector of UK higher education that may suggest a changing pattern. This study interviewed these four leaders to explore what the appointment means for their academic identity. The interviewees identified internal and external drivers for change and noted their backgrounds as academic developers made their routes into these senior roles different from their peers. For this reason, their ‘academic credibility’ was critical in order to implement culture change effectively.

ABSTRACT Institutional approaches to curriculum development often privilege outcome over process. This paper explores the use of an adapted Change Academy approach, originally developed for teams from different institutions, to supporting teams from different disciplines within the same institution. The approach was evaluated through analysis of the experience of members of four teams, with data collected through a survey, focus groups, and the reflections of facilitators. We argue that educational developers supporting curriculum development should pay as much attention to the process as the outcome, and that a well-designed Change Academy approach can be effective in implementing curriculum change across an institution.