Friday, October 26th 2018 PSH

This paper presents findings from the lead author’s PhD research, an investigation into how academics learn effective teaching, that relate to the impact of the workplace culture on their own learning. In line with Roxå & Mårtensson, culture refers to the everyday practices that develop habits and traditions, that will, over time, influence them towards certain behaviours. This ethnographic study focussed on nine academics, five from the sciences and four from health, at a regional Australian university. Data was collected over 18 months through multiple interviews and observation of a teaching instance with the academics, observing meetings at the School and institutional level, reviewing institutional policies, and interviewing Heads of School and learning leaders. A grounded theory approach was taken to data analysis.

The nine academics (levels A to D with between 8 and 35 years’ teaching experience) shared an intrinsic enjoyment of teaching, a commitment to student learning, and an approach that matched Åkerlind’s highest category of growing and developing as a university teacher. Their largely experiential learning of teaching was enriched with formal and informal learning from workshops or discussion groups organised by the school or university, discussions with colleagues, and to a lesser extent informal mentoring, reading about teaching, or participating in teaching-related conferences.

Workplace related factors reported included poor recognition of good teaching, unsupportive administrative processes such as timetabling and tutor hiring that impeded teaching initiatives, and quality assurance processes that could limit innovation by heightening fear of failure. Some of the academics viewed these impediments as a challenge that could be overcome with time, acting as Bereiter and Scardamalia’s ‘heroic’ teachers. These academics shared high levels of self-belief, self-efficacy in teaching, and connection with disciplinary experts. The less confident academics felt more constrained in their approach to teaching and reported a stronger impact on their development as teachers from support provided by their peers. Of these academics, the largest learning gains reported resulted from a change to practice, such as that required by a program restructure. Based on these findings we believe that building a culture for and of learning needs to incorporate strong recognition of good teaching practice, programs centred on changing practice, and promoting and enabling discussion of teaching practice.

 

 

 

Since the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance (Browne, et al., 2010), student tuition fees in the UK have risen to over £9,000. One of the consequences of the introduction to this policy has meant that UK higher education institutions have begun to focus more on their teaching practices and seek ways via research to better identify and engender quality teaching practices (Ashwin, 2015).

With the recent introduction of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) and its recognition of excellent teaching in higher education by rating institutions as gold, silver or bronze, this focus on teaching has only further intensified.

This paper reports on an initiative, termed the Educational Inquiry Network (EIN), introduced by a School of Education in a UK research-intensive university, in response to the changing policy landscape. We developed the EIN to provide a means by which staff from across the university who share a passion for education, could collaborate in the development of educative practices though research.

Building on this the broader aim of the Educational Inquiry Network is to develop an inclusive learning culture for teaching practitioners regardless of their disciplinary background, contract status or position. It is intended to enrich and inform the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conversation both within our own research-intensive university as well as to the wider higher education community.

The establishment of the network was by academic teaching staff from within the School of Education with the purpose to establish a learning culture of educational inquiry across the institution. There have been challenges as well as opportunities arise during its establishment and as it grows.

The recent move of the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education course (a requirement for all new academic teaching staff) from the Professional Development unit into the School of Education has helped the network grow robust connections with different disciplines across the university. As a result there has been a significant engagement from current PGCHE participants and alumni with the network’s activities has helped shape future developments and initiatives and how the network’s professional practice focus has helped their future teaching practices (Boud & Brew, 2013).

The Educational Inquiry Network has created a culture of learners and research practitioners and provided a firm foundation to this renewed more intense focus on teaching ensuring that this focus is sustained, enduring and highly valued.

The role of educational developers has been described as “helping colleges and universities function effectively as teaching and learning communities" (Felten, Kalish, Pingree, & Plank, 2007, p. 93) – a task that requires developers to navigate often difficult situations and issues that may be played out at various levels, from the global to the personal. Yet how exactly do we facilitate those conversations on our campuses to contribute to and sustain the culture of learners and of SoTL scholars we all seek in our institutions? A potential answer lies in a range of factors that the literature has yet to coalesce into a usable framework for educational developers themselves – whether as newcomers to the field, or as more seasoned developers facing new challenges and opportunities.

A framework of this sort matters to educational developers because our task is fraught with tensions. Many new developers, like new SoTL scholars, doubt themselves as they find that the “identity scripts” they learned in their prior fields no longer apply in their new interdisciplinary space (Simmons et al., 2013). They also run the risk of coming across as educational evangelists in a way that is experienced as paternalistic and condescending by academics who may be simultaneously teaching novices and research experts in their fields (e.g. Manathunga, 2007).

The framework is predicated on recognizing that “learning is at the center of faculty work” and that all academics are “expected to be master learners” (O’Meara et al, 2008, p. 26), as well as experts, if we espouse a “narrative of growth” rather than one of constraint (O’Meara et al, 2008, p. 19). Taking a “learner-centered” approach to supporting academics (Hutchings, Huber & Ciccone, 2011 p. 64-65) means building trust and sharing expertise in order to enhance a broader teaching and learning community, as well as applying knowledge about learning to work with academics who may be exploring new ideas or methods in their teaching and SoTL projects.

In this session, we share a framework for creating a culture of learners through dialogue between educational developers and academics, drawing on research from information studies (Hilliglos & Rieh, 2008), ethics (Cohen & Dienhart, 2013), and higher education (Whitchurch, 2013). Since developers typically convey “second-hand knowledge” to academics, the framework presents factors that we may wish to authentically emphasize or understate in a given context to support learning and conversation.

This paper discusses the impact of an 18-month professional learning initiative called the ‘Higher Education Learning and Teaching Research Program’ at an Australian, research-intensive university. The program aimed strategically to improve the quality of education by fostering scholarship of learning and teaching skills and expertise in education focused staff in the period 2014-7 and is based on a philosophy that developing the quality of teaching at university should involve SoTL (Mårtensson et al., 2011). Participants investigated an aspect of their disciplinary/professional practice. Throughout the program, they were mentored in groups by a senior colleague in the university, and at the end they presented the findings of their research to colleagues, encouraging both sharing and critique of the work – aligning it well with the conference theme ‘A culture that learns’. It builds on Boud’s arguments that approaches to professional learning and development in higher education contexts are more effective when undertaken in sites of academic practice which include supervisory relationships and professional networks (1999; Boud & Hager, 2012).

The program is currently in its third iteration. Qualitative methods (survey questionnaires and focus groups) were used to gather data from two iterations of the program. Themes in the findings included skill and knowledge development (of both mentee participants and mentors), confidence, perception changes of leadership and identity, increases in collaboration, and building networks across faculties.

Analysis of data draws on activity theory (Engeström, 1990), Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of learning as gaining expertise through peripheral participation in workplace learning situations, and ‘distributed’ theories of university leadership ‘dispersed throughout organisations’ within multiple layers (Ramsden, 1998; Gronn, 2000).

The findings are of significance to other universities facing the challenges of mass education and the session will encourage discussion from audience about their experience of similar programs.

 

 

The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and national league tables that include teaching metrics are raising the profile of scholarly teaching in the United Kingdom. This is coincident with a shift towards the employment of academics on teaching and scholarship (rather than traditional teaching and research) contracts. As a result, for a growing number of teaching faculty in the UK, the development and evidencing of excellent teaching has moved from a personal desire to a contractual requirement. Although perhaps problematic, the institutional definition and measurement of excellence in this context often involves innovative educational enquiry, enhanced student outcomes and crucially the dissemination of practice. In effect faculty are asked to undertake SoTL at some level and as a result awareness of SoTL, and therefore the significance of SoTL, is increasing. However, in many institutions structures to support the development of SoTL are not well developed and so for many academics the journey from disciplinary researcher to educational enquiry and SoTL is a lonely and arduous one; and in some cases not knowing where to begin may be a barrier that prevents starting at all. As two National Teaching Fellows who understand first hand the difficulties that our colleagues face we have developed an interdisciplinary programme of workshops grounded in SoTL theory to support their first forays into SoTL. Significantly these workshops are not delivered within a formal institutional framework.

Our initiative is based on a model of SoTL outlined by Kern et al (2015) and draws upon seminal work by Boyer (1990). Our objectives were (i) to introduce colleagues to a practical, theoretically based model of SoTL; (ii) to use the model as a framework for team-based, interdisciplinary SoTL projects producing tangible outputs; and (iii) to create interdisciplinary communities of scholars committed to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching through peer review and the dissemination of good practice. Participants used Kern’s model and peer-to-peer discussion to position their current practice and to set individual goals. They then worked towards those individual goals individually or collaboratively with the support of the group. Interviews with participants revealed that the initiative was a success in the short term (long term evaluation is pending) and through our presentation will highlight the successes and surprises of the project, and in doing so we will share the lessons that we have learned along the way.

If higher education teachers are expected to promote a culture for learning in their classrooms, they will benefit from appropriate professional development in which they experience a culture for learning themselves. An obvious place to do that is in the mandatory courses in university teaching for young researchers (PhD students, assistant professors, etc.).

This paper has a double purpose: First, it briefly outlines the recently revised teacher training programme for assistant professors at Aarhus University. The programme comprises four modules in the course of one semester (5 ECTS credits) and has been developed on the SoTL principles of analyzing the current state-of-affairs, proposing and trial-running changes to current practices, systematically evaluating the outcomes of the changes, and reporting on these outcomes to a wider circle of stakeholders in relevant local micro-cultures (Roxå & Mårtensson, 2015). Second, and most importantly, the paper reports on a study conducted among the first cohort of participants in this programme in the spring of 2018. The purpose of the study is to evidence the value of the changes that take place in participants’ teaching practice and – to the extent possible – in their students’ learning as a result of such professional development (Bamber & Stefani, 2016; Lauridsen & Lauridsen, 2018). Three datasets will be combined: (i) written reports on the individual teaching or supervision projects conducted as part of the training programme; (ii) the individual participants’ teaching portfolios, including student evaluations, developed by all participants as an integrated part of the programme; and (iii) a short survey with quantitative as well as qualitative data (text comments), conducted at the end of the final module. Triangulating the outcomes in these three sources will allow us to evidence the value of the training programme based on SoTL principles, and to evaluate the extent to which participants have adopted a culture for learning in their own teaching practice. A subsequent follow-up study will be needed to assess how pervasive the changes are in a long-term perspective.

Today’s media rich online environments enable us to connect with students in a variety of ways. These tools can support student success in teaching and learning at the tertiary level. Many universities use learning platforms such as Moodle, Blackboard, and Desire2Learn, which are supported by the institution and are typically used for academic purposes. While many of these learning platforms have features to connect with students and send them information, messages and reminders, social networking sites such as Facebook can also be used within university studies to support student success.

This presentation discusses one cohort of students and their academic mentor at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Australia. Recently the requirements for students who would like to be primary school teachers in Australia has changed, mandating that students must successfully complete one full year of university before transferring into the Bachelor of Primary Education (BPrimEd). The Bachelor of Social Science: Education for Change (BSSE4C) degree was therefore established to transition students into university and then into the BPrimEd at the completion of one year of study. The students in this cohort, already deflated by the government prerequisites, were unable to join a university-based online platform in the School of Education. Therefore, the aim of this project was to use a free access social media platform, rather than a prescribed licensed program, for the purpose of encouraging these students and providing them with access to regular support from their peers and university staff, creating a community of learners. The academic and a group of students were connected together through a Facebook group. The UOW Faculty of Social Sciences Strategic Plan 2017-2021 (University of Wollongong, 2017) states that we are trying to develop “future-oriented learning experiences that meet the needs of diverse cohorts” (p. 15) and that we do this by “connecting with and supporting students through all phases of the student life cycle” (p. 15).

This presentation discusses how the online community supported its members and encouraged the cohort through their first year of university studies. It has been co-authored by some of the students and university academics involved, and reflects an example of an inclusive online learning community.

Decision-makers and the public in general face a wide range of increasingly complex, dynamic problems – problems that change their state overtime, in their day-to-day activities. Hence, change is an important topic to teach. However, numerous studies show that the public at large has difficulty understanding complex dynamic systems and on how to manage these systems effectively and efficiently to reduce the severity of or avoid the problems. The difficulty of understanding complex dynamic systems arises from three sources: the structural complexity of the problems, our cognitive limit to understand dynamically complex problems and the effectiveness of the methods, techniques and tools that facilitate our understanding of dynamic systems.

This paper aims to address the following three questions: what are the characteristics of complex dynamic systems? How can we teach systems thinking? What kind of instructional methods, techniques and tools are available to foster systems thinking?

The paper presents the framework underlying the design of an online interactive learning environment for complex dynamic systems, including the rationale for the design and its research underpinnings. The design framework is discussed in detail, as are the three key domain elements of importance for the design: the instructional method, techniques and tool. A fading scaffolding instructional method adopted in the design is discussed together with the instructional techniques used to implement the chosen method – storytelling, repeated trial, intensive feedback & item branching. A web based instructional tool developed to integrate the chosen method and techniques is also presented. The general structure of the learning environment, its online delivery and its assessment strategies are described, including user interface and feedback formats employed. The distributions of tasks and items by problem nature and context, and according to cognitive process are specified. Sample learning tasks and items are presented with commentary, including an illustration of how students’ log on data (captured by the online-delivery system) is used to evaluate their understanding of complex dynamics systems. Results of surveys, which were conducted to assess students’ affective domains, are also included in the paper.

Over the last decade, online education has risen in popularity and demand (Allen & Seaman, 2017). Students have been attracted to online learning for its flexibility and accessibility and many return to graduate studies after establishing careers in the workforce. Professional students bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the academic environment; however, these students can also have trouble balancing the academic demands with their other roles as employee, parent, spouse, etc. (Bedewy & Gabriel, 2015). Informal feedback from students in two graduate educational psychology programs has suggested that unexpected events often hinder academic engagement and interfere with task completion and depth of inquiry, which have led to poorer quality of work when faced with a deadline that is inflexible. To address this problem, this study examined the effect of a late bank strategy in four online educational psychology courses. During the term, master’s students could hand in one of two major assignments up to 5 days late without penalty. This late bank was an opportunity for students who needed extra time to delve deeper into the material, to engage more thoroughly in the task, and to ultimately feel more confident in their mastery of the course material. The goal of the study was to examine (a) if the implementation of the late bank reduced students’ stress and improved self-efficacy regarding assignment completion, and (b) how the late bank affected the student-instructor relationship. Results found the late bank reduced student stress, improved self-efficacy and positively affected their relationship with their instructor. Students reported that their assignments were of better quality and requested the late bank be used in future courses. We view the late bank as one strategy instructors can easily incorporate into their teaching to promote a culture of learners. In addition to reducing stress and improving relationships between students and the instructor, it requires no training to implement and places few time demands on instructors.

 

This presentation describes approaches to building an institution-wide assessment network aimed at developing and assessing cognitive skills in undergraduate education with particular emphasis on the role of discipline-specific “assessment facilitators”. In the Cognitive Assessment Redesign (CAR) project, assessment facilitators supported five disciplinary clusters: humanities, social sciences, sciences, health sciences, and engineering. The twenty-five instructors in the project identified an assessment initiative based on their goals for the course and student need. The research design was informed by research showing that assignment tasks need to align with intended outcomes (“On Solid Ground,” 2017), and that instructors need to be involved in assessing student learning (Rhodes, 2011). The assessment facilitators supported the development of authentic, problem-based tasks (Ashford-Rowe, Herrington, & Brown, 2014).

Supported by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, a central goal of the CAR research is to align course-based assessment materials with the dimensions and criteria from the “Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education Rubrics” (VALUE rubrics) (Rhodes & Finley, 2013), to validate the course assessment and to aggregate data across the institution. Results demonstrate that the network approach was instrumental in building capacity towards long-term institutional culture change and the development of sustainable assessment of cognitive skills. Assessment results have been further validated through rank-order comparison with a standardized test called HEIghten (Liu, 2011). Instructors have strongly stated the benefits of support from assessment facilitators, change has been evidenced through pre and post instructor surveys. Presenters will engage session participants in a discussion around the feasibility of this type of initiative at their institutions.

Most courses in Norwegian universities use classroom time almost exclusively for information delivery and the final written examination for information retrieval. Most research on student learning, however, demonstrates that student learning is maximized by the constructive alignment of content, instructional methods, and assessment practices with the intended learning outcomes. Research also shows the importance of thoughtful and constructive feedback on student performance throughout the learning process.

In order to begin addressing this discrepancy between utilized and effective teaching and learning practices, the University of Bergen is implementing an initiative to help instructors redesign their courses to employ more authentic and educative assessment methods. This project aims to systematically redesign the assessment plans and practices in over twenty courses from across the University’s disciplines. The redesign is informed primarily by integrated course design (Fink), constructive alignment (Biggs), and strategies for student engagement and learning assessment (Barkley), as well as the concept of “assessment for learning” (Stiggins).

The project also involves the systematic evaluation of these course redesigns, primarily consisting of SoTL-style examinations of student performances in response to these new teaching and assessment strategies (McKinney; Bernstein et al.; Savory et al.; Hutchings et al.), but will also include other types of analysis based on discourse analysis and learning analytics.

On top of the course redesigns, the project is in the process of quantifying perceived and actual barriers for education development, from rules and regulations, effective use of teaching resources and holistic program design. These efforts will result in a set of universal guidelines in how effective teaching and learning practices can be implemented in the scope of the rules and regulations currently enforced at the University, as well as highlighting the major barriers that limit student learning at the course level and in terms of long-term intellectual development.

The session will outline how the project is being implemented and also present the considerable amount of preliminary data that will be available by the time of the conference. Key takeaways from the presentation are insight into how to adapt and apply pedagogically proven teaching and learning methods in the framework of the Norwegian/European higher education system, short and long team efforts for institutional change and renewal, and how to increase awareness for innovative assessment practices and constructive alignment.

The goal of this session is to elicit feedback on social interactions and their perceived relationship to changes in assessment practices. Despite a myriad of reports recommending change to assessment practices (Beneitone et al., 2007; González, Wagenaar, & others, 2003; Jankowski, Hutchings, Ewell, Kinzie, & Kuh, 2013; Tremblay, 2013), there has been resistance to change (Deneen & Boud, 2014). The need for consistency is one of the recommendations, but variability between assessment methods presents a challenge (Hathcoat, Penn, Barnes, & Comer, 2016), and instructors generally lack specific training in assessment (Hutchings, 2010). Research conducted by Kuh, Jankowski, Ikenberry, & Kinzie (2014), suggests that instructor interest in improving student learning is the fourth most important trigger for improvement in assessment.

Episodic narrative interviews were conducted, with a purposeful sample of instructors from a range of disciplines at one institution (phase 1), to investigate the phenomenon of change in approaches to assessment. Participants were prompted to describe changes to assessment, and then reflected on the role that significant social conversations (Roxa & Martensson, 2009) played in that experience. The rationale for this approach was to navigate the meta-awareness of social relationships as participants reflected on their assessment practices and considered potential thresholds for change. In addition to the interviews, participants graphically represented their network groups, to help substantiate the significance of relationships within professional networks. Interim findings from the first phase of data collection will be presented, and approach tendencies to new assessment practices investigated. Session attendees will be invited to provide critical feedback on the methods. They will also engage in reflective discussion on the similarities and differences between institutional and national contexts.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship in supporting this research.

While universities strive to achieve environments that support and include diverse student and staff cohorts, the reality often falls short. Gender equity in this environment has become critical as, in recent years, the rate of women enrolling in tertiary education has begun to surpass that of men (European Union, 2012). While this has led some to name a current trend of ‘feminisation’ in the sector, “[women] still face horizontal and vertical segregation as well as a severe underrepresentation... in managerial [e.g., professorial] positions” (Klein, 2016, p. 149). This, and our own experiences as practitioners and scholars in student-staff partnership, inspired us to design a panel that explicitly addresses the conference theme ‘inclusive learning cultures’ by exploring the role of gender and gender inclusivity in higher education in and through student-staff partnership.

Engaging students through student-staff partnership in higher education teaching and learning processes, including the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), is an approach that has seen rapid uptake across international contexts. Research exploring such practices increasingly finds that student-staff partnership is one approach to student engagement that makes the inclusion of diverse and often marginalised voices core to high education teaching and learning processes (e.g., Bovill et al., 2016; Cook-Sather & Agu, 2013). It has been argued that, with widespread uptake, such practices could move universities toward developing inclusive learning cultures both within and among institutions (e.g., Matthews et al., 2018; Healey et al., 2014). This panel will respond to these findings by exploring specifically the role of gender and gender inclusivity in and through student-staff partnership, addressing the conference theme/question: What does teaching and learning look like when (gender) inclusivity is not an add-on but core to our practices?

To kick off this panel, original research will be presented by the panel chairs as a focal point for panel discussions. This research was conducted in transnational student partnership by the three students on the panel. Adopting a feminist lens, it explores the nature of gender in the authorship of partnership scholarship. Data were collected by analysing the gender of authors of partnership research across six higher education journals over the past five years, ultimately analysing 211 articles focussing on student-staff partnership. Across all articles analysed, 70% of all authors (N = 512) were women and 76% of articles had a woman as a first author. Results also showed differences in the ratios of gender authorship by article type. For example, women were more likely to author reflective essays (83%) than research articles (70%).

These percentages are much higher than comparative studies in other fields such as STEM, which suggests that partnership can be seen to create ‘sites of resistance’ within which the patriarchal norms of academic publishing may be countered. Arguably, this has the potential to shift traditionally masculinist notions of knowledge creation and expertise toward a learning culture of greater inclusivity and diversity. This over-representation of women in student-staff partnership scholarship reflects similar findings from previous studies in related fields including SoTL and educational development (e.g., Bernhagen & Gravett, 2016; McKinney & Chick, 2010). These fields, along with partnership, arguably focus on the delivery of a service whose main activities require care and emotional labour. This focus, as Bernhagen & Gravett (2016) argue, has led to the marginalisation of such roles in higher education through the well-documented and common “devaluing of women and their labor” (p. 1). These results are surprising, illuminating, as well as potentially problematic and controversial thus providing a foundation for stimulating discussion.

The panel composition, including chairs and panelists, will enact an ethos of partnership. As such, the panel will be comprised of three students and three faculty from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and different international contexts including Australia, the UK, the USA, and Canada. The session itself will be similarly collaborative. Chairs will adopt a feminist pedagogy to “engage [participants’] subjective experiences, encourage interaction, and treat knowledge as an ever-evolving, mutually developing process” (Bell, 1993, p. 108) among panelists and audience members as we come to interpret and make sense of the research and subsequent implications for higher education together.

Following a brief presentation of the original research, panelists and audience members will be invited to respond to, interpret, and discuss the findings in ways that draw on the diverse expertise in the room. The session will engage panelists and audience members in dialogue to grapple collaboratively with questions of gender diversity, notions of valuing diverse expertise, and integrating inclusivity in teaching and learning in higher education. The session will focus on praxis to build participants agency to connect panel discussions to future action. By the end of the session, participants will have gained an understanding of how feminist pedagogy can be used to frame, inform, and critique partnership in higher education, and through their responses to and interpretations of the panel, reflected on the role that gender may play in their own teaching and learning processes.

PANEL COMPOSITION

Chairs:

Lucy Mercer-Mapstone: PhD Student and Endeavour Research Fellow, University of Queensland, Australia (Organizer)

Anita Acai: PhD Student, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada and Student Partner at the Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

Panelists:

Rachel Guitman: Undergraduate Student, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada and Student Partner at the Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Catherine Bovill, Senior Lecturer in Student Engagement, Institute for Academic Development, University of Edinburgh, UK

Dr. Beth Marquis: Assistant Professor (Arts & Science Program and School of the Arts) and Associate Director (Research) of the Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Peter Felten: Professor (History), Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning, and Executive Director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University, Elon, North Carolina, USA

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Taught programmes for teachers in higher education have been embedded in UK universities since the Dearing report recommended that all staff should be “trained on accredited programmes” (Dearing 1997, recommendation 47). UK universities now usually require staff who are new to teaching to achieve professional recognition of their teaching abilities as part of their induction requirements. This may be done through a PostGraduate Certificate (PGC, approximately one-third of a Masters’ degree) or through Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. These programmes are designed to be specific to the university where the teacher is employed, but have national recognition as they are usually linked to Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

The overall aims of such courses have been to embed a culture of professional development around teaching, to improve the quality of higher education teaching and to disseminate knowledge about SoTL across universities more effectively. The impact of the courses is difficult to judge; many other aspects of higher education have changed during this period of time. Several authors have explored the challenges of engagement with teacher education programmes in universities (see, for instance, Gibbs, Knapper et al., 2008; Quinn, 2012; Deaker, Stein et al., 2016), and some work has been done on short-term effects (Butcher and Stoncel, 2012) and longer-term effects (Stewart, 2014) on the individual. These studies have been relatively small in scale; we decided to explore participants’ perceptions of what is learned on these programmes and whether or not this has a longer-term impact on their professional practice as teachers.

In this paper, we report on a project to survey successful graduates from PGC programmes in four different UK universities to find out what impact the courses had had on their practice over time. Requests to complete an online questionnaire were sent out to 495 teachers who had graduated from the four universities in the previous three years, asking a range of questions about their experiences of the courses and their perceptions of its impact on their practice and on their subsequent careers. 174 responses were received (34% response rate). The survey asked a range of questions about participants' perceptions of the courses in relation to their current practice.

This paper presents the main findings from the survey as they relate to SoTL, and makes proposals about how these findings may be used to support the culture of learning about the scholarship of teaching in universities.

The first years in academia can be challenging in many ways. While academics are often well prepared for the research role, many of them have little or no formal preparation for the teaching role (Kane, Sandretto, & Heath, 2002; Knight, 2002), and for many, the first teaching tasks may even come as a surprise (Murtonen & Vilppu, under review). University teachers’ teaching skill development has mostly been their own responsibility since participating in university pedagogical courses has been voluntary and many universities have no support systems for university teachers’ professional development (Remmik & Karm, 2012). However, the quality of higher education teaching is currently getting more attention in Europe. For example the European Commission highlights the importance of improving the status and quality of teaching which has traditionally been less valued than research output (COM, 2016). If there is a lack of pedagogical support, new teachers may end up copying their former teachers’ teaching style (Knight, 2002) despite knowing that it might not be the best way to promote student learning.

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of recently developed, online university pedagogy courses (Laato, Salmento & Murtonen, 2018) on university teachers’ and doctoral students’ interpretations of video clips of teaching-learning situations. A pretest-posttest design was utilized, in which the participants (N = 66) answered a questionnaire consisting of background information and open-ended questions of two short videos of imaginary lecture situations both before and after participating in one to three online university pedagogy courses (1 ECTS each). During the course(s), the participants studied self-study materials, wrote an essay and commented on each other’s essays in small groups online. The answers concerning the videos were classified into content-focused and learning-focused (see e.g., Postareff & Lindblom-Ylänne, 2008). The analyses showed that participants’ interpretations of the videos changed to a more learning-focused direction from pretest to posttest (Video 1: Z = -2.33, p < .05; Video 2: Z = -3.74, p < .00). Thus, it seems that even a short intervention might have an effect on interpretations of teaching-learning situations, at least when the participants are relatively novice in their teaching. By offering pedagogical studies already for new or future faculty, the old convention of novice teachers performing their first teaching tasks without any pedagogical support could be changed. This would help in generating a culture for learning and promoting meaningful teaching and learning across departments.

This paper explores how the implementation of an innovative certificate program impacted approaches to teaching of multi-disciplinary faculty and generated interest in faculty professional development across the university community. Most university faculty have subject expertise but little prior training about different approaches to teaching or how to design a learning experience that promotes student engagement and deep learning. The primary goal of the certificate program was to enhance the student learning experience by providing professional development for faculty around teaching and learning. A secondary goal of the program was to promote a learning culture among faculty across the institution.

Evidence supports the notion that teachers’ approaches to teaching impact student approaches to learning; this, in turn, influences student achievement of learning outcomes. In this session we discuss the results of data collected between Aug. 2017 – June 2018 from cross-disciplinary faculty (Schools of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Arts and Sciences) who participated in a professional development program. Attitudinal change in approaches to teaching was measured by pre and post completion of the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) (Trigwell and Prosser, 2004). Behavioural change was measured by a qualitative analysis of the post session tasks.

Historically, many professional development programs for faculty have focused on ‘instructional skills’ in content delivery vs guiding faculty to fundamentally ‘rethink’ their approaches to teaching. In the design and implementation of this program, active, task-based, face to face sessions, combined with post-workshop activities provided a concrete way for faculty to ‘re-think’ their approaches to teaching and incorporate changes to their course design and delivery that would promote ‘deep’ vs ‘surface’ learning. Two frameworks were used in the design and delivery of the program: an ‘Outcomes Based Approach to Student Learning’ (OBASL) combined with ‘T-5’, a Task-Based model of course design (Salter et al, 2004). The data analysis for the research project combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate ATI scores that measured attitudinal change and narrative data collected through the task analysis to assess behavioural change.

Our session will incorporate time for reflection and discussion by the participants as we collaboratively: a) consider how this program differs from typical faculty development programs b) discuss our research findings that showed a shift in approaches to teaching c) describe how the program generated interest across this institution and d) discuss how the concepts might be applied at their own institution.

No challenge in education is more pressing than helping students learn to gain the cognitive tools they will need to deal effectively with those who differ from them in culture, ethnicity, race, gender, and class. In this workshop, we will explore how the Decoding the Disciplines model can be used in numerous disciplines to provide students with the cognitive and emotional skills needed to bridge these forms of cultural difference.

To help participants who are unfamiliar with Decoding, the session will begin with a brief introduction to the ways in which the Decoding process has been used in the past to identify bottlenecks to learning and help students get past these obstacles through iterations of modeling disciplinary practice, practicing these skills, and formative feedback. The session will explore how Decoding is being expanded to include emotional bottlenecks, such as the reluctance of students to seek to understand the perspectives of people who are different from themselves. And it will consider some conceptual and methodological challenges faced by the Decoding process when applied to inter- and cross-disciplinary issues, such as diversity and intercultural understanding: How do we define diversity bottlenecks? What kind of mental operations are appropriate? How do we model and practice these? How do we assess them?

Then the presenters will describe two efforts to use this approach to increase students’ ability to deal with diversity. In the first case, a historian will show how the identification of crucial mental operations required to understand different cultural perspectives led to the creation of a course that modeled these processes, gave students a chance to practice them through Just-in-Time-Teaching exercises, and assessed the results. A second presentation, done by two collaborating scholars, will share how the Decoding paradigm was systematically employed in four European higher-education institutions to increase understanding of diversity in relation to curriculum content, student and faculty diversity, and institution/community partner relationships.

The final third of the workshop will be devoted to brainstorming in small groups about how the Decoding process can be applied to issues of diversity in a variety of situations.

 

 

Creating a culture of student-centred learning at any institution involves work at many different levels across a range of socio-cultural systems, including "small significant networks" (Roxå & Mårtensson, 2009) and "in the dyadic interactins between 'local leaders' at the meso level and those in micro-level networks" (Verwood & Poole, 2016). Fostering such a culture is a long-term undertaking; it does not simply emerge from one classroom, workshop, or program. Indeed, it is better conceived of as a complex ecosystem that encompasses all activities at an institution of higher education.

An important element of this ecosystem is scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), the goal of which is to improve learning (McKinney, 2007; Poole & Simmons, 2013; Treml & Dickson, 2013). Cultivating interest in and appreciation for SoTL throughout an institution’s ecosystem can and should happen in a variety of ways so as to engage as wide an audience as possible since “faculty are most influenced by colleagues within their close, significant networks such as departments and workgroups” (Miller-Young et al., 2017).

But as a result of the various stakeholders and approaches involved, it is challenging to assess the health of an institution’s learning ecosystem and determine how to strengthen it. As such, this interactive workshop will offer participants an opportunity first to reflect on and document the achievements made at their institutions and then, through sharing and discussion, assess how to leverage those achievements to enhance their learning ecosystems even further. This will be accomplished through a mapping activity using the micro-meso-macro-mega framework (Weston et al., 2008) for capturing the impact of SoTL work, which has been adopted and expanded on by numerous others (see, for example, Poole & Simmons, 2013; Simmons, 2008 and 2016; Roxå & Mårtensson, 2012; Williams et al., 2013).

The learning outcomes of this workshop are for participants to: (i) identify and map the social networks related to teaching, learning and/or SoTL at their individual institutions, (ii) identify any gaps or obstacles in their ecosystems, (iii) share and discuss their ecosystem maps with other participants, and (iv) jointly strategize on how to enhance their ecosystems and advocacy for SoTL at their institutions. Drawing on their multidisciplinary backgrounds, the workshop leaders – a university teaching fellow, librarian, and educational developer – will demonstrate the mapping technique, sharing their experiences of cultivating a healthy learning ecosystem at a young, rural, liberal arts university satellite campus in Canada.

In an effort to cultivate a culture of learning, colleges and universities have developed many initiatives and programs to promote faculty adoption of teaching methods that align with research on how people learn. To better understand the impact these initiatives have on teaching and learning cultures that exist within academic departments or units, we have developed a change density index to represent the depth and breadth of faculty engagement in change programs. We have found that the change density index is a useful way to gauge whether the initiatives are reaching beyond the “usual suspects,” and to characterize shifts over time and variations across departments in faculty engagement with change efforts. The change density index has been shown to be a valuable tool for quantifying levels of faculty engagement with programs and initiatives aimed at producing changes in teaching and learning culture, but important questions remain to be explored:

• What characteristics of a unit are most important when predicting readiness for change?
• What characteristics of a unit most strongly correspond with successful change around adoption of evidence-based teaching practices and improved student learning?
• How can these findings best be generalized to new contexts?

The goal of this session is to explore how different patterns of departmental engagement are linked to actual changes in teaching practices and student learning. To accomplish this, we adopt a case study-based approach, such that the change process in four different units is quantified and tied to faculty engagement using the change density index. We have selected four departments that are similar from a macro viewpoint, in that they are all STEM fields (broadly defined) and share similar expectations for faculty. However, the units have purposefully been selected to be different in terms of departmental culture around teaching and learning. Additionally, the selected units are highly variable with respect to the level of faculty engagement in existing supportive programs and incentives structures. With this approach, we appreciate that the department has been shown to be an important “locus for change”, and work to harness that assertion to accelerate and propagate changes in teaching practices (AAU, 2017; Fairweather, 2008; Tagg, 2012; Wieman, 2017). This approach also respects the networked aspect of higher education, wherein individuals act in the context of socially-linked networks (Williams et al., 2013). This interactive session will be led by four panelists each representing different roles in the university context: the director of a teaching center overseeing multiple university-wide change initiatives, a faculty member who leads a school-level change initiative in engineering, a faculty member who is a departmental leader in teaching innovation, and a department-embedded pedagogy expert (postdoctoral teaching fellow) whose role is to collaborate with faculty to improve courses. The panelists will briefly describe the change density measure, and then will describe four different department case studies that highlight different trajectories as quantified by the change index over time. Each unit-level case study will enable conference participants to explore the relative utility of different change strategies being implemented in various departmental contexts. The panel session will also focus on harnessing the participants’ experience, knowledge, and insights to further generalize the results. In this way, both the participants and panelists are expected to leave the session with new ideas about how to apply the change density index in such a way that they can target interventions in unit-specific contexts to positively influence changes in teaching and learning cultures on their own campuses. At the conclusion of this 90-minute panel session, participants will:

• Be prepared to apply the change density index in their institution- and unit-specific contexts, to quantify the level of faculty engagement with incentives and programs;
• Gain insight into how the change density index measure predicts changes in teaching practices and student learning; and
• Be enabled to translate quantified predictions for change into targeted interventions at the unit-level at participants’ institutions, to spur shifts in pedagogical culture and intentionally grow the institution’s and unit’s culture of learning.

Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) with teaching responsibilities are a valuable resource to Universities within the United Kingdom. They inhabit a liminal space between student and teacher as well as researcher and teacher and so can offer unique insights into their experiences of teaching within the institution.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with PGRs with teaching responsibilities who represented five of the six faculties across the University. With questions based on previous research within the field from how they deal with the duality of being both a student and teacher (Winston & Moore, 2016), to how they have overcome anxiety (Sandler, 2016) and how they have developed their own teaching style (Knight, 2015).

It is hypothesised that PGRs may feel they are more approachable to students, however perceived as less experienced and more nervous than lecturers and professors mirroring the findings of Muzaka (2009). The work of Park (2002) also suggests that PGRs may express frustration of the duality of their role and not feel they are supported or taken seriously as a teacher within their department. Sandi-Urena et al (2011) suggest that teaching may have a positive influence on their postgraduate research and develop key transferable skills by promoting epistemological and metacognitive development.

The interviews were transcribed to identify common themes within the narratives. As a result of this analysis, the training offered to PGRs who teach will be reviewed to account for any gaps in provision. The transcripts will also be used to create anonymous case studies and used as guidance to other PGRs who are currently, or wish to undertake, teaching alongside their postgraduate studies.

Follow up interviews with the participants will be used to discover if engaging with reflection on their teaching practice was a useful experience. This is particularly beneficial to the project as an apparent deficiency in reflective practice was identified by McLean and Bullard (2000) which led to lack of motivation and a highly self-critical cohort within their study.

Designing professional learning and development opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars has many logistical challenges as they often have competing demands on their time and less control over their schedules. One solution to this challenge focuses on flexibility of opportunities and the development of programming that allows participants to choose from a menu of options. The positive participation and feedback collected from our university’s teaching development workshops indicates this approach is successful. Since introducing cohort-based opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, however, we have seen both a marked increase in participation as well as clear signs of nascent communities of learning.

We believe that a number of factors have contributed to the formation of collegial relationships among graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, leading to “significant conversations” and new learning networks. The academic experiences of both groups are often characterized by isolation and liminality, and cohorts provide opportunities for likeminded people to gather around SoTL literature and teaching and learning issues. Through establishing peer connections and engaging in collaborative work, participants begin to form clusters of influence both within and across their departmental borders. By developing trust and engaging in activities such as peer teaching, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars participate in making teaching and critical reflection public, shared activities. These collaborative and reciprocal learning communities can reduce isolation and enhance socialization, knowledge attainment, and skills development.

As facilitators within the cohort programs, we have seen numerous examples of how these communities of learning are forming organically. For example, in one section of a SoTL focused cohort group, two grad students from the same large department who did not previously know each other are planning to co-author a paper on their experiences with SoTL. In both written and verbal feedback, a number of participants articulated the main reason they attend and engage in these workshops is because they are isolated in their home faculties, and they enjoy spending time with their peers. The resulting multidisciplinary conversations have also facilitated graduate students’ and postdocs’ interest in using previously unfamiliar teaching and learning strategies as well as methodological approaches for SoTL inquiry. For international participants, these cohorts also provide opportunities to develop peer support networks as they share their stories and compare experiences across multiple contexts.

The potential of professional learning conversations (PLCs) for faculty development is well-recognised. Understanding the nature of feedback, as embedded in PLCs, is significant not only to identify what feedback moves allow for open and sustained dialogue, but also to examine how feedback dialogue can have a positive influence on what faculty members do in their teaching practice. The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the nature of feedback, as seen from a dialogic perspective, and grounded in the notions of collegial discourse. We believe that PLCs involving feedback dialogue opens a discursive space for more in-depth and collegial discussions about teaching and learning.

The study attempts to address the question of how we might examine feedback processes during PLCs as part of a larger study that investigates the use of PLCs in mentoring early career academics in a research-intensive university. This study is situated within the view of feedback as a social act — a progressive process of scaffolding learning that is more reciprocal than unilateral, more cyclical than terminal, more responsive than transmissive, and more collegial than congenial. In short, we intend to show that feedback dialogue can be understood through an analysis of dialogic moves that takes into consideration feedback information which focuses the learners’ attention on the task, the processes required to complete the task, and self-regulation of one’s learning.

Three case studies of PLCs were analysed and compared, in which two cases were seen as successful in leading to an inquiry study by the participants, while one case did not. There were five sessions for each case study, and the recordings for each session were transcribed and analysed using a coding scheme which characterise dialogic feedback as interactions at task, process, and self-regulation levels. This coding scheme was chosen because it is underpinned by a view that process and self-regulation feedback are powerful for promoting deep learning and effective engagement with the feedback information.

The findings suggest that a systematic approach to analysing dialogic feedback has the potential to develop insights into ways of supporting faculty members in productive PLCs, which promote and sustain the learning conversations. Feedback dialogue that focused participants’ attention at the levels of process and self-regulation seemed to create a discursive space for elaborative discussion. We also discuss how incorporating dialogic feedback into PLCs can help academic developers more effectively support faculty in their teaching.

The purpose of our SOTL research is to investigate how teacher candidates’ experiences in field studies with community partners can inform an interdisciplinary STEAM practicum semester based on a curriculum of place (Chambers, 2008). Many contributions to education have been made through non-Indigenous perspectives of place (Greunewald, 2003; Sobel, 2004). Emerging research suggests that place-based education is limited because it does not critique colonial legacies in theoretical frameworks of place (Calderon, 2014). Indeed, many Indigenous scholars are replacing the term ‘place’ with ‘land’ and argue that land-based pedagogies promote the decolonization of education (Ballantyne, 2014; Wildcat et al., 2014) by recognizing the intimate relationship that Indigenous peoples have with the land. One challenge with land-based pedagogies is the role non-Indigenous peoples have in this approach to the decolonization of education. Our interdisciplinary SOTL research, in a western Canadian context, explored this tension as we come to a deeper and shared understanding of our co-responsibility within Treaty 7 relationships. Learning from place emphasizes a relationship with the land (Blood & Chambers, 2006; Penetito, 2009), something deeply respected in Indigenous communities and something absent from much of place-based education. Our project seeks to close this gap by considering varying perspectives of place as it informs STEAM educational pedagogy.

The participants of our partnership learning community PLC (Healey, Flint & Harrington, 2014a, 2014b) included the two authors, a Blackfoot Elder, 5 community educators, three student research assistants and sixty-three teacher candidates. Together, we piloted integrated 7-week intensive STEAM courses in coordination with candidates’ practicum experiences, field studies and inquiry projects. Data was first coded individually across these sites according to emerging themes that related to our research focus on the process of designing and implementing of a curriculum of place (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

The results show that our attempts to enact a curriculum of place that recognizes the intimate relationship that Indigenous people have with the land and emphasizes relational ways of knowing were impactful. However, we were disappointed that many of our students seemed to experience a place-based curriculum that was not linked explicitly to Indigenous ways of knowing. Moving forward, we will begin the STEAM semester in ceremony, learning closely with our Indigenous school partners in designing field studies that will invite students to experience all dimensions of the place, as we look to shifts in identity needed to authentically experience a curriculum of place.

Diversity and inclusion are vital topics at universities around the world. However, when we ask what inclusivity in teaching or at our universities actually looks like, answers can vary quite widely, such as the 9 dimensions identified by Nelson Laird (2014) or the approaches to institutional change identified by Takayama, Kaplan, & Cook-Sather (2017). For some, diversity and inclusion means a variety of appearances and abilities, for others a wide range of ideas, and for still others it means active attempts to raise up the status of those traditionally marginalized by societal structures. All of these ideas can work together, or they can be in opposition, especially when we add in organizational demands and governmental rules and regulations. At times, these differences can create wedges between colleagues, even among those who aspire toward similar outcomes.

When we discuss diversity and inclusion within teaching, faculty development, and institutions more broadly, different people often bring different ideas about what that means and their goals. In this presentation, we build on a set of five approaches to diversity and inclusion work, identified by the Centre for Global Inclusion (O’Mara & Richter, 2017): competence, compliance, dignity, organization development, and social justice. Building on these approaches, participants in this session will:

• Identify the frame that guides their thoughts and approaches to diversity and inclusion;
• Apply a specific frame to a classroom-based case study;
• Synthesize multiple approaches to design future programming, ensuring that inclusivity is integrated.

We begin by sharing our own experience in collaborating on workshops about inclusive teaching, and our recognition that we approached the topic from two different, but related, frameworks. Then, we ask participants to define inclusive teaching for themselves and share with partners. After that, we will share and analyze a case study, collaboratively identifying how each approach might change how we think about a situation. We close by asking the participants to reflect on how they would use these approaches to create a something for their own use, by synthesizing multiple perspectives.

The ISSOTL18 Conference, Towards a learning culture, poses a series of significant questions about what happens when inclusivity and diversity are woven into the fabric of an institution through its approach to learning and teaching, in and beyond the classroom. These propositions have been central to a major project undertaken at RMIT University, a large urban institution located in Melbourne, Australia, where an ethos of belonging has been adopted across all its operations. An institution wide belonging strategy requires economic, political and global considerations; as grass-roots academics, however, our work is guided by the principal that education can affect positive communitarian and individual change, and that meaningful and authentic relations with staff and students enable genuine inclusion, collaboration and growth (Chickering, Dalton, & Stamm, 2006; Kreber, 2013). In this paper, we focus specifically on our work embedding belonging within curriculum design through a discussion of discipline specific activities involving a range of positive interactions amongst student cohorts and between students and staff (Wilson & Clarke, 2016).

Belonging is the sense of mattering and interpersonal connectedness: a basic human need, it enhances motivation and drives behaviour (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Strayhorn, 2012). Generating a sense of belonging, and therefore inclusivity, for all students has significant positive impact on transition and retention, learning outcomes, engagement, wellbeing and organisational advocacy (Tinto, 1993; Thomas, 2012; Ribera et al. 2015). Most approaches to belonging in higher education have addressed vulnerable student cohorts (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Strayhorn, 2012 & 2016). By taking a whole of institution approach to belonging, we create cultural change that celebrates diversity and fosters inclusivity.

To embed belonging within curriculum we have utilised SoTL techniques of co-design, evaluation, reflection and iteration (Kemmis, 2007; Greenwood, Whyte, & Harkavy, 1993). In this paper we will demonstrate the framework we used to facilitate workshops with Program Managers and staff. The workshops allowed us to introduce the importance of disciplinary belonging activities for students and identify best practice amongst current offerings. This in turn lead to the development of a web resource housing over 50 best practice case studies on how to activate belonging within disciplines, in interdisciplinary contexts and for employability, several examples of which will be discussed in detail. This paper will be of interest to university administrators with responsibilities for policy development, and for academic developers and teaching practitioners tasked with fostering belonging to promote inclusivity within their classrooms.