Highbury College
Changing ILT practices:
our approach
Nadim Bakhshov, Head of Centre, Centre for Excellence in
Teaching and Learning
Ofsted Report:
“The college promotes the development and use of ILT to enhance
learning particularly well. Development of the VLE is a
key part of the college’s long-term strategy and vision for learning
and there is a clear framework and timetable for its continued
implementation across the institution. The college provides much
support and training for ILT and reports on its use effectively
through the course review process. “
Workshop Approach
Use a Recipe and Ingredient
Metaphor
Starting point:
There is no universal recipe
There were key ingredients for Highbury College
Our Recipe
eLT Strategy Group,
chaired by Principal
Highbury
Pedagogical
Framework
iHighbury, online
learning
Centre for Excellence in
Teaching & Learning
and
Learning Technology
Unit
eLT Training programme ‘Raising the Threshold’
Ingredient 1
Senior Management Support
Reasoning:
In order to bring about organisational change you
need to have a key player from the Senior
Management Team.
This person will be responsible for agreeing
changes in staffing, reviewing and implementing
performance targets, chairing a strategy group
which will be responsible for agreeing actions and
reviewing each stage of the implementation
Ingredient 1
Senior Management Support
Activity 1
Identify the senior management lead
Note: they must be in a position to be able to
implement changes in performance targets if
required, authorise college-wide mandatory
courses, agree all staff changes and, if required,
develop of new organsational roles
Ingredient 2
ILT Strategy Group
Reasoning:
To bring about change in the organisation you
need to put into place the right people to
disseminate, develop, support and drive the
changes. You will need to have key stakeholders
within your ILT Strategy Group
Ingredient 2
ILT Strategy Group
Activity 2
Can you assemble the team you need to support
and drive the changes across the organisation?
Some suggestions:
Head of IT, Head of Learning Technology, Head of
Quality, Key Academic Departments
Who do you think are relevant stakeholders?
Ingredient 3
Pedagogical Principles
Reasoning:
Once you have the right people in place and senior
management support you need to think about the
underlying pedagogy to support your change in
ILT practices.
This is perhaps the essential key ingredient that
organises much of what follows.
Ingredient 3
Pedagogical Principles
Activity 3
Can you write down what pedagogical principles
you think need to drive the changes in ILT?
Do you want to have an interactive pedagogy for
ILT? If so, why? What are the implications of
this?
Ingredient 4
Audit Procedures
Reasoning:
Without a clear set of measurable audits (based on
clear pedagogical principles) of your current IT and ILT
infrastructure you will make no real progress in
changing the practices. However awkward their results.
You will have to audit accurately actual use and current
state of the ILT technologies and the usage of them
using your pedagogical principles. In fact the ILT
pedagogy should supply you with the key categories for
your audit.
Ingredient 4
Audit Procedures
Activity 4
Derive a set of audit categories from your
pedagogical principles.
Identify the IT and ILT systems you want to audit.
Identify who will carry out the audits and what you
want them to report back to senior management.
Ingredient 5
Training
Reasoning:
Once you have the right management support, key
players, a pedagogy for your ILT and a derived
audit you will have to look at the training
implications for the organisation.
You will have to agree the relevant team to
develop the training programme, gain target and
performance review mechanisms for management
and then, through an action plan, get academic
staff through it.
Ingredient 5
Training
Activity 5
Identify the training your audit results and analysis
reveal.
Identify the team to create the training programme
and an implementation schedule.
Gain management support to make this
mandatory.
Ingredient 6
Supporting and Implementing
Change
Reasoning:
Finally you need to develop some kind of support
structure to drive changes through at the daily
level.
You cannot rely on staff having time out of their
normal routine to implement changes. Change has
to be built into what goes on in daily practice.
Consider a Learning Technology Unit.
Ingredient 6
Supporting and
Implementing Change
Activity 6
Identify a way of taking on students through an
internship programme or apprentices to support
staff on a daily basis and support the change
process.
Is there room in your staff rooms for them to sit?