Course Coordinator as Academic
Leader
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3
Learning Outcomes ................................................................................................................... 3
Module Topics ........................................................................................................................... 3
Program Overview ..................................................................................................................... 3
Why Course Coordinators Need to be Academic Leaders ....................................................... 4
Practical Activity ........................................................................................................................ 6
Program Philosophy and Learning Experiences ....................................................................... 7
Peer Coaching as a Learning Support Strategy ........................................................................ 8
Strategies and Methods to Support Your Peer Coaching ......................................................... 9
Maintaining your communication and coaching .................................................................. 9
Skype ................................................................................................................................. 10
Blogging ............................................................................................................................. 10
MSN Messenger ................................................................................................................ 11
Required Reading .................................................................................................................... 12
Additional Resources............................................................................................................... 12
Websites ............................................................................................................................ 12
Readings ............................................................................................................................ 12
References .............................................................................................................................. 12
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
Introduction
Hello and welcome to the Course Coordinator as Academic Leader module
In this module you will become familiar with the program schedule and learning outcomes, be
introduced to the leadership development strategy and more specifically the experiential learning
model, which includes: peer coaching, learning journals and development planning. Most importantly,
however, you will have the opportunity to engage in a critical discussion on your perceptions of
academic leadership within the changing university context and how this fits with broader leadership
theory.
Please Note: There are a number of weblinks throughout this module which are current at the time of
publication, if any are broken or fail to open, please advise your Program Coordinator or post a
message to the Academic Leaders’ Café in the online program in the forum titled, ‘Help us to help
you!’ Thank you.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion participants will:


Understand the role of a course coordinator as an academic leader.
Understand the concept of academic leadership in the context of leadership theory.
Module Topics
This module gives a general overview of the program and introduces the need for effective academic
leadership and the importance of experiential learning as part of leadership development. Specifically,
the module discusses why Course Coordinators need to be academic leaders, and the optimum
means to assist learning in academic leaders with peer coaching, learning journals and development
planning as tools to enhance your leadership capacity.
Let’s examine academic leadership and the role of Course Coordinators in the changing higher
educational environment, and introduce some concepts for aiding leadership development.
Program Overview
This program for Course Coordinators is about improving your effectiveness in your role and to
become more self-aware that much of what you do can be considered leadership. In order to do this,
you need to learn about various administrative processes, educational principles as well as leadership
concepts and how these influence the people around you.
Some of you will find this exciting and quite invigorating, others will find it a bit confronting because
you may realise you need to change some of your leadership behaviours. Change can be
challenging, however, you will find the development strategies in this course helpful in easing you
through the process. In the end, you will gain considerably by having a closer look at the following:
 academic leadership and its relationship to the role
 interpersonal and intrapersonal communication
 team building
 change management
 conflict management
 coaching and mentoring
 influencing the performance of your colleagues
 managing upwards
 curriculum renewal and development
 academic policies and procedures
 evaluation of teaching and learning.
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
Why Course Coordinators Need to be Academic
Leaders
Until recently, there has been little written on academic leadership particularly in relation to Course
Coordinators. There is much debate in the higher education sector about the extent to which broader
management and leadership theory is applicable to the higher education context. Work undertaken by
the UK Leadership Foundation for Higher Education aligns with findings of a new Australian report by
Scott et al. (2008). Scott’s team identified a leadership succession crisis in Australian higher
education, and an urgent need to improve the leadership development at many levels of universities.
This report is timely and suggests the core focus of leadership in the current, volatile context of higher
education needs to be on achieving effective change management and implementation (Scott et al.
2008 p. v).
The study identified a number of change forces in higher education which dictate the need for good
academic leadership including:
 Opening up of access and a resulting diversified student body.
 Changes in funding.
 Pressure to generate new sources of income.
 A trend towards user-pays.
 Rapid growth in the higher education export market.
 Growing competition.
 The challenge of maintaining standards with the changing nature of the student cohort.
 Students seeing themselves as consumers.
 Paid employment patterns of students for survival (average student works 14.8 hrs per week).
 Changing characteristics of a new generation of students (Generation Y).
For universities to remain competitive they need excellent leadership at all levels of the organisation.
Course Coordinators have been the least well recognised for their role in determining whether change
is effected. Course Coordinators are critical to engage with the change agenda, as they focus efforts
and assist staff to learn how to make the desired change work in practice (Scott et al. 2008, p. xvii).
Some of the challenges to being an effective leader in higher education are related to working within a
collegial context where academic freedom is highly prized. Some of the comments from participants in
the leadership capability project demonstrate these tensions:
“In universities, as a result of the academic value of collegiality, you have to operate more from moral
authority than in business where positional authority has weight. So a lot of fine leadership is about
winning followers and leading through influence.” (Scott et al. 2008, p. 6)
“An academic culture is a difficult environment to work with in initiating and implementing change.
Some will push consensus – something which can be a force for no change – whereas others will
push academic independence and say ‘I’m not obliged to get on the change bus’. As a leader, this
makes engaging staff with required change, a major challenge.” (Scott et al. 2008, p. 42)
The ten most important influences (ranked in order) on their roles as Course Coordinators or Program
Heads identified in the study were:
1) Decreased government funding.
2) Balancing work and family life.
3) Managing pressure for continuous change.
4) Slow administrative processes.
5) Handling unexpected events.
6) Finding and retaining high quality staff.
7) Growing pressure to generate new income.
8) Rapid changes in technology.
9) Dealing with local university cultures.
10) Greater government reporting and scrutiny.
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
With the exception of clarifying strategic directions, these influences were the same for all key
university leadership roles (Course Coordinator, Head of School, Dean of Teaching and Learning,
Director of Teaching and Learning, PVC/DVC Academic/Education).
Areas of work focus which were identified as being most important for Course Coordinators were:
1) Working on student matters.
2) Developing learning programs.
3) Reviewing teaching activities.
4) Identifying new opportunities.
5) Managing other staff.
6) Participating in meetings.
7) Managing relationships with senior staff.
8) Scholarly research.
9) Responding to ad hoc requests.
10) Strategic planning.
As the role of Course Coordinator has less direct authority or control over resources, people in these
positions need to be particularly deft at ‘leading through influence,’ and therefore their personal and
interpersonal skills, networking, relationship management and conflict management are critical.
Scott et al. (2008) identified key capabilities and competencies required for effective academic
leadership in a conceptual framework as shown in the figure below. Competence includes: relevant
skills and knowledge that are delivered to a set standard in a specific context; ability to
deliver/perform; performance; ability to deliver set tasks in specific and relatively predictable
situations; a focus on the present; and working productively and efficiently in situations that are stable.
Capability, however, includes: the ability to figure out when and when not to deploy these
competencies and a capacity to refine, update and develop them; ability to learn; creativity; ability to
deliver new approaches in complex, uncertain situations; a focus on the future; working productively
with instability and change.
Figure 1: Academic leadership capability framework
Scott et al. (2008) suggests all five dimensions are necessary for effective leadership performance.
Personal and interpersonal capabilities focus around emotional intelligence and being able to manage
one’s emotional reactions to uncertainty and discomfort.
Personal capabilities include: commitment to teaching and learning excellence and wanting to
achieve the best outcome (leading by example and taking responsibility for program activities and
outcomes, being determined, pitching in when things are not working out as anticipated); self
regulation (deferring judgement and not jumping in too quickly to resolve a problem, understanding
one’s personal strengths and limitations, being willing to learn from mistakes, bouncing back from
adversity, maintaining a good work-life balance, remaining calm under pressure; and decisiveness
(being willing to take hard decisions, confident to take calculated risks, tolerating ambiguity and
having integrity).
Interpersonal capabilities include attributes of empathising and working productively with students
and staff from a wide range of backgrounds, listening to differing points of view before making a
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
decision, developing and contributing positively to teams, being transparent and honest in dealings
with others; and influencing people’s behaviour and decisions in effective ways (working with very
senior people including internal and external stakeholders without being intimidated, motivating others
to achieve positive outcomes, working constructively with people who are ‘resistors’ or are overenthusiastic, developing and using networks of colleagues to solve problems, and giving and
receiving constructive feedback to/from work colleagues and others).
Cognitive capabilities are a leader’s capacity to diagnose accurately what is happening and taking
action; recognising how seemingly unconnected activities are linked, recognising patterns in complex
situations, identifying from a mass of information the core issue or opportunity in any situation;
developing strategy (identifying and acting on an opportunity for a new direction, assessing
consequences of alternative courses of action, using previous experience to figure out what’s going
on when the unexpected occurs, thinking creatively and laterally, having clear, justified and
achievable directions, seeing the best way to respond to a difficult situation, identifying what the
human as well as technical or administrative dimensions are, setting and justifying daily work
priorities, determining whether the problem is worth addressing in detail and then having the ability to
match an appropriate course of action to this diagnosis); flexibility and responsiveness (making sense
of and learning from experience, adjusting a plan of action in response to issues which arise during
implementation of a course of action, knowing that there is never a fixed set of steps for solving
workplace problems).
Generic and role-specific competencies include learning and teaching knowledge (understanding
how to develop an effective higher education course, having a high level of current knowledge of what
engages university students in productive learning, understanding how to design and conduct an
evaluation of a higher education learning program, understanding how to successfully implement a
new higher education course, being on top of current developments in teaching and learning, knowing
how to identify and disseminate good learning and management practice across the area);
understanding university operations (risk management and litigation, industrial relations issues and
processes, helping staff learn to deliver necessary changes effectively, chairing meetings effectively,
sound administrative and resource management skills); good self organisation skills (managing one’s
own professional learning and development, using IT effectively to communicate and perform key
work functions, organise work and effective time management, present effectively to a range of
different groups).
Practical Activity
In the Practical activity for this module you will look at an:
1.
2.
Overview of course program and learning outcomes.
Overview of the Leadership Development Strategy.
o Experiential Learning:
 Peer Coaching
 Learning Journals
Go to the 'Practical activity & seminar materials' online to access the materials.
If you are completing the Program online you are asked to join a discussion in the
Academic Leaders Café to answer the question:
What are your perceptions of academic leadership and what is the effect of the
changing higher educational environment on academic leadership capabilities?
To access the discussion board, go to the online program and click on Academic
Leaders Café from the side menu.
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
Program Philosophy and Learning Experiences
The approach used in this program is grounded in leadership development theory and practice. Scott
et al. (2008) identified that academic leaders have a preference for practice based learning. Course
Coordinators expressed a preference for the following:







learning on the job
being involved in informal mentoring/coaching
undertaking self-guided reading on leadership
participating in higher education leadership seminars
participating in leadership development programs which are custom-tailored to their needs
participating in annual performance reviews
participating in 360 degree feedback based on known leadership capabilities.
This program utilises all of these concepts (with the exception of higher education leadership
seminars) and will provide you with an opportunity to embed experiential learning principles in your
leadership development journey. Throughout the program, a case-based and problem-based learning
approach is used which will allow you to critically reflect on the issues and apply the theory
underpinning leadership development. By reflecting on learning experiences, making conclusions,
and incorporating the learning outcomes into your daily work practice you will hopefully find the
development experience rewarding. In other words, this learning will assist you to create new
applications in your role as course leader. This will be accomplished, in part, by goal setting, keeping
a reflective journal on your progress, group discussions, and working closely with strategic learning
partners or 'peer coaches.' These peers will be responsible for providing coaching or learning support
for you as you work towards implementing some of the key learning materials within this module. You
will 'coach and provide learning support' in return, thus gaining some valuable skills in coaching and
mentoring.
Why involve others in your leadership development journey? The importance of learning
independently and with others is best described by these two quotations:
"Learning is the essential fuel for the leader, the source of high octane energy that
keeps up the momentum by continually sparking new understanding, new ideas, and
new challenges. It is absolutely indispensable under today's conditions of rapid change
and complexity. Very simply, those who do not learn do not long survive as leaders"
(Bennis & Nanus, 1985).
"Leaders are not made by corporate courses, any more than they are made by their
college courses, but by experience. Therefore, it is not devices, such as 'career path
planning' or training courses, that are needed, but an organization's commitment to
providing its potential leaders with opportunities to learn through experience in an
environment that permits growth and change" (Bennis, 1989).
The importance of learning through experience, reflected in the above comments, can be reinforced
by examining experiential learning theory. Kolb (1984) describes an experiential learning cycle that
can help one to understand how to get the most out of one's learning. This model serves as a
framework for the learning that one will experience in this course.
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
The Experiential Learning Model is a four-stage cycle that involves:
1. Having an experience.
2. Reflecting upon that experience.
3. Making conclusions from the reflection and the
experience.
4. Creating a new application for subsequent
experiences.
It is a useful model that to follow to help you maximise your learning in this program and your ongoing development as a leader. As you work through the experiences in this program and apply them
to your work setting, take time to reflect on them. This can be done more strategically by noting
key learning outcomes and questions in a reflective journal or personal Blog. This information can
also be used in consultation with your peer coach to help you deepen your understanding of
administrative, leadership or management issues. The conclusions that are derived from this process
can then be applied back into the workplace.
Gaither (2004) in his review of academic leadership asserts that experience and observation is critical
for learning about leadership. He views leadership development as a continuous learning experience
requiring ample opportunities to practice with the 'right to fail' as part of the development process.
We trust that you will take on board these principles of the experiential learning cycle with your peer
coach/es. By implementing the learning process from this program with reflective journaling and peer
coaching, you can expect positive changes in your leadership and management style.
Peer Coaching as a Learning Support Strategy
Peer coaching partnerships will be encouraged within this program and further details are provided in
other modules. You may create your own partnership or have one set up for you by the course
facilitators. This peer coaching relationship is an integral component of the Academic
Leadership for Course Coordinators Program.
Please ensure you read this document so that you get the maximum benefit from the peer coaching
process, both as a coach and a coachee. This document provides you with an extensive account of
the principles and practices behind peer coaching. You will find the information helpful to ensure your
peer coaching experience gets off to a good start. The theory behind coaching and how it supports
professional development is outlined along with some ideas to ensure the relationship remains
productive.
The purpose of a peer coach in this program is to support your learning. A lot of the insights you will
have as a result of your participation in this course can be enhanced by exploring them further with
your peer coach in a non-evaluative way. For a full description of the merits of peer coaching, please
read Ladyshewsky, R. 2003. Peer Coaching and Professional Development: A learning Support
Strategy for students at the Graduate School of Business, Curtin University.
You are also encouraged to maintain a personal learning journal and to explore some of your key
learning challenges and applications with your peer coaches on a regular basis. This is all part of the
experiential learning focus of this program.
Why should I bother? Well...we can't force you to discuss, deliberate and debate your key learning
insights and challenges with your peer coach. However, we can encourage you to do so by
mentioning that you will get much more out of this program if you explore your learning with another
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person. Research conducted on the use of peer coaching and leadership/management development
appears to have an important role in transfer of training. If you are inclined you can read more about
this in this Ladyshewsky, R. 2006. Peer Coaching: A Contructivist Methodology for Enhancing
Critical Thinking in Post-Graduate Business Education.
Your peer coach will become a trusted partner in your learning relationship and provide you with a
confidential 'second ear' with some of the learning challenges that unfold for you in this program. You
can use each other to deepen the gains you get from the material presented here and after the
completion of this course. By investing in this experience you will also learn how to coach. This
competency will be very valuable as a Course Coordinator particularly in working with new staff,
sessional staff and tutors.
Strategies and Methods to Support Your Peer
Coaching
Maintaining your communication and coaching
1. Commit to regular meetings - set a time and place.
2. Maintain confidentiality. What your peer coach tells you and vice versa should remain
confidential.
3. Ask questions; resist the temptation to give advice. Asking questions helps you to understand
more deeply how your peer coach is processing events and information. If you do give advice
in the end....at least it will be more informed and more likely to be taken on board.
4. Recognise the limitations of email and electronic communication and try to meet face-to-face
or use technologies such as Skype or MSN messenger which allows webcam and audio
conversations live!! More on this later....read on.
5. Enjoy the experience and give fully to each other. We often get caught up in academic life
and pretend to act like we have all the bases covered. People can't know everything,
particularly in an environment like a University where change is happening all the time. By
expressing some vulnerability and acknowledging that you can't know everything....you start
to build your relationship with your peer coach and develop a continuous learning approach to
developing your course leadership skills.
1. Face-to-Face
Nothing beats face-to-face communication but this is not always possible because of geographical
separation, distance or scheduling. If face-to-face meetings are not possible, here are some other
ideas to maximise your coaching opportunities with your peer coach/es. Obviously, the more visual
and auditory contact you have, the easier it is to get to know one another and build that critical
element of trust in the coaching relationship.
2. Telephone
Telephone contact provides you with the opportunity to hear each other’s voices and capture some of
the paralanguage and intonation of the other party. It is more intimate and immediate and is a
valuable adjunct to coaching.
3. Email and Document Exchange
Email allows you to communicate with one another over coaching issues; however, there is no nonverbal or paralanguage component so messages can be more easily misinterpreted. There are issues
of delays in getting back to one another, yet it is a cheap alternative if people are geographically
separated. Learning journals (if done electronically) can be shared through this medium so your
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
coaches can catch up on what has been happening with your development. Otherwise you can scan
your journal and attach it to an email. This can save time by having your coach prepped to ask you
some challenging questions about your progress.
4. Online program
The online program provides a discussion board (Academic Leaders Café) option. You can post
a message for all other participants and your program coordinators to read. Again, some of the
limitations of not having visual or auditory contact can lead to misinterpretations of the message.
If you do not want your ‘coaching sessions’ trackable or part of the online program system there are
other more confidential ways in which to engage in your coaching which are described further.... read
on....
Skype
Skype is a free software program for making free calls over the Internet to anyone
else who also has Skype. In addition to the calls being free, they are of a very high
quality. If you have a webcam, you can also set up your system so that you can
have video calls with your peer coach. In other words, you can talk to each other
and see each other so the issues of visual and auditory contact are addressed.
It's free and easy to download and use, and works with most computers. Visit Skype where you can
download the software for FREE!
Skype works on most kinds of computers Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Pocket PCs. Calls, chats
and file transfers work between all kinds of computers.
Skype automatically encrypts calls, chats and file transfers before sending it through the Internet so
no-one can intercept your call, text or file transfer. And it's completely free of advertising, so you won’t
be disturbed by annoying pop-ups or banners.
Blogging
A blog is a personal diary or journal. A blog gives you your own voice
on the web. It's a place to collect and share things that you find
interesting about anything, whether it's your political commentary, a
personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember. For the
purposes of this program, it’s where you map your progress and thinking about your leadership
development. This makes it easy for your peer coaches to check on what has been happening so
when you do meet to have your coaching session, they are up to date.
Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there
are no real rules. For peer coaching and leadership development purposes, this is where you can
house your learning journal.
In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up
at the top, so your peer coach can read what's new. Your peer coach can also comment on it. A blog,
therefore, is an easy-to-use web site, where you can quickly post thoughts; interact with people, and
more. All for FREE! Visit Blogger to create your own blog.
The blogging experience is about not only putting your thoughts on the web, but hearing back from
and connecting with other like-minded folks, like your peer coach. You do have to be aware, however,
that anyone in the world can discover and read your blog so you do have to ensure some
confidentiality, ethics and ensure there are no identifying defamatory comments. Blogger Comments,
therefore, let readers of your site from all over the world give feedback on what you share on your
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Academic Leadership for Course Coordinators Program
blog. You can choose whether or not you want to allow comments on a post-by-post basis (and you
can delete anything you don't like).
Sometimes you just want to share a photo. There's a button for uploading photos in the Blogger
interface. Just click the photo button to upload a photo from your computer. If the photo you'd like to
put on your blog is already on the web that's fine too. Just tell us where it is. You can also add
interesting URLs to your blog to share with your peer coach.
Here is an example of Rick Ladyshewsky’s blog on peer coaching and communities of practice:
http://www.ricochetter.blogspot.com/
MSN Messenger
MSN messenger is similar to SKYPE and Live Chat functions. You can use the live chat function to
chat with your peer coach. It is instant messaging so you can chat via text in real time with your peer
coach. You can chat when your peer coach is online and personalise your message instantly. You
can also have Video Conversations and PC to PC Conversations so you can hear and see your peer
coach and have higher quality verbal interchanges about your leadership development. You can also
exchange files with one another.
Visit MSN to join MSN Messenger and see all of its other options.
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Required Reading
Bryman. A. 2007. Effective leadership in higher education: a literature review. Studies in Higher Education.
32 (6): 693-710.
Ladyshewsky, R. 2003. Peer coaching and professional development: A learning support strategy for
students at the Graduate School of Business, Curtin University.
Ladyshewsky, R. 2006. Peer coaching: A contructivist methodology for enhancing critical thinking in postgraduate business education.
Scott, G. 2003. Learning principals: Leadership capability and learning research in the NSW Department of
Education and Training. University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Quality Development Unit.
Additional Resources
Websites
HERDSA Guides (http://www.herdsa.org.au/index.php?page_id=139) provide useful ideas and
information on many aspects of teaching and learning. Written by experts in specific fields, they are
short, inexpensive and easy to read.
Readings
Scott, G., H. Coates, and M. Anderson. 2008. Learning leaders in times of change: Academic
leadership capabilities for Australian higher education. University of Western Sydney and the
Australian Council for Educational Research.
Bell, M. 2005. Peer observation partnerships in higher education. The Higher Education
Research and Development Society of Australasia, Milperra.
Peer observation of teaching is a truly effective process for ongoing change and development in
higher education teaching. This guide aims to support higher education teachers through a program
of skills, knowledge and ideas development to meet their own developmental aims within their
immediate teaching environment. The guide explains how peer observation partnerships work,
explores theoretical frameworks and related concepts and provides a guide to the whole process of
peer observation of teaching including observation techniques, post observation discussion, feedback
and critical reflection.
References
Bennis, W. 1989. On becoming a leader. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Bennis, W., and B. Nanus. 1985. Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Perennial
Library.
Kolb, D. A. 1984. Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Gaither, G. 2004. Developing leadership skills in academia. Academic Leadership 2 (1).
http://www.academicleadership.org/authors/Gerald_H_Gaither.shtml (accessed November 19, 2008).
Scott, G., H. Coates, and M. Anderson. 2008. Learning leaders in times of change: Academic
leadership capabilities for Australian higher education. University of Western Sydney and Australian
Council for Educational Research.
Course Coordinator as Academic Leader