Workshop: Academic development
in Higher Education
Mieke Clement & Sari Lindblom Ylänne
Tempus Project Strategic Management of Staff Development at University
Dubrovnik March 2005
Expectations
• What do you expect of this workshop?
• What questions would you like to be
answered?
Our objectives
• Clarify current definitions of academic
development and come to shared
understanding
• Discuss issues with regard to academic
development
• Reflect systematically on elements involved
in designing academic development in your
institution: objectives, target groups,
organisation, evaluation of impact
Our background
• Research based academic development
• Scholarship of teaching
Definition of academic
development
• What does academic development
encompass according to you?
• Literature: staff development, faculty
development, academic development,
educational development …
-> many definitions throughout history of faculty
support
Definition of academic
development
• Academic development = all initiatives
taken -both at the central as at the ‘local’
level- in order to support faculty members
to fulfil their different roles (teaching,
research, …) throughout their academic
career
• Focus in this workshop on ‘formal’ training
of faculty members with regard to their
teaching
Designing academic development
• Think back of your ‘student’ time: what
were the characteristics of the courses that
meant most for you! How did they help you
to develop your expertise?
• Report on the characteristics that were most
powerful
Designing academic development:
crucial issues
Objectives of academic
development
• ‘Holistic’ approach (Brew & Boud, 1996)
– focus on individual needs and career
development
– focus on organisational needs
=> academic development = instrument for
quality enhancement
Objectives of academic
development
• Commonly accepted approach to high
quality teaching in Higher Education:
student-centred approach (<-> teachercentred approach)
– origins: new insights about learning (Shuell,
1988)
– conceptual basis: teaching conceptions
(Kember, 1997)
Objectives of academic
development: new insights about
learning
• Learning = constructive, active, cumulative,
goal-oriented
• Learning involves 3 kinds of processes:
cognitive, meta-cognitive and affective
=> The ultimate aim of teaching is to facilitate
learning
Objectives of academic
development: importance of
teaching conceptions
• Teaching conceptions = specific meanings
attached to phenomena which mediate our
response to situations involving these phenomena
(Pajares, 1992)
• Two broad orientations: teacher-centred / contentoriented and student-centred / learning-oriented
• Relationship between conceptions, approaches to
teaching and quality of student learning
Teaching conceptions and
educational practice
Academic
development
Ho (2000)
Change
in
beliefs
Change
in
practice
Change in
student
outcomes
Teaching conceptions and
educational practice
Academic
development
Guskey, 1986
Change
in
practice
Change in
student
outcomes
Change
in
beliefs
Teaching conceptions and
educational practice
Enactment
Reflection
External domain
External source
of information
or stimulus
Domain of practice
Personal domain
Professional
experimentation
Knowledge,
beliefs,
attitudes
Salient
outcomes
Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002
Domain of consequence
Objectives of academic
development
• What objectives do you want to set for
academic development in your institution?
• Can you link those objectives to a (shared)
view on what is ‘high quality education’?
• Would everybody in your institution agree
with these objectives?
Target groups for academic
development
• Who would be the target groups for
academic development in your institution?
• What is their feeling about academic
development?
• What would you do when faculty members
refuse to participate in any training?
• Is it possible to link academic development
with quality assurance or HRM-strategies?
How? What problems need to be solved?
Organisation of academic
development
• Types of initiatives:
–
–
–
–
workshops (stand-alone or ‘route’)
pedagogical courses
individual consult
bespoke initiatives
Organisation of academic
development
• Criteria for success (McAlpine, 2003)
–
–
–
–
–
free participation
direct and explicit focus on learning and students
attention for transfer to practice + feedback
meetings to support transfer to practice
minimal 12 hours of contact moments spread
over 1 semester
Organisation of academic
development
• Typology of Hicks (1999):
–
–
–
–
central
dispersed
mixed
integrated
• Which model would be possible in your
institution?
• What would be (dis-)advantages?
Organisation of academic
development
• Changes in teaching or assessment practices
take place slowly and
require a lot of work by the teacher. A lot of
patience is needed from
heads of departments, deans and colleagues
and sometimes also from students.
How to support teachers in their "academic
development process"?