Our workshop aims to instigate a wider, cross-institutional and national level discussion of the place, value, future and evidence *for* PG Certs in learning and teaching in HE in today’s UK higher education.
These questions are highly relevant for the educational development community as well as academic and professional services leaders, policy makers and strategists in education and staff development in HE for two main reasons.
Firstly, recent changes in the regulatory (e.g. TEF) and operational (e.g. increasing student-staff ratios and reliance on fixed-term contract staff for teaching) landscapes of the HE sector have seen the gradual disappearance of these PG Certs, and their replacement with alternative teaching qualifications, e.g. teaching fellowships.
Secondly, existing evidence for the effect of teaching qualifications on staff development in teaching and learning appears to favour PG Certs over their alternatives.
The workshop will engage participants in a long-needed debate about what makes effective staff development, and the scholarship that can determine it.
It will present and summarise for the debate and discussion the existing evidence from published research in the impact of teaching qualifications on staff development, including personal data of the workshop leads.
Dr Carole Davis, Warsash School of Maritime Science and Engineering, Solent University UK Carole is Associate Professor and Head of Academic Development at the Warsash School of Maritime Science and Engineering in the UK. Her experience is in planning and advising on educational development activities including the PG Cert HE, projects and initiatives which meet the needs of the academy, students, staff, external clients, employers and professional bodies. Her research has focused on the experiences of early career academics and in particular how they develop as educators both within the academy and their subject discipline; peer teaching observation; how intersections of gender, race, religion and class are relevant to student learning experience and the development of frameworks which enable educational developers and academics to collaborate effectively in transplinary spaces. She draws on sociological, educational and nursing theories to support best pedagogical practice and this is reflected in her work with faculty. Carole is Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and is currently Co-Chair of SEDA.
Dr Antony Aleksiev, School of Higher Education Studies (ExPERT Academy), University of West London Antony is a senior lecturer in higher education research and practice at the ExPERT Academy (School of Higher Education Research and Practice) in the University of West London. He is an experienced educational developer, having worked in the field since 2013, first at the University of Exeter, and then at QMUL. Previously, he held senior lectureship in ecology abroad and taught animal behavior modules at Imperial College London. His educational development expertise includes, among other things, the design, leadership, and evaluation of academic development programmes. His pedagogic research currently focuses on measuring learning gain against the learning outcomes of modules and programmes of study for the purposes of assurance of learning and curriculum development.
Location
The Workshop is in the Fourth Floor Meeting Room at the Association of Commonwealth Universities.
The ACU is located in Central London in Tavistock Square, south of Euston Road.
The transport links are excellent as it is surrounded by stations:
5 minutes walk from Euston Station
8 minutes walk from St Pancras International and Eurostar terminals
10 minutes walk from Kings Cross Station
5 minutes walk from Russell Square and Euston Square Underground
A number of buses stop on Tavistock square including the 59, 68,168 and 91.
Address
4th Floor Meeting Room
Association of Commonwealth Universities
Woburn House
20-24 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9HQ
1030 – 1100: Arrival, Coffee and Networking. Participants encouraged to state on post-it’s what they are particularly interested in and hope to explore during the day.
1100 – 1115: Introductions and overview of day
1115 – 1245: The Function of PG Certs – Activity focusing on the prevalence and relevance of PG Certs in instutitions: What importance they carry, what is their purpose and their co-existence or replacement by perceived equivalencies?
1245- 1330: Lunch and networking
1330 – 1430: The Design of PG Certs – Activity focusing on development and delivery of PG Certs: What are the design principles, the main components of the curriculum, the learning outcomes and assessment, and do they achieve what they intend to do ?
1430-1445: Tea
1445 – 1515: Evidence of Impact of PG Certs
1515 – 1550: Evaluating PG Certs – Activity focusing on how participants might evaluate the impact of such programmes, including for comparative purposes to equivalences, e.g. HEA fellowships
1550 – 1600: Evaluation
1600: Close
A member of the International Consortium for Educational Development