HEFCE Circular 02/24 outlining the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund is the circular which gives the guidelines for the new institutional Learning and Teaching strategies. HEFCE wants a ‘clear strategic alliance between our strategies for learning and teaching, widening participation, and disability, within a framework that has the key objective of maintaining and improving quality and standards in learning and teaching.’ The circular continues ‘We need to ensure that all HEIs can manage the changes required in the new learning environment.’ It is this idea of managing change which is at the centre of this edition of Educational Developments.
The quotes above surely ought to put educational development firmly in the frame, if not in the centre, of strategic thinking and organisational change, in our institutions.
David Gosling and Vaneeta D’Andrea discuss the ways in which educational development centres could best achieve organisational change. They present three models for change and challenge us to analyse our own institutional practice for which model can best bring about change in our own specific circumstances.
Roy Seden takes us through the very positive dispersed professional development model of change which is in place at De Montfort University. The Teacher Fellowship Scheme supports excellence in practice and seems to be providing strong evidence of effective change agents supporting systemic movement towards excellence in learning and teaching.
In particular, this dispersed model of educational development acknowledges the existence of separate subjects and disciplines accessing different discourses of teaching leadership, educational development, quality assurance and management in higher education.
Another significant mover for change is the growth of the ‘skills curriculum’. Viv Anderson and Saeideh Saeidi delineate some of the issues involved in mainstreaming the Skills for Learning resource at Leeds Metropolitan University. The place of skills development is a major source of debate for most universities, from the level of individual teacher practice to national performance indicators on student employability. The continuing debate about the role of subject specialism and the integration (or not) of skills development is here shown to be mediated by a coherent university approach to the mode, storage, development and delivery of materials.
Change through e-learning is another change in which educational developers must be significantly involved. If you thought you were beginning to have some kind of awareness of the breadth of electronic resources available to us, read Caroline Ingram’s detailed listings of JISC / DNER programmes and think again! In the same vein, Amy Pearson gives an e-look at significant web resources for staff development.
This emphasis on electronic learning is encouraging us to see the breakdown in traditional staff barriers and Martin Oliver challenges our understanding of exactly what Learning Technologists do.
Mark Liddiard and Jan Sellars present research findings with regard to academic intervention in student under-performance in examinations.
Julie Hall, SEDA’s Development Officer, also discusses change in our perception of the Further Education community as she reviews the first SEDA event targeted at FE.
It seems that the challenge of ‘change is constant’ is not any more how we manage individual initiatives for change, but how do we position ourselves in relation to our institutional systems for engaging with and delivering against national priorities.
Helen Gale
Educational Developments Editorial Committee
This issue contains articles on:
How Educational Development / Learning and Teaching Centres Help HEIs Manage Change (Word doc)
Dr David Gosling, Co-Director of the TQEF National Co-ordination Team, and Professor Vaneeta D’Andrea, Director of the Educational Development Centre, City University
Supporting Excellence in Teaching and Learning Through Dispersed Professional Development
Rev Dr Roy Seden, Department of Quality Enhancement, De Montfort University
Skills Support: an institutional approach
Viv Anderson and Saeideh Saeidi, School of Education and Professional Development, Leeds Metropolitan University
A Developer’s Guide Part Five: JISC / DNER Development Programmes
Caroline Ingram, Learning and Teaching Programme Manager, JISC / DNER
What’s It All About, FE?
Julie Hall, SEDA Development Officer
Online Review: Web-Based Staff Development
Amy Pearson, Education Development Unit, University of Salford
“What Do Learning Technologists Do?”
Martin Oliver, Education and Professional Development, University College London
“Not Up To Your Usual Standard”: under-achievement and intervention in undergraduate examinations
Mark Liddiard, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Research, and Jan Sellers, Unit for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching, University of Kent at Canterbury.
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