Wednesday 1 June 2016

Welcome to the Teaching Induction blog


Dear Colleagues
Zero Creative Commons at Unsplash.com

The Learning and Teaching Induction Program (LTIP) Fellowship team has been very ambitious in that by July 2017 we intend to:

1) investigate contemporary teaching induction practice and develop a teaching induction research agenda;

2) develop a self-paced, semester long, national, open access Learning and Teaching Induction Program (LTIP) for teaching staff in the Australian Higher Education sector; and

3) establish an ongoing ‘Teaching Induction’ Special Interest Group.

In our application we promised that what would change in the sector as a result of this Fellowship is that:
  1. any academic, regardless of where they teach, will be able to access the program;
  2. any Australian university can use the program as their teaching induction program;
  3. any Australian university can use the program or parts of the program to complement their own teaching induction program; and
  4. resources which comprise the program can be contextualised and embedded into any university’s existing teaching induction program (an adaptable OER).
What I also hope changes is that through the Fellowship the sector will develop a vibrant, interactive group focussed on improving teaching induction in our sector and on researching the impact of our induction programs on teaching practice and student outcomes.

As we begin the prepartory work for this Fellowship there are many things that it would be helpful to discuss before we meet face to face in October. While there are undoubtedly several topics that could be usefully discussed first, I suggest we discuss the theories, approaches, models that we would like to underpin the LTIP. Personally I’d like to see active learning and peer learning feature. I believe that the research shows that both of these approaches facilitate learning and successful outcomes.

A) What do you think about these approaches?

B) If you do believe that they are useful approaches to take, do you think that we can achieve meaningful active and peer learning fully online in a non accredited program?

C) What would you like to see underpin our program and why?

Please feel free to add questions of your own. I look forward to discussing your thoughts with you.

Cheers

Kym

9 comments:

  1. Great idea to get the conversation started Kym. You have a huge job ahead.
    I like your approaches, active learning in particular. Wondering if Boyer's Scholarship may fit as an underpinning model, or may feature somewhere?
    Julie

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  2. You are the first to comment Julie - thanks so much. If we have a 'module' on scholarly teaching (which I'd very much like to include and contribute to), I'd hope that Boyer's work would be featured there. Does that fit with what you are thinking or do you have something else in mind?
    cheers
    Kym

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  3. Hi Julie

    I'm pleased to be part of the team working with Kym during the Fellowship. As Kym noted, Boyer's scholarship work will inform the framing of the approach.

    An interesting tension and I'm keen to hear how this is addressed in other universities, and how this fits with your thinking Julie.

    In the first 6 months of an new position, academics are often in 'survival mode,' so scholarship is not on their radar. However, each stage of our Learning and Teaching journey is usefully informed and enriched by scholarship.
    So, the question, how do we support scholarship with our colleagues during the induction process?

    Cheers Jacquie

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  4. A few things I think we need to consider as we progress through this work:

    1/ how might we ensure the MOOC has some way of being usefully and easily captured for HEA accreditation purposes (for those who wish to go down that path)
    2/ is there some way of getting participants to engage in their own institution’s policies and practices in meaningful ways and specific work environments practices (taking on board the ideas and literature around “academic tribes”)
    3/ in a similar vein to the previous thought how can we encourage participants to engage in cross disciplinary and perhaps even cross institutional networking and observations or exchanges of teaching ideas (the second two stem from the feedback we have as a result of our own evaluations of our Foundations program).

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  5. Hi Jacquie and Ann - such great questions from you both and here I was hoping for answers! Ann I had thought that the 'one day' teaching induction workshop that some universities provide might usefully cover institution specific elements such as learning and teaching policies, the learning management system and the specific student cohort. However your question has prompted me to re-think. Why not include a module that encourages staff to delve into their university's policies in a purposeful way? I believe that we could do that.
    I expect that we will be able to direct participants to the HEA standards and label different elements of the MOOC, if that's the way that we go, in relation to the standards. Keeping the HEA in mind will help with Jacquie's point about supporting the scholarship of participants from the start.
    WRT to encouraging participants to engage in cross disciplinary and institutional networking, that will be a challenge and I am optimistic that between us all we can develop ways to do that through our work. Cheers - Kym

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  6. MB Fisher (Bernie), ACU
    My experience with academics new to ACU is that they are in 'survival mode' as Jacquie mentioned.
    One of the key things I hope we can consider when developing an approach to support teachers is 'how to engage them' in completing activities. They report that they like this support but don't have time. So my question for all of us is: 'How can we encourage them to engage in their own professional development?'. I'm still thinking about the theoretical models.
    Bernie

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  7. Hi Bernie

    That is a problem that we have been trying to solve forever. I expect that between us we will develop a number of 'hooks' to encourage staff to prioritise their own PD about teaching. In our program I hope that we can include short video clips from colleagues who do and who have found that doing so has helped them in both their teaching and their careers - promotion, award applications etc. Your question is one of our biggest challenges.

    cheers - Kym

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  9. Thanks Kym, yes I have been thinking back to my own experiences back in 2009 when I commenced as a full-time contract academic. PD was encouraged and I figured it was a way to acquire, knowledge skills and improve my teaching. Pressure to publish articles was important but I considered that if I did not engage my students first and strive for excellent teaching I would not be a very good researcher. As a result I did all the PD for teaching plus the GCHE before I published...I just have to get over the Phd line so to speak...which I will but I prefer to be working as an academic and contributing to kbowledge in this area as well as completing my studies. I read some interesting articles on reasons why academics resist PD recently.Bernie

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