Dr Jo Maddern Centre for the Development of Staff and Academic Practice Institute of Education, Graduate and Professional Development INSPIRING TEACHING, INSPIRING COLLECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING: DESIGNING AN ONLINE LEARNING AND TEACHING COMMUNITY TO SUPPORT THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF LECTURERS AT ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY

Despite the rich ecology of designs for learning, the use of technology in professional education remains somewhat limited and tends to prioritize embodied rather than virtual spaces. Ellaway, R (2013), in Beetham and Sharpe (eds) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: designing for 21 st century learning. London. Routledge. VIRTUAL SPACES OF INSPIRATION

SUPPORT FOR INSPIRING TEACHING “How university teachers approach their teaching is systematically related to the way they experience the context of teaching…. Lecturers report greater use of an approach to teaching that a student focused and aimed at conceptual change when they experience control over the content being taught, when the Department provides support for teaching (emphasis my own), when they have an appropriate academic workload… Approaches to teaching are related to the leadership of teaching”. Prosser and Trigwell, (2004), quoted in Ramsden, P. (2013) Leadership for a Better Student Experience. Leadership foundation higher education. Page 8-9.

 A ‘survival guide’ for those new to teaching  A stronger focus on teaching in the arts / sciences / humanities through a subject specific element  A stronger synergy with the E-learning team and more elements of blended learning  A personalised ‘needs analysis session’ to design bespoke professional develop  Coaching and mentoring for individualised development  Self-observation of teaching using lecture capture technology CONSULTATION OUTCOMES

WHY A BLOG?

“The manic society”

 Contribute a post to a group online blog called “survival guide to lecturing” discussing a teaching issue, problem or challenge.  The post should be 700 words long in total comprising, for example, 2×200 words original posts and 300 words in response to other contributors.  You should regularly read and respond to other posters on the forum, particularly where you have a useful experience, solution or piece of literature to share.  A paper copy of your post and follow up comments by yourself and peers should be submitted for assessment. CRITERIA (10%)

SURVIVAL GUIDE TOPICS

 Positives:  The interaction with people across departments was useful and provided alternative solutions  Very productive to solve issues in teaching  Helped build a sense of community among other early career lecturers and across disciplines  A useful tool which gave us the opportunity to be proactive in providing questions and answers  The survival guide meant I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel! I learned from others’ experiences! EVALUATION & FEEDBACK

 Things to reflect on:  The survival guide blog has potential but as it was assessed the topics seemed a little forced due to a short submission deadline  I left responding to the blog too late. I find tea-room discussions more helpful!  The blog was useful but could have benefited from more input. Perhaps blend the blog with the expert teacher panel? EVALUATION & FEEDBACK

 Virtual communities of practice can effectively augment embodied spaces in professional development contexts.  The greater the support for teaching and teachers, the more likely lecturers are to adopt inspirational approaches that are student-focused and based on conceptual change rather than simply transmission of content.  Online support needs to be carefully managed, particularly in terms of balancing the reflection and assessment elements. SUMMARY