Cultivating communities of teaching practice through HEA subject centres

1
Cultivating communities of teaching practice
through HEA subject centres

• Philippa Hunter-Jones, Stuart McGugan, Heather
  Farley and
• Carol Reid

2
Structure of Presentation

• Learning in workplace settings.
• BMAF New Lecturers Project
• Overview
• Methodology
• Stages
• Findings.
• Conclusions.
• Contact details.

3
Learning in workplace settings

• transmission model.
• competence or outcomes based model.
• experiential model.
• learning as participation in a community of
  practice.

4
Community membership is socially negotiated

• If a community of practice (...) rejected a
  newcomer for some reason, that person would have
  a hard time learning (...) legitimacy can take
  many forms being useful, being sponsored (...)
  being the right kind of person (...) Granting the
  newcomers legitimacy is important because they
  are likely to fall short of what the community
  regards as competent engagement. Only with enough
  legitimacy can all their inevitable stumbling and
  violations become opportunities for learning
  rather than cause for dismissal, neglect, or
  exclusion.
• (Wenger, 1998, p.101).

5
Communities of Practice Short and long term
value to community members (Wenger et al, 2002,
p.16)
6
The BMAF Project Overview

• Aim of the study
• To identify what the needs of new teaching staff
  in BMAF disciplines are and to ascertain how BMAF
  can best offer support to individuals,
  departments and universities.
•  
• Working definition of a New Lecturer (NL)
• Permanent full-time or part-time contract as a
  lecturer, even if fixed term
• Employed in a BMAF discipline area, ie not
  economics, law or hospitality
• Within the first 3 years of their first academic
  post, possibly just into the 4th year, if
  required to achieve numbers
• Not Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs).

7
Methodology

• Semi-structured interviews with a target
  population.
• Strategic Dean or Associate Dean and senior
  management with overall responsibility for
  academic staff resourcing, quality management and
  learning and teaching within the business school.
  The Head of the Educational Development Unit
  (EDU) or equivalent.
•  
• Operational 2-3 programme directors/module
  leaders within the business school and the EDU
  lead for the HEI Certificate in HE teaching.
•  
• New Academics 6-8 new academic staff, i.e.
  within 3-4 years of their first academic post,
  with a sample selected to reflect where possible,
  subject specialism, career stage, gender and
  contract type in the HEI.

8
Stages

• Pilot Stage
• September December 2008.
• University of Liverpool University of Ulster.
• Main Stage
• Launched January 2009 (-June 2009).
• 6 institutions.

9
Findings

• Induction
• Formal processes different levels different
  forms.
• It is impractical to expect new lecturers to
  meet everyone in the building, but if a meeting
  or coffee could be organised with some key people
  who the new lecturer should know then that would
  be grand.

10
Findings

• Mentoring
• Role of mentor protection circumvent the
  system
• Mentoring () formal face and it can be
  unhelpful sometimes
• Seen as a means to establishing informal
  relationships
• I was assigned a mentor formally () it didnt
  hugely take up that much time () but it did lead
  onto social relationships and really thats what
  it is all about the social relationships I think.

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Findings

• CPD/Training
• Workshops research supervision student
  retention Web CT international collaboration
  research methods.
• Certificate in Professional Studies/PGCHEP.
• SEDA modules.
• Training leads to informal networking
  opportunities we all liked working together and
  meeting up and we still meet up for coffee.

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Conclusions

• Purposeful learning is derived by newcomers
  through participation (with others) in
  activities, tasks, habits of the work community.
• Challenge how to enrich the work community.
• Open dialogue between inside and outside
  perspectives (Wenger, 2002).

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What new BMAF teachers asked for

• Provision of both generic and subject specific
  networking events for New Lecturers.
• Support for the transition of international staff
  joining the UK Higher Education system.
• Development of mechanisms to expose new staff
  with no industrial experience to the corporate
  environment.
• Provision of training and resources to support
  the e-learning agenda.
• Subject linked resource database linked to other
  relevant databases including case studies.
• Checklist of generic issues a New Lecturer might
  encounter within their initial period of
  appointment, including for example teaching
  related issues module specification assignment
  documentation deadlines for examination papers
  external examiner requirements class lists
  timetable of Departmental/School meetings with
  requirements for attendance, etc.
• Subject linked on-line support modules.

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Contact details

• Philippa Hunter-Jones, University of Liverpool.
• E P.Hunter-Jones_at_liverpool.ac.uk.
• Stuart McGugan, University of Liverpool.
• E s.mcgugan_at_liverpool.ac.uk.
• Heather Farley, University of Ulster.
• E H.Farley_at_ulster.ac.uk.
• Carol Reid, University of Ulster.
• E CI.Woodside_at_ulster.ac.uk.

15
Acknowledgements

• We would like to thank Richard Atfield (BMAF) and
  fellow members of the Project Steering Committee
  for their help and support throughout this
  project.
• We would also like to thank staff, at both pilot
  institutions, who willingly gave up their time to
  participate in the research.