Desired characteristics of continuing professional development for holistic academic development

Portfolios have been used for assessment in higher education as an alternative to exams and assignments. E-portfolios offer staff a digital technology that can be both a personalised learning space, owned and controlled by the learner, and a presentation tool which can be used for formal assessment purposes. However, this can result in a tension between process and product, where e-portfolios become electronic repositories of resources that simply tick boxes for career progression. The paper reports on a project that investigated the use of e-portfolios by teaching practitioners developing a critical portfolio of evidence for an award-bearing academic development programme. An e-portfolio had been adopted to address criticisms that conventional assessment fails to take account of the context in which teaching practitioners operate. The project aimed to enable teaching practitioners to access and gain familiarity with pedagogically sound e-portfolio opportunities. In addition, it aimed to foster a reflective approach, promote critical thinking focused on learning and teaching and enhance continuing professional development.

Download Full-text

Continuing Professional Development for Lecturers at the National University of Lesotho: Milestones and Challenges

International Journal of African Higher Education ◽

10.6017/ijahe.v5i1.10966 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Tebello Tlali

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Academic Development ◽

Continuing Professional Development ◽

Formation Professionnelle ◽

National University ◽

Constructivist Perspective ◽

The University ◽

Development Center ◽

Roll Out

This article appraises efforts by the National University of Lesotho (NUL) to provide continuing professional development for lecturers. The findings of a previous study suggested that the majority of lecturers at this university were not trained as teachers and that this could negatively impact on their teaching. The establishment of a staff academic development center was long overdue. In April 2014, the university established the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Drawing on a constructivist perspective, a qualitative approach was adopted to explore the current situation. The findings indicate that efforts to roll out continuing professional development for lecturers have not borne any significant results. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of support from the university community as well as lecturers’ poor attendance at the staff academic development workshops hosted by the CTL. It is thus recommended that management put mechanisms in place to support the center and ensure compulsory staff participation. Cet article vise à évaluer les moyens mis en place par l’Université Nationale du Lesotho (National University of Lesotho ou NUL) pour offrir une formation professionnelle continue aux Maîtres de conférence. Une précédente recherche a démontré que la majorité des Maîtres de conférence de cette université ne recevait pas de formation en tant qu’enseignants, ce qui pouvait avoir un impact négatif sur leur activité d’enseignement. Il était donc grand temps de créer un centre de formation pour le personnel universitaire. En avril 2014, l’université a inauguré un Centre d’Enseignement et d’Apprentissage (Centre for Teaching and Learning ou CTL). A partir d’un point de vue constructiviste, la situation actuelle a été examinée selon une approche qualitative. Les résultats de cette recherche indiquent que les moyens mis en place pour proposer aux Maîtres de conférence une formation professionnelle continue n’ont pas été concluants. Le problème est accentué par un manque de soutien de la part de la communauté universitaire et par les absences répétées des Maîtres de conférence aux ateliers de formation organisés par le CTL pour le personnel universitaire. Il serait pertinent que la direction mette en place des mécanismes permettant de soutenir le Centre et de rendre la participation du personnel obligatoire.

Download Full-text

Who says academics don’t do CPD? Connecting practitioners and developing together through distributed cross-institutional collaborative CPD in the open

Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice ◽

10.14297/jpaap.v3i1.136 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Chrissi Nerantzi

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Professional Development ◽

Social Media ◽

Academic Development ◽

Student Experience ◽

Continuing Professional Development ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Institutional Collaboration ◽

Diverse Communities ◽

Open Educational Practices

In this paper, the author shares an emerging model to engage academics and other professionals who teach or support learning in Higher Education (HE) with continuing professional development (CPD). The model fosters informal cross-institutional collaboration through distributed and diverse communities of professionals for them to learn and develop with and from each other. A potpourri of pedagogical initiatives developed and offered as open educational practices and resources interwoven into each other using social media has been included. These illuminate opportunities for cross-institutional and cross-cultural CPD, highlight challenges as well as invite further exploration and research in this area. Initial evidence indicates that open practices are changing the academic development landscape, and informal cross-institutional collaborations among HE Institutions and other partners can provide valuable opportunities for self-organised informal and formal academic CPD that strengthens relationships internally and externally and has an impact on practices and the student experience.

Download Full-text

OER? What OER? Integrating Video OER in a Teacher Education Programme

Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice ◽

10.14297/jpaap.v1i2.68 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Chrissi Nerantzi

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Professional Development ◽

Academic Development ◽

Continuing Professional Development ◽

Education Programme ◽

Academic Community ◽

Open Bite ◽

Open Educational Resource ◽

Learning And Teaching ◽

The Impact

The Food for thought series is an Open Educational Resource (OER) in video format created by teachers and students in Higher Education (HE) for the academic community. The series offers open bite-size just in-time initial and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities for teachers in HE. Voices and perspectives from practitioners around the globe are shared and provide a broader perspective on learning and teaching. The series shows how OER can remove barriers to learning and professional development (Butcher, 2011) and be brought into mainstream teaching and the learning landscape in HE through academic development activities.The Food for thought series has been used systematically in a variety of academic development activities within the University of Salford and elsewhere. Within this paper, we focus on how the series has been integrated within the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) and specifically the module Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LTHE) to promote reflection on own practice and model the use of OER. The evaluation of this integration is shared here. The impact of the Food for thought series on student learning and the role it played in raising awareness and use of OER are explored. Recommendations are made about how this series could potentially enable wider use, re-use and adaptation for local needs (Lane, 2012) within other professional development activities.

Download Full-text