scholarly journals Sessional Academic Success: A Distributed Framework for Academic Support and Development

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jillian Hamilton ◽  
◽  
Michelle Fox ◽  
Mitchell McEwan ◽  

With approximately half of Australian university teaching now performed by Sessional Academics, there has been growing recognition of the contribution they make to student learning. At the same time, sectorwide research and institutional audits continue to raise concerns about academic development, quality assurance, recognition and belonging (Red Report, 2008; May, 2013). In response, universities have increasingly begun to offer academic development programs for Sessional Academics. However, such programs tend to be centrally delivered, generic in nature, and contained within the moment of delivery, while the Faculty contexts and cultures that Sessional Academics work within are diverse, and the need for support unfolds in ad-hoc and often unpredictable ways. In this paper we present the Sessional Academic Success (SAS) program – a new framework that complements and extends the central academic development program for Sessional Academics at Queensland University of Technology. This program recognizes that experienced Sessional Academics have much to contribute to the advancement of learning and teaching, and harnesses their expertise to provide school-based academic development opportunities, peer-to-peer support, and locally contextualized community building. We describe the program’s implementation and explain how Sessional Academic Success Advisors (SASAs) are employed, trained and supported to provide advice and mentorship and, through a co-design methodology, to develop local development opportunities and communities of teaching practice within their schools. Besides anticipated benefits to new Sessional Academics in terms of timely and contextual support and improved sense of belonging, we explain how SAS provides a pathway for building leadership capacity and academic advancement for experienced Sessional Academics. We take a collaborative, dialogic and reflective practice approach to this paper, interlacing insights from the Associate Director, Academic: Sessional Development who designed the program, and two Sessional Academic Success Advisors who have piloted it within their schools.

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-3
Author(s):  
Romy Lawson ◽  

In this first editorial of 2016 I have some exciting news to share with the readership. Firstly the journal has recently been accepted for inclusion in Scopus, with the increase in citations from the journal being mentioned as noteworthy. Thanks goes to Dr Alisa Percy for her work on helping the journal gain this recognition, as well acknowledgement to previous editors. Secondly this year we shall be publishing two special issues in addition to the three regular releases: Reflection for Learning in Higher Education, Guest Editor Dr Marina Harvey (April, 2016) Dystopia or Utopia: Emerging Visions for the Future of Learning and Teaching Practice in collaboration with the Council of Australian Directors of Academic Development (CADAD) (September, 2016)


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 2-4
Author(s):  
Geraldine E. Lefoe ◽  

Welcome to the third and final issue of Volume 8 of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning (JUTLP) in 2011. As the year draws to a close we are seeing some striking changes to the higher education sector internationally. In England budget cuts have seen the closure of the twenty-four Higher Education Academy subject centres at the same time as the establishment of student fees. In Australia the cap has been lifted across the board on the number of students that can be enrolled in universities with the resultant projected increased student numbers. The focus in Australia is on social inclusion yet in England the concern for the introduction of fees is just the opposite, these will be the very students who may now be excluded. The changes in both countries see new measures of accountability and more complex regulations put in place. Will this cause people to rethink the way we teach and the way students learn? For the Higher Education Academy in the UK, new directions see the hosting of a summit on learning and teaching with a focus on flexible learning, an indicator of new directions for many institutions. In Australia, we see a renewed opportunity to investigate such changes through the opening of the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) and its role of recognising the importance of learning and teaching through grants and awards schemes. We hope in 2012 we’ll hear more from our authors about the impact of these transformations, as well as those changes occurring in other countries around the world, on teaching practice in our universities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2-3
Author(s):  
Kevin Ashford-Rowe

It gives me great pleasure in writing this first editorial for this Council of Australian Directors of Academic Development (CADAD) Special Issue for the Journal of Teaching & Learning Practice: Dystopia or Utopia: Emerging Visions for the Future of Learning and Teaching Practice. The issue looks at the future of learning and teaching in HE, examining both the exciting prospects as well as the more challenging aspects that we are likely to be facing as we move forward. As President of CADAD I can say that I have seen a substantial amount of changes in the sector that have impacted on how universities both think about and support learning and teaching.


Author(s):  
Gorana Misic ◽  
Margaryta Rymarenko ◽  
Helga Dorner

AbstractThis paper focuses on exploring the intellectual basis for establishing an academic development program for international doctoral students in social sciences and humanities in Central Europe so as to cultivate a reflective scholarly approach to teaching early on in their academic career. The program conceptions and practices are embedded in the notion that a scholarly approach to teaching integrates the understanding and demonstration of knowledge about teaching and necessitates a continuous learning process about teaching through reflection and through conducting research on teaching in the various disciplines. In particular, taking on board the domains of teaching knowledge which derived from the kinds of reflections on teaching (cf. Kreber & Cranton, 2000; Mezirow, 1991), instructional, pedagogical and curricular knowledge and continuous reflection at the level of content, process as well as premise, are represented in an integrative manner in our overarching program principles and pedagogical strategies. As we see, professionalization of doctoral students' teaching practice in higher education (cf. Lueddeke, 2003) is particularly important in the context of enhanced faculty mobility and internationalization. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to the literature and practice on establishing academic development programs, especially in academic environments with low institutional support for teaching and lack of formal requirements for professional development.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 19-38
Author(s):  
Nina Fotinatos ◽  

The aim of this paper is to examine the role and impact of a central academic development unit (ADU) within an institutional strategic and operational change management project. The primary goal of this project was to improve vocational education and training (VET) learning and teaching practice in an Australian dual-sector regional university. This driver of this change management project was in preparation for an external accreditation audit with the Australia Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). This paper presents perspectives from the ADU director and a specific ADU team (six senior educators and nine administrative staff) employed for 16 months to enact partial project goals. The ADU director utilises narrative methodology to describe the enactment of the project at the ADU level within the context of Kotters 8 Step Change Model (Kotter, 2012). An open and closed item survey approach was used to capture the perceptions of the ADU team regarding demonstrated leadership, management and team functionality throughout the duration of the project. The survey data also captured their perceptions regarding the value placed on change management requirements and indicators and their most rewarding experiences throughout the project. This paper highlights challenges and key lessons for ADUs associated with change management in a dual-sector environment. It also highlights the importance of utilising a suitable change management framework to initiative, lead and support meaningful, sustained changes in the dual-sector education environment


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-4
Author(s):  
Geraldine E. Lefoe ◽  

Welcome to the first issue of Volume 10 of Journal of University Teaching and Learning (JUTLP) in 2013. This year also marks the tenth year of the journal and we have seen it grow incredibly in that time. As an open access journal we struggled initially for acceptance. However last year there were 32000 downloads from the site, an indication of improved access as well as more interest in improving teaching practice. This increased recognition for research related to higher education teaching practice is also reflected in opportunities for grants. In Australia this year the federal government has recently announced that Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) grants and fellowships are included in the Competitive Grants Register for the first time providing further avenues for our scholars to support their research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 2-11
Author(s):  
Joseph Crawford ◽  
◽  
Alisa Percy ◽  
Jo-Anne Kelder ◽  
Kerryn Butler-Henderson ◽  
...  

The year 2020 will unlikely be one that any member of the higher education community will forget. It has posed challenges and opportunities to rethink aspects of tertiary learning and teaching, and also confirmation of some of the better practices we have engaged in. For some, the novel coronavirus pandemic has forced bad practice – such as simple and rapid digitalisation of existing curriculum – often bundled into the pedagogically-ambiguous ‘emergency remote teaching’ or ERT (Toquero, 2020). The intense pressure for academics to deliver curriculum online, typically to the exception of time for comprehensive academic development and upskilling. The practice for an overnight transition to online learning, while deemed by many to have been essential at the time, has created a myriad of future decisions to be actioned across the sector. These range from deploying future academic development workshops to transform the workforce for continued online learning to employment of educational technologists, learning designers, or similar to enable purposeful decisions of pedagogy within online learning environments. Financial constraints have tempered the deployment of additional resources, with institutions suffering from financial modelling unexpected in late-2019 budget forecasting meetings. A reduction in student enrolments from international markets offers complexity for higher education exporter nations like Australia (Marshman & Larkins, 2020). Nonetheless, there has been a resilience from the sector to ensure continuity of education under all circumstances. The role of journals like the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice during the pandemic has been to support timely publication of evidence-based practices for responses to COVID-19. This has included a need to balance the acceptance of manuscripts with pre-COVID-19 data and implications, and those authors contributing to the exponentially expanding knowledge base for teaching and learning during COVID-19. For the former, we have encouraged authors during final acceptance to reflect on their work’s role in enabling a positive response to the pandemic. For those in the latter, we have ensured that writers have considered the broader implications of their work beyond the pandemic. These decisions support manuscripts publishing in JUTLP to contribute to the contemporary landscape, and also beyond the pandemic.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
D. Richardson ◽  
I. Silver ◽  
A. Dionne

This evaluation of the integrated Stepping Stones (SS) Teaching Certificate program, including its instructional development (workshops) and theory review (journal club) components, will inform further program development. Results of this project will also add to the limited amount of scholarly work in the area of faculty development program evaluation. Faculty development literature in the area of organized program assessment reveals use of either quantitative OR qualitative methods. In this project, a novel method combining both techniques was used to explore program impact. Participants completed 2 questionnaires to identify skill-set knowledge gaps in teaching effectiveness. Pre- and post-program quantitative gaps were generated. Focus groups were used for qualitative exploration. Areas explored pre-program included: a) motives for enrollment, b) program expectations and c) prior teaching preparation. Post-program discussion explored: the impact of the program on a) participant’s perceived gaps, b) teaching behaviour change, and c) its influence on their career in education. We believed the program’s interprofessional environment would foster development of a learning community having impact on faculty knowledge, skills and attitudes related to teaching, and potentially elicit behavioural change in teaching practices. Results from a 2004-2005 cohort of participants have identified a variety of benefits for faculty and their teaching practice. Results from a second separate cohort, 2005-2006 participants, validated the initial findings. Remarkable harmonization in the results of the qualitative analysis between the two cohort samples was evident. Statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) were found in each of the domains examined qualitatively. Both qualitative and quantitatively, program effectiveness was demonstrated immediately following completion of the program. Follow up to assess the sustainability of the effects is ongoing. The analysis of the quantitative discrepancy (gaps) data has lead to a possible technique to assist in identifying unperceived educational needs. McLeod PJ, Steinert Y, Nasmith L, Conochie L. Faculty Development in Canadian medical schools: a 10-year update. CMAJ 1997; 156(10):1419-23. Hewson MG, Copeland HL, Fishleder AJ. What’s the use of faculty development? Program evaluation using retrospective self-assessments and independent performance ratings. Teach Learn Med 2001; 13(3):153-60. Moore EM. A Framework for Outcomes Evaluation in the Continuing Development of Physicians, in: The Continuing Professional Development of Physicians. Eds. Davis D, Barnes BE, Fox R. AMA Press, 2003.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Gaber ◽  
M. Antill ◽  
W. Kimball ◽  
R. Abdel Wahab

The implementation of urban village wastewater treatment plants in developing countries has historically been primarily a function of appropriate technology choice and deciding which of the many needy communities should receive the available funding and priority attention. Usually this process is driven by an outside funding agency who views the planning, design, and construction steps as relatively insignificant milestones in the overall effort required to quickly better a community's sanitary drainage problems. With the exception of very small scale type sanitation projects which have relatively simple replication steps, the development emphasis tends to be on the final treatment plant product with little or no attention specifically focused on community participation and institutionalizing national and local policies and procedures needed for future locally sponsored facilities replication. In contrast to this, the Government of Egypt (GOE) enacted a fresh approach through a Local Development Program with the United States AID program. An overview is presented of the guiding principals of the program which produced the first 24 working wastewater systems including gravity sewers, sewage pumping stations and wastewater treatment plants which were designed and constructed by local entities in Egypt. The wastewater projects cover five different treatment technologies implemented in both delta and desert regions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
Abdallah Namoun ◽  
Abdullah Alshanqiti

The prediction of student academic performance has drawn considerable attention in education. However, although the learning outcomes are believed to improve learning and teaching, prognosticating the attainment of student outcomes remains underexplored. A decade of research work conducted between 2010 and November 2020 was surveyed to present a fundamental understanding of the intelligent techniques used for the prediction of student performance, where academic success is strictly measured using student learning outcomes. The electronic bibliographic databases searched include ACM, IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Springer, and Web of Science. Eventually, we synthesized and analyzed a total of 62 relevant papers with a focus on three perspectives, (1) the forms in which the learning outcomes are predicted, (2) the predictive analytics models developed to forecast student learning, and (3) the dominant factors impacting student outcomes. The best practices for conducting systematic literature reviews, e.g., PICO and PRISMA, were applied to synthesize and report the main results. The attainment of learning outcomes was measured mainly as performance class standings (i.e., ranks) and achievement scores (i.e., grades). Regression and supervised machine learning models were frequently employed to classify student performance. Finally, student online learning activities, term assessment grades, and student academic emotions were the most evident predictors of learning outcomes. We conclude the survey by highlighting some major research challenges and suggesting a summary of significant recommendations to motivate future works in this field.


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