1. education

TDU Talk
I ssu e 1 – May 2013
Professional Development:
What, why and how?
CONTENTS
Editor’s Comment Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer in
Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Teaching Development Unit
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning From Rob Torrens’ Portfolio, 2011 Dr Rob Torrens, Lecturer,
Faculty of Science and Engineering
- Engineering
2
The Many Faces of Professional Development:
A Personal Story 3
Dr Glenys Forsyth, Lecturer,
Faculty of Education Department of Sport and Leisure Studies
My Teaching Development Opportunities Judge Peter Spiller, Honorary Professor,
Faculty of Law
5
Revisiting my Teaching James Paterson, Academic Staff Member,
Bay of Plenty Polytechnic
- Diploma in Business Studies
7
Professional Development in Teaching
as a Complementary Activity to Research Dr Michael P. Cameron, Senior Lecturer,
Waikato Management School
- Economics
8
12
Doing Professional Development ‘In The Cracks’
of a Busy Working Life
15
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer,
Teaching Development Unit,
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
An accredited form of Professional Development – the U.K.’s Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship Scheme 16
Collated by Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer,
Teaching Development Unit,
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Using Student Feedback to Inform Professional
Development 19
Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer in
Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Teaching Development Unit
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Researching your teaching as a process of professional
development Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer in
Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Teaching Development Unit
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
21
Extending Our Understanding of Professional
Development 10
from Kirstine Moffat’s portfolio, 2013: Spreading the
Word
Dr Kirstine Moffat, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences - English Programme
Teaching Development Unit
Wahanga Whakapakari Ako
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240
New Zealand
Phone: +64 838 4839 Fax: +64 838 4573
E-mail: tduadmin@waikato.ac.nz
www.waikato.ac.nz/tduw
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Kia ora koutou
Welcome to the first edition of TDU Talk for 2013 in which the focus is on
developing your teaching.
One of the challenges facing anyone who is committed to the enhancement
of teaching and learning in the university sector is the range of misconceptions
about what constitutes professional development around teaching. For some
academics, the words teaching development may conjure up visions of
subjecting themselves to the well-meaning but unrealistic exhortations of a
bunch of enthusiasts, who peddle panaceas for effective teaching. For other
academics the words teaching development carry the uncomfortable whiff
of remediation. Additionally, many academics may be positively disposed
towards the idea of working on their teaching, but feel too overwhelmed by
workload and research imperatives to take on what seems to be more work.
It is not difficult to understand academics’ lack of enthusiasm for investing energy in teaching-related activities.
Historically, entry into an academic career has been on the basis of demonstrable research expertise in a
particular discipline and teaching has been seen as an offshoot of this and not always a desirable one. More
recently, changes in the higher education sector, notably reduction in university funding, have put additional
stresses on university academics. These pressures include the imperative to produce income-generating research
and increases in workloads. Spending time on developing teaching just seems too burdensome and yet teaching
is our core business and we have a moral responsibility to provide our students with the best possible learning
experience.
This edition of TDU Talk invites you to think about a range of opportunities for professional development
that can be fitted around your working life as well as the more traditional options of courses on teaching.
We appreciate the generosity of Kirstine Moffat and Rob Torrens in allowing us to publish extracts from their
teaching portfolios, and the teachers who have written about their professional development journeys: Peter
Spiller, Michael Cameron, Glenys Forsyth and James Paterson. Their narratives illustrate the different pathways
that people take as they grow in their understanding of and commitment to being a teacher. Within these
different stories, certain common themes recur, notably a joy in the process of teaching and a dedication to the
students’ learning. They demonstrate that there are multiple opportunities to develop as a teacher, but we need
to want to reflect on our practice and be open and receptive to learning.
In our work in the TDU, our daily experiences with our students - the teachers - continue to inform and push us
to refine our own thinking and practice, but it is also important for us to make a deliberate effort to revitalise
ourselves. Pip Bruce Ferguson describes the readily available professional development that is available through
participation in on-line discussion groups and also outlines the UK teaching accreditation model. Finally, I have
written about two other important opportunities for teaching development, feedback from student evaluations
and conducting research on teaching.
We hope that these ideas will be useful to you in your teaching.
Best wishes
The TDU Team
“Make a space at your place for teaching”
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In the following article, Glenys Forsyth talks about the challenges facing a new teacher and her development in her teaching role.
The many faces of professional
development: A personal story
Dr Glenys Forsyth, Lecturer, Faculty of Education - Department of Sport and Leisure Studies
7th February, 2011 … my first day on the job as an academic … where do
I start … I have three weeks before my first lecture, in that time I have
to prepare a paper outline, a paper readings book, assessments … not
to mention lectures … a new topic, a whole new literature to read …
where to begin … I spent my first week shuffling paper from one side
of my desk to the other side … standing in front of my 3rd year class, a
sea of faces look back at me and I know I am in trouble … a small voice
inside of me cries HELP!!!
Fast forward to
26th February, 2013 … I walked into my 3rd year class … a sea of faces
looked back at me … WOW, almost a full class … ‘they’ve heard of me’, I thought … I feel
comfortable … relaxed … I’m really enjoying this class.
Question:
How did I get from “help” to “I really enjoyed this class”?
Answer:
Professional development around my teaching
I arrived at Waikato in 2011 as a recent PhD graduate with no formal teaching qualification and limited
experience of teaching large classes although I did have some experience with on-line teaching. Additionally, I
was grappling with a new career, building new relationships, and adjusting to the cultural differences between
Dunedin and Hamilton. I was literally a ‘newbie’ on the block in every sense of the word. Collectively these
factors contributed to my cry of ‘help’ on that day back in 2011.
The concept of professional development was not new to me. My professional development in previous
employment focused on formal types of training such as workshops, seminars, block-courses and to a lesser
degree the more informal learning opportunities such as conversations with colleagues. During my time at
Waikato, I have carried out a mix of professional development activities such as TDU workshops, informal
conversations around teaching with colleagues, conferences, student feedback, researching my own teaching,
and ‘chewing the fat’ with colleagues at a similar career stage to me. I do not see one type of professional
development activity as more important than another; rather I view them all as integral pieces of my teaching
and learning ‘jigsaw’. For me, it is the combination of all these pieces that has given me insight into my teaching.
Anxiety, fear, stress, feelings of inadequacy, and trepidation were not words I was expecting to
use to describe my initial teaching experiences … I did have the support of my colleagues and
my department but as a ‘newbie’ I felt compelled to maintain a fa�ade of being in control and
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in doing so I communicated that ‘all was well’ … suggesting that I might be a little ‘out of my
depth’ did not seem to be a wise thing to do. Not knowing where to go, I maintained my silence
and I soldiered on.
My first year of lecturing was spent hidden behind the lectern (it seemed a safe place). I put student disengagement
and student absenteeism from my classes down to my limited experience as a teacher. I also thought I was
the only person experiencing these issues. However, whilst ‘chewing the fat’ with a colleague at a similar career
stage to me, I came to realise that my lecturing experiences were not unique to me. That awareness gave me
the confidence to talk to my more experienced colleagues where I heard similar stories of their initiation into
tertiary teaching. If only I had not maintained my silence, it might have saved me some anxiety. However, on
a positive note, my initial teaching experiences were the driving force for me to seek professional development
opportunities around my teaching.
In the first instance, I attended the Teaching Development Unit’s (TDU) workshops which covered topics such
an introduction to course design, maximising learning in large groups, principles of assessment, becoming a
reflective practitioner and research and teaching. As a ‘newbie’ much of the information from those workshops
initially did not resonate with me; however I have benefitted from attending many of the workshops a second
time. From there it seemed logical to progress to the Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching. In addition to
exploring my teaching philosophy I also began to read the teaching and learning literature. This led me to look
at ways in which I could research my teaching as a means to not only improve my teaching but also to add to
the teaching and learning literature. In conducting two small research projects around aspects of my teaching
I gained an awareness of how I teach, how my students learn and what I needed to do to move forward. The
outcomes from my professional development activities have seen me present at many TDU workshops and I
now have the opportunity to present my teaching research on both the international and national stage:
Spiller, D., & Forsyth, G. (2013). Rethinking the teacher’s role for building authentic learning partnerships:
Learning from an experiment in student-driven large group teaching. Paper presentation for the Higher Education
Academy Conference, University of Warwick, UK, 3rd – 4th July, 2013.
Forsyth, G., & Spiller, D. (2013). Reconceptualising the lecture space so that student voices matter. Paper
presentation for the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia Conference, AUT
University, Auckland, NZ, 1st – 4th July, 2013.
I have come a long way since I cried “help” … I have emerged from behind the lectern … my confidence grows
each day … I no longer feel compelled to maintain my silence … I know many people have benefited from my
professional development pursuits … however I feel those who have benefited the most are my students.
The more I learn, the more I want to know, hence, the more I want to continue to research my teaching practice.
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In the next article, Peter Spiller, now an honorary Professor at the University of Waikato, School of Law, reflects on the influences on his
development as a teacher.
My teaching development
opportunities
Judge Peter Spiller, Honorary Professor, Faculty of Law
In reflecting on my teaching development opportunities over the past 37
years of teaching law, I take as my starting-point my conception of teaching.
I see teaching as a shared creative activity, in which the teacher assists the
student to develop understanding and skills in a particular subject-area. For
me, teaching involves conversation and interchange amongst teacher, student
and subject. In light of this concept of teaching, I shall outline the major
teaching development opportunities in my career.
Teaching development opportunities in the
classroom
My greatest teaching development opportunities have come through my
interchange with students. This interchange has allowed me to gain greater understanding as to what works
best for them in terms of their learning.
I began my teaching career with serious disadvantages. I had had no teacher training and none was at hand. I
was required to teach in lectures to a group of around 90 students. In this context, the mode of delivery was
essentially that which I had found easiest as a law student: that of semi-dictating notes at a pace slow enough
for students to copy down what I had to say. Assessment in the course was one essay and a heavily-weighted
examination. This assessment meant that the students and I had limited opportunity of getting to know their
progress in the course.
My first classroom development opportunity took place in my first year of teaching. I decided to learn the names
of all my students. I found that when students knew that I recognised them personally, they were motivated to
become more engaged in their learning and felt more accountable for their efforts. I learnt the valuable lesson
that, for effective teaching to take place, the individual humanity of the learner needs to be well-recognised by
the teacher.
A second classroom development opportunity occurred after a few years of teaching, when I moved towards
assessment-based teaching. I consciously tried to align my learning objectives with assessment. I introduced
more formative, internal assessment, which meant that there was more engagement in learning-related tasks
and mutual feedback on the progress of the students. Furthermore, in compiling and presenting my material, I
paid close attention to what would be examined. The effect was that there was a more efficient and fairer use
of student time and effort, as they were trained towards achieving the goals of the course.
A third classroom development opportunity was to expand the scope of student feedback, beyond annual
teaching evaluations. For example, I sometimes asked students to spend the last five minutes of class setting
out their “muddiest point”, or to write a one-sentence summary of what they had learnt in the lesson, or to take
a stand for or against on a contentious issue. I then collected these comments, reflected on what emerged, and
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fed back a summary of the responses at the next class. These methods were especially important in keeping
channels of communication open with large-group classes.
A fourth classroom development opportunity was to supplement “left-brain” (logical/analytical) teaching
techniques with “right-brain” (emotional/creative) techniques. I thought that this step was especially important
in Law which strongly emphasises dispassionate logic and analytical thinking. In more recent years I have used
music, singing and some play acting to support key messages that I have tried to impart, and students have
responded very well to these techniques. It is important to engage in a variety of teaching and learning techniques,
to reinforce themes and to reach those students who might not respond well to traditional techniques.
Teaching development opportunities outside the classroom
At the University of Waikato, I was extremely fortunate to have the support of the Teaching (and Learning)
Development Unit. This Unit provided me with thoughtful and thought-provoking guidance and allowed me to
complete a PostGraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching. I further pay tribute to my Fellowship with the Higher
Education and Research Association of Australasia, which put me in touch with inspiring teachers in our region.
A landmark in my career was my appointment at the end of 1991 to a part-time position as a judicial officer in
the New Zealand Disputes Tribunals. Since my year in a legal firm in 1976 I had had very little exposure to the
practice of the law. I found my weekly mornings in the Tribunals an exhilarating experience, as I experienced at
first hand the law in action. My exposure to the practice of the law has continued since my appointment to the
District Court Bench in 2009. As my understanding of the practical workings of law developed, the subjects that
I taught came alive for the students and me, through reference to the cases in which I had participated.
Finally, I reflect on the development opportunities for teaching gained from being a student in my hobbies of
singing, the piano, theology and other fields. Here I have experienced for myself the roller-coaster nature of being
a learner. There are times when I have felt great satisfaction in mastering a set of skills. At other times I have felt
frustration at how little progress I have made, or when I seem to have regressed. I have come to realise how easy
it is to feel crushed by discouraging remarks and to appreciate the importance of repeated encouragement and
recognition of effort and achievement. All of this has given me greater empathy for my students.
Conclusion
It has rightly been said that one cannot teach except by constantly learning. It is important for a teacher to
be open and receptive to teaching development opportunities and the new tools that emerge, and to retain a
commitment to ongoing development of one’s teaching.
I pay tribute to all those people, both within my class rooms and outside, who have provided me with
opportunities to develop as a teacher. I hope that our conversation of teaching and learning will continue, to
our mutual benefit.
References: Eble, K. (1988). Craft of teaching. San Francisco: Jossey Bass
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In the following article, James Paterson from the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic discusses the impact of his participation in professional
development opportunities offered at the University of Waikato.
Revisiting my teaching
James Paterson, Academic Staff Member, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic - Diploma in Business Studies
I think if most polytechnic and university teachers were being honest with
themselves they would acknowledge that they teach their students in much
the same way that they were taught as students. It makes perfect sense really
- that the teaching experience gets passed on through the generations very
much like what occurs in most family situations as in the idiom that “the apple
never falls far from the tree”.
I started my teaching career in 1994 for the BOPP, teaching Marketing to NZ
Diploma in Business students. I am fascinated by the marketing discipline and
I originally spent almost all of my professional development resources going to
various marketing conferences and seminars. Because I am enthusiastic about
my field, I get on well with and care for my students and I view my role at the
polytechnic positively. I tended to have extremely positive student evaluations
which led me to believe that I was a good teacher and that I was right on top of my teaching game.
In 2009 I had the opportunity to attend a teaching workshop being run by the TDU over at the Hamilton
campus. The seminar topic was on reviewing and questioning our current teaching beliefs. Because my student
evaluations had been pretty solid for a number of years, I thought my teaching beliefs were sound and that
maybe some minor tweaking at the margins was required to improve my teaching practice. I emerged three
hours later from this seminar questioning almost every aspect of my teaching practice. I was so excited driving
back over the Kaimais to Tauranga as I realised that over time my teaching practice had become more and more
consistent with the way I had been taught through university and that there were better teaching approaches
to consider and work on. My teaching practice didn’t need a bit of tune up – it needed a complete overhaul
and rebuild.
For me the seed had been sown and I eagerly attended numerous teaching workshops run by TDU from Course
Design to Assessment to E-Learning Strategies. Through these workshops I decided I would embark on the
PostGraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, which at the time was a two year, part time course aimed at
providing tertiary teachers with access to current teaching theory and importantly looking at practical ways to
implement best practice teaching strategies to enhance the quality of student learning. What I loved about the
course was the experience and quality of all the TDU staff and in particular the balance of theory and practice.
All the assessments were well structured requiring us to delve into relevant theory, but with the intent of
developing resources and approaches that were practical and useful for my students.
This professional development has been wonderful. I have changed and continue to adjust almost every teaching
resource and assessment task I now have. I believe that I’m now practising a very student-centred learning
approach and the student feedback reflects this. My student completion rate has improved over the past three
years and I have a new zest for teaching and trialling innovative approaches. From a professional development
standpoint the PostGraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching was more than a refresher course on good teaching
pedagogy for me. It reignited my passion for teaching and learning. I would encourage any tertiary educator, no
matter how experienced you are, or how well your student evaluations stack up, to dedicate a few hours to pop
in to any TDU workshop. You never know, it just might change the way you view your teaching practice and help
the apple roll a bit further from the teaching tree, so it can get plenty of nourishment in the future.
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Professional Development in
Teaching as a Complementary
Activity to Research
Dr Michael P. Cameron, Senior Lecturer, Waikato Management School - Economics
Professional development is a key activity for any profession. For example,
we expect our medical professionals, airline pilots, and engineers to be not
only professionally qualified, but to also undertake on-going development
to ensure that their skills are up-to-date with the latest developments in
their field and that they meet our needs as patients, passengers, and clients.
Similarly, our students deserve to be taught by lecturing staff who are not
only professionally or academically qualified, but are also employing the
latest evidence based pedagogical practice.
I take my own professional development as a teacher very seriously. However,
I also recognise that I need to develop as a researcher as well, and so I try to
ensure that my professional development in teaching does not divert too much
of my energies from research. Therefore, as much as possible I try to make the
two activities complementary. I frequently engage in the more formal channels of professional development
activities such as teaching development workshops, attending teaching-related seminars and so on. However,
I want to focus this article on two less-obvious professional development opportunities for teaching, both of
which can complement research activity – reflection, and conducting research on your own teaching.
First, I commit specific work time to reflect on my teaching practice, not only during teaching time, but
throughout the year. After lectures, I often write myself a short note on what went well, what didn’t go so
well and how I think it could be improved, which I then refer to before I teach that paper the following year. In
addition to this, I also keep track of new ideas for my teaching throughout the year, recording them in a separate
MS Word document for each of my papers in the form of a list. If I see something interesting and relevant in
a newspaper or journal article or research paper; some interesting results from my own or my colleagues’ or
students’ research; some exciting application in a book or movie; or a new idea for assessment or in-class activity
or experiment or teaching approach that I want to try out; I add a note to the list (usually with a reference to the
source). I then work through each list as I am re-writing and developing each of my papers. These lists of notes
to myself are an invaluable tool in my on-going development as a teacher, and they ensure that none of my
papers are ever stale – not to me, and not to my students. Every time I teach I am bringing something fresh and
new to the paper, which is engaging both for me and for my students. According to the feedback I get in paper
appraisals and informal discussions, this is one of the aspects of my teaching that my students enjoy most. And
better still, because I am often developing these ideas while engaged in research activity, I am getting double
value for my time.
Second, I develop my skills and understanding as a teacher by engaging in research on my teaching. This is no
different from the way in which we develop our skills and understanding as researchers by employing the latest
techniques and testing and developing new theories. If I am trying out a new form of assessment (video projects
in ECON100 for example, or blog assessments in ECON110), I will almost certainly be gathering data that I can
use to evaluate its effectiveness. Often this data is in the form of quantitative measures of student performance
(in assessments, attendance, and so on), but qualitative data gathered from formal surveys or focus groups or
informal discussions with my students are also important. If a new assessment is effective (or, like the video
project, it is fun and does not appear to make the students any worse off in terms of learning outcomes), then
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it is worth persisting with. Furthermore, presenting research on teaching at conferences, and engaging with
like-minded colleagues in discussions about teaching is an excellent tool for professional development. I try to
present my research on teaching at both higher education and discipline-specific conferences, and I increasingly
follow through to journal publication. This form of professional development is, again, doubly valuable since it
contributes to both my teaching and research activity.
Thus, our professional development as teachers need not be onerous, nor necessarily divert us from important
research. My professional development activities keep my teaching fresh, up-to-date, and relevant to students,
as well as keeping my own mind engaged.
Higher Education Teaching and Learning (HETL) Association: CALL
FOR PAPERS
HETL is now accepting manuscripts for 2013 and 2014 for scholarly, evidence based articles. The primary aims
of the HETL journals are to
• to provide a forum for a diverse set of voices to share their expertise and research in the field of teaching
and learning
• to create a rigorous, peer-reviewed process for the dissemination of scholarly knowledge on teaching and
learning
• to build a vibrant research community of scholars and education professionals from all academic domains
in higher education.
Full details about the call for papers is at https://www.hetl.org/submission-instructions/ For sample academic
articles: https://www.hetl.org/category/academic-articles/ For sample feature articles: https://www.hetl.org/
category/feature-articles/ We are also interested in receiving proposals for book reviews and technology
reviews. If you would like to write a book or technology review article for IHR, see https://www.hetl.org/
guidelines-and-forms/ for more information and guidelines. For sample book reviews: https://www.hetl.org/
category/book-review-articles/ For sample technology reviews: https://www.hetl.org/category/technologyreview-articles/ Finally, we are interested in interviewing a diverse set of the world’s leading scholars and
academic leaders. If you would like to suggest someone for HETL to interview, please send his/her name and
email to Patrick Blessinger at patrickblessinger@gmail.com for consideration. For sample interviews: https://
www.hetl.org/category/interview-articles/
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The following extracts from the award-winning portfolios of Kirstine Moffat and Rob Torrens offer insight into the many different ways
in which we can develop as teachers.
Extending our understanding of
professional development
from Kirstine Moffat’s portfolio, 2013: Spreading the Word
Dr Kirstine Moffat, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences - English Programme
‘Professional development’ means, to me, making positive and enriching
connections with a diverse range of people from within, and without, the
academy. Through this I grow, extend my interests, and challenge my thinking.
‘Leadership’ means, to me, taking the initiative to connect with academics,
schools, clubs, societies and the wider community. As the American novelist
Herman Melville wrote: ‘We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibres
connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibres, as sympathetic
threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.’
Connecting through a variety of networks
I am committed to enhancing my teaching, as demonstrated below:
• I am part of a multi-disciplinary team, led by Dr Mira Peter and Anne Harlow, that was awarded TLRI Funding
for researching Re-envisioning Tertiary Teaching and Learning of Difficult Concepts (2012-2014);
• I share ideas and methods with colleagues from related disciplines, such as Dr William Jennings in French and
Associate Professor Cathy Coleborne in History;
• I read widely in the field of teaching practice, such as the Journal of Education for Teaching and Higher
Education Research and Development, and apply what I learn to my teaching;
• I talk with colleagues in the TDU, and attend workshops and conferences, to learn ways of improving my
teaching practice;
• I seek student feedback through formal course assessments and conversations during and at the end of
courses;
• I meet with fellow academics to review courses, and ask them to attend my lectures to provide feedback;
• I confer with colleagues in other New Zealand and international universities to ensure that my teaching is
rigorous and engaging;
• I ensure that my teaching is informed by my research interests, such as my focus in New Zealand Literature
on colonial novelists; and
• I reflect on issues arising from teaching; for example, the experience of teaching Vincent Ward’s film River
Queen in 2007 led me to grapple with the disjunction in the film between sound and narrative which resulted
in an article.
Connecting with mentors and colleagues
My professional development continues to be nurtured by trusted mentors:
• my father’s example as a secondary school English teacher inspires me to bring texts alive;
• Professor Anne McKim encourages me to form strong links between my own research and my teaching;
• Associate Professor Jan Pilditch has been a model of student-centred supervision to doctoral candidates; and
• Dr Mark Houlahan has taught me the importance of flexibility and responding to student needs.
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In turn, I actively mentor and support younger colleagues and tutors, helping them to shape lectures, assisting
them in trialling new teaching methods, sitting in on lectures and tutorials in order to give constructive feedback.
I likewise share experiences about teaching practice at TDU workshops. I also confer with colleagues from English
programmes in other New Zealand and international universities to ensure that my teaching is rigorous and
engaging. I am always happy to share knowledge and methods with colleagues. One colleague at the University
of Edinburgh finds it difficult to access recent material on New Zealand literature and I assist her by sending her
articles and books, which she describes as ‘invaluable support.’ (Michelle, 2008)
Connecting with the wider community
I am likewise committed to contributing to teacher and student excellence beyond the tertiary sector in the
following ways:
• consulting with colleagues in secondary schools;
• running a successful workshop at the 2009 NZATE Conference which led to requests for teaching resources
and an invitation to write an article for English in Aotearoa;
• conducting school visits to Waikato Diocesan, St Peter’s School Cambridge, Tauranga Boys’ High School;
• organising year 13 revision days at the University to aid exam preparation;
• adjudicating the Waikato final of the 2011 and 2012 Sheila Winn Shakespeare Competition;
• adjudicating debating and speech contests for school competitions and regional finals;
• serving on the University’s Continuing Education Committee and strive to enhance the life-long experiences
of learners; and
• talking to community organisations such as Hamilton Sixty Plus, Tauranga Rotary, Tauranga Art Gallery, Te
Awamutu Museum, Awatere Club, Tauranga Music Teachers’ Association.
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From Rob Torrens’ portfolio, 2011
Dr Rob Torrens, Lecturer, Faculty of Science and Engineering - Engineering
My professional development commenced when I began preparing my own
lecture material. Over the first two or three years of my employment I
participated in a number of seminars hosted by the TDU. These covered a
number of aspects I was involved with (or have become involved with), ranging
from: concepts and scholarship of tertiary teaching and learning, to teaching
international students and principles of assessment. My involvement in these
sessions, and the knowledge I have developed from them, manifest in numerous
ways: using a framework of learning outcomes to aid me in developing new
lecture material; using a variety of teaching techniques (acknowledging that
different students learn in different ways); developing my assessment items
to reflect and reinforce learning outcomes. The value of these sessions comes
from both the material presented and also the discussion that develops around
the material.
When attending one of the sessions on assessment with Dorothy Spiller she made the comment that we should
be telling the students what we’re assessing them on – I must have been particularly dim-witted that day as
I interpreted that as ‘telling students the questions before they sat the test’ – that didn’t sound right to me. I
came to realise that that wasn’t what was meant, it is more the idea of clearly communicating expectations
and rationale. If I expect students to be able to plot and interpret
stress/strain graphs – then actually tell them that’s what I expect.
How can we expect
The expectations should be linked to the learning outcomes – if
students to perform
they aren’t then I need to revise my expectations or the learning
to our expectations
outcomes. Clearly communicating expectations has now become
if we don’t
a bit of a catch-cry for me. Often when I hear student feedback in
communicate them?
the class rep meetings I can identify that there has been a mismatch
between student and lecturer expectations; how can we expect
students to perform to our expectations if we don’t communicate them? Another implementation of my
communicating expectations has been developing a style/writing guide for the ENMP102 lab reports; I want
students to become proficient in this technical writing style therefore I should equip them with appropriate
tools and techniques.
My professional development has led me to publish and present engineering education research papers at
conferences (refer to the Publications section). These conferences give an opportunity to discuss my own
research and also hear and discuss what others are doing. The great value of these particular conferences is
that the education research is presented in a subject specific context, allowing the examples and case studies
to have an immediate relevance.
My education research continues through involvement in a TLRI (Teaching & Learning Research Initiative) funded
research project: ‘Exploring E-learning Practices across the Disciplines in a University Environment’. In my case
this has allowed us to evaluate how we teach the SolidWorks design software in ENGG180; the research is still
being written up but feedback during the focus group interviews has already highlighted areas we can refine
12
and therefore improve the student learning experience, such as providing more tutors during the SolidWorks
sessions and making the software more accessible.
I’ve mentioned co-hosting a Royal Society of New Zealand teaching fellow, Debra Leong, during 2008. This
enabled her to have a greater understanding of what a university engineering degree involves, allowing her to
give high school students a much clearer picture of engineering as a possible career choice. This was useful for
me as I benefited from peer review of my course management and teaching. Deb attending all parts of the
ENGG180 course meant it didn’t feel like I was under scrutiny at any particular time. Deb and I had a number
of discussions about what she felt I was doing well and what areas could be improved; my coordinating courses
and personal performance has improved as a result.
Recent challenges in my professional development have been presenting my subject area to different and diverse
audiences. Initially this involved my giving presentations to year 12 and 13 high school students as part of the
School of Engineering Osborne Physics and Engineering (OsPEn) lectures.
Of greater challenge for me was presenting a variation of the “Why things break” talk to the Hamilton Junior
Naturalist Club (a.k.a. Junats). This club is a group of children and young adults (10-18 years) who have an
interest in science and the natural world; often their parents will also stay for the presentations. Presenting to
this audience was very demanding, with such vast differences in what I could reasonably assume the audience
already knew and a much greater variation in the questions I received. Feedback from the Junats, both on the
night and afterwards, indicates I was able to rise to the challenge – both being able to hold their interest for the
allotted time and teaching them something.
One aspect of what could be considered my leadership role is with career-changer high school technology
teachers. These students are predominantly trades-people who are retraining to become technology teachers.
As part of their studies they’re enrolled in various courses I teach in. My involvement in this is leading by
example.
The feedback we received from the teachers and year-12 and -13 physics students was very
positive about your lecturing style and the lecture content (“Why things break”), and they
certainly enjoyed the noisy demonstrations! It was clear that you were able to hold the
audience’s attention, despite the fact that your talk was the fourth and final presentation at the
end of a long day when student concentration tends to wane. Your contribution to the OsPEn
lectures was informative and entertaining.
(comments from Alistair Steyn-Ross, OsPEN 2010 convenor)
While these career-changers are learning from me, I’m also learning from them. They have a wealth of prior
experience from their previous occupations that I can relate to the topics I teach (Knowles, 1990). This reinforces
for them the relevance of the subject, allows the younger students to see that the subject does actually reflect
what goes on in industry and provides me with a greater pool of examples for use in subsequent years. As these
students have also received training in education they provide an additional avenue for feedback allowing me
to further refine and develop my teaching.
[Rob] was a most lively and entertaining speaker who obviously held the attention of a mixed
group ranging in age from about 10 to 18, and a number of their parents–no mean feat! The
content was nicely balanced, being accessible for the younger members without belittling or
boring the older ones.
(comments from Robyn Aimer, Junats secretary)
13
Another leadership role I’m involved in is participation in a first-year tutors’ discussion group. This group has
members from all of the schools/departments in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. Initially set up to
provide support for the new first-year tutor, it is a useful forum for all of the participants (including us ‘old
hands’) as we can compare and contrast our various approaches in labs and tutorials and come away with new
ideas. These discussions are ongoing and have so far covered: organising the students and graduate-student
demonstrators; addressing safety requirements and instilling hazard awareness in students; using elearning tools;
and assessing the laboratory portions of our respective courses. Prior to these meetings we had all been dealing
with similar problems and issues but in relative isolation, the discussion group provides a valuable support and
development tool.
He is masterful in his classroom management yet does not appear to be managing when he
does this. He is in tune with individual student needs at the same time as the whole. As a trainee
career-changer teacher, I am making continuous notes of his teaching ability alone to guide
me in my future skills. He is a natural teacher who takes his profession very seriously. I will be
trying to emulate him.
(nominator’s comment, 2010 FSEN teaching awards)
14
Doing professional development ‘in
the cracks’ of a busy working life
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer, Teaching Development Unit, Centre for Tertiary Teaching and
Learning
At one stage of my working life I was a regular attendee at courses, workshops
and the like. If I’d kept a record of these, my CV would be vastly expanded –
but I omitted to keep such a record, useful though it would have been when I
was applying for jobs.
Latterly, however, work pressures and tight funding have made it harder to
attend some of the useful-looking events that I have noticed over recent years,
although I’ve managed to attend two Ako Aotearoa events in the past two
years. The first pertained to working effectively with Māori, and the second
with Pasifika, students. Ako Aotearoa run a variety of workshops that you can
check out on their website, www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz
However the most useful ‘in the cracks’ professional development I have been
able to pursue in recent months has come about through e-options. My membership of LinkedIn led me to
choose to participate in three higher education-related discussion groups; of ALARA (Action Learning, Action
Research Association) another such group. From each of these discussion groups, I am able to follow cuttingedge practice, effective collaborative sharing of ideas and resources, and sometimes critical comments on the
contributions to these groups. The international flavour of the discussions interests me, as I have argued for
many years that we need to be careful about the colonising of knowledge by particular perspectives to the
devaluing of alternative views.
For instance, in a recent discussion entitled “Do we really need to “train” academic staff to use technologies?”
the conversation was initiated by a woman in South Africa, and the immediate responses were from Ethiopia,
Egypt, the USA, Kenya and Romania. There are now 129 comments, debating whether staff might better pick
up technology skills through formal ‘training’, approaching any support from a pedagogical or a technical point
of view, and so forth. There is robust discussion amongst the participants about how best to support staff in an
increasingly technologically-dependent teaching environment. See, for instance, the contribution below.
Sandra Miller, Director of Instruction and Research Technology, William Paterson University, New York, wrote:
This is indeed a great discussion topic. Recently, we changed our Center for Instruction and
Research Technology (CIRT) into the Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology (CTLT).
Any faculty looking for the point and click of a particular technology that they were interested
in could sign up for a workshop, but in the CTLT, we are talking about pedagogy - things like
the Active Learning Classroom, the Flipped Classroom, Teaching in the Cloud, and more. We are
conducting Teaching Circles where faculty can bring their ideas, thoughts, practices together
for discussion. Our next Teaching Circle is an iPad Circle. Can’t wait!
The good thing about this kind of informal professional development is that you can pick up the threads of the
discussion if and when you happen to have a spare half hour. It’s fairly easy to weed out the contributions that
don’t immediately appeal, and to grab ideas from those whose approach appeals to you, extends your current
knowledge or challenges your present practice. I would recommend such discussion groups as a user-friendly
way of keeping up to date with teaching and learning practices around the world.
15
An accredited form of Professional
Development – the U.K.’s Higher
Education Academy National
Teaching Fellowship Scheme
Collated by Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer, Teaching Develoment Unit, Centre for Tertiary
Teaching and Learning
When I visited York St John University last year, Dr Mike Calvert alerted me
to a scheme which he said had been most useful in encouraging experienced
teachers to promote and extend their work. This was the HEA National
Teaching Fellowship Scheme, which Mike said could operate either via an
ongoing dialogue with the applicant for the Fellowship, or via the submission
of an extensive portfolio which is then peer-assessed by two experienced
designated reviewers. The current guidelines on the HEA site (http://www.
heacademy.ac.uk/ntfs/assessment-process) seem to stress only the portfolio
type of assessment.
The benefits of this Scheme, according to Mike, are that people who value their
teaching and its further development can do so on an individualised basis,
rather than attending ‘set courses’ which may not meet their particular needs and interests. The Scheme seems
to work rather similarly to our Ako Aotearoa Teaching Excellence Awards Scheme, only on a rather grander scale.
Also, we don’t have the funding availability that the HEA Scheme has, but the evaluation of the Scheme (see
URL and subsequent information below) indicates that it has been very successful. http://www.heacademy.
ac.uk/ntfs/evaluation
As a sideline, a similar scheme based on portfolio preparation (although without the financial reward aspect
mentioned below in the HEA scheme) was developed by the Higher Education Research and Development
Society of Australasia (HERDSA) when I was an International Vice President. I was on the development group
for this “HERDSA Fellowship” scheme. Its aim to support excellence in teaching was very similar to the Ako
Aotearoa Teaching Excellence Awards scheme and the HEA NTFS. See http://www.herdsa.org.au/?page_id=5
for further details. All these schemes aim to promote excellence in teaching; to provide for a discussion around
teaching through this promotion; and are a great way of gaining recognition (and hopefully, promotion!) for
quality teaching.
An extensive cut-and-paste on the HEA scheme appears below.
“The HEA National Teaching Fellowship Scheme was launched in 2000. Its genesis can be found in the 1997
Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, the Dearing Report:
14.6 Promotion is based on criteria devised by individual institutions, but they are generally
perceived as rewarding research rather than teaching. Some institutions are changing this
emphasis, and seek to reward other aspects of academic work, particularly excellence in
teaching, but also managerial skills and leadership abilities. Nevertheless, our survey of
academic staff indicates that only three per cent believe that the present system rewards
excellence in teaching. We agree that there is currently inadequate recognition of teaching
excellence, and make proposals to help change this in paragraph 14.29.
16
Throughout the lifetime of the NTFS, more than £12 million has been invested in the scheme by the funding
councils – the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Higher Education Funding Council
for Wales (HEFCW), and Northern Ireland’s Department for Employment and Learning (DELNI). The vast
majority of this funding has been given directly to the individual Fellow to research issues of learning and
teaching or improve their personal professional practice. Approximately 10% of this funding has been spent on
administration of the scheme. Initially there were 20 awards each year with the recipient of the award receiving
£50,000 over three years to support a project defined at the point of application. In 2004 the scheme was
expanded, increasing the number of awards to 50 as a result of the 2003 Government White Paper, The Future
of Higher Education, which noted the success of the scheme but added that “more needs to be done to highlight
and reward truly outstanding individual teachers as role models for the rest of the profession”1.
A review conducted by the HEA in 2005, resulted in changes to the scheme: two strands were developed –
individual and project. From 2006 Fellows received an individual award of £10,000, but had the opportunity to
bid, as principal investigator, for project funding up to the value of £200,000. There were four annual rounds of
bidding for the NTFS projects stream from 2007 to 2010. This major investment, funded by HEFCE, has resulted
in 40 projects covering a number of themes and giving a range of outputs for dissemination both nationally
and internationally. In 2010, Wales joined the scheme2. Currently, all higher education institutions, and further
education colleges with more than 100 full-time equivalent higher education students, in England, Northern
Ireland and Wales can submit nominations.
Further changes resulted from discussions at the NTF Advisory Panel based on analysis of the data available:
aspects of the scheme were reviewed in 2009-10 to ensure that it did not inhibit potential applications on
grounds of disability, gender, ethnicity, age or subject/discipline (in particular those working in art, media and
design).
The scheme and priorities in the sector
There appears to be a growing trend towards the development of national awards for teaching in HE (for
example the Times Higher Education award for Most Innovative Teacher and the student-led teaching awards
schemes), which are comparable with the NTFS. The processes and approaches vary but all aim to raise the
profile of teaching in HE. Indeed, teaching excellence is a key area of interest and debate across the UK sector.
The Government White Paper, Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System, highlighted the point that
“students should also expect to receive excellent teaching” (section 2.5) and recent reports have made reference
to the fact that teaching excellence is understood in different ways in different contexts, with stakeholders
(students, academic staff, senior management) taking variable perspectives on the concept3.
Teaching excellence can be seen to encompass reward, accreditation and recognition of staff and as such is a key
and growing area of focus in many UK HEIs, as there is a move to heighten the status of teaching and provide
more of a balanced perspective with research. This was evident for instance in the work of institutions taking
part in the HEA 2012 Reward and Recognition Enhancement Change Programme. In this context the NTFS is
seen to be being integrated into wider institutional approaches to recognising excellence in teaching, offering
a stage of progression further to institutional teaching awards and providing evidence of teaching excellence in
submissions for promotion.
Teaching excellence is also important in the context of increased tuition fees in which students have reason
1
2
3
17
Department for Education and Skills (2003) The Future of Higher Education. London: HMSO, p. 53.
Wales joined the NTFS, but did not adopt the project work.The number of NTFs awarded annually went up to 55 at this point.
Gibbs, G. (2010) Dimensions of quality.York: Higher Education Academy; Rostan, M. and Vaira, M. (eds.) (2011) Questioning excellence in higher education: Policies, experiences and challenges in national and comparative perspective. Rotterdam,The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
to become increasingly discerning about their choice of institution and the quality of teaching. Institutions
are more focused on providing value for money and demonstrating the learning gain from a higher education
experience. Students are also becoming more aware of the information being provided to them to support
them in such choices. The NTFS has been recognised in this context: staff who hold an NTF are recorded in the
academic teaching qualification field, of the HESA staff return, denoting those who have been recognised for
their teaching expertise.
The growing community of NTFs also presents a source of great expertise. This was recognised in the programme
of HEFCE-funded NTFS projects running from 2007 to 2010. These projects cover a number of themes including
assessment and feedback, employability, education for sustainable development, curriculum development, and
the first-year and postgraduate experience, and have resulted in a range of innovative work that has had impact
across the sector. The final phase of projects will be completed in 2013. Although each project has had a plan
for dissemination, and for demonstrating impact of its outcomes, the HEA is now producing a synthesis of these
projects and their outputs to provide a key resource for the sector by drawing out synergies and supporting the
sustainability of the work.
The NTFs individually are very well positioned to promote, and act as a catalyst for, innovative practice. The
latest development from members of the Association of National Teaching Fellows is a collaborative, edited
publication. This is aiming to include work on assessment, curriculum design, technology-enhanced learning,
employability, and student engagement; all topics highlighted in the NUS Student Experience Research 2012
as areas for further development.
As a community, the NTFs also have the strength of being able to work across discipline boundaries. This may
prove particularly relevant, for example, when addressing employability, which was noted in the NUS report
Student Experience Research 20124 as “one area where the research shows a more distinct subject difference”.
Work that recognises the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach in the context of employability is
evident in an NTFS project, Creating Future Proof Graduates (http://www.bcu.ac.uk/futureproof). This project
created a unique toolkit to enable students in different disciplines to meet the varying demands of employers
in the current graduate job market.
In addition, key work conducted by NTFS project teams has resulted in development of innovative assessment
and feedback practice, which is being disseminated effectively and could potentially have impact on
assessment policy. The Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA) project (http://
www.testa.ac.uk), for instance, has been cascaded to a number of HEIs and also became the foundation for an
HEA Assessment and Feedback Change Programme, facilitating impact of the project on the sector.
One outcome of the NTFS review is a range of case studies from NTFs5, which can provide a useful and
ongoing resource for the sector and raise awareness of the work of the NTFs and further demonstrate their
value.”
4
5
National Union of Students (2012) Student Experience Research 2012 Part 3: Subject Differences. p.17.
To be available on the HEA website in May 2013: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfs.
18
Using student feedback to inform
professional development
Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer, Teaching Development Unit, Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Many academics at this institution took the time to complete a questionnaire
for the Ako Aotearoa -funded research investigation on teachers’ views of
and engagement with student evaluations. This research study has been
completed and the full report can be found at: www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/
student-evaluations.
One of the clear findings of the study was that, while the majority of
respondents were reasonably positively disposed towards student evaluations,
only a small percentage of respondents used student evaluations in a deliberate
and systematic way to inform teaching development. In some cases, this was
because teachers had made a conscious decision to differentiate between the
institutional evaluations processes and their informal and ongoing strategies
for getting student feedback which they used to guide professional development and modifications to the
teaching and learning process. In other instances, teachers felt that the timing of evaluations meant that they
were merely useful for institutional monitoring as it was too late to change anything for current students. There
were a number of other reasons put forward as to why staff did not use the formal evaluations as a pathway
to professional development. These include caveats about the appraisals instrument, processes and questions,
qualms about the quality of students’ responses, and problems around interpreting the results and responding
to them in a constructive way.
Another interesting trend that came out of the study was that there was little evidence of incorporating
evaluation feedback into conversations about teaching and learning with colleagues, and engagement with
student evaluations tended to be an isolated and individual activity.
Many of these reservations about formal student evaluations do need to be addressed and some of them need
to be considered at the institutional level. For example, there needs to be institutional consideration of the
problem of how staff members are rewarded for deliberate attempts to improve their teaching based on student
feedback in evaluations. We also want teachers to use multiple kinds of ongoing evaluation that they can be
responsive to in the course of their current teaching and talk about with students.
At the same time, it would be good to see the formal processes used more extensively for professional
development and not simply as a compliance ritual.
Here are some suggestions:
Student education
Students may not be well primed about evaluations. Some students may even be cynical about the process
because they regularly fill in forms and never hear anything further about them. Teachers can help this process
by talking about the purposes of evaluations and their role in the process. The TDU has an A/V presentation that
19
staff can play prior to students’ completion of the appraisal, to help with this understanding. More importantly,
teachers need to be demonstrating to students how they have responded to student feedback and made
modifications to their teaching on the basis of this feedback. In the research study only a very small number of
teachers at all three institutions talked with students about the trends in the feedback and how they had made
use of student views in their teaching. Many cited the problem of timing and not seeing the same students
again, but it is also beneficial to talk to future cohorts to show them that their feedback is valued and useful.
In the course of our research, I spoke with an academic who says that she sees the development of discernment
and the ability to make evaluative judgements as a core generic attribute in her discipline. From time to time,
she links the learning of these skills to the formal evaluations process so that she is both meeting her discipline
goals and priming students to engage constructively in the formal evaluations.
Interpreting evaluations
Some staff members commented that appraisals results were unhelpful, difficult to interpret and the feedback
was not easy to convert into practical changes. One strategy is to talk to TDU staff for help in analysing appraisals
results and for practical suggestions about how to use them to inform practice. The TDU staff members can also
suggest resource materials or reading that may help them to act on the student feedback. In some cases the
student responses may indicate that students have not understood the rationale for a particular aspect of the
paper, and it just needs dialogue with the students to sort out misunderstandings or misconceptions.
Integrate student evaluation feedback into your teaching
planning and conversations
One of the themes that emerged in the findings in the research study was that for many academics the formal
evaluations process was an isolated activity conducted in private. If you are working in a teaching team, it is
a good idea to discuss themes that emerged in students’ comments and use them to inform the review of the
year’s planning and modifications to the next paper.
20
Researching your teaching
as a process of professional
development
Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer, Teaching Development Unit, Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
It is widely recognised that higher education is a unique discipline with its own
body of scholarship and that this scholarly literature can provide us with a
systematic way of investigating our practice. Moreover, conducting research on
aspects of our practice can (like all research) illuminate our understanding of
what is happening, open up further lines of inquiry, challenge our assumptions
and provide us with insights to refine what we do.
As a staff developer, I find that working with colleagues as a co-inquirer
into an area of their practice, is one of the most effective forms of teaching
development and is also an enriching form of professional development for me.
Academics who undertake the Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching
conduct research into a teaching initiative as part of their assessment, but this
is also a process undertaken by other academics who are not doing formal study. The research inquiry follows
some well-defined steps:
• Identify an area of practice that invites inquiry - something dissonant, problematic, exciting, curious, innovative
and/or interesting that seems to warrant further investigation in the interests of improving the quality of
student learning.
• Consult the literature for other research in the area and see where your inquiry may sit in relation to the
literature
• Sharpen your question(s)
• Plan a teaching initiative to trial your idea and decide on a range of formal evaluation strategies to evaluate
the quality of the learning and the students’ learning experiences.
• Analyse your data according to your chosen method and then discuss your findings in relation to the original
question and the research literature
• Use the findings to refine your practice where this is pertinent and consider a second iteration of the research
that captures these refinements and asks further questions.
From a staff development perspective I have come to conceptualise this method of working with teachers as an
inquiry-based model of academic development. Like inquiry-based learning more generally, I believe that it has
many advantages over more traditional models of academic development and initiation into the scholarship of
higher education. Benefits include:
• The process is driven by a question or a problem, a way of working that is a natural corollary of academics’
research approaches.
• The investigation is initiated and shaped by a particular classroom need or recognition in the academic’s own
teaching context and discipline and has immediate pertinence for their teaching.
• The academic therefore has a strong ownership of the learning content and process.
Theoretical ideas are explored to inform practical choices and behaviours in the classroom .
21
Teaching Development Unit
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
W ed ne sd ay ,
2 9 M ay 20 1 3
In partnership with the Pro ViceChancellor (Postgraduate), the
Teaching Development Unit
(TDU) conducts a series of
informal conversations on Postgraduate Supervision.
The TDU, Centre for Tertiary
Teaching and Learning and the
the PVC Postgraduate invite you
to a supervisory conversation
entitled “Exploring Boundaries
and Possibilities in the Creative
Practice PhD.”
For additional information,
please contact Dr Pip Bruce
Ferguson at pip@waikato.ac.nz
PostGraduate Supervision
Conversation:
EXPLORING BOUNDARIES and
POSSIBILITIES IN THE CREATIVE
PRACTICE PhD
Guest Speakers:
Dr Rachael Griffiths-Hughes,
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
Associate Professor Craig Hight,
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
Dr Karen Barbour, Faculty of
Education
from 12:00pm to 2:00pm
Debbie Bright, Faculty of
Education
Dr Rangi Matamua, School of
Maori and Pacific Development
The Upstairs Lounge
at the Gallagher Ac
ademy
of Performing Arts
A light lunch will be provided. Please confirm your
attendance and any special dietary requirements with
Lissa Smith at tduadmin@waikato.ac.nz by 12 noon on
Friday, 24 May 2013.
22
Teaching Development workshops
June 2013
Teaching Development Unit / Wāhanga Whakapakari Ako
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Please note:
All TDU workshops at University of Waikato’s Hamilton Campus in June will be held in B block
ground floor room B.G.24 unless otherwise stated.
Workshop
Date
Time
WEEK 1
Exploring Your Teaching and Learning Beliefs
9:30am to 12:30pm
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller
Wednesday
5 June 2013 1pm to 4pm
An Introduction to Course Design
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller
Principles of Assessment
9:30am to 12:30pm
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller
Thursday
6 June 2013 1pm to 4pm
Designing Assessment Tasks to Promote Learning
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller
9:30am to 12:30pm
The Marking Process
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller
Friday
7 June 2013 1pm to 3pm
Evaluating Your Teaching
facilitated by Teaching Development Unit staff
WEEK 2
9:30am to 12:30pm
Starter Strategies for Teachers
facilitated by Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson
Monday
10 June 2013 1pm to 4pm
Becoming a Reflective Practitioner
facilitated by Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson
M a x i m i s i n g L e a r n i n g i n L a r g e C l a s s e s : learning from
9:30am to 12:30pm
case studies of practice
lecture room L.G.04
Tuesday
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller & Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson
11 June 2013 1pm to 4pm
Research and Teaching
facilitated by Dorothy Spiller & Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson
Teaching for Diversity
1pm to 4pm
Thursday
room J.1.18
facilitated by Student Learning’s Andrea Haines &
13 June 2013
Maria Persson
To register, please use registration form online
http://www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu/events/staffworkshops.shtml
or contact Lissa Smith lissa.smith@waikato.ac.nz extn 4839
23
Invitation to Submit and Subscribe
The International Higher Education Curriculum Design Review editor, Dr Mary Panko, warmly invites
contributions to the review for its next issue.
Contributions to the next issue of this peer-reviewed publication should be submitted by 7 June 2013.
Research, Scholarly, Practice and Feature Papers plus Voices Inside and Outside Higher Education, Curious
Questions and Book and Media Reviews relating to tertiary-higher education curriculum design and academic
leadership are welcome.
See attached link for contributions information.
Subscription information to the International Higher Education Curriculum Design Review is also available
and individual and institutional memberships are available. All proceeds from this review support research and scholarly activities relating to Curriculum Design and
Academic Leadership through the NZCDI Education and Research Charitable Trust.
All inquiries or requests for detailed submission guidelines should be sent initially to the Trust Administrator,
Hayley Aroha Simmonds at Trust@nczdi.ac.nz
Further information http://www.houseofmontrose.co.nz/NZCDIERT.html
A useful journal
This is Canadian-based, but attracts international papers.
It is called “Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal” accessible at http://kwantlen.ca/
TD.html It contains a wide array of papers on teaching and learning and it is recommended as a useful
professional development source.
24
Make a space at your place
for teaching.
The University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton 3240
New Zealand
Website: www.waikato.ac.nz
Teaching Development Unit
Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning
Phone: +64 7 838 4839, Fax: + 64 7 838 4573
Email: tduadmin@waikato.ac.nz
Website: www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu
©The University of Waikato, April 2013.