As I approach my new role as a manager, I notice a change in my thinking. I have to consider the size of the new challenges and think about how I can coordinate and delegate the tasks required to initiate changes in practice. I am resigned to the fact that these activities will take time. I need to win over new colleagues, and chase the progress of numerous projects. I will probably have to describe how the projects are conducted, so that they harmonise with my way of working. But I’m looking forward with a new-found invigoration. The challenges are achievable and energising, the prospects are enticing and enthusing.

I was thrust into the world of academic development during 2007 by applying for a Teaching Fellow secondment. As most new occupations unfold, there is much about the role that is unanticipated. The experience of this job was no different. There were responsibilities that were difficult to comprehend, and only two years to ‘achieve results’.

As the figure-head for the HEFCE Research Informed Teaching initiative, for a Faculty that contains Art and Design, Computing, Engineering and the Sciences, I had two senior managers, and no staff to line manage. There was the prospect of not being able to achieve anything tangible and I was beginning to understand why other, similar roles appeared to produce very little in terms of long-lasting change.

One of my managers was quite keen on output and impact, since he was being measured in that way. My other manager was primarily interested in exploring ways of working and establishing a set of principles to work to. This was confusing. I had the apparent responsibility to report improvements within the Faculty resulting from my appointment. Although I could foresee activities that would demonstrate that positive change had taken place, I had no time to physically manage the change required.

I attribute the shift in my thinking to an improved understanding of what academic leadership means. My understanding (whilst still maturing) has developed as a result of being scholarly, but primarily it has come about through my experiences as an academic developer. What has been particularly interesting for me has been the way I have been encouraged to re-frame my view of academic development experiences, in a way that has provided scenarios for me to explore in a scholarly way. I have identified four key characteristics that have directly contributed to my own understanding of the leadership role:

1. Exposure to first-hand experience of being led - Understanding traits of leadership and observing leadership practice at close quarters. Seeing what happens as a result of this practice and being critical about being led, improving my ability to recognise leadership behaviours in others.
2. The creation of space in my work plan and the devotion of time to reflect - My teaching workload was reduced by a nominal 20%, arguably insufficient time to do anything of any worth in a Faculty of 3000 students. But by adopting the approach of changing the world - or more importantly, changing the Faculty - one mind at a time, somehow my vision became a possibility. My vision was in some sense a translation of somebody else’s, a reflection upon the University perspectives and how they related to operations in my Faculty. But it was also an opportunity for me to reflect and exercise my aspirations, and the realisation that this could take place, the first time in my academic career, became invigorating.
3. Creating a local environment that rejects the tendency to react - (not the quick hit/win as a result of a spreadsheet) and having the faith to wait expectantly for change to emerge (Seel 2010).
4. A chance to network with colleagues in similar positions through a SEDA course - Developing opportunities to empower colleagues with my own supportive behaviour; from listening, assistance with institutional processes, the fostering of new networks or just plain old effective conversation (Haigh 2005).

Early on in the role I attended a conference to try and familiarise myself with the new context I had found myself in. Uncharacteristically I returned with only one idea. I usually come back from conferences with many ideas. This idea, to launch an undergraduate student research journal, seemed the obvious thing to do. It fully supported my vision of staff and students working in a partnership of learning, and would provide sufficient visibility of the transformation that I believed needed to take place.

How my own practice has changed

Looking back I was led both explicitly and autocratically. More often than not however I was led surreptitiously, by being allowed the space to lead myself, whilst also supporting a common vision. As I worked with a Senior Academic member of staff I was cajoled and manoeuvred into position. I felt frustration at being left to ‘join the dots’, but also experienced a deep-seated achievement when I reflected upon progress. The relationship never seemed to be tested, as the implicit trust communicated towards me fostered a communal loyalty to the vision. Ideas were planted in our conversations and mutual support was communicated through others.

So what (did this mean?) for my own practice? My conversations have focus, and I am much more tolerant of their emergent outcomes. Conversation is now a recognised part of mine and others’ development. I sow seeds of ideas through conversation. When we actively concentrate upon the mechanisms of communication, especially those that deliver results, those seeds do germinate. This is not a formal approach to change management, where ideas are ‘cascaded down’ in an impersonal way. It is communication of a personal nature, local and relevant to the particular working context of an individual, where it matters. It is also recognising that some seeds will never sprout shoots. Alternatively growth may be rapid, powerful and wild, and some tolerance of the uncertainty is necessary. But I have realised that the use of values to guide my actions empowers me to rest easier with uncertainty.

On the one hand I have led autocratically when there has been a clear link between practice and policy. This has been particularly prevalent when there have been obvious tasks to complete to achieve an objective. On the other hand I have been content to consult the opinions of those around me, to inform my perspective and support my future leadership activities.

I am not sure that leaders exhibit traits in the way that the management literature describes. This may inform the interpretation of leadership that is required by industry. But I feel that academe is sufficiently different to warrant its own approach. The managerialist approach can serve to quash academic freedom, creativity and innovation. The desire to measure and benchmark the learning and teaching practices of academics can be detrimental to the overall experience of learners and staff.

I am now less concerned with detail; so often it serves to detract from the overall vision, and though it can provide comfort for those who feel content when they are busy, it can literally bury a change initiative. Contrast this with a lithe department that understands the need for quality assurance, but also realises that procedures and policy must be fit for purpose.

It also became evident that those people I involved in my work also had uncertainties, and to an extent they relied on my apparent steadfast approach to see them through. Of course I didn’t always know the outcome, but my tolerance of the uncertainty allowed certain conditions to come into being, permitting real change to take place.

Styles of academic leadership

The secondment has served to reinforce my need for beliefs, since it is easy to get distracted by system failures or projects not going to plan. In such situations it is my reliance on some values that has kept me going. Research Informed Learning and Teaching is an abstract concept, and is seen as too ideological for many. But the understanding that I have developed has enabled me to relate operational activities to strategic aims, giving me the confidence to pursue projects that I believe will contribute towards the cause. Similarly it has allowed me to be selective, so that I do not waver off course.

One of the differences in academia is that whilst some people are happy to be led, they still want to pursue something that interests them. I have achieved more when colleagues were enthused by what was essentially an operational task, when it was judged to give them something of value back - a publication for example. The fact that this also contributed towards the overall aim of creating a more scholarly community of staff and students was in some ways incidental to them, for the moment at least. Unlike a managerial view, I do not see this as a failure; I see it as an investment for future development.

As an organisation the university is extremely conservative. There is much talk of risk-taking, but in actuality my experience is that this is still frowned upon by senior managers. But as a senior manager in a new institution I recognise that taking risks in the classroom and taking risks with developing colleagues need not be reckless. I have experienced positive outcomes from experiments that would not have taken place if I had not provided the support.

The systems of the university are regularly blamed for a whole host of problems and I have and continue to be very critical of their implementation. My work with identical information systems in industry has made me intolerant of deficiencies in the past, since I know that the processes could be executed better. However, since I took the stance to accept the current state, and view the limitations merely as constraints to manoeuvre within, I have been pleasantly surprised with the results. Over the past two years I have cultivated a relationship of trust with the Quality Committee, meaning that my proposed changes now get rubber-stamped rather than debated at length. This was put to the test when my colleagues proposed replacing the Masters Dissertation component with a smaller alternative (15 CATS less). On top of this they were also proposing that the 15,000 word submission be replaced by a reflective portfolio of evidence. The successful ratification of this justified the time I had spent with them supporting and facilitating their discussion.

I see that my role has been multi-faceted, and it has not turned out quite as I would have expected. I understood that the secondmentwould require leadership; it would seem that academic leadership is quite distinct. There is definitely a managerial aspect to the role, in terms of planning and organising the operational activities to support a strategy. There is even a managerial aspect to planning the tactics, upon which to base the operations. But I have clear evidence of achieving change by also leaving people alone, in the sense that a principle has been communicated, but the conditions for that principle to be realised have been coordinated by my interactions with others.

If I am successful at communicating my intention, and I have autonomous individuals who can move other colleagues forward, then there is a much more collegial model of leadership in place than an autocratic, managerialist one. This aspect is probably the most effective in an academic environment where, relatively, most of the academics are empowered more than in industry. It has been challenging balancing the need to manage, against the ‘hands-off’ need to lead, and on reflection I have led more in the last year than 2 years ago. But I do believe that trust is a key motivator, and the trust that has been placed in me has been a lesson in how much it can motivate. My placing trust in others, to do a job, to innovate, to publish or to observe my teaching has proved much more powerful than any line management authority.

Unwittingly I was being led. All the times I was being listened to, suggestions were offered that posed questions for me to consider. Each next conversation was prompted by my own reflection on the previous conversation, together with any ensuing experience that had been attained with my colleagues. The conversations were not always directly with my line manager either. Very often the seed of a conversation was planted with another colleague, who decided to initiate another conversation with me.

I have moved on from seeing Seel’s work as something that appears to be useful, towards having first-hand experience of interpreting it in my various academic contexts.

What is the legacy?

As the initiative formally draws to a close, a variety of other institutional changes are also occurring. Many of these appear to hinder further progress, or even seem to be backward steps. But looking deeper there are new shoots of opportunity. Quality committees that recognise the need for reduced bureaucracy, academic staff initiating mini-development projects of their own choosing and recognition that research and scholarship are key parts of an institutional framework for professional development. The inevitable changes in staff that result from reorganisation create the suitably ‘chaotic’ states that Tosey identifies as ripe for creativity. I can see why such an air can be the catalyst for leadership. A university is such a complicated beast that it is the aggregation of minutiae that gives its direction. The acceptance that such minutiae need not be micro-managed is liberating and empowering.

In essence the key factors of the secondment were being able to create a context that facilitates change taking place, rather than looking for ways to engineer the change.. This does not have to be the whole organisation, faculty or even department to have any recognisable success, though it is feasible that this will come given time. Certainly in two years, departmental changes have been observed. Seel offers some rationale for this, but the result of embracing this is not a set of strategies as such, more a set of values to hold and for others to subscribe to. Not being concerned with all of the detail - but knowing when to take charge and exercise authority to get a single objective fulfilled, is absolutely critical.

Having faith that the facilitation of an environment that can change is more beneficial then any perceived risks. The whole point is to move away from a situation that is shackled by control mechanisms. My acceptance of emergence, and that with time and patience, the right activities will emerge, has supported a way of thinking mindset should enable the support of some of the managerialist agenda, without the excessive managerialist controls. Is this the route forward for academic leaders?

References

Seel, R (2010) Culture and Complexity: New Insights on Organisational Change. HEA. http://tinyurl.com/RichardSeel

Haigh, N (2005) Everyday conversation as a context for professional learning and development. International Journal for Academic Development, Volume 10, Issue 1.

If we teach critical thinking then we also assume that we are being unbiased and fair. But are we? Are we being dishonest? How can we teach critical thinking without being biased?

Critical thinking usually reflects the values and beliefs of a western society. Immediately this challenges those who hold different values from the outset. If we maintain a view that critical thinking is fundamental, then we are hardly displaying any tolerance for cultures other than our own. Is this bigotry or blindness?

But what is critical thinking anyway?

Peirce offers one explanation. Critical thinking is essentially the management of doubt; we are not convinced by a premise and we conduct enquiry until we have established sufficient evidence that will withstand rigorous reasoning. Once we have the facts our belief is ‘fixed’. But this in itself is only partially helpful in that it describes a state, but not really how to get there. Perhaps our curriculum should emphasise and support not only the process of ‘fixing’ a belief, but also the understanding of conditions that may lead us to falsely conclude.

Peirce describes four possible outcomes:

1. tenacity - this reflects purely the will of the person to believe. Any evidence to the contrary is rejected outright.
2. authority - a belief is enforced by an external agency such as a community, peer group or family. These three agencies in particular often have significant influence over international learners who do not wish to be disrespectful of their community.
3. a priori - the belief is seen as a pre-ordained outcome and therefore the facts are reconstructed to suit this outcome. Whilst this gives an illusion of reason, there is no factual basis that could be argued critically.
4. the scientific - doubt is maintained until a robust set of facts is obtained from a process of enquiry that will withstand critical analysis, therefore critical thinking is achieved.

I think it would be useful to let learners explore these outcomes in order for them to understand their own position in relation to a western secular view of critical thinking. Clearly critical thinking is more than just referencing, although some academics may have not yet reached this conclusion yet. It might be that the teaching of critical thinking is seen to be too problematic and therefore the issuing of elementary rules for referencing may be judged as the most pragmatic way forward.

But we could raise the quality of our arguments if we all practiced ‘the scientific’ approach. And wouldn’t our learners benefit also? Those who have experienced more ‘closed’ cultures would be in an improved position to understand the differences of a western point of view. Western students would also be exposed to other cultures and perhaps would experience the impact of different thinking processes. Wouldn’t then the higher education learning experience be truly international?

This paper describes the collaboration between Sheffield Hallam University and an International IT Consulting organisation to develop an innovative postgraduate curriculum that combines intensive, vendor-specific certification training together with a challenging enquiry-focused educational experience. Employers prefer to ‘benchmark’ potential applicants against industry certification standards, yet also desire the qualities of a postgraduate’s enquiring mind. Using research and ‘open enquiry’ as principle values, a curriculum has been created that facilitates exploration of a wide range of practical and theoretical topics in order to support the development of a highly skilled, autonomous ‘Technical Consultant’. A key aspect of this approach is to provide guidance for learners to explore their own development paths, whilst also exposing them to an established vendor specific platform in order to gain sufficient practical experience before seeking employment.

Awarded Best Paper at the 10th Annual ICS Conference, Kent 2009.

Keywords

constructive alignment, critical thinking, enquiry, research-informed learning and teaching

Introduction

Sheffield Hallam University has offered postgraduate courses together with vendor-certified training for many years, with some industrial partnerships now entering their sixteenth year at the time of writing. In particular there has always been a significant demand for computing courses that incorporate exposure to commercial information systems such as those provided by SAP and Oracle, amongst others. Graduates from these courses have tended to find employment quickly with large companies including Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, Caterpillar Logistics, W.H. Smith, Rolls Royce and Siemens. During 2006 several of the large vendors released toolsets that were significantly more advanced than previously, which enabled businesses to adopt some of the marketed advantages of Service Oriented Architectures. These tools were an attempt to align IT with business better; rather than driving the business operations with the IT infrastructure, the platforms could now be developed in much more flexible ways to realise emerging business trends. Out of this development emerged a need for highly technical individuals who would be able to configure and compose business services to meet the needs of the business. These individuals would also be able to identify new business opportunities and have the expertise to rapidly react with innovative IT solutions. As a result Sheffield Hallam University decided to explore the potential to provide individuals with an experience that would support the acquisition of these skills, by utilising a long-standing relationship with an international consulting company together with an established information systems vendor.

Business Process eXpert

The ‘Business Process eXpert’ or ‘BPXer’ for short, is an attempt by the information systems industry to describe a role that is beginning to emerge in its own right. BPXers are primarily focused with the business, and possess the requisite skill-sets to enable existing and new IT infrastructures, together with the associated human interactions, to be modified and harmonised to enable economic advantage. Large communities such as that created by SAP (https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/bpx) illustrate the interest in this particular area. Similar to many institutions, Sheffield Hallam University already taught many of the individual skills of the BPXer role, and indeed many alumni graduates were already performing such a role in industry. However, this new role description, together with an obvious demand from industry, suggested that there was an opportunity to develop a specific learning experience for potential students who aspired to work in this particular sector.

Curriculum Design

Recognising that students should develop and practice key skills during their Higher Education experience, they should understand not only the process of knowledge creation, but how that knowledge is applied to different domains. The ability to be critical, whilst understanding the legitimacy of academic integrity, will serve to create the well-rounded, articulate, autonomous learner who can subsequently engage in a life-long process of self-development. Research is often seen as an activity that supports a desire to facilitate student growth, and many institutions have integrated discipline research into their curricula. Elton [2] argues that learning and teaching environments that support the processes within learning, teaching and research create more positive links between research and teaching for learners and academic staff. Healey [4] suggests that undergraduates are likely to gain most benefit from research in terms of depth of learning and understanding when they are involved through enquiry-based learning. Curricula based upon research activity provides challenges for academic staff, since they may need to find new ways to work with students. The use of research to inform the curriculum makes explicit the systematic enquiry into the teaching and learning process itself, which has been achieved by embedding three key principles into the course curriculum. The key principles are to: integrate discipline research into the curriculum, demonstrate teaching and learning research to inform practice, and to engage students with research.

Postgraduate curricula at Sheffield Hallam have traditionally allowed students to conduct enquiry in an open way and the subjects of study have typically concentrated upon the development of critical thinking skills and learner autonomy. One of the immediate challenges was presented by the ‘industry view’ that students should have specific, technical skills and the attributes of a postgraduate learner. Recognition of the technical proficiency was with reference to the benchmark - whether or not the student had passed a proprietary vendor-specific certification examination. The approach to vendor-specific training and assessment methods is clearly at odds with the remit of a postgraduate learning experience and there appeared to be little room in a curriculum to support the attainment of these two ideals. In prior years, Sheffield Hallam had offered students an MSc programme, together with an additional training academy, provided by the relevant information systems provider. Whilst in some cases this had been an unmitigated success for students, who rapidly became employable after successfully completing both aspects of the course, many students could not cope and found the extra burden of vendor training on top of an MSc just too excessive. Stevenson[6] describes how materials for a proprietary Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system were included at module-level, though this did not attempt to prepare students for the breadth of role that a BPXer demands. The intention of this course was to use the research interests of staff to enthuse students to conduct their own enquiry, by embedding the processes of research and including an awareness of learning and personal development.

Programme Outcomes

Discussions with three consulting companies revealed that they were all too aware of the danger of placing too much emphasis upon vendor-specific training methods and the unhealthy pre-occupation with proprietary certification examinations. However they were also unanimous in declaring that the certification test was a way of deciding which potential candidates to interview; they felt that passing the test was one indication that the candidate would demonstrate some useful attributes. With this in mind, the learning outcomes for the programme were explored in an attempt to understand the perceived need from the IT consulting industry. With reference to Biggs’ constructive alignment [1], the attributes of the BPXer role were investigated with a view to developing a curriculum that facilitated the exploration of the learners themselves, whilst also gaining valuable skills with proprietary tool-sets. Utilising a long-standing relationship with an international IT consulting organisation, the following traits of a BPXer were identified as; an ability to understand the business impact of innovative IT solutions; a broad technical ability to architect and configure IT systems; ‘organisational awareness’ - an appreciation of managing change and culture; be an expert facilitator - educating and providing encouragement to support the proposed innovation. Whilst there were existing modules that could provide a learning experience to support the acquisition of these attributes, the onus of constructing the links between the MSc curriculum and the vendor-supplied training academy laid firmly with the student. Since the training academy is delivered over two weeks, there was little opportunity for the students to gain any practical, useful experience of the system.

The Approach

To create the balance of skills necessary it was decided to incorporate direct experience of using the information systems platform throughout the course. However it was not feasible to incorporate this into every module since these are often taught to multiple cohorts concurrently, the students of which are enrolled on courses with different specialisations. One module from each semester, Enterprise Architectures and Enterprise Systems, was chosen to modify to include learning based directly upon the information systems platform (see Table 1 for a complete list). Using an open enquiry approach, the exercises were mostly based upon students building solutions or resolving problems. After students had received basic instruction for accessing the platform in the first session, no more training was delivered and students were guided to manuals and support information for further reference. Out of the remaining modules, a further set were identified that could usefully contribute towards the students’ experiences of a proprietary platform; Change Management and Sytems Implementation (CHMSI), Business Intelligence, Communication and Behaviour (BICB), and Consultancy Theory and Practice (CTP). All of these modules had a strong reflective component, typically based upon a case study. In these cases students apply their learning to their chosen context, which is use of the information systems platform. The Research Principles and Practice Module, in preparation for the Dissertation, allows students to conduct a significant research project of their choosing.

Table 1. Course Outline.

Facilitating Learning

There is no doubt that students are attracted to the MSc as they envisage receiving a considerable amount of training for a proprietary product. We have directly addressed this potential challenge by spending a significant amount of time assisting students to explore their own abilities. Using the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA, http://www.sfia.org.uk/)[5] the students are required to self-assess in relation to the skills required from a BPXer. This assessment is then used as the basis of a personal action plan that the student maintains in an e-portfolio, to guide their own learning. To support this, there is an alignment between the assessments and this personal development activity. Table 2 illustrates the assessment grid for one module that supports the students in their development by exposing them to Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) by way of them designing an educational curriculum for a BPXer Consultant that employs the tenets of EBL in its delivery.

Discussion

The original aim of this programme was to develop a curriculum that incorporated education with training; under advice from potential employers there was a specific need to produce Postgraduate students with vendor-approved certification qualifications. However prior experience of delivering such programmes suggested that simply appending an intensive training course onto academic study was not feasible. By taking a more holistic approach, there was an opportunity to include the student within a community of research in order that they might deliver the autonomy demanded by a consulting profession. The learning experiences required to support this transformation are varied, and many of them are particular to an individual student’s experience. Realising that the students would progress further if they understood better the processes of knowledge creation has meant that the existing curriculum has required modification, to facilitate a teaching approach that “draws consciously on systematic inquiry into the teaching and learning process itself.”[3]

Table 2. Assessment criteria supporting an enquiry-based approach to learning.

The emphasis of the MSc curriculum is now based upon the development of enquiry skills through engaging with research activity. Experience with the information systems platform is thus widened as students can engage with the tools and technologies as they conduct both guided (by academic staff), and open enquiry (self-guided with the aid of their personal action plans). Whilst the two week training academy is still provided, this is viewed more as preparation for the vendor’s certification exam, rather than learning how to use the system itself. This learning has already taken place much earlier, for a longer period of time and in a variety of contexts.

Practical Issues for Concern

Reflecting back over three cohorts there are some practical issues to consider. Firstly the facilitation of enquiry through research activity both in and out of the classroom means that student are exposed to real-life problems such as software bugs and system administration. The situations presented by modern, complex information systems are rich with learning opportunities, providing that a solution or work around can be found. This scenario is also a rich learning environment for academic staff, who either see this as an opportunity or an encumberence. Secondly, delivery of such a curriculum has required extensive (and expensive) vendor training to ensure that the systems run relatively smoothly. Thirdly, and most significantly, has been the influence upon the scheduling of resources. Established ways of scheduling teaching have been mostly based upon a level allocation of resources through the year, until the dissertation where only project supervision time is required. The adoption of an enquiry-focused curriculum has highlighted a need to conduct much more face-to-face teaching at the start of the course, to prepare the students before they are ‘weaned-off’ to conduct their own enquiry. At present we have three stages: Semester One, with the most contact time, followed by Semester Two, with less allocation. Upon completion of the two semesters the official taught phase is completed and students embark upon their own dissertations during the third stage.

Listening to the Learners

During the last taught module, students are asked to complete an anonymous opinion survey delivered via the University’s VLE. A total of 26 respondents from 3 cohorts have taken the survey, with some of the responses shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Student feedback from three cohorts.

The students have demonstrated a substantial engagement with the whole course, particularly when exercising their abilities to critically evaluate course content. However rather than complaining they have produced materials to supplement their own learning, whilst also making this available to their peers for their benefit also. Academic staff, as co-learners also found the course enjoyable, if challenging. The introduction of a proprietary information systems platform presented an opportunity to apply theory to critically evaluate the software, whilst also gaining valuable practical experience. As a result two members of staff successfully attempted the vendor certification examination.

Conclusions

The experience of developing and delivering this course has shown that there is much to be gained from using open enquiry as a focus for making postgraduate study relevant to the IT industry. Embedding the processes of research into the curriculum is one aspect of using research to inform the learning and teaching approach; satisfying the demands of the employers, in this case has also required a substantial financial investment in staff development in order to deliver the vendor-specific context.

References

1. Biggs, J., Teaching for Quality Learning at University. The Society for Research into Higher Education, Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education (2003).
2. Elton, L., ‘Research and Teaching: Conditions for a Positive Link’ Teaching in Higher Education, 6,1,43-56, (2001).
3. Griffiths, R., ‘Knowledge production and the research-teaching nexus: the case of the built environment disciplines’, Studies in Higher Education 29(6), 709-726, (2004).
4. Healey, M., Linking research to benefit student learning, Journal of Geography in Higher Education.29(2),183-201, (2005).
5. Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). URL: http://www.sfia.org.uk/, last accessed 28^th March 2009.
6. Stevenson, M., ‘Embedding Hands-on experiences of ERP Systems into University Courses: Aligning Academic and Industry Needs’, Higher Education Academy, Information and Computer Science Subject Centre, ITALICS Journal, Vol. 6 (1), (2007).

Are they aligned with the curriculum? They will be if the learners construct the appropriate activities.
So what do I do in the first session? Make it up as I go along? I don’t take such a cavalier attitude with my class. But I do spend a bit of time explaining that they will need to learn all sorts of things to stand a chance of completing the assignment. They’ll need to learn how to do things, and the best way will be to have focused conversations about relevant tasks. What are the tasks? What do they need to know? What do they know right now?

When faced with this for the first time you can imagine that they are a little phased. So a little structured distraction is called for. What is the agenda for today? Perhaps this will create the illusion of real working life, which in the case of these students is not that far away.

But ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’.
Can you complete the assessment?
Of course not, we’ve only just started the course.
But why can’t you complete the assessment? What can’t you do?
We can’t model processes. We need to see some techniques.
OK. There are a variety of notations for…

There’s no doubt that this is a risky approach. The sessions are tiring to facilitate, but they are extremely enjoyable. There is a strong reliance upon the adaptability of the staff - this is not something for the faint-hearted. Do you need to be a subject expert? It helps, but the more I teach the more I understand that there should be less emphasis upon subject specialisms and more focus on helping them become employable. Change management with IT is mostly about communicating with people in challenging circumstances. It’s about motivating, cajoling, enthusing and persuading. And you have to do a bit of analysis as well.

So let’s say you survive week one; what next?
Have they set an agenda? Did you ask them to? One of my recent classes decided to be revolutionary and reject the University’s VLE in favour of Facebook. They did ask first - and they seemed surprised when I reinforced that their learning was my priority, so if they didn’t want to use Blackboard, then they didn’t have to. I imposed the change in delivery on another class and they didn’t complain (to start with).

Week two came and there was a semblance of an agenda, and some of the questions suggested that some thinking had occurred during the week. But one of the students took one of my dry-wipe pens and started drawing on the board, and proceeded to take charge of the next 20 minutes, a leadership scenario if ever there was one. How would I have facilitated this in the past? If I had tried to design an activity I would have probably attempted to create opportunities for leaders to take charge of several groups. This emergent situation permitted the leader to step forward, and perhaps there is only one in this class. Only time will tell.

There were still some ‘quiet’ students in the class. I prompted them and they responded, but that was the limit of their contributions. Perhaps they were lying in wait…

Week three was more dynamic. More students were displaying some autonomy, initiating conversations to answer questions that were directed at me. I was adopting the role of abiter, helping them when they required some experience to influence the argument. The questions were a bit more abstract; ‘how would you approach this?’, rather than ‘is this correct’.

At week four things were starting to happen. I wasn’t really needed in the conventional sense; I fielded a couple of questions but they were generally down to task. It was interesting to see the behaviours of the less enthusiastic members of the class, those who had not attended all of the sessions so far. They expressed concern, not knowling what to do. But then they appeared to fall into line, taking cues from their more autonomous colleagues. The class leader was in his element, speaking confidently and asking questions. He relinquished ‘the pen’ and supported his class mates, helping them find resolution when discord was evident. Does he recognise his ability?
For week five I decided to do a quick progress check - a simple survey to get a feel for how they were progressing. And here came the surprise - less than half of them responded and the survey indicated that they were not in favour of Facebook. Why? They chose it.
For week six I hijacked the agenda. Item One: explore feedback.
I was willing to let them use the VLE, it made no difference to me as a facilitator. I just wanted to explore the issues surrounding their feelings. By now there was no problem in exploring issues through discussion. Everyone talked freely - this was not possible at the start of the module. The group explored the relative merits of Facebook, and the resistance towards it. Their arguments were articulate, and there was clearly a split in the class. Reason started to emerge and eventually after 20 minutes a consensus formed - prompted by the leader suggesting that 20 minutes was long enough and they were potentially missing out on time with me, which was ironic since I was increasingly becoming a co-learner rather than the teacher.
And to reinforce this they took charge of the agenda again. Once the feedback item had been dealt with it was ‘business as usual’.
‘How can we assess the value of our process improvements…‘
Week seven onwards demonstrated the momentum that was occurring. What was particularly interesting was the fact that I was no longer teaching the whole class by speaking to them as a class. I was having in-depth conversations with individuals and through conversation this knowledge was emerging elsewhere. The ‘leader’ was continuing to develop. He was managing the learning of his colleagues by posing questions and engaging them in dialogue. My tutorials would never be the same again. If only my academic colleagues were as cooperative…

Reward

So do they learn? I certainly did. And they did too. Our conversation was much deeper than before and it was clear that this approach was allowing roles to emerge. So clearly previous attempts to teach this was imposing constraints - how many students had not experienced what they were capable of? The teaching environment was constraining them. I would gladly employ a number of these students after completing this one module. They were not demonstrating the autonomy at the beginning; they were ready to accept, to enquire as to what they thought I wanted to hear, to do what they thought I wanted to mark.
Even if the ‘leader’ student was exceptional, are we not constraining achievement?

It’s important to take risk. At one level it’s invigorating, but it’s also inspirational. I dread to think about all of the missed opportunities in the past.

Learners who `strategically’ engage with information systems and computing curricula are becoming more prevalent in Higher Education institutions. Increasingly they demand more prescriptive advice from teaching staff to achieve particular grades and often fail to demonstrate the learning outcomes that the curriculum originally intended to deliver. The use of Biggs’ Constructive Alignment (Biggs 1999) to revise the curriculum has presented new opportunities to reflect upon the learning activities that need to be undertaken, and can result in a focus on teaching process rather than how to achieve a product. This paper presents a case study of how a business process modelling module has been developed over six years to progressively align the assessment tasks with learning activities and Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO). Early indications were that the explicit declaration of ILO made the learners appear more strategic. This shift provided new challenges for the teaching staff, particularly in terms of designing appropriate summative assessment, and presenting the ILO to learners in a meaningful and justifiable way. The use of form templates is described to assist the communication of ILO, as well as supporting the thinking necessary to build a constructively aligned curriculum. Such a curriculum places more emphasis upon the dynamics of learning interactions, and should explore what learners achieve outside of the timetabled curriculum. Finally this work is evaluated in the context of qualitative responses to open questions asked at the end of each iteration of the module.

Final publication can be found here.

1. Introduction

For some time now UK Higher Education (HE) institutions have wrestled with the pressure to demonstrate economic viability in an increasingly diverse ‘marketplace’ of students. From a teaching practitioner’s perspective, new cohorts of students present a vast array of challenges; students with ‘non-traditional’ academic backgrounds are welcomed, whilst the increase in mangerialism present within universities also promotes concepts such as ‘customer’, ’supplier’ and ’service’, that inevitably impacts upon how students perceive their educational experience. More students see HE as a route to improved employment prospects and proactively take a strategic stance towards their learning. Unfortunately the strategic approach does not rest easily with the ‘traditional’ university learning experience, and as a result the primary means of imparting knowledge (in the ‘academic’ sense) tends to favour students who approach HE from an academic, rather than strategic standpoint. Since the academic students appear to be an ever-decreasing minority, there is a need to address many of the undesirable symptoms of strategic learning; pre-occupation with assessment, little or no preparation before scheduled classes, lack of engagement with learning activities and a ‘minimum effort, maximum marks’ mentality towards the whole HE experience.

Two categories of learner are lucidly typified in Biggs (2003:p8-9) and also through a short video (’Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding‘, http://www.daimi.au.dk/~brabrand/short-film/index-gv.html). ‘Constructive alignment’ is proposed by Biggs (1996, 1999, 2003) as a means of designing and delivering curricula that supports students’ successful achievement of learning outcomes. It is based upon the premise that the students will take more responsibility for their own learning if they understand what the intended learning outcomes (ILO) are. Thus the ‘alignment’ comes from the communication of ILO, together with learning and assessment activities that are congruent with the intentions of the tutor, so that the students have greater confidence in managing their own learning.

“If students are to learn desired outcomes in a reasonably effective manner, then the teacher’s fundamental task is to get students to engage in learning activities that are likely to result in their achieving those outcomes”

(Shuell, 1986: 429)

Practitioners recognise that very often the assessment vehicle becomes the focus of the learning, and students will speculate as to how they will be assessed and use this strategically in their approach to the curriculum (Biggs 2002). Using the assessment itself to increase engagement in the learning is an approach offered by Gibbs (1999) though this could simply be addressed by the use of an examination, albeit with deficiencies of testing recall argued by Elton and Johnstone (2002).

2.   A case study in information systems

This case study relates to the teaching of a Business Process Modelling (BPM) module to final year undergraduate students. Students choose this module as an option and come from a variety of BSc routes: Computing (generic), Networking, Software Engineering, Web Information Systems and Services and Business Information Systems. As a result the skills of the students are wide-ranging, especially in terms of technical ability. This is often compounded by the expertise gained by students who elect to spend the third year of their degree on industrial placement, prior to the final year.

Discussions with employers confirmed that the University had a good track-record of producing technically able students. What appeared to be lacking however, was the ‘business aware’ student; somebody who had sufficient awareness of business concerns to be able to understand the needs of business and the potential impact of IT, making appropriate judgements based upon generic business analysis skills. Since the majority of the students had limited or no work experience this was understandable, but it was felt that the opportunity to explore simple business analysis practices would give the students a valuable set of transferable skills and therefore a significant advantage as they searched for employment.

The first incarnation of the module in 2002 followed a well-trodden path; two semesters, one hour lecture and one hour tutorial per week. Students were introduced to business modelling and analysis techniques through the lectures (or more often than not the lecture slides were downloaded from the University’s VLE, Blackboard), and tutorial activities were presented to practice and develop these new skills. Attendance at lectures was generally poor (20 students from a cohort of 75, 27%) though tutorials were better at 45% (24 students).

Assessment of the students was also traditional, with one piece of group work accounting for 40% of the marks of the module, and an individual submission for the remaining 60%. The group work required the students to collectively research and present an online resource from a selection of topics provided by academic staff. The individual assignment required the students to apply their skills to a case study, demonstrating the impact that their plans would have on the needs of the business.

The final marks were generally predictable, if a little disappointing. Out of 75 students only 3 or 4 appeared to understand and apply their new learning appropriately. The rest of the submissions failed to grasp the problems that were presented in the case study and mostly presented a list of hardware and software (with associated ‘costings’), followed by ‘recommendations’ that had no justification. Somehow they had missed the point.

3.   Aligning the curriculum to industry

The first step was to identify what characteristics an IT Business Analyst would have to demonstrate in their employment. Following discussions with employers, together with prior experience from within the teaching team, the following abilities were deemed to satisfy this need:

1. An ability to capture existing processes;
2. An ability to identify wasteful process interactions;
3. An ability to communicate process revisions and new processes;
4. An ability to use processes as building blocks for new processes;
5. An ability to make justifiable financial assessments of existing processes and financial projections for savings.

Reflecting back over the first year of delivery all of the materials made reference to these attributes and even included relevant exercises in the tutorials. What was lacking though was the opportunity to practice the skills in a variety of circumstances, so that the students could experience the decisions to be made when a ‘real-life’ situation presents itself.

Using Biggs’ approach to Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO) the attributes described above were revised and expressed as shown in Table 1.

After defining the learning outcomes that were intended to be conveyed, the approach to delivery was reconsidered. Attendance at lectures had been in steady decline for some time, and did not apply to this module exclusively. Feedback from some students included:

“Lectures are pointless. You can get the stuff from Blackboard anyway”.

A minority of students requested:

“More lectures please. I like to hear the stories from industry”.

In part this supported Biggs’ hypothetical scenario of two student ‘types’; Robert was very strategic and wanted to do the minimum work necessary to pass the module. Susan, on the other hand was a naturally academic, autonomous learner who required little guidance.

Table 1. Intended Learning Outcomes for a final year undergraduate Business Process Modelling curriculum.

It was considered important to attempt to replicate as much of the industrial situation as possible in the teaching and since much BPM activity is either conducted on a one-to-one basis or with small groups, the large group lecture had little to offer. The weekly lecture slot was replaced with a one hour surgery session, where students could bring specific issues they wanted to discuss. The tutorials then became the focus of the learning activity, and exercises from the previous year were combined with more practical activities to create a very participative curriculum.

At the beginning of the module the revised ILO were presented along with the scheduled activities, as part of the normal introduction. In prior years the ‘learning outcomes’ had always appeared rather abstract and so there was a tendency to pay little attention to them. This time there was some impetus to make explicit reference to them, and also make a continued reference to them during subsequent conversations.

As the semester progressed it was clear that after an apparent increase in student engagement, some of the strategic learning behaviours started to re-appear. Attendance at the surgeries was more or less the same as the previous year at 43% (23 students from a cohort of 54), but what was noticeable was that there was a greater variety of students attending than before. Clearly the students saw the benefit of having sessions where they could bring their own issues, however the issues they discussed were predominantly assessment-focused. Students who already demonstrated ‘academic’ ability, with high overall average marks in all of their modules displayed no less enthusiasm for the module and their attendance was predictably high.

Whilst the ILO were better aligned, the students still found the sessions fragmented until the end, and struggled to see the whole picture. After conducting the annual module review it was concluded that the students needed to be more aware of the curriculum in a holistic sense; the pre-occupation with alignment of learning activities to ILO had produced a disjointed curriculum.

4.   Communicating the intentions

It became apparent that while the revised ILO were much more explicit, there was still a significant ‘intellectual distance’ between the ILO statements and the actual learning activities. This distance was within the reach of the academic students, but still challenging for the ‘Roberts’.

In an attempt to re-dress the decomposition of learning, and subsequent fragmentation that had occurred in the curriculum, the ILO were mapped to scenarios that we expected a Business Analyst to find themselves in. Each scenario was presented simply as a description of the activity and two salient questions: “Why do I need to learn this?” and “How will I know when I understand it?”, as illustrated in Table 2. Although the questions are simple they have considerable significance. They make explicit the relevance of the learning by aligning it to an employment scenario, upon which students can project their own thoughts and begin to understand some of the issues that they will face. One student remarked:

“I thought that accountants worked with numbers in an office somewhere. I didn’t realise that I would have to sell an idea to them.”

Iteration 3 of the module during the 2004/5 academic year concentrated specifically upon the presentation of the learning activities; since the rationale for the ILO made the outcome more relevant to the learner, it seemed also applicable to make the presentation of this information a means for the students to navigate the actual learning materials. In common with many HE institutions the content was delivered via a virtual learning environment (VLE) and the ILO were presented as per the example in Table 2, in an HTML document.

Subsequently Table 2 was appended with target ‘questions’ for the students to consider as the basis of their learning. Each question was intended to focus the learning activity so that the students could relate what they were doing to the overall ILO, whilst also ’sign-posting’ them to much deeper activities.

Table 2. Presenting the learning activities to students.

The base questions for each activity were judged to be the lowest depth of achievement to obtain a pass mark; subsequent questions progressively would stretch the students, with the potential reward of a higher mark. Each of the base questions was also a hyperlink to some learning activity. The ‘deeper’ questions had no materials associated with them. Table 3 illustrates how this was presented within the VLE.

The teaching team debated this particular modification to the presentation, since it seemed to be reverting back to supporting a strategic learning approach, particularly since the ‘depth’ was actually being referred to as ‘Mandatory’, ‘Honours’ and ‘First Class’. Finally it was judged to be a high-risk experiment that should be performed anyway, since we were already satisfied that the learning activities were considerably better aligned with the ILO.

An unexpected outcome for the teaching staff was that the process of presenting this information to the students raised our awareness of the relevance of the task and thus the ILO could often be refined further. As such the tables have now been adopted as form templates during the planning stage as a means of assisting the curriculum development cycle.

5.   Assessing the learning

One of the challenges of assessment was to again provide suitable alignment with the learning activities and the ILO. Since students are now familiar with the prospect of receiving an explanation of how their work is going to be assessed, it was important that this particular artefact was seen to be congruent with the novelties described so far.

We were faced with the dilemma of charting a path through the learning that would enable less able students to develop their abilities so that they could achieve at least a pass grade, whilst also providing the guidance to stretch high achievers. We also wanted to assess in a way that would recognise unintended but significant learning, without having to specifically declare it as part of the grading criteria.

Table 3. Revised presentation of learning activities incorporating hyperlinks to actual materials for each of the ‘Mandatory’ questions.

Previously the assessment criteria had indicated what tasks needed to be completed to achieve a pass, and the individual honours classifications for higher marks. We wanted to move away from the prescriptive description of ‘things to show’ and get the students to engage with a qualitative approach; in the same way that teaching staff would assess what they had learned, the students needed to be able to demonstrate what they had learned both in terms of breadth and depth. Often a student who is dissatisfied with their mark genuinely believes that they have had a significant learning experience, and is disappointed when the specific criteria of an assessment grid illustrates the explicit criteria that they have not met. In many instances these criteria serve only to encourage strategic learning and the staff were conscious that the emphasis upon ILOs should not be wasted by a clumsy assessment rubric.

Reviewing the ILO confirmed that the intentions were correct, and the activities illustrated that we had explicated a rationale for the learning. The last piece of the jigsaw was to establish how learning could be demonstrated, without prescribing or constraining its achievement. The teaching team has found this aspect a particular challenge for a number of reasons:

1. Students, through their experiences of HE, are used to, and therefore most comfortable with, prescriptive assessment matrices;
2. Students can find open-ended assessments overwhelming with disastrous consequences;
3. Staff (including the teaching team of this module) were also practised at producing prescriptive assessments, in part to manage excessive marking workloads, but also to satisfy the audit trails of moderation for Quality Assurance.

Basing the assessment criteria upon the module ILO at one level seemed straightforward, but it is the articulation of the qualities that have to be demonstrated that is difficult to express. This process proved enlightening in that it forced the teaching team to think about how each of the ILO, and then the learning activities, would prepare a student to satisfactorily demonstrate their learning.

In keeping with our desire to explicate the rationale behind the assessment criteria, it was decided that we would attempt to describe how the assignment would be marked in relation to each of the ILO. A first attempt was in fact little different from the prescriptive marking grids that had been produced many times before; “illustrate three ways of…”, “describe how you relate X to Y…” and so on. At the other extreme we anticipated many focused, probing, questions if the explanation was too vague. In the end we settled for some elements of description, relying upon the relative potential success of the aligned learning materials, therefore attempting to relate to the assessment of professional problem solving skills better.

Already the students were coping with more open-ended learning activities, as a result of adopting the principles of constructive alignment for the first 3 years. Table 4 illustrates the assessment grid for the individual assignment, which provides a brief explanation of how each of the ILO will be assessed.

Table 4. Assessment criteria for the individual assignment.

At the bottom of the table is the same grading scale that is presented with the learning materials. As is evident from the whole approach of constructive alignment, each artefact demands constant refinement. Statements such as “Remember to articulate your thinking and don’t describe the history or theory of modelling” and “You have ensured that you have only included evidence if it supports your case and there is no ‘waffle’.” come from the experience of receiving too many assignments with redundant material.

6.   Reflections

The module is structured around a single case study. All of the learning activities are applied to that case study in and out of scheduled classes. The final ‘capstone’ individual assessment is different case study, which the teaching team publish at the beginning of the module, but will not discuss with the students. Thus students that can apply their learning to a new case study can therefore demonstrate many of the ILO.

Applying the learning to the case study gives something concrete to practice the new skills on, and contains enough real-life ambiguities and difficulties to discuss in class (and in an online discussion forum). Students are then faced with making assumptions, and justifying them based upon what they had already discovered about the system to be improved.

In one session a particularly quiet student said:

“You could always give the flip chart pen to the person who is contributing least to the discussion.”

Feedback like this has generally been scarce in the past, particularly with the technically-focused students. Often there is a pre-occupation with technology, and a wholesale rejection of the issues surrounding technology, which are of vital importance in the workplace.

From a delivery perspective there is also less prescriptive teaching and much more room for emergent learning. The alignment of the learning activities to the qualities that will be assessed has encouraged much more enquiry on the part of the students, and many more opportunities for students to reflect in and on their actions.

The introduction of an aligned curriculum clearly presents a significant benefit for the students, and the depth of learning that they have demonstrated in the final assignment is considerably better than with prior cohorts. In particular students like the collegial way of working with teaching staff to solve problems and apply their learning to new situations:

“I didn’t feel as if [the tutor] was lecturing us. He just worked with us and we learned from his experience.”

“The time went really quickly in class because everyone was busy sorting out the exercises. At one point I got stuck and [the tutor] helped me with my spreadsheet. Then I helped him with Facebook!”

Teaching staff find the formative feedback in-class much easier and far more stimulating; a wider range of topics are discussed and there is much more opportunity to discuss a hypothesis and propose strategies to resolve issues.

Undoubtedly there has been an inevitable ‘novelty’ attached to this module as it is the only curriculum in the course that has adopted a significantly different approach to delivering a learning experience. However the reaction was unanimously positive:

“The material was really refreshing and I didn’t miss the [lack of] lectures at all.”

“I really liked the tutorials because it all seemed relevant and would have been really useful on my placement.”

“I could relate what we did in class to what I’ll need to do. I’m sure this will be useful for interviews.”

One aspect that we were keen to convey was an appreciation of the value of the students’ work and how they could use this to select appropriate improvements and argue their case. Past experience of teaching finances on this module was generally poor and most of the students chose to exclude it from their submissions. The better communication of our intentions, and the subsequent relation of this topic to the scenarios has reinforced the relevance of this learning:

“I feel that I have achieved a lot. I can now see ways in which I can put my computing knowledge to use and save a company money.”

“I can see now how IT can save money, but more importantly I can see when NOT to spend money on new hardware if the numbers don’t add up.”

“The tutor advised us all to keep a journal or blog and I’ve never seen the point of it for technical subjects. When we did a role-play to interview the client I realised that there was so much going on I wouldn’t remember it all afterwards. I’ve kept a private blog for the last 6 weeks and it’s showing me all sorts of things that I wasn’t aware of. I’ve learned so much about myself. Thankyou.”

Overall feedback from the students has been much more forthcoming with this approach to delivery, which we feel is attributable to the extent to which open discussion and personal reflection is experienced in the module, and subsequently used as the basis of facilitating learning.

7.   Conclusions 

One conclusion is that the students need to be made aware of how they learn and why they need to learn. More open-ended, exploratory assessments such as applying learning to a case study only cause confusion if the students cannot see that it is the engagement with the process of learning itself that makes them ‘better’. From the student learning experience perspective, this education would be easier if it started earlier, rather than leaving it to the final year.

Making the learning activities relevant to the ILO is difficult and it is necessary to communicate explicitly the alignment to students. Presenting this information with a scenario-based rationale in simple language has helped students interpret the intentions. The use of scenarios has also reinforced the understanding of what the teaching staff were attempting to achieve, with the added benefit of refining the ILO for each successive delivery.

Investing the time in producing an aligned curriculum and its subsequent presentation with rationale produces noticeable improvements for module delivery – students are on task much quicker and are better prepared to question their learning rather than the curriculum design itself.

Constructive alignment has the potential to bring many positive aspects to a course but it is not until the whole curriculum approaches alignment that the significant benefits become apparent. As we approach the delivery for 2009/10 academic year we shall continue to amend and refine in pursuit of the elusive aligned curriculum.

References

Biggs, J., (1987). Student Approaches to Learning and Studying Hawthorn, Vic: Australian Council for Educational Research

Biggs, J., (1993). “What do inventories of students’ learning process really measure? A theoretical review and clarification” Brit. J. Ed. Psych. vol 83 pp 3-19

Biggs, J., (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment, Higher Education, 32, 347-364.

Biggs, J., (2002). Aligning the curriculum to promote good learning, Constructive Alignment in Action: Imaginative Curriculum Symposium, LTSN Generic Centre, November 2002. Available at: http://www.palatine.ac.uk/files/1023.pdf

Biggs, J., (2003). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. The Society for Research into Higher Education, Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education.

Elton, L., and Johnston, B., (2002). Assessment in universities: a critical review of research. LTSN Generic Centre. Available at: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/59244/01/59244.pdf

Entwistle, N., (1981). Styles of Learning and Teaching; an integrated outline of educational psychology for students, teachers and lecturers, Chichester: John Wiley.

Gibbs, G. (1999). Using assessment strategically to change the way students learn, in: S. Brown and A. Glasner (Eds), Assessment Matters in Higher Education, Buckingham, the Society for Research into Higher Education, Open University Press.

Marton, F., and Säljö (1976). “On Qualitative Differences in Learning - 1: Outcome and Process” Brit. J. Educ. Psych. 46, 4-11

Ramsden, P., (1992). Learning to Teach in Higher Education London. Routledge.

Shuell, T. J., (1986). Cognitive conceptions of learning. Review of Educational Research, 56: 411-36.

Slavin, R., (2000). Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, 6th Edition, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey , Allyn and Bacon.

Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) received a sum of money over three years as part of the HEFCE Research Informed Teaching (RIT) initiative, the amount being inversely proportional to research income. This amounted to a reasonable pot from which to spend, and SHU chose to fund four secondees to work in their own faculties, to influence and lead change from within. As a secondee, I became the point of contact for all things RIT. Potentially I had the most interesting faculty out of the lot; in mine we have the Arts, Sciences, Computing and Engineering, a rich and diverse set of cultures and practices upon which to draw.

After successfully applying for the secondment I had to quickly get to grips with ‘RIT’. “A word of advice” said someone to me at a conference, “don’t define it, describe it.” At the time this appeared to be a little cynical. Now I reflect back on the comment with some empathy and better understanding. After many conversations over coffee, some of them intense, others less so, I decided that the title itself, Research-Informed Teaching was misleading. Most of the responses from colleagues were “we do that already“, and of course, superficially this is true. Very often the outputs of discipline research are presented to students. Frequently students are required to ‘research a topic’ and ‘report back’. Only some of them experience a curriculum of enquiry. One of the conversations with the University’s Head of Strategic Development, who takes the institutional lead on the RIT initiative, centred around the inferred emphasis upon teaching, and no visible recognition of learning. At last, an opportunity to distinguish our approach to the initiative; I would refer to my work as the Research Informed Learning and Teaching (RILT) initiative.

This shift has proved useful in two ways: First, it has eased the communication of my work to academic staff who are passionate about the learning experience of both students and staff. Often these people are not interested in chasing research funding and shy away from writing bids and proposals. They pursue their passion quietly, and develop their practice and curriculum by a process of evolution. Secondly, it has rattled a few corners of the faculty into taking a little bit of notice. RILT is not ‘just’ pedagogy in the same way that research is not just about income generation. It is a broader spectrum of activity that will encompass scholarly effort whether it be personal or public, private or published.

It has been interesting to see the wealth of good practice that already exists, albeit not widely proclaimed. Much of my work has been about exposing innovative practice, or at least transferring what might be ‘normal’ practice in one discipline to a disparate subject area. Whilst discussing the nature of research with a Fine Artist she said “but exploration is the very nature of my practice. How can research and teaching be separate?“. If only this were true of more disciplines. This work has been both exhilarating and frustrating. There was the enthusiasm generated by the potential of something new, set against the reality of engaging a community to make it policy, and here was the crux of the challenge; taking changes in thinking and practice forward in an inclusive way, without ‘diluting’ the rigour of scholarly activity.

Effective leadership of change should yield some visible results and so I faced a crucial dilemma in my role as an academic developer. How do I balance the demands of a managed institution, with a keen eye on the business case, against the need to develop sustainable improvement? How can lasting change be initiated in the complex environment of a university? For this I have turned to the work of Paul Tosey, whose ‘teaching at the edge of chaos’ provides a succinct representation of an educational institution. A significant portion of my time is spent advocating publicly through the various fora of meetings and committees, and much more covertly in coffee bars and corridors. Much of the stealth activity has initiated real, tangible change. Established staff who are new to research have engaged with small development projects and now take more conscious steps towards their own development rather than looking for a non-existent training course to discuss during the annual appraisal. Staff who actively experiment with their own practice have promoted their work through case studies and new programmes have been validated that explicitly support RILT activities thus embedding the change into the policies and practices of the institution.

As much as risk is perceived an essential characteristic of leadership, I have developed a new appetite for risky ventures. Enthused by the number of undergraduate research journals published in the USA, I confidently approached the planning and preparation of a similar venture. Similar projects at UK institutions gave added impetus - how risky could this be? The benefits are all highly visible, and it would provide an aspirational platform for our most talented students. Managed correctly it would also be a significant development opportunity for a student editorial board. As with most projects the ‘technical’ aspects of creating an infrastructure to review, edit, publish and host student work as a journal was relatively trivial. The real work would be setting out to win hearts and minds, to promote excellence and garner participation.

Taking the plunge I told as many people as possible of my intentions. The reaction was varied, from unbridled enthusiasm through to “it’s not proper research“. I also applied for a small amount of money to ease production of the final, printed publication, and this was granted. Relatively quickly people started approaching me about the journal, wanting to get involved. Surprisingly (to me at least) other faculties enquired and offered to collaborate, and it was clear that other individuals clearly saw the benefits of such a project. Similarly, this could conceivably become sustainable from year-to-year rather than just a one-off project. I was adamant that this would not become a ‘traditional’ project with a working party or similar, who might debate the journal to its demise. This was a live demonstration of innovation, cooperation, collaboration and excellence of achievement that would emerge from the faculty, for the faculty, as a demonstrable enhancement of the student learning experience.

Of course not everyone shares the vision. There are those who genuinely believe that “students can’t do research” or “it takes too long to get them [students] up to speed“, and I have come to accept that this is typical of the reaction that I am guaranteed to encounter as an academic developer! But there have been a significant number of colleagues who have recognised the benefits and decided, of their own accord, to engage with an activity that they would not normally have taken part with before.

The production of a journal satisfied my desire to make a public display, not only of the RILT initiative, but also the wealth of work that our students produce and our staff support. It serves to demonstrate the rich diversity of the faculty and is evidence that change has occurred, without a need for a top down dictat. It is an exemplar that significant change can happen from within against many perceived odds.

Recognising that the whole secondment itself was a personal development opportunity I enrolled on the SEDA online ‘Leading Educational Change’ course. It is a while since I have been a student on an academic course and the distance-learning experience was enlightening to say the least, even though I regularly teach using that mode of delivery! I found the production of my first portfolio very challenging but, as a result, the process of recording and reflecting upon my own development has been quite liberating. In particular, it provided much needed support at the inevitable low points of my role. I also felt a need to understand academic leadership, and explore my role in the context of ‘responsibility but no line management authority’. This notion was extremely difficult to get to grips with. Academic departments are strange beasts and the ability to ‘get things done’ requires unorthodox networks and obscure working relationships. How could I win-over the discipline researchers?

I needed to change the culture. But How? I wanted to go beyond the project-managed ‘culture change’ and become more aware of the environmental conditions that enable change to emerge. Richard Seel’s work on emergent inquiry offered a perspective that seemed particularly relevant:

“…culture is the result of all the daily conversations and negotiations between the members of an organisation. They are continually agreeing (sometimes explicitly, usually tacitly) about the ‘proper’ way to do things and how to make meanings about the events of the world around them. If you want to change a culture you have to change all these conversations—or at least the majority of them. And changing conversations is not the focus of most change programmes, which tend to concentrate on organisational structures or reward systems or other large-scale interventions”.

Seel, R., (2000). “Complexity and Culture: New Perspectives on Organisational Change”, Organisations & People, vol. 7 no. 2, pp. 2-9. (Also at http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/culture-complex.htm).

I had no desire to create upheaval, but I did want to change the conversations. Looking at the ten change conditions described by Seel (Table 1) I could see that if emergent change was to be facilitated, I would need to consider the command and control paradigms that existed in my context. As I progressively deepened my reflections, and provided new concrete experiences to work with, I discovered opportunities to make my development role discussions more effective. Recognising that conversations, if informed by a set of values could prepare the ground, and waiting expectantly, would enable “questions to answer themselves”, I set about to cultivate my existing relationships with discipline-based research academics, and forge new links with other key players.

Table 1. Adapted from Seel, R., (2006). ‘Emergence in Organisations’, http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/emergence-2.htm

As a result I have been able to establish an emergent community of motivated individuals who now have a bigger stage for their risk-taking, and who can share experiences with like-minded colleagues. Some of these colleagues are even disseminating their work. Another conversation, this time with an established academic developer, went along the lines of “but is anybody actually using it in their teaching?“. The ‘it’ in question was John Biggs’s Constructive Alignment. I was especially pleased to reply that not only did I have two development projects implementing it at module level, but I also had colleagues addressing the need to make the approach more accessible so that others could easily adopt it into their own teaching.

In a world where we have to demonstrate results or impact, not only for our own motivation and sanity, but also to justify our existence, these are my measures of success: the resultant change of conversation and thus practice, increased engagement with learning from both staff and students, recognition of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), dissemination internally through teaching, development workshops and externally via conferences and journals, and educational partnerships both in the UK and overseas.

From a ‘bottom-line’ perspective there are the marketing opportunities of a student journal, and ‘less costly’ (but very effective) staff development. Thus the institution has its successes as well, from the tangible to the intangible. Moving forward there is a clear case for finding new ways of evaluating the effects of these changes upon the institution. A lot of this activity is essentially qualitative and whilst ‘performance indicators’ can give the illusion of measurement, a much deeper activity must take place.

However, my acceptance of the concept of emergence has enabled me to take a much more strategic stance. As an academic developer I must demonstrate faith in my colleagues, and also let them discover their own development route. Embedded change comes from within, from people who are committed to a cause and believe in their own practice. Obtaining that commitment means giving them the room they need to nurture and develop their ideas, guiding, not telling.

One of the significant outcomes of the past twelve months has been that I am now able to consider academic development issues that either did not exist for me, or would not have been possible before. This has come about through my own development, and more importantly, my colleagues’ development, with a legacy of practice that has changed for the better. As I continue to embrace emergence in academe, I see the need deepen my own understanding of the real value of academic leadership to align strategy with practice. Reflecting back I observe three things: values have informed my strategy; influence has paved the way for change; and academic leadership has maintained its momentum.

Further Reading

Seel, R., (2009). New Paradigm Consulting website, http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/richardseel.htm

Tosey, P., (2002). `Teaching at the edge of chaos’, LTSN Generic Centre. http://www.palatine.ac.uk/files/1045.pdf

Enquiry – the ACES Journal of Undergraduate Research. http://research.shu.ac.uk/aces/enquiry

This article is a pre-print version of that published in SEDA Educational Developments March 2009.

http://www.seda.ac.uk/educational_developments.htm

I’m interested in the conversations that learners have when they describe their experiences. Traditional vivas are a good way of finding out the learning behind a large dissertation. It is the questions that require answering, the answers that need questioning, that really demonstrates the value of the learning experience.

As teaching practitioners we need to question the relevance of our assessments. When was the last time you were asked to write 10,000 words about a particular project? In the IT industry this is a rare activity. So why do we ask our learners to jump through this hoop?

I like the idea of reflecting upon experience to derive learning. This process comes naturally to some people; they can sit back and ruminate, selecting their experiential memories and creating new opportunities to learn. For the rest of us, we need a little help. We need to collect evidence of our learning experiences. We need to review, contextualise and critique the experience. And finally we need to construct a learning path from which we can guide our future learning.

Portfolios are a great way of supporting our learning. The snapshot of evidence makes a statement of what we know and have learned. The process of constructing the portfolio is a learning opportunity in itself. We can selectively choose evidence for public display and promotion, and keep the personal evidence private for our own purposes.

The proliferation of digital artefacts we produce supports the rising popularity of ePortfolios. Each of the resources can be quickly linked to assemble a portfolio for a particular purpose, and the use of media means that audio and video annotations can also be appended easily. Helen Barrett has a good online resource that compares a variety of different electronic tools for portfolio generation, and I really like the Google approach to portfolio creation.

A written dissertation used to be a capstone assignment, to pull together all of the things that the learner had experienced throughout the study, applying this learning to a project. However I think that for many careers the mode of presentation is dated; for my learners, who usually find employment in the IT industry, they need to demonstrate focused written communication that is concise and informative. They need to demonstrate oral articulation, to be able to evidence their argument where necessary, whilst also demonstrating an ability to learn and take advantage of new, unforeseen developments. Portfolios are much more flexible and more personal. And if they desperately want to write a literature review, that can go in the portfolio as well!