A Personal Journey of Academic Development
Looking back over the first year, of a two-year secondment as a part-time academic developer, I have observed several things. First of all I have changed my own practice as an academic lecturer. Secondly, I have also seen changes in the practice of some of my academic colleagues. Thirdly, the experience has sparked my enthusiasm for institutional change. Finally I have realised that this is very hard work! This is my story about some of the trials and tribulations when charged with the responsibility of leading change in an academic institution.
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.
|
Condition |
Command & control paradigm |
Emergent paradigm |
| Connectivity | Keep people in ’silos’ | Build connectivity |
| Diversity | Ensure everyone ’salutes the flag’ | Encourage diversity |
| Rate of information flow | Manage communication initiatives | Have conversations in corridors |
| Anxiety containment | Create bureaucratic processes | Acknowledge and deal with anxiety |
| Proportionate power | Make it clear who’s in charge | Give everyone leadership opportunities |
| Identity maintenance | Announce new brand identity | Consult on identity change |
| Good boundaries | Tell people what to do | Tell people what not to do |
| Intentionality | Set objectives | Agree energising goals |
| Positive emotional space | Blame people for failures | Learn from events |
| Watchful anticipation | Keep busy | Wait expectantly |
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
Tags: academic development, RILT