Vivian Neal

Hi Lynda,

Large classes are becoming more common and so this is an important topic.  You said that you have some Chinese students, but you haven't mentioned what other cultures make up your class.  

The video really hits home for me and it seems like the exact same thing happens in my classess. I've found with my culturally diverse classes that more direction in how to form the groups is always beneficial - team work designs that give each person a specified and active role can help. When learners know exactly what's expected of them, they tend to be more comfortable.

I've recently been much more prescriptive about how I establish learning sets membership (these are course-long study groups) and I've spent a good deal of time attempting to make each group is as diverse as possible. I use all of the knowledge I have about the students, plus some of my own presumptions and assumptions, to mix them up. It takes me more than an hour for 20 or so students, but it's an investment of time that has been very worthwhile. 

For shorter activities I often ask learners to pair with someone they have never spoken to before (you saw me do that last week :-)), or I will group people using cross-overs where, say, 6 groups of 5 become 5 groups of 6.  With pair work, everyone is participating. These kinds of activities can be done with a class of any size.

I hope this is helpful.

Viv (Plymouth, UK and sometimes BC, Canada)

I want to add a final note of thanks to all of you who shared your ideas and resources and helped move this important topic forward.  I'll be looking forward to hearing about and participating in further discussions about Teaching Expectation Frameworks in Canada.  My experience in the UK has helped me understand the challenges and opportunities of professionalizing teaching in higher education, and this international exchange has been most enlightening.

Feel free to add any more resources to the seminar wiki - I have heard already that Barb has used some of the resources with her instructors (great that these are useful!) 

I wish Gary and his colleagues a fun and productive session at the upcoming STLHE conference and I hope participants can continue to develop the ideas discussed in this seminar.

I hope to "see" you in the upcoming SCoPE seminars.

Vivian

I will try to summarize the discussion so far to allow those who are just arriving can get an idea of what's been going on, and to help every reflect on some of the ideas that have been shared.  First, I have to admit that I'm surprised that some of the discussion is about whether a mandatory credentialing framework would be appropriate - I expected that we could be talking more about how we might go about making it happen. That's just my perspective....

Last week we started off discussing the benefits of a national framework for credentialing and Deirdre pointed out the benefit of having the weight of authority in a national scheme, while Nick and others underscored the "titanic nature of academe". Barb offered several examples of the possible challenges of such a framework and the implications for higher education. Deirdre, Nick and Barb brought up the idea of starting at the provincial level because this is the level that universities are organized, and getting agreement nationally would be [10 times more :-)] difficult. 

Wendy and others noted that the whole idea of needing a required credential is scary and that there needs to be a large amount of flexibility in any scheme, while several people emphasized the need to make the framework (or at least the implementation) discipline-specific in its structure and learning outcomes to accommodate the many different teaching situations - bedside, in a boat, one-on-one tutorials, classroom lectures, project work, and workplace-based learning.

Finally, there was mcuh discussion about the idea that there needs to be wide support for credentialing to become acceptable, including support from senior administrators, and Rosalie and I talked about the need to change attitudes and culture. Barb added that, champions would be required at multiple levels in the system and in multiple settings to come together and talk about a common framework. While Wendy asked, "who is the 'we'" when we are planning this framework - excellent question.

Moving on to how we might structure a teacher-training framework (Topic 2), Alice and Roselie suggested a framework of reflective practice, and a skills-based approach.  Also Valerie and Irene described other credentialing models in colleges in the US and in Ontario that we can think consider, and I have provided some information about the system in the UK, plus Jo Ann shared some details as well for a possible structure.

I'm looking forward to hearing more ideas, and could I suggest that we move into the Topic 2 discussion, even though we haven't fully finished the first topic....

I agree with Barb and Rosalie that competencies need to be discussed within the disciplinary context; any courses in teaching and learning must be relevant to the discipline of the teacher. In the Plymouth LTHE all participants are assigned to an IPD (Initial Professional Developer) who is an experienced lecturer in the same discipline, who helps them apply the more generic teaching and learning theory to their own practice. Whilst [gosh that was exciting - I've never used that word before :-)] the participants get the more broad teaching and learning theory from the eduational developers, they also meet together in disciplinary groups (and one-on-one) with their IPD to discuss pedagogy, methods and teahcing and learning issues for their own discipline.

We also get together in inter-disciplinary groups, which we call Learning Sets, where about 8 lecturers share ideas, plans, course designs, teaching concerns, and drafted LTHE assignments.  Participants have indicated that the Learning Sets are one of the most useful part of the program.  This is one of the strategies that is consisent with the development of a learning community (though the implementation is not as effective as it could be me thinks). Nonetheless, this concurs with the need for context-specific support as well as disciplinary-specific support.

Peer review is also incorpoarted into our LTHE as a requirement for a minimum of 3 teaching observations during the first year of lecturing - one by an LTHE tutor, one by the participant's mentor (an individual selected by the participant for support throughout their first year), and one by a peer fo their choosing.  This review consists of 3 parts - first the participant writes up the design for the session and describes the area(s) that they would like feedback on, then the observer observes, meets with the participant and writes up the feedback, and finally, the particpant then comments on the feedback. I'll attach it, for your information.  I actually just had a teaching observation a couple of weeks ago and though I was a little nervous, I expect that I am a better teacher for having done it.

I'm wondering if these types of learning activities would work for HE teachers in Canada and elsewhere, or if they could be adapted?

I'm attaching a one-page document which describes the learning outcomes for our second course, the Developing Professional Practice:  Supporting Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.  For creative disciplines, we have a separate, but similar course, with slightly differenct learning outcomes, Develoing Professional Practice in the Arts.

I'd be interested in knowing how applicable (or not) these attached learning outcomes would be in a Canadian or American context.  See also the sheet I attached to my last posting.

Keep in mind that these learning outcomes have been developed by the University of Plymouth based on the Higher Education Academy framework.