Anne Jasman

Supervisor reflections on developing doctoralness in practice‐based doctoral students

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to share the reflections of a group of five academics who started supervising practice‐based doctoral students at a similar time in the same institution.Design/methodology/approach – The supervisors engaged in a collaborative research process themselves, exploring their supervision practices, due in part to the relatively limited literature available in the field, and in part as a support mechanism to help them understand what they were doing.Findings – As the first students have now completed, the learning from taking students through the cycle from start to finish for the first time is also now complete in itself. While the supervisors continue to learn both from and within the supervision process itself, that initial experience of supervising doctoral students is now complete and in many ways the doctoral development process of the students themselves.Originality/value – This paper offers insight into the doctoral development process from the supervisors perspect...

Educating for the future and complexity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to open up the question of how we prepare people to be resilient, flexible and capable of managing the uncertainties and complexities of the twenty‐first century by using both futures studies and complexity theory as a backdrop for a discussion of career education and teacher education in the future.Design/methodology/approach – Recent developments in the work of others in futures studies and complexity theory are presented. These developments provide a framework for discussing current understandings of career and teacher education and to explore the possible trajectories for supporting learning to, in and through work across the lifespan.Findings – Through applying futures studies and complexity theory to career and teacher education the authors conclude that these conceptual frameworks have much to offer practitioners and policy makers in the fields of career education and teacher education, and that theory development in these fields is already embracing the conce...

The Future of HE: What Will the Sector Look Like in 25 Years Time and What Does This Mean for Executive Education?

The concept of ‘university’ has been around for centuries and yet the majority of British Universities have yet to reach their 50th birthday. The higher education (HE) sector has been through extensive change over a relatively short period of time and this is likely to continue in the future. With regard to Executive Education, the HE sector has been the provider of a range of qualification programmes, most notably the MBA and now it’s Doctoral upstep, the DBA; as well as short course provisions and accreditation of inhouse training programmes. Individual HE institutions partner organisations to provide bespoke, tailored qualification programmes, sometimes linked to the organisation’s Corporate University (Blass, 2001). As the MBA shifts from being the pinnacle of executive education to a mass delivery graduate conversion course in business (Blass and Weight, 2005a), and organisations are experiencing the impact of a global recession and the ‘credit crunch’, the future of executive education provisions within HE is questionable. Universities need to be identifying exactly what it is that they can offer organisations, that are ‘better’ than the organisations can provide themselves. Simple accreditation of programmes is not going to be enough in the medium to long term as the Privy Council is demonstrating willingness to offer corporate entities degree awarding powers. The market for short course provision is becoming increasingly competitive and specialised, and expenditure on executive education is being reined in as the impact of the recession takes its toll on organisations. The current debates governing the future of HE centre on the issues of globalisation, use of ICT and the internet, and the knowledge economy.

Quality Initial Teacher Education Policy and Practice in Australia and England: Past, Present and Possible Futures

This chapter first explores changes in policy and practice related to quality initial teacher education in Australia and England over the last 10 years. In both countries a trend towards tighter government control of initial teacher education is identified, but with little evidence of changes in quality. The codification of national standards for initial teacher education programs and their accreditation has enabled this trend. Second, possible futures are discussed before finally speculating on the potential of, for example, ICT, globalization and neuroscience research to impact on future approaches to quality initial teacher education policy and practice.

Becoming an academic for the twenty-first century : What will count as teaching quality in higher education

This article explores quality in university teaching using a ‘futures’ perspective. In a recent article by Blass and colleagues, a number of scenarios were developed to explore the type of higher education workforce that might be needed within the UK by 2035. In discussion of these scenarios — leading knowledge creation, responsive knowledge creation, regional conglomerates, no government funding and total government funding — the team were mindful of how these scenarios would impact on academic work and the workforce needed to undertake different and perhaps a more differentiated set of work roles, responsibilities and ways of working. However, the issue of what counts as quality within these possible scenarios was not considered. In this article the definitions and differentiation of teacher and teaching quality are explored. Recent trends in Australian and English higher education policy in relation to teaching quality are also discussed. Teaching quality is then considered in relation to the underlying values and assumptions that might operate within each of these scenarios about teaching. The authors then speculate on the impact this would have on what might count as quality in teaching in 2020, and what academics may have to face within each of these scenarios in relation to their work roles, ways of working and opportunities for career progression. In conclusion, the authors suggest that the concept of ‘teaching’ in higher education may need to be radically reconsidered to match the needs of students whatever scenario may develop in higher education.