Geraldine Lefoe

Elastic Practice in academic developers

The academic developer’s role is the focus of a growing body of literature. This paper builds on that literature by arguing the importance to current practice of making our theoretical underpinnings explicit. We excise and describe fragments of practice from the work of individual academic developers in order to discuss and consider the relationship between particular theories of Academic Development and particular approaches that these theories support. The three fragments of Academic Development practice we detail are related to reflective practice, collegiality and the scholarship of teaching. We also provide a fourth, more fulsome description of an approach to illustrate a highly responsive model of academic development: ‘Elastic Practice’. Elastic Practice describes the process of tailoring a specific approach or instance of Academic Development from the full professional ‘toolkit’ (techniques, experiences, ideas, values, theories) that academic developers collect during their evolution as practitioners. The idea of Elastic Practice is that multiple theoretical bases are melded or successively employed to support an adaptive, responsive approach to practice. We suggest Elastic Practice is particularly appropriate for the complex, at times contested, environment within which academic developers work. Le rôle du conseiller pédagogique est le sujet d’un corpus croissant de littérature. Cet article contribue à cette littérature en soutenant l’importance, pour notre pratique, de rendre nos bases théoriques explicites. Nous extrayons et décrivons des fragments de pratique du travail de conseillers pédagogiques de façon à discuter et à considérer la relation entre des théories spécifiques du développement pédagogique et les approches spécifiques que soutiennent ces théories. Les trois fragments de pratique du conseil pédagogique que nous décrivons sont reliés à la pratique réflexive, à la collégialité et au ‘scholarship of teaching’. Nous fournissons aussi une quatrième description, plus exagérée, d’une approche pour illustrer un modèle de développement pédagogique hautement sensible: la ‘pratique élastique’. Cette dernière décrit le processus d’ajustement d’une approche spécifique ou exemple de développement pédagogique provenant de la ‘boîte à outils’ professionnelle (techniques, expériences, idées, valeurs, théories) que les conseillers pédagogiques recueillent au cours de leur évolution en tant que praticiens. L’idée derrière la ‘pratique élastique’ est que plusieurs bases théoriques sont combinées ou employées successivement de façon à soutenir une approche adaptée et sensible à la pratique. Pour nous, le vocable de ‘pratique élastique’ est particulièrement adapté à l’environnement complexe, et parfois remis en question, au sein duquel les conseillers pédagogiques oeuvrent.

Synthesising Theory and Practice: Distributed Leadership in Higher Education.

Changes facing higher education from increased government, student and community demands are resulting in a greater focus on leadership within universities. Attempts to adapt to higher education theory that underpins leadership in other sectors have been criticised for failing to recognise its unique role in the development of creative and innovative thinking required to increase and exchange knowledge. What is needed is a new approach to leadership that goes beyond individual control and management bureaucracy to embrace more sharing and collaboration. One such approach is distributed leadership; however, existing research into distributed leadership in higher education has been criticised for being normative and less democratic than is suggested in its theorisation. The research for this paper focuses on the reflections of participants in projects designed to use distributed leadership to build leadership capacity in learning and teaching in Australian higher education. The outcome was a resource designed to identify actions needed to enable a distributed leadership process that is genuinely aimed at engaging staff in influencing leadership decision making. The authors propose that this paper extends research in distributed leadership beyond the normative, subjectivist functionalist research for which it is criticised, towards a more universally applicable research paradigm.

Constructing Problems in a Web‐Based Learning Environment

Abstract This article describes how the World Wide Web was implemented in a graduate course. The interactions that took place among the students and between the students and instructor illustrate how problem‐based learning strategies can be supported by the Web. Of particular note, the course content focused on technology‐based learning, thus students were immersed in an authentic learning environment. The article chronicles the various strategies • that students implemented to facilitate the problem‐solving process and concludes by way of issues to consider when implementing such strategies within Web‐based learning environments

A conceptual approach for blended leadership for tertiary education institutions

Over the last 20 years, the tertiary education sector has adopted new administrative management approaches, with the aim of improving accountable and strategic focus. Over the same period, the question of how to build leadership capacity to improve learning and teaching and research outcomes has led to discussion on what constitutes academic leadership. While both these advances are needed, what is missing is integration between the two such that academics and professional staff are engaged collaboratively to achieve learning and teaching and research outcomes that are accountable within a strategic focus. This article builds on research into the use of distributed leadership to build leadership for learning and teaching that resulted in the design of a conceptual framework for distributed leadership. Based on this conceptual framework, it proposes a conceptual blended leadership approach to engage academics and professional staff working in collaboration.

Creating the Future: Changing Culture Through Leadership Capacity Development

Leadership for change is key to universities finding new ways to meet the needs of their future students. This chapter describes an innovative framework for leadership capacity development which has been implemented in a number of Australian universities. The framework, underpinned by a distributive approach to leadership, prepares a new generation of leaders for formal positions of leadership in all aspects of teaching and learning. The faculty scholars implemented projects, including a number of them using innovative technologies, to establish strategic change within their faculties. They shared their outcomes annually through national roundtables, which focussed on methods for improving assessment practice. Five critical factors for success are discussed including implemenation of strategic faculty-based projects; formal leadership training and related activities; opportunities for dialog about leadership practice and experiences; and activities that expanded current professional networks. The model can be adapted to have a specific focus on leadership for e-Learning, and some examples of faculty based strategic initiatives are described.

‘I like the people I work with. Maybe I’ll get to meet them in person one day’: teaching and learning practice development with transnational teaching teams

Significant changes have occurred in the international education landscape driven by the need for access to higher education in developing countries. One response to this situation has been the provision of higher education in the developing country via partnership arrangements with overseas institutions. Rapid growth in transnational programmes has resulted in many opportunities for nations seeking to build their capacity, for institutions and for staff and student learning, as well as significant challenges. This research contributes to addressing some of these challenges by focusing attention on teaching and learning practice development with transnational teaching teams. This paper is grounded empirically in an international collaboration between three Australian, one Malaysian and one Vietnamese university. Employing a practice-based approach using multi-site participatory action research, the researchers investigated the professional development needs of transnational teaching teams and their experience working in transnational programmes. The study suggests that for professional development to be effective in transnational education it needs to be collaboratively designed and negotiated, context-sensitive and specific, practice-based and involve teams engaging and learning together in their daily work contexts. Such an approach harnesses the diversity of transnational teaching teams and enhances dialogue and relationships amongst team members.

The changing role of tutors: forming a community of practice in a distributed learning environment

An evaluation of a distributed learning environment (DLE) of a regional NSW university provided the context to examine the changing role of tutors in new learning environments. It examines how the tutors started to form a community of practice in the first year of operation. The distance from the main campus made communication difficult for the tutors, lecturers and students and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), at times, added to the challenge. This paper identifies ways that the tutor role changes in a DLE and how the development of a community of practice can support this change.

Evaluating action-learning and professional networking as a framework for educational leadership capacity development

This article describes the responsive evaluation component of an educational leadership capacity-building initiative developed at one Australian university and implemented by three others. The project aimed to develop, implement and disseminate an innovative framework to address the national strategic goal to increase the pool of qualified educational leaders. The framework reflected principles of distributive leadership, featured individual action-learning plans and fostered engagement in a supportive, scholarly community. Evaluation was challenging on many fronts, which the qualitative and responsive approach of design-based research was used to address. An external evaluator joined the project team and adjustments based on feedback were implemented throughout the process. The leadership capacity development framework is described, and design-based research endorsed as a suitable methodology to evaluate innovative academic development programs.