Sally Bradley

Models of Personal Development Planning: practice and processes

This article presents an analysis of case study data from a project evaluating Personal Development Planning (PDP) at a large post-1992 university in England. The study was undertaken as part of a strategy of encouraging schools to build on existing experience while at the same time ensuring consistency with new national guidelines for the implementation of PDP across the whole sector. The aim of the research was to understand the models already available for supporting and developing PDP, and the views of different stakeholders about the place of PDP in the curriculum. The research was designed to engage with teacher beliefs in order to provide models of practice that could inform innovation. The study was based on interviews with staff and data were analysed on the basis of clusters of features to create models of different practices and approaches. Three ideal types of PDP emerged: professional, employment and academic. Each of the modes was associated with particular disciplinary domains, although none of them existed in pure form. The data suggest that pedagogic identities based on introjection and strong boundary maintenance displayed greater tension in relation to PDP than those areas already constructed on projection. UK moves towards PDP are part of an international trend. The great advantage of case study data, however, is that they allow insight into the dynamics of implementation at the local level and in this case the potential of generic initiatives based on projection to destabilise aspects of academic identity. New initiatives are more likely to succeed if they engage positively with teacher beliefs rather than being posed in contra-distinction to them; the first step, however, is to understand and theorise them.

What Students Value as Inspirational and Transformative Teaching.

Evidence presented here stems from an analysis of student comments derived from a student-nominated inspirational teaching awards scheme at a large university in the United Kingdom (UK). There is a plethora of literature on teaching excellence and the scholarship of teaching, frequently based upon portfolios or personal claims of excellence, and often related to monetary reward or promotion. However there is a paucity of research into student-nominated awards and the student perception of inspirational and transformative teaching despite a growing number of student-led schemes in the UK. This article seeks to address this gap in knowledge at the same time presenting some of the challenges in managing a student-nominated teaching awards scheme.

Preparing for success: one institution's aspirational and student focused response to the National Student Survey

This paper describes quality enhancement (QE) focused response to the 2006 National Student Survey (NSS) by a post-1992 Higher Education Institution. Recognising the increasing importance of the NSS to a wide range of stakeholders, the University established a task team to explore, from a QE perspective, why the institution received particular scores (both high and low), and to engage in dialogue with students about our response to the results. This article describes just one aspect of this approach: an innovative, student-focused institutional level event, which was forward looking and resulted in tangible actions and outputs for colleagues and students.

Recognising the inspirational teaching of Claire Craig

Sally is Senior Lecturer in Innovation and Professional Development and is the lead in rolling out the internal Higher Education Academy Recognition Scheme within Sheffield Hallam University. She is an active member of the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) Conference Committee and is undertaking her SEDA Senior Fellowship and Senior Fellowship of the HEA. She has undertaken research in the field of professional development and gained her PhD in Education Research from Lancaster University in 2010. In this viewpoint, Sally shares her thoughts about the teaching achievements of one our colleagues, Claire Craig.