What could this be? #corejan12 #cck12

a place to rest...

and to travel

to taste and digest

to play and have fun

to think and reflect

to hear our own voices

and have conversations

to stop for a while and move on again

to be upset and wrong and admit it

to be excited and discover

to share

to change and transform

What could it be?

Try again #CCK12 #slec12

Feeling down?

Going nowhere?

Trying to balance?

No escape?

Tried everything?

Reach out! Try again!

Knit your net!

Grow - together!

end(less) 2/366

endless silence

denial

embrace... and live life!

---

What stops us?

alive or Ted12 (1/366)

Feeling a bit (or a lot) like this?

Look around, get inspired and make something! Think with your hands. It really works.

Put love into it...

... and see your creation coming to life - Ted12 did!

What did you make today?

tools I used most in 2011

Can technology enhance learning? Some people think this is not possible. And while I agree that cutlery can’t make a meal tastier, I think cutlery can enhance the eating experience.

always?... is there such a thing...

Could we say the same about technology? Just wondering…

What I used most this year

• Flickr – storing images to capture moments, teaching and learning situations. Using in my practice and started sharing photos under a Creative Common Licence. But I am also using great images shared by others through Flickr and I have used many in my photovoices and blog posts. Also, feel free to access our PGCAP flickr space and explore the different sets we have for different purposes from capturing visual memories to creating resources for teaching. We also share the login details with our PGCAP participants so that they can experiment with Flickr and upload their photos. It was used for our mixed-reality game on the core module, for example.
• WordPress – where my personal learning space is. Also using it as an e-portfolio on our PGCAP programme. Ok, lets give you some links to some of the public e-portfolios. Check out Neil’s, Sarah’s and Fabrizio’s for example.
• Slideshare – sharing own presentations (also using QR codes to retrieve them easily on mobile devices) but also accessing presentations by others. Feel free to access our Academic Development Slideshare page and explore some of the presentations we have shared. We usually upload presentations in advance of a session, provide the link to it via Twitter (then people with a smartphone can also use them in class electronically or access them on the go before/after the session too – making mobile learning possible) and in Blackboard and don’t provide printed versions. Saving some trees this way.
• Skype – getting together synchronously online with family, friends and colleagues. This has been very useful and I have had the opportunity to also use it during a session and connect with an expert remotely who couldn’t join us otherwise that day.
• YouTube – creating and sharing videos but also accessing videos made by others and adding some to our favourite list. I have a personal and a PGCAP account. My personal one is mainly to share clips I record with my boys and keep track of some cool videos. The PGCAP account has multiple functions. First of all we upload clips in which  our participants talk about the programme, then we have the series “Food for thought” (this will grow further) were we invite specialists to briefly share their expertise with the viewers and engage in a discussion with them and then there are educational videos by others which we collect in our favourites. Then I started also usingit for a mixed-reality game we are playing on the core module. We also share the account details with the participants so that they can upload videos without having to create their own account.
• Diigo – sharing my bookmarks there. My bookmarks can be accessed here. Also started creating lists now. This provides a good way to pre-select resources for a specific module, session, event, workshop etc. For an example see my current list for the core module of our PGCAP programme. I will use this feature more in the New Year. Also, what I haven’t tried yet is create shared lists.
• Twitter – keeping up-to-date with the exciting things that are happening. At the moment, I have a personal account and one which we use for the PGCAP programme.  to keep in touch with our participants, share useful links and make announcements.
• Dropbox – this is a really cool service! Most of my files are now there… Don’t remember last time I used a USB stick. Great! So easy also to collaborate with others and share folders. The good thing is, the more folders you share with others the more additional space you get ;o)
• (Digital) camera -still using my little camera… forgot it recently in the cinema but found it again! Always with me in- and out-of class. I just love taking photographs and am using them a lot for digital storytelling and creating resources. Have made flashcards for PBL scenarios, to group people, use as triggers for discussions, reflection etc. etc. the opportunities are endless.
• Camcorder – I think this is the first year I recorded so much video. New was recording teaching observation snippets which will be evaluated soon and the “Food for thought series” which will grow further in the New Year.
• iPod – from which I can access most of the above (when I have wi-fi access) which is amazing. It was especially useful to access PGCAP e-portfolios on-the-go, as well as Twitter and Skype. However, my little iPod is getting a bit old and doesn’t have a camera. If it did, I could probably stop using the camera and the camcorder. Less stuff to carry around,  simpler to upload and share. Is there an iPod on 3G? Must investigate soon.

In 2011 I also got more into game-based learning, participated in the CMC11 MOOC and started using GoogleDocs much more for creating shared and collaborative documents but also surveys and for admin and to organise events and staff development too. We even started working on a module together remotely with a colleague from Sweden.

What about you?

366 stories?

366 mini stories in 2012 by chrissinerantzi

Value 3 Working in and developing learning communities or together #SLEC2012

“Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves.” (Palmer, 2007, 11)

I agree with Palmer and his observations. Creating connections and links to people is the way forward. Carol Yeager reminded me recently, “if you want to go fast, go on your own, if you want to go further go with others” (African proverb) – this is so true and reflects my approach to what I do as an academic developer. Neame (2011) states that at the heart of academic development are people, networks and communities. Our role is to create opportunities for communities of practice to emerge, support and grow as defined by Wenger et al (2011). Kahn (2003) recognises that we gain credibility through participating in communities of practice. Democratic approaches have the power to make this to happen. Democratic means working together, creating together, learning together but also changing together. Imposed change, doesn’t work. Pennington (2003) says that “professionals and technical staff will tend to resist changes which are perceived to threaten their core values and practices, and which have a negative impact on individuals and which diminish group autonomy” (p.7). Especially in the HE context this is so true but I am sure it applies to all other professional groups as well. And by the way, does forced change last? Academic developers are not vampires (Shrives and Bond, 2003) but they do have to assist the implementation of policies and strategies and need to find ways to make this happen and the way forward is through “building up a relationship based on mutual trust and respect.” (p. 65).

Wandering around with(out) direction? Who says so?

Pennington (2003) notes that “commitment to self-identified and self-initiated change is always greater than change deemed necessary by others or imposed from external sources.” (p. 5) So where are institutions going wrong? Could it be that organisations feel that imposed strategies have the power to make change happen more rapidly and on a bigger scale? Is it about wanting results now now, as I would say? Are quick fixes the answer? Shrives and Bond (2003) actually remind us that “quick fix solutions that many sought in the 1980s often failed.” (p. 61) So, what kind of quick fixes can actually work? Does any of them really work? How can academic development appeal to the masses over night? Is there a magic formula? Pennington (2003) doesn’t think that this can work and reminds us that “where processes have failed, the change agents have frequently rushed […] and pushed ahead too quickly with operational issues, such as ‘how do we do it?’. It’s an obvious point, but clarity about the rationale and objectives of a change should lead and shape practicalities of future activities and new procedures and structures.” (p. 8) He suggests “where rapid change is required, create urgency and momentum – but not of the magnitude which causes destabilisation.” (p. 11)

A helping hand?

We academic developers are not vampires but can be seen as intruders – in reality we are not. We are people keen to help others develop and grow and infect our passion for teaching and learning to transform practices and the student experience. In order to make this happen we need to understand the people we work with, accept and respect our differences and identify opportunities to connect with them to make necessary change a shared owned activity in a community of practice that has a clear purpose and benefit for all so that change becomes motivational and meaningful.

References

Kahn, P. (2003)Developing professional expertise in staff and educational development, in: Kahn, P. And Baume, D. (eds.) A Guide to Staff and Educational Development, SEDA, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 212-226.

Neame, C. (2011) Exploring Models of Development of Professional Practice in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: What Can We Learn from Biology and Marketing? Educate~ Vol. 11, No. 1, 2011, pp. 9-19.

Palmer, P. J. (2007) The courage to teach. Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pennington, G. (2003) Guidelines for Promoting and Facilitating Change, Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) Generic Centre.

Shrives, L. and Bond C. (2003) Consultancy in educational development, in: Kahn, P. And Baume, D. (eds.) A Guide to Staff and Educational Development, SEDA, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 61-75.

Wenger, E., Trayer, B. and de Laat, M. (2011) Promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks: a conceptual framework, Rapport 18, Ruud de Moor Centrum, Open Universiteit, available at http://www.social-learning-strategies.com/documents/Wenger_Trayner_DeLaat_Value_creation.pdf

playing is good for us!

celebrating food and life

… I am in the middle of cooking, but couldn’t help myself…

Using some recipes for inspiration but not sticking to the instructions… not a surprise really.

• Nigela’s recipe for the perfect roast potatoes
• Jamie’s Winter Bomb recipe for a super special hot and frozen sweet
• BBC’s turkey recipe with honey and orange glaze, the smells have filled the whole house already

Please note, we won’t be eating the above in this order… ;o( but maybe we could… ;o)

Other bits and pieces under development and loads ready in the fridge, such as dragon breath tzatziki, spiced-up olives, super-yummy potato salad and loads more… no ready-made meals on our table.

Something is smelling… or burning… back to the magic kitchen.

Wishing you a creative Christmas everybody. What have you done differently this year?

Value 6 Developing people and processes #SLEC2012

Please note this post is a draft.

For Anderson (1995) Academic Developers are peer-consultants. Elton (1995) calls us strategic agents for change and Roche (2010) refers to us as agents of transformative change. There definitely seems to be a ‘change theme’… and everybody seems generally to agree that our role is to support academics and other professionals who support learning, individuals, groups and whole schools and departments, on a day-to-day basis, to develop and enhance academic practice, teaching and pedagogical research in order to provide a richer student experience to their students and grow as individuals and professionals. But developing people is not a passive state and can not happen if the people are not actively involved and deeply engaged. I can’t develop anybody and maybe the word ‘developer’ is not the right one to describe what we do… Processes are designed and implemented by people, so the same applies to developing these.

The challenges are enormous and the benefits are also of the same magnitude if we get it right. And when I say ‘we’ I mean us Academic Developers and the wider academic community. I feel that this is the best way to get buy in, maximise engagement and effectiveness. We need to focus our efforts to create shared ownership, collaborations and partnerships and I am so pleased that this also seen as valuable by Roche (2003) who also states that

“The change readiness period must be taken seriously, so that transitional stages such as denial, resistance and exploration are accepted as normal reactions to change” (p. 174).

Where is our heart and why do we try to hide it so/too often?

At the heart of these interventions are people and I can see very clear links between this approach and coaching. If we want others to transform their practice, we need to have them on board. We can’t change anybody… we can only change ourselves if we really want to and this applied to everybody else to and our practices. What we can do is to find ways that enable individuals and teams to envisage how success looks like but also how this would feel for them. We need to make people feel that they are in a safe environment and that it is ok to take risks. Not all ideas and intervention will work in practice and the hardest is actually to implement them (Scott,2003).

Still growing... but for how long?

And this is where coaching can be effective. Coaching is usually a one-to-one development activity and some might think that this is not scalable and have organisational impact but we need to remember through coaching transformational changes for the individual have a ripple effect on a whole team, a whole school or organisation and change of behaviours and attitudes by one person will influence the behaviours and attitudes of whole teams. The word ‘relationships’ comes in my mind again. This is a word I seem to use a lot but it does mean a lot to me in the context of academic development. But it is not just me, the literature also emphasises on these. For example, Shrives and Bond (2003) state that “the educational development unit, [...] needs to maintain its good relationship with the rest of the institution over the long term, prefers to avoid confronting, so as to prevent damage to that relationship.” (p. 62) And educational development unit consists of people so Shrives and Bond actually talk about people’s relationships. Peter Kahn also reminds us that  “tutors who adopt a process-focused approach see their role as creating an environment in which the students can learn. This may involve developing an effective relationship with your students and challenging their preconceptions of your subject.” (online) And this is definitely how I see things and would like to continue operating because I can clearly see that this works and can lead to fruitful collaboration, innovation and transformative change, development and learning.

Where are the real opportunities to make a difference today? Working with the enthusiasts is great but what about all the other people who  keep ignoring us and don’t really see value in what we are doing… is there a need to win them over, or should we just forget about them? They are often reminded to work with us. Some are even forced and I see a danger in this… Will this approach de-value  academic development and turn it into a tick-box exercise  to please masters and number crunchers… I am wondering. Neame (2011) notes that interventionalist approaches can work at initial stages but should move towards democratic development and focus on the creation of learning communities. This rationale enabled me to see things from a different perspective, I have to admit. Initially, I thought that interventionalist modes of staff development would not work at all, but they can actually provide a useful way in. If we recognise that interventionalist modes are of temporary or transitional nature and use the time effectively to identify and offer some real hooks then there is hope, a lot of it!!! that what we do can actually have an impact, a massive one.

We are no robots... are you?

Sometimes (well, actually more than sometimes) I wonder, how we can motivate the de-motivated, the un-motivated to recognise what we could achieve together? And yes, I am probably very (too?) romantic and see academic development as a partnership between academics, students, institutional leaders and academic developers.  But is this really a bad thing? Too often human communications are seen as more de-personalised, de-humanised activities. But we are not robots. We are not machines. Is there a need to remember this a bit more and a bit more often?

Ok, so what could be a hook? I think is also to recognise that everybody contributes somehow to what we call the student experience and there is no academic with bad intentions . Everybody is doing something well. Some might have lost their interest in teaching over the years, others have not discovered it yet despite the fact that they might be teaching for ages. I think, in order to achieve anything through the work we, academic developers, are doing, we need to magnify all the good things that are happening at micro-level. Only then, will we be able to draw people in, attract the ones who look the other way when they see us. Recognising their strength is so important and will boost their will to do even more, even better. We all want recognition for what we do! It is human nature! If we keep saying “you should be doing this”, “you don’t do this right” etc. etc. we have no hope. I used to hear these phrases and my ears were hurting. I don’t think that people will actually switch-on. In the contrary, the will switch-off completely. Nobody will feel suddenly hooked on staff development, enthused or  motivated if we keep telling them how bad they are.

How?

Achievements at macro-level in an institution are therefore only made possible when there is deep, meaningful and most of all wide-spread and infectious engagement at micro-level and academic developers can play a key role in this to happen, to develop people and processes, we need alias.

All for one and one for all? Remember?

References

Andresen L (1995) Accredited Courses in Teaching and Learning, in Bashiran, A. and Kader, A. (2005) Implementing PBL in Aikol, Iium: A paradigm shift?, in: proceedings PBL in Context – Bridging Work and Education,  International Conference on Problem-Based Learning, 9-11 June Lahti, Finland, available at http://www.lpt.fi/pblconference/full_papers/07_full_papers.htm [accessed 22 Dec 2011]

Elton, L. (1995) An Institutional Framework, in: Brew, A (ed.) Directions in Staff Development, Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, pp. 177-188.

Neame, C. (2011) Exploring Models of Development of Professional Practice in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: What Can We Learn from Biology and Marketing? Educate~ Vol. 11, No. 1, 2011, pp. 9-19.

Roche, V. (2003) Being an agent of change, in: Kahn, P. and Baume, D. (eds.) A guide to Staff & Educational Development, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 171-191.

Scott, G. (2003) Effective Change Management in Higher Education, EDUCAUSE review, Nov/Dec. pp. 64-80.

Shrives, L. and Bond C. (2003) Consultancy in educational development, in: Kahn, P. And Baume, D. (eds.) A Guide to Staff and Educational Development, SEDA, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 61-75.

Making yummy pancakes or how the PGCAP really works

the academic community

selecting

lifting

standing out

returning

together

achieving

Please note, PGCAP stands for Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice