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Episode 5: Staff recognition, student success
152 Plays25 days ago
In this episode of the Let’s Talk About Student Success Podcast, host Stuart Norton is joined by co-host Karen Hustler and Accreditation Advisor Jo Davies from Advance HE, along with four guests from various universities: Dr. Jannie Roed from the University of Hong Kong, Dr. Tom Cunningham from Glasgow Caledonian University, Dan Cole from De Montfort University, and Professor Leti Gramaglia from the University of Warwick.
The discussion centres around the impact of professional recognition and development of staff on student success, highlighting the role of the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) in enhancing teaching practices and inclusivity. The episode also explores future predictions for higher education, including the evolving role of lecturers and the integration of new technologies like generative AI. The guests share insights from their institutions and offer practical tips for implementing effective teaching strategies.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello colleagues and welcome to our podcast, Student Success Pod. I'm your host, Stuart Norton, and here we discuss core thematic areas of student success. Please do remember to follow the series, make sure you stay up to date with new episodes and activity related to student success.
00:00:31
Speaker
In this episode, I am joined by two colleagues from Advance HE, co-host Karen Hustler. Hello, Karen. Hello, so I'm Karen Hussler. the Head of Accreditation and Excellence Awards at Advance HE and I've been doing this job now for 11 years, so we're quite a long way in.
00:00:48
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you, Karen. And Jo Davies. Hi, Jo. Hello. Thank you, Stuart. My name is Jo Davies and I'm an accreditation advisor at Advance HE and I work with our accredited institutions offering accredited programmes and schemes.
00:01:03
Speaker
Fantastic. So two colleagues with absolute subject matter specialism in the area under review, and that is a professional recognition, a topic that reaches the very heart of professionalizing professionalism within higher education.
00:01:17
Speaker
And we have four fabulous guests from across the sector talking to the impact of professional recognition on student success from their perspective and sharing insights with you, our listeners. Absolutely delighted to introduce colleagues, and Dr. Janine Rowe from the University of Hong Kong.
00:01:34
Speaker
Hello, my name is Jenny Broard and I'm the director of Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre in Hong Kong. I've been here since I've been here six years now. Thank you, Jenny. And thank you so much for giving up your evening to join us. I know it's morning for for for the remaining colleagues of in the UK, but evening for you. So thank you so much for that.
00:01:53
Speaker
ah Dr. Tom Cunningham, if I can come to you next. Thanks, Stuart. So I'm Tom Cunningham. I'm a senior lecturer in academic development at Glasgow Caledonian University, which no doubt I will refer to as GCU in what follows.
00:02:07
Speaker
Perfect. Thank you, Tom. And to Dan Cole. Hi, Stuart. Hello, everyone. Yes, I'm Dan Cole. I work at Monfort University and I'm the teaching recognition lead in our newly formed Education Academy.
00:02:21
Speaker
Fantastic. And our last colleague for this episode, and but by no means late least, Professor Letizia Gramaglia from the University of Warwick. Hello, Letizia. Hello, Stuart. Yes, I'm Letizia Gramaglia. I'm Head of Academic Development at the University of Warwick.
00:02:37
Speaker
Lovely to be here. Perfect. Thank you, colleagues, and thank you so much.
EduBiscuit Segment: A Lighthearted Biscuit Discussion
00:02:41
Speaker
As ever, the first thing we do by way of easing us into the programme is to start with that little lighthearted and segment around EduBiscuit.
00:02:51
Speaker
listeners new to the series, you're in for a treat as our guests divulge if they are a dunker and provide their favourite biscuit for doing so. With a wealth of guests on on the show this month, I'm having to keep this part brief, but as ever, I do have a fact for you. And my fact is actually inspired by Karen, my co-host today, as when discussing the episode with Karen, Karen had indicated that perhaps her favourite wine might have been more up her street.
00:03:12
Speaker
I know Karen has staunch views on on biscuits, and but we will come to those shortly. But here's my facts for all listeners, but for you in particular, Karen. 17th century gentlefolk actually had biscuits that they dumped into wine.
00:03:27
Speaker
Hard sponge fingers, it was served at the end of the meal, and this is why sponge fingers or longs duchat, the tongue of the cat, a biscotti as well, and this dunking of biscuits into wine can actually trace back to Roman times.
00:03:44
Speaker
But today in Italy, this is something that is still performed with a specific ah Chiamblini al vino, I'll probably not pronounce that correctly, but please do come in correct me, um or Italian wine biscuits.
00:03:58
Speaker
In the interest of academic rigor, I can assure all listeners and guests that I'll be undertaking some very, very thorough research into dunking biscuits into wine over the coming weekend.
00:04:11
Speaker
Without any further ado, to our guests, what is your favourite biscuit and are you a dunker? Joe, I'm going to come to you first. Right, Stuart. had to think quite hard about this. And it's partly because I have two teenage boys. And as soon as biscuits come into the house, they disappear within probably an hour. so But I am a dunker, 100%. And I do love a hobnob. And it's got to be a chocolate hobnob.
00:04:35
Speaker
And I actually don't mind if it falls off into the teeth.
00:04:40
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you, Joe. So the chocolate hobnob, a popular one amongst guests, but the first person that actually likes biscuit sludge. And sludge is the correct term I have been reading. Here is my nice cup of tea and a biscuit book. It's a very academic rigor going on. But there we go. Biscuit sludge. Thank you, Joe.
00:04:56
Speaker
A conversation perhaps after the show. and Letty, can I come to you next? Yes. Well, I've just changed what I was thinking because I've been inspired by your idea of of um biscuits in wine. And It is indeed something that is quite popular in Italy, and in particular with Cantucci, which are dunked in Binsanto, which is a really sweet, strong wine, very popular in Tuscany.
00:05:23
Speaker
So um I'll go for that one. I'm definitely a dunker. Fantastic. Thank you, Letty. And you're going to have to drop those to me in in in an email so I can make sure that I can can carry on my own research and my in my own time. i had Dan, are you a dunker?
00:05:38
Speaker
I am a dunker and I also like a chocolate hobnob, but I'm not going to say that now. Joe's stolen my thunder. But I must say, right my favourite biscuit, and this might be controversial, is a millionaire shortbread.
00:05:49
Speaker
Not just plain shortbreads, no, a millionaire shortbread with the chocolate and the caramel. think that just elevates it. Whether I dunk it or not, I'm not too sure. Thank you, Dan. And Jenny, are you a dunker?
00:06:03
Speaker
No, I asked my my colleagues, but I thought it would put a kind of both local and global touch to this exercise. So I asked them what would be a good Chinese biscuit to to use for this purpose. And they just looked at me in horror that nobody would dream of putting a biscuit into into tea.
00:06:20
Speaker
I'm Danish. I wouldn't do it in Denmark either. I think it's a strictly so British thing. So I went to Marks and Spencer's and I got oat crunch. And it actually says packed full of rolled oats, perfect to dunk.
00:06:33
Speaker
Marks and Spencer in Hong Kong, yes. There we go. Marks and Spencer in Hong Kong and Duncan has now made its way there too. That's what i love about this show. um Tom, are you a dunker?
00:06:44
Speaker
No, I'm very much against dunking. I don't like that idea. i don't know what you called it, that idea of the stuff that disappears into the tea room. I hate that. I like chocolate. So any biscuits that I would choose would have lots of chocolate on.
00:06:54
Speaker
So went for the Choco Leibniz's because they're quite, they're a little bit of biscuit, lots of chocolate on top that you can kind of peel off. So I like that. So yes, I like chocolate, not so fan on biscuits, and no, I don't like dunking them, but I'm cool with that.
00:07:08
Speaker
Thank you, Tom. And Karen. Yeah, so I'm definitely not a dunker. The thought of soggy biscuits is just not for me at all, but I am prepared to try the wine dunking.
00:07:20
Speaker
um So the biscuit that I'm going to choose is actually one that's very specific to Cornwall, where I spend quite a lot of time as well, and it's the fairing. um So this is a sort of big gingery type of biscuit only made by one company in Cornwall who had a fire in their ovens a year ago, sparking a national disaster with no biscuits coming out. But they're now back in production and that will be my biscuit. But you can't dunk it because it just dissolves.
00:07:45
Speaker
So there will be a lot of sludge. Stuart, can you actually tell us what your favourite biscuit is? Can I throw it back to you? i mean Well, yeah, i no one's ever asked me, Karen. Thank you. um ju do you know, I'm i'm going to have to go with the ginger nut.
00:08:00
Speaker
um And I think the reason for that is my my my my my dad was a Milton. And um that we never saw dad during like the week. And only had like one day off on the weekend.
00:08:13
Speaker
um But obviously he was up exceptionally early. And so as as a young boy getting up and then going in see my parents on on the Sunday, and very excited that the dad was home as well. um And I just couldn't get over the fact that he was always having ginger nuts and coffee in bed.
00:08:28
Speaker
And I was like, I want to have ginger nuts for breakfast. I want to be an adult. And it just, every time i smell a ginger nut, it's just such a reminiscence of of of that that happy time of childhood.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I have to say, they are glorious for dunking because they're the perfect size. You know, there's none of this kind of, does it fit in the cart? Do I have to bite and angle a bit off? So I'd have to go with the humble ginger nut, Karen, but thank you for asking.
00:08:52
Speaker
it's probably time that
Exploration of the Professional Standards Framework
00:08:53
Speaker
we we we talk about student success. Today, as I said, we're talking around professional development and recognition of staff and the important role that this plays in student success.
00:09:03
Speaker
But first, I think it's really important to introduce that topic, albeit briefly, around the professional standards framework. So Karen, if I can hand over to you. Thank you very much. um So Stuart, in higher education, we've got massive different types of staff that in each institution. And of course, the staff that students encounter may be in multiple different ways.
00:09:25
Speaker
So they might be in lectures, they might be in tutorials, they could be in labs, they might be out in industry. So the people that I've invited along today have got very different types of students in their institutions, and they're going to tell you all about that.
00:09:38
Speaker
But what unites us is a way in which we can develop our staff and then also recognise them for their effectiveness in the practice that they have with students in learning and teaching. So we have an amazing professional standards framework, which was first developed and launched in 1999. So it's been in in in in the sector for a little while now.
00:09:59
Speaker
And Advance HE, we are the custodians of it. It's been updated three times since it was first launched, last updated in 2023. So it's really current, developing the staff that we need for the future and the way in which the professional development of staff is geared to making sure that students have every opportunity for success is absolutely key to ensuring that success.
00:10:22
Speaker
So the people that are on the podcast today are going to tell you a bit about what they do in their institutions. But at the heart of this is the professional standards framework. And at Vance HE we operate a fellowship scheme which comes on the back of the framework showing where people have met standards.
00:10:38
Speaker
And we have over 200,000 people around the world now in 117 countries that have achieved one of our categories of fellowship. And in our team, in the accreditation and fellowship team, then we accredit institutions around the world to to offer these fellowships and award them on our behalf.
00:10:56
Speaker
So there's a lot about standards. And I'm going to just invite Jo to just tell you a little bit about that. Oh, thank you, Karen. So we do, we accredit a lot of institutions. We've got 144 the UK and outside of the UK.
00:11:09
Speaker
And they are offering a wide range of programmes and schemes aligned to the PSF and fellowship. And these programmes, they really do vary depending on the context of the institution and they are inclusive to a wide range of staff. And we often hear about teaching standards in relation to the PSF and accreditation. However, it is much, much broader than this.
00:11:31
Speaker
And it's all staff within an institution that have this impact on students, you know, for example, institutions quite often accredit and structured support and programmes for their professional services staff, librarians, technicians, and quite often aligned to a associate fellowship. And whilst we do it accredit a lot of Descriptor II fellowship programmes for teaching staff, and that's often quite linked to promotion and probation, we then have our senior and principal fellows. And our senior fellows, you know, they're...
00:12:05
Speaker
um they're having the impact on the colleagues who in turn have the impact on their students. And then thinking a bit more senior, we have our principal fellows and they're developing the strategies both in the institutions and externally. And, you know, we're increasingly seeing institutions using their senior and principal fellows to lead projects and initiatives, you know, to enhance enhance that student success and experience.
00:12:31
Speaker
And so thinking about our programmes, we really do provide an opportunity for staff to be recognised. And all our institutions, they accredit something, they've all got different contexts and they've all got a different student body. And I think what we'd like to do now is invite our experts to talk about the student body of their institutions, any specific areas of work that you focus on as a result.
Inclusivity and Student Diversity in Higher Education
00:12:56
Speaker
So for example, widening participation, mature students, international students. And if I could come to Dan first. Yeah, thanks, Jo. So for those that don't know, Montfort University, we're based in Leicester. So our yeah UK campus is is based in Leicester. We have just over 20,000 students at our last count May last year, but we extend our ah education in the UK to 14 other providers and also Transnational education bases, we've got three campuses in Dubai, Kazakhstan and Cambodia, as well as lots of other collaborative provision internationally. and
00:13:34
Speaker
So we have an incredibly diverse student body and we see that I'm i'm personally based in Leicester in our new education academy and our student body is diverse in terms of nationality. We have a high high number of international students joining our campus.
00:13:50
Speaker
In Leicester, we have a lot commuter students. We have those students who um possibly have had challenging previous educational experiences. So coming in with a variety of different previous knowledge and when they're joining our programmes and ah higher higher than sector average of mature students as well. So put all of that into the mix in in almost every single one of our classes, it it poses a massive challenge for our lecturers.
00:14:20
Speaker
So our staff development really responds to that. We look at how we can support our colleagues to ah embrace inclusivity and embrace learner variability and then really try and be student-centered in their approaches, you know, promoting these active learning student-centered approaches within every single class, whether it's a lecture theatre full of 200 students or seminar sessions or individual tutorials. so it's It's challenging for our lecturers, but they respond brilliantly and our students have a great experience as a result.
00:14:51
Speaker
oh Thank you, Dan. ah Letty, can I come over to you? Sure. and So we have about 29,000 students at Warwick across undergrad, postgrad, and postgrad research.
00:15:07
Speaker
And um about one in four of our undergraduate students are from a widening participation background. um We have about 37% international students overall.
00:15:20
Speaker
um if we look at at the overall population, and it goes to 47% if we only look at PGTs. um And about 45%, sorry, 54% of our students identify as Asian, Black or mixed activities. So quite a lot of diversity um in an institution which is um which is very traditional in lots of ways, very traditional in in in the way we think about, um you know, it's a research intensive university and very traditional sometimes in the way we approach learning and teaching.
00:15:57
Speaker
So um a lot of the work that we've been doing is around ah inclusive practices um and in particular we've done um quite ah quite a significant amount of work um around anti-racist pedagogies, um really trying to um involve both professional staff and academic staff in conversations around um critical race theory, understanding... um
00:16:29
Speaker
experiences of belonging for students, um thinking about positionality, um you know, the the whole spectrum of what it means to create ah an inclusive environment, especially when we think about ethnicity and race.
00:16:45
Speaker
Well, thank you, Leti. Inclusivity really is key, isn't it, when thinking about the diverse nature of your student population. Jani, can I come up to you Yes, Hong Kong is very different. It's a Research Intensive University was the first in in in Hong Kong and it still attracts sort of very high achievers.
00:17:06
Speaker
We have around 17,000 students across both undergraduates and postgraduates and 60% of those are non-local, meaning that they are predominantly from mainland China and some international students.
00:17:20
Speaker
um So we I think we we have sort of slightly different, is it's a very ah homogeneous student body. They come in when they're 17, 18, they go through a four year bachelor's degree and then they move on to masters or PhD. So there's no break or anything. no no, the widened participation is not really a term they they would understand.
00:17:49
Speaker
um and No mature, very few mature students. Maybe you get a few on on on the master's courses. So it's a very different situation. I mean, the issues our staff have is particularly that they are high achievers. And with that comes often mental well-being or, you know, they they ah have sometimes problems fitting in ah because their whole life since kindergarten has been about achieving.
00:18:20
Speaker
so So our staff need to to manage expectations and need to support students now where they're no longer the best in the class and and things like that. So it's it's very different a student body than you you find in in the UK.
00:18:37
Speaker
Thank you, Jani. That really does sound like a different context to the UK institutions we've been hearing from. And Tom, finally, over to you. Thanks, Joe. So, DCU is a modern university based in Glasgow.
00:18:50
Speaker
um We have a big focus on employability. ah what Our latest strategy talks about having work-ready graduates, career-ready graduates. So a lot of the work we do, all of the courses we have are directed at supporting industry. They're directed at supporting professional kind of study. So that means a lot of it focuses on skills.
00:19:10
Speaker
ah We are a widening access university. We call the university for the common good. We embrace that throughout all of our programs and all of our approaches. A lot of that work is in kind of looking at how we can support our local community, both be local and global is the idea behind GCU's approach.
00:19:26
Speaker
We also have a campus in London. That campus is predominantly for international students and it's exclusively postgraduate taught. um So that gives us a kind of different kind of perspective on what goes on to London as to what happens in Glasgow.
00:19:39
Speaker
In terms of the staff that we're supporting, I'd probably say a couple of things. One is we quite often have staff come in who haven't followed a traditional academic route. They're more likely to be professional experts in a particular field who then come in to teach within our programmes.
00:19:55
Speaker
I think that presents a different kind of challenge opportunity in relation to the support that we provide for our staff. And also because of our widening access focus, there's quite a bit of effort and thought about transitions into through and out of higher education.
00:20:10
Speaker
We're taking students into second and third years of our degrees on articulation routes, do quite a lot of work with the local colleges. So supporting staff to understand the different kinds of students we get and the stages they're at, think is something that we, well, I know that we focus on in our professional development.
00:20:28
Speaker
Thank you, Tom. And you've all given us a real kind of insight into the student body at your institutions and that, you know, there's real differences and it does come back to that institutional context, doesn't it? And I'm just going hand over to Karen now to talk a bit about inclusive practice. So, um so thank you. Just listening into that, just we think about student success and we're thinking, who are the students and how will we know when they're successful?
Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation
00:20:53
Speaker
And then turning that back and Tom, you really sort of introduced us there to the the very different types of staff you've got in all of your institutions as well. Some of them will have come through traditional routes, some of them will come from industry,
00:21:05
Speaker
Some of them might be visiting international staff that you have for a certain length of time and you've got your visiting professors and everybody around those students has to be developed. And in in higher education, we haven't had a requirement to have a teaching qualification in the way that we do in schools in the yeah UK or even in colleges.
00:21:24
Speaker
And so trying to get people to engage in development and to show that they have met standards that that we can respect as a sector has has been quite a, you know, a building requirements. And if we think of the government in the UK, then they're talking a lot about teaching standards and wanting to improve standards.
00:21:43
Speaker
Our fellowship programmes, they lead to an award that is recognised as a teaching qualification equivalent. And so this desire for people to gain one of the fellowships is really key.
00:21:54
Speaker
the The most recent framework, the 2023 professional standards framework is really exciting because it has has different um emphasis to the previous framework in in many respects.
00:22:07
Speaker
One of them is about context, and we've just heard about how um the different contexts are and what's effective in one context might not work as well in another context. So the development of staff for the context is really key.
00:22:20
Speaker
And we've also got the focus on inclusive practice, and we'll be unpicking that a little bit further in a minute. But one of the key things that's been brought in is the effectiveness um And this is something as a sector we kind of shied away from a little bit in previous frameworks, that it's been more implicit than explicit. But now we're asking very much that each individual that is going through these programmes and is achieving a fellowship is showing that their practice is effective.
00:22:48
Speaker
But effective looks different in different contexts. So I'm going to sort of come across to our experts to say, How do you know that things are effective? what What kind of indicators might there be for that individual, perhaps for that department?
00:23:03
Speaker
I'm going to throw this to Letty first because she was smiling at the screen then. So Letty, over to you. What's effective? How do you know? oh Thank you, Karen. and Well, that's that's a very broad question. um i was smiling because I was, as you were describing that, I was thinking it actually varies depending on which category of fellowship they're applying for.
00:23:26
Speaker
um And um one of the things that I have ah done systematically over the years, the many years that I've been at Warwick, I have...
00:23:37
Speaker
um tried as much as possible to engage senior leadership with the PSF as well as colleagues at earlier career stages, because we have ah obviously a mechanism to to to, you know, get new staff through programs that are accredited and and it's so very much part of their career trajectory at the beginning of of their experience.
00:24:03
Speaker
But as you move into more senior positions, it's not necessarily something that you've engaged with. So I've personally sort of nagged and and and mentored three PVCs ah ah for education over ah over the course of my career to gain that their principal fellowships.
00:24:21
Speaker
um And it's been really important that they would um engage that with that discourse around the effectiveness of practice as well. I know it's it's something that's much more explicit in the new framework, but it was there implicitly throughout the the the history of the PSF.
00:24:40
Speaker
And um the two things, you know, effectiveness and looking at the context of practice, for me, go together, go handin hand in hand, because um we very much try to meet colleagues where they're at and then take them through a journey in their involvement with the PSF.
00:25:02
Speaker
And it's really important to recognize that effectiveness for someone could be just a small change that they've made to their practice and then seeing some positive change in student feedback or improvements in the way students engage in their classroom. So it's very contextual.
00:25:18
Speaker
um i know I'm um'm probably not giving you the the indicators of effectiveness that you were after, ah but but because I think it's very specific and it changes from individual to individual.
00:25:29
Speaker
Student feedback is the is the broadest umbrella, but in in all sorts of different ways. Thank you. I think that was really interesting insight there to think about the impact that people are having at the different career stages within the institution and the way in which you're taking people who have been appointed as experts in teaching and learning, like um the pro vice chancellors that you mentioned, and helping them to really understand about their practice and think about the effectiveness of what they're doing and make their claim that they are meeting the standards. So that's um that has obviously the scale and scope of impact for this more senior person
00:26:06
Speaker
with the policy and strategy and the way in which they drive forward learning and teaching is absolutely vital. So thank you for that. I'm going to come to Tom next and and ask if he can tell us a bit about what effective looks like at Glasgow Caledonian.
00:26:23
Speaker
looked at this in a slightly different way, I think. um So I was thinking about, OK, how are we using the PSF to drive or demonstrate or show the effectiveness of some of our staff and some of the impacts that they're having?
00:26:34
Speaker
So a couple of things that struck me from when I started thinking about that. One was our internal teaching awards. We've structured them around criteria that GCU has and the GCU values, but we've also built in the PSF at different stages of those awards, such thats that an early career award is going to speak to the kind of criteria people are looking for fellowship.
00:26:54
Speaker
For those people who are looking for leadership kind of awards, we're thinking more about ah senior fellow and principal fellow. So actually using the PSF and the language of the PSF in our own internal pre, and a awards to try and drive and get people to understand the kinds of things that people are looking for.
00:27:10
Speaker
And also in terms of supporting scholarship, because i think one of the ways you can demonstrate the effectiveness of this space is by sharing and promoting and disseminating the knowledge that you have.
00:27:21
Speaker
We have something, i think it's wrapped up now, but it was called the Strategy for Learning Innovation Funds. And they were small pots of money for members of staff within the institution to take on an issue or an area related to learning and teaching.
00:27:33
Speaker
that was really interesting for them, or they thought there was a challenge or a problem they would like to address. And part of the criteria for that was we were going to award those awards on the basis of people having fellowship or senior fellowship, depending on the criteria, and actually using those kinds of discussions around how important is this fellowship to kind of enabling those kinds of bits of research for this scholarship. So the my my take on this was how is the PSF supporting us to think about what effectiveness means?
00:28:00
Speaker
And I think we have embedded it within our policies at GCU to support that. I'm also, that's what you wanted though, Karen. and I didn't have anything I particularly wanted. I wanted to hear from you really about what you're doing about this space. And I love the idea of using the framework. This is something I talk about a lot, using the framework as an institutional level to really sort of assess where are we doing well?
00:28:22
Speaker
um Where do we need to focus next? What does the future bring? So all the things, you know, just gives the insight to people listening in to think, what should I be thinking about? And we've got two different perspectives already. I'm going to come across to Jani next to see what your perspective in the University of Hong Kong is on this.
00:28:42
Speaker
Yes, we've had the fellowship scheme for the past, it's the fifth year now, and it has actually created a culture change in quite a remarkable way. I used to work in the UK before and it was sort of not as obvious as I can see here It's for a number of reasons. i think um one is that we have about 50% of our teachers coming from mainland China.
00:29:06
Speaker
And it's quite a common way. The teaching approach there is very students very teacher-centered. So students are used to ah sitting through 70 slides, and that's the teaching.
00:29:19
Speaker
But when they come to Hong Kong, we try to dissuade them from teaching in that way. And when they start doing the fellowship, um They and have the language of the professional standards framework and and they realize that things can be done in a different way. So you can actually see ah the aha moments during workshops when they say, really, this is what is happening.
00:29:44
Speaker
and And I think also the fact that they are attending workshops and they are talking about the teaching practice with other people, that has a massive effect. um and on the teaching practice. They've never talked about what they do in the classroom before.
00:29:59
Speaker
And another thing is that many of our staff are so used to just doing research, but they have never thought about approaching their teaching in the same way. So evidence-based, you know, and I can see that this is sort of something that gives kudos to the scheme, that this is about teaching, but it's not just about how teach you, it's actually about demonstrating effectiveness through research, scholarship.
00:30:30
Speaker
So it's it's really lovely to see how it it it it has made made a change. And it also means, of course, that um we now have a waiting list of over 100 people who want to do fellowship.
00:30:44
Speaker
That's because of of of framing it like a research approach to teaching, I think. Yeah. Fantastic. And that's working so well in your context and the thought of all those people queuing up to do the fellowship.
00:30:59
Speaker
I think in the year that we're in at the moment, we may go above 20,000 fellows within 2025. twenty twenty five That the first time that we've we've hit 20,000 in one year. So it just shows the impact of it out there. But so Dan, can I come to you at De Montfort? You've changed a lot of the way that you do teaching recently and you've gone into block teaching now, which I realise means you've had to get all your staff up to speed with a whole new way of designing programmes and teaching.
00:31:28
Speaker
what What's effective looking like? how How are you using the framework in that way? Yeah, well, one big positive about block teaching and just to give bit of perspective for for colleagues that might not have experienced it, block teaching at DMU is that programmes are designed so that students learn a module at a time in a sequence and those modules are completed in seven weeks.
00:31:49
Speaker
So there are six intensive weeks of delivery, a seventh week of assessment and feedback and is provided in that time. So it's incredibly intensive learning for students and it's incredibly intensive in terms of planning and delivery for our colleagues. So obviously we've we've had to evolve how we support and develop our staff in response to that.
00:32:10
Speaker
But I suppose how we how do we measure whether our colleagues are being effective and throughout this process? We've we've made a few of strategic changes as well, deliberate changes. First of all, we we're a student-centered university. we We're an empowering university, so we we're yeah challenging our students to be empowered and positive and confident, autonomous learners. So I think one of the primary avenues where we we look for effectiveness is student feedback, as as Tom and Letty said. we We encourage our lecturers not just to use and NSS as the only sort of form of student feedback. We try and get our lecturers to evaluate their practice consistently, almost at the end of every session, but definitely at the end of each week, because ah a lot of learning has happened every week in this block process.
00:32:58
Speaker
So we develop our colleagues to consider ways where they can gather evaluation information and get feedback directly from their students. And that directly tells them whether they're being effective in their plans and their delivery.
00:33:10
Speaker
and And we kind of follow that through with with how we recognise our lecturers. so we have a student choice teaching award and we have colleagues who are nominated for their effectiveness and their excellence in teaching.
00:33:21
Speaker
Students nominate their not just their favourite lecturers, it's not a popularity contest, but those ones that have had a real sort of impact on that on their learning journey and on their prospects moving forward.
00:33:32
Speaker
And I suppose more formally, we've introduced a process called the AER, Academic Enhancement Reviews. which collects student feedback, collects student outcomes throughout this block process and throughout achievements of the year.
00:33:47
Speaker
And we we systematically look at are there gaps in achievement, are there experiences that we need to share, best practice, and are there things that we need to address ah via the Education Academy or via our CPD programmes. And there's lots of ways in which we sort of measure effectiveness and and hopefully we recognise when that measurement is positive.
00:34:09
Speaker
So we align senior fellowship to promotion criteria for associate professor. We have an associate professor and professor route for promotion, which is related to teaching and learning.
00:34:20
Speaker
And then one of the essential criteria is senior fellowship um for that. So again, it's elevating the importance of the PSF and and those categories of fellowship as well. um And we also align our observation scheme. So we've got a peer observation of learning and teaching called the PULT scheme at DMU.
00:34:38
Speaker
which focuses on not just engagement in the classroom, but what are students doing actively and what are they doing with that information? So how do we know they're learning? there's lots of things going around which which all really sort centres on students first.
00:34:53
Speaker
and How do we know that students are benefiting from those sessions that they're they're attending? Oh, fantastic. and the the way in which you're able to do this so quickly and systematically through the year is very different in in that block teaching style. So that really interesting to hear about.
00:35:10
Speaker
Stuart, as I was looking at the student success frameworks, which of course underpin the work you're doing within this area, then everything that you're doing with those student success frameworks are directly connected to the development that these people are doing with their staff. But do you do you want to come in on the line of some inclusivity, Luke?
00:35:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think... i think um You know, the inclusive curriculum, inclusive learning teaching is something that that's come much more to the fore of late. And we have a specific framework in that in terms of student success. all All of the student success framework series are aligned to the PSF.
00:35:46
Speaker
And we know there's inherently challenges with with with trying to do so many different things. But ultimately, inclusive practices, inclusive learning and teaching supports all of our students to to thrive and survive and to be successful.
00:36:02
Speaker
um So I'm just wondering if if colleagues have any specific examples on how the PSF 2023 is being used to really develop staff ah around areas of inclusivity in their own work, in particular and with that focus on students.
00:36:17
Speaker
but I think staff, the problem they have in their teaching ah class, or in their classrooms, are really between Hong Kong students and Chinese students, and they don't want to talk together, they don't want to work together. There are different reasons for that.
00:36:34
Speaker
Sometimes it's political, sometimes it's language issues. So we have English as a medium of instruction, but ah we find that very often if students work together, they revert to their own either Cantonese or Mandarin.
00:36:48
Speaker
So that's one of the big issues. And also students are here. i said It's a generalization, but it's true. They don't like to ask questions. They don't want to to ah engage very much. They need a lot of push to work.
00:37:06
Speaker
to actually work together to to engage. So about active learning and that sort of thing, that is the biggest issue that that that we have really around inclusivity.
00:37:17
Speaker
And as I said before, we also, it's not just Hong Kong University, but in Hong Kong, there are a lot of issues around mental health connected in higher education.
00:37:30
Speaker
and And yeah, so so this is also our staff needs to be able to to spot depression and that kind of thing. So I think that that's the key things we we have.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you, Johnny. and And so that sort of brings us into something that we'll we'll perhaps come to with ah the sort of the favourite dimensions we'll ask you about in a minute. But so ah Tom, do you want to tell us a little bit about inclusivity?
Curriculum Design and Inclusivity
00:38:01
Speaker
and and how are using the PSF in a specific way at Glasgow Cal? So when we were thinking about redesigning our PG CAP to kind of meet the PSF 2023, we were one of the first institutions to go through that accreditation on that new framework.
00:38:17
Speaker
And we looked at one of our modules where we ask our students, members of staff on the module to redesign or edit or change or perhaps design a new module for their students.
00:38:29
Speaker
We did quite a bit of work on that module, making sure that this was thinking about the inclusivity side of the module and curriculum design. So we changed the name, the title of the thing from like you know module design one to inclusive curriculum design to get students focused on that kind of aspect of it.
00:38:46
Speaker
So had colleagues working with an institution, couple of them have left, unfortunately, but one colleague in particular who brought with her some material around EDI and thinking about an EDI toolkit for staff to help them understand different aspects of quality, diversity, inclusion, think about different ways they might bring inclusive practice into their design of their programs.
00:39:07
Speaker
A couple of things where I would mention about that. One was about belonging. I think someone's mentioned that already and the relationship between belonging and study. So thinking about why belonging as a concept would be important for our students. I've already mentioned we've got different students coming in a different ways and thinking about how we can make them help them want them to make them think where they belong.
00:39:27
Speaker
Another one which is more kind of my area was around inclusive and authentic assessment, thinking about how we can design, redesign, improve, sharpen our assessment practices to be an inclusive approach to assessment and also that kind of thorny topic of being authentic.
00:39:42
Speaker
We were one of the first institutions to sign up to agree with, you know, building the UN sustainable development goals into their curriculum design. I've supported colleagues across the institution thinking about how and what to what extent those SDGs feed into programs.
00:39:58
Speaker
We've had some programs which have thought about it really at the modular level. They've gone down and thought, well, okay, SDGs are tied to actual learning outcomes within their modules. We've had some looking at a more holistic approach at program level. But that kind of work to try and support staff to think about these kind of topics has definitely been something.
00:40:15
Speaker
And the PSF 2023 has inspired some of those thoughts.
00:40:20
Speaker
Thanks Tom. Dan, I'm going to direct the the same question to you, um simply because and that move to Block must been a monument monumental shift.
00:40:31
Speaker
And how did you consider such things as inclusivity as you're doing that? Yeah, it's really important at DMU. I said before that our our student body is so incredibly diverse. The inclusivity is just ingrained through through everything we do.
00:40:46
Speaker
We're well known for our decolonising DMU project, which was um incredibly successful and we have a ah toolkit which is now utilised not just by our own staff but by colleagues across the sector and that really helped to provide a foundation for this shift to block teaching. So in a very short space of time we asked all of our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to redesign to this new block format and there are obviously two ways in which you can do that. One is to do it quickly and squeeze everything into
00:41:18
Speaker
six-week periods ah of teaching and the other way is to think about it more deliberately so we employed an approach called the sprint process so sprint redesign and and these sprints got our program teams in rooms together and took days out of their schedules to really focus on what matters when we're redesigning these programs what are the things that we want our students to know and experience when they're with us and a large part of that was about inclusivity and how do we embed decolonization and variability from the get-go and it'd be something that's normal within our programmes irrespective of what the subject is.
00:41:55
Speaker
And that sprint process really worked. It really supported colleagues to think about it from from day dot so that it's it's now natural and not something that's kind of bolted into programmes unnaturally.
00:42:07
Speaker
So I suppose that's one way. That's how we we've made wholesale changes over a short period of time. and There are more specific examples of how we ah sort of promote and employ inclusivity in our practice. So we redesigned our PGCert from the PGCat. We redesigned something called the Postgraduate Certificate in Empowering Education, the PGCEE, which accredited to the PSF 2023.
00:42:33
Speaker
And again, we're we're really proud of what's happened there. So we deliver our PGCert in a block format, like with our students experience, our members of staff that join it have a day out of their schedules and it's quite an an ambitious program. that One of our modules is actually called Reimagining Higher Education, which is all sort of focused on decolonizing the curriculum, inclusivity and looking at higher education from different perspectives. And we get some incredible guest speakers coming in and considering things like and disability awareness and cultural differences and yeah the SDGs and impact on
00:43:10
Speaker
sustainable development to teaching and learning practices. So we've got lots of different avenues through which we promote inclusivity in our practice. It's also something we look at in our in our peer observation scheme.
00:43:23
Speaker
So it's coming back to that, you know what do we consider as effective? Well, we consider our teachers are effective if they're not just engaging and getting their students to participate. But you know if if every single student in the room is moving forward in every single session,
00:43:37
Speaker
irrespective of their nationality, their background, the language in which they speak. That for us is not just inclusive, but it's effective teaching. So lots of things. This is part of our ethos of all of our teaching and learning practices.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you, Dan. And Letty, I know you said you have a large number of postgraduate students as well. because Does it differ at all? and and And how does that work when looking ah across the whole portfolio?
00:44:07
Speaker
um Well, I'm not sure it makes a difference in terms of postgraduate students, but um thinking about all students, irrespectively of whether they're undergraduate, postgraduate or research students,
00:44:23
Speaker
um we I am convinced that I've ive i've been at Warwick for 23 years and I've seen a significant shift in in in the institution in terms of um how it's moved towards recognizing the professionalism of teaching. And I am absolutely convinced that the PSF has been a um ah main influencer in that process, a main driver, because it's enabled us to have those conversations at all stages of you know of of someone's career across all um all parts of the university.
00:45:00
Speaker
um and And in terms of inclusion, um we've seen we've seen some fantastic work happen um Whether it's at individual level or whether it's at institutional level. um i mean, one of the the the greatest ah successes, I think, which has been influenced by by conversations around inclusion that have been triggered by the PSF has been the development of a program that that we call Tackling Racial Inequality at Warwick.
00:45:30
Speaker
um And it's a program that launched a few years ago um with a £50,000 investment. um And it's it's been developed by colleagues who are experts in their discipline, um from social sciences, from history, ah very much revolving around engagement, as I mentioned earlier, there with critical race theory,
00:45:54
Speaker
but then progressively bringing that conversation to different groups in of colleagues in the university, you know whether they're professional services, whether they're senior leaders, whether they are you know your early career ah teaching colleagues.
00:46:11
Speaker
um And it's had a significant impact in the way um people just acknowledge that inclusion is something to be mindful of in their day-to-day practice.
00:46:25
Speaker
um So um we do we do have um institutionally an inclusive education model, um and that means that there are conversations um that take place within departments, because departments are asked to, they're invited to produce an action plan.
00:46:45
Speaker
um around um you know their inclusive approaches that ah for for the year. And they can also bid for some funding. um And that funding is um is meant to encourage collaborative work with students as well.
00:47:00
Speaker
So it extends that conversation. It's almost like a ripple effect. you know The sphere of influence of that conversation becomes wider and wider. and departments engage with data um which is which is close to their experience. They engage with their their own departmental data around attainment gaps so or wording gaps ah or continuation and completion.
00:47:24
Speaker
um So it's it's it's that intangible impact of the PSF that you can see filtering across all parts of the institution. um you can You can tell i'm ah I'm a huge advocate. I think it's made the world of difference.
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, thank you, Letty. And I think you're right. it's and yeah It's those intangible aspects and it is that that that lived and breathed environment, isn't it? And there's more and more people involved in it. And think that probably comes on to you know with the the PSF being updated and refreshed in 2023 and some new dimensions being there, where the colleagues have have a favourite dimension. And I'll pass back to Karen to go through that, but but Karen, you asked me about my biscuit, I'll ask you about your dimension. Do you have a favourite dimension?
00:48:08
Speaker
Yes, thank you. So what I should have said at the beginning, of course, is that the the professional standards for any work has 15
New Dimensions in Education: Wellbeing and AI
00:48:15
Speaker
dimensions. So there are three sets of dimensions and they look different at each of the different descriptors, which are the standards for each of the ah categories of fellowship from principal, senior fellow and and associate fellow.
00:48:28
Speaker
But if we think of the dimensions themselves, they're split into three sets. There's the areas of activity. Those are the things that you do. And you have to demonstrate that you're effective and inclusive in your practice in all of those if you're going for fellowship, which we're thinking about.
00:48:44
Speaker
You've got the knowledges, five kno five knowledges that you have to apply in your practice. And then you've got the values and you have to show how you use the values. And just listening in today, I can really see that everybody on the screen is very values-led.
00:48:59
Speaker
We really believe in in um inclusivity and the and the way in which student learning should be excellent for every student that comes through the door, but also how our staff need to be developed in order to be able to do that.
00:49:13
Speaker
So if I had to pick one of the favourite dimensions, they all interact. So you can't plan a session without thinking about the values, the inclusivity, how you're going to make sure everybody's got opportunity, the design of assessment, everything.
00:49:24
Speaker
But I'm going to pick area of activity four Now, this is ah this is a new dimension for PSF 2023. It used to be sort of amalgamated with learning environment, but now it's picked out on its own and it's support and guide learners.
00:49:40
Speaker
and And I feel I want to focus on this one because it comes into so much of what we've just been talking about, but perhaps people might not have thought about it in their practice. So support and guiding learners really comes into things like mental wellbeing that Janning was talking about.
00:49:55
Speaker
But it comes into all sorts of aspects, you know, in the guidance that's been produced, the way in which you direct them to the different services the university offers. and And I'm thinking particularly about a moment where things are very challenging in in terms of students and the way in which they are struggling, perhaps financially, those sorts of things.
00:50:15
Speaker
How are we supporting them? If I'm in a lecture theatre with 200 people, um students in front of me, what's my role in A4? or if I'm designing a strategy at the top level um at an institution, how am I thinking about A4, the support and guide for students?
00:50:31
Speaker
So a bit like a favourite biscuits, Stuart, I'm coming in with a bit of A4, what are we doing around staff development and a for supporting and guiding all the students? and But I'm gonna hand across to Jani, who I think is gonna choose another of the new dimensions brought in to PSF 2023. Yes.
00:50:48
Speaker
yes Well, I'm going to choose V5, collaborate with others to enhance practice, connected with K4. And i don't haven't I haven't chosen them because they're my favorite, but because they are driving our professional development at the moment totally.
00:51:07
Speaker
ah Because university, as well as the Hong Kong government, have invested enormous amounts of money in generative AI. And this is the only thing that anybody can talk about here at the moment.
00:51:20
Speaker
um And we are under huge pressure in staff development to do everything we can. And to be honest, we don't know what we should do always because we don't have that expertise.
00:51:32
Speaker
So we are learning together with students and staff. And it's it's it's quite it's it's quite a challenge. But ah for the next year, at least, it will be about collaborating.
00:51:45
Speaker
um and Not only within Hong Kong University, but we have been told to collaborate with other universities in Hong Kong as well, to find guidance, guidelines, how to ethical, around, guidelines around ethical issues with the use of genitive AI.
00:52:03
Speaker
It's the only, yeah, so that's why I chose. Fantastic, and the collaborating with others, the others can be students, there can be other members of staff. Oh yes, students play a huge part in in this, they know more than we do, yeah.
00:52:17
Speaker
And and ah another great thing, I think, is for staff to be almost at the point of learning something new as well, because that's very powerful for their thoughts about how they work with their own students when they are learners themselves. And so I'm really interested in your choice of those. Thank you, Jani, for sharing.
00:52:34
Speaker
I'm going to go to Dan, who I think is going to select ah a different dimension. Yeah, so I'm going to look at A1, which is so planning learning activities and curriculum and K1, which is understanding how students learn. And the reason being, we've been through such a seismic shift in how we deliver in terms of the structure of our programmes with block teaching.
00:52:55
Speaker
And it's given us a really useful, really incredible basis, a foundation for learning, which gives a structure to students, you know, moving from one subject to another and building on what they've learned.
00:53:07
Speaker
But really, um I think our students are completely different to what we've known over the last 10, 20 years. And moving forwards, yeah I'm not sure we know how students learn in the current climate in higher education. So so I'm really interested in not just sitting on our laurels and and saying, well, this is how students learn and this is what we've learned from literature previously, but actually gathering data and gathering information.
00:53:30
Speaker
and feedback from our students say, well, how are you going to learn in the future? we We actually have a future pedagogies reference group at the minute, which is focusing just on this. We've got a lovely structure and timetable in this new block programme.
00:53:43
Speaker
But what we doing with our students when we're in the classroom? And and more importantly, what are we doing outside of that? So when students are at home, yeah what can we do to encourage them to do learning rather than looking on TikTok and going on social media? How can we replicate that experience so learning is intriguing and creative?
00:54:00
Speaker
so that our students get in the classroom and they actually want to explore and they want to investigate things in much more depth. and So for me, that how students learn should really inform our plans moving forward to make block delivery really sort of new and innovative and intriguing for our students.
00:54:19
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much, Dan. That's some the really important points you've raised about how our students learn and do we actually know. um i'm go I'm going to come across to Leti now to see um see what your favourite dimension is, Leti.
00:54:33
Speaker
Thank you, Karen. um Well, I would have to go for V3, which is around the use of scholarship and evidence-informed practice, um because um eight it's one that ah all, again, thinking about colleagues ah in various roles across the institution,
00:54:52
Speaker
it really helps us to um to get people to articulate the rationale for the choices that they make. So, you know, and it's it's really important in in in the context of a research intensive university, having to build that credibility around the practice of teaching, you know, it's not just something that you wake up one day and and and you just make up, you know, there needs to be some grounding, some evidence. And that's really gone a long way in engaging colleagues in in and conversations around teaching.
00:55:25
Speaker
And i also um thinking about colleagues in in third space and and professional services, it they They very often tell us that engaging with that helps them to, um again, to give credibility to to the approaches that they're taking and and gain confidence in having those conversations with with colleagues in different parts of the university.
00:55:50
Speaker
So it's definitely one of my favourite. Oh, thank you. You made a very convincing case for that one there. and And Tom, we've got a different dimension coming from you, I think.
00:56:01
Speaker
Yes, I've gone for K3, critical evaluation as a basis for effective practice. I'm not sure I've gone for this because this is my favourite, but I've gone for it because, at least from my perspective, I'm working on the schemes that I work on at GCU and but external examining a couple of other places.
00:56:17
Speaker
It's probably the one that most commonly comes up when people haven't quite succeeded first time round. i think that may be for a couple of reasons, and I think it brings together a couple of things within it. First is about this idea of critical evaluation.
00:56:30
Speaker
and what that means at the different categories and what kind of critical evaluation are we looking for. I sometimes struggle with staff to get them to be reflective in inverted commas about what that might mean in terms of expressing and just demonstrating themselves being critically effective and as practitioners.
00:56:50
Speaker
But it also has that idea which we've already spoken about about what effectiveness is and what effectiveness means. So within that short K3, you've already got two really quite big, chunky things to think about and how that kind of plays out.
00:57:05
Speaker
So I think that's why I've chosen that one. I think, as you said at the top, Karen, um these dimensions speak to each other. So I think that K3 speaks to V3 and to A5. So by using the scholarship within V3, by enhancing your practice through your CPD and A5,
00:57:20
Speaker
you're then starting to get towards what you might be doing critically evaluating your practice. So I try to help colleagues going through these applications think about how these different dimensions speak to and relate to each other as other the colleagues have already kind of connecting those up.
00:57:35
Speaker
But that's why i went for that one because I think it has, at least for my perspective, proven to be quite a challenging one for people to meet. Oh, fantastic. And and ah you mentioned that those dimensions sit so well together, V3, K3 and A5, like a golden thread of of sort of career enhancement development.
00:57:56
Speaker
um and And listening to all of you, I think actually how lucky our students are actually that their development of their staff are being led by people like yourselves, you know, the way you've spoken about it and the things that you're doing to develop the staff in your context.
00:58:12
Speaker
it is so impressive. I just wonder if your students even know you do it, and I know this seems like a really obvious question, but to what extent do your students actually know that your staff are being developed? Could we do more in that space?
00:58:25
Speaker
Dan, I think you've got something that shows um students what you're up to. um yeah, I suppose we've got physical badges now, so when our colleagues are successful in fellowship, we've got, know you can't see, it's a podcast but for listeners, but we've got nice shiny badges,
00:58:42
Speaker
and which is an extra bit of recognition and reward for colleagues who are successful. They come along to the office and we say, well done, to meet people face to face. But it's also that visual sort of representation to our students. This person has an award, you know, they're recognised for being excellent in in and whichever perspective, whichever category that they've applied for. And and again, we've got a high proportion of senior fellows and a high proportion of now principal fellows at the institution.
00:59:09
Speaker
Now that we can award that, internally as well. And people are really proud of it. And it does start conversations, not just with students, but across colleagues and peers as well. Oh, where did you get that badge? What does that mean? And and what's that what what does it reflect in terms of your excellence in your role? It's it's become much more aspirational. Just having a badge has done a lot in the last 12 months, which is really interesting. And um we're going to try and digitise this further. So we're looking at how we can award um digital badges for completing certain areas of development in terms of our CPD program and on on Learning Zone, which is our virtual learning environment, but also and putting it into people's signatures, email signatures to show that they're an inclusive practitioner, they're someone that mentors and reviews on our program as well, our professional recognition scheme. So there's lots of things that we do, which hopefully doesn't just raise the profile amongst our staff body, but
01:00:06
Speaker
kind of highlights to our students that we're invested in our staff and that they're getting recognised for the excellent things that they do.
01:00:15
Speaker
Thank you and certainly digital badges is something we're looking at for fellowships so you know we have an intention to have those to get the visibility. Does anybody else want to come and sort of talk about the the way in which your students will even know you did this?
01:00:30
Speaker
Yes, we we we offer associate fellowship to postgraduate students. They they have a substantial amount of teaching. ah If they have a scholarship, they have to do either marking, grading or teaching for about 100 hours a year.
01:00:48
Speaker
So they clog up a lot of teaching. And we also, so so they are actually, they go to the same fellowships as as the the the teachers. And then we have a separate scheme for undergraduates.
01:01:01
Speaker
And this is in the medical school where they have a lot of near-peer teaching as well. um So they also they do a teaching portfolio based on their teaching hours and the kind of teaching they do.
01:01:15
Speaker
And then they get awarded associate fellowship. So there's a pretty good awareness of up oh of the scheme.
01:01:27
Speaker
And ah again, those people who are fellows, senior fellows or principal fellows, it's on our website. and Fantastic. um So we're just remembering to make that visible so that um all the activity you're doing is is really understood, that the students understand your your training staff to help them succeed.
01:01:47
Speaker
Stuart, I think you've probably got a question we should probably go to now. Yeah, thank you, Karen. I mean, it's just it's so interesting, isn't it? Just listening to to all of this and just how valuable the role of the PSF is and and how valuable it is in in actually en enhancing student success.
01:02:04
Speaker
And I think at times, you know, we we we can get so caught up in, you know disaggregating things and not actually just seeing just the the impact of this. And it's just been an absolute pleasure to sit back and listen. And as colleagues have been talking around sustainable development goals, inclusive, flexible learning,
01:02:20
Speaker
and so forth, matter and belonging, you know just just yeah all the um all the connections in in my head going on in fact to the different frameworks we have in those areas as well, and how they align to to the PSF. um We've also had some comments that that really talk to how things are changing and you know what what will teaching look like and how do we engage learners?
01:02:39
Speaker
and And so really I just wanted to open the floor um to to to colleagues to come in or on any predictions for the future. you know the The landscape is changing. um but We don't necessarily know what it's going to look like over the next two to three years.
01:02:52
Speaker
But how does that impact, you know, in terms of professional development on the teacher learning staff? So yeah, predictions for the future colleagues.
01:03:01
Speaker
It's really the purpose of our future pedagogies reference group, isn't it? What are we walking into in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years in terms of teaching in higher education? and And a lot of the conversations we're having at the minute are, well, what's the role of a lecturer?
01:03:17
Speaker
So that sort of traditional role of a lecturer, which is it's quite probably outdated now of the transmitter of information and people are coming because this is the only place that they can receive this specialist information, I think has evolved over the last 20 years really for us to be a facilitator of
The Future of Teaching and Learning
01:03:34
Speaker
learning. But I think now actually we're starting to see our lecturers as more coaches, learning coaches. So when students come to us, they can take all of this plethora of information that they've seen, whether it be from us or or from the internet or lots of different sources. And they can use that time with this specialist learning coach to go through and kind of sift through, well, which of this information is true? Which needs to be critiqued?
01:03:59
Speaker
What can we learn from this? And how can we support our students as coaches rather as lecturers to really look into the depth, the rights, the wrongs, and and look through the misinformation that's out there?
01:04:12
Speaker
And I think part of that is training our lecturers to be effective coaches. We do on the PGCEE have another module called Coaching Conversations in Learning and Teaching, which is, well, actually, how do we have these effective coaching conversations with students, not just on a one-to-one basis, but in a classroom? now How can we be non-directive and how can we use exploratory questions and open questions to get students to really think about their emotions and what they think about certain subjects?
01:04:42
Speaker
and So, yeah, I think that evolving role of the the lecturer, for want of a better term, you know, the the learning coach or even an ethical influencer, somebody that gets them to to consider perspectives from a different um a different viewpoint rather than just what they've seen, the last thing they've seen. I think that's really important for us planning moving forward. I think we want our face-to-face sessions. We want our students to need to go there because they want to learn and clarify things.
01:05:10
Speaker
not just because they have to attend. It's something that they're really enjoying and wanting to turn up to. So that's what where I see education moving forward. Yeah, thank you, Dan. I like the idea of the ethical influencer.
01:05:24
Speaker
It's, yeah, yeah, it kind of resonates. um Anyone else? Any predictions for the future? on, Zong. I'll go. and Yeah, I love that idea of being ethical. and i'm sorry Am I an ethical influencer? I don't know. Am I doing ethical enough?
01:05:37
Speaker
Maybe should be more. don't know. I'm thinking, when I thought about the future, I thought about the Scottish context, I'll this down from TCU. And one of the things that's happening in Scotland at the moment is a move to a tertiary sector, and in particular in the quality frameworks.
01:05:51
Speaker
So the university sector and the college sector have moved closer together in terms of their quality procedures and policies. There used to be something called the enhancement themes, and that was just for universities. There's now a new version of that, which includes our colleges as well as the universities.
01:06:04
Speaker
So from my perspective, I'm trying to think about what does that mean for staff development? where, as Karen said, there has been an established accredited provision for so college staff and their education, whereas we have this particular system within the university and how those two frameworks might speak to each other and how we might support staff to share what's working in the college sector and what the college values and principles are with the university one and how those two things map and talk to each other, I think will be interesting in Scotland going forward.
01:06:33
Speaker
um And that speaks to the second thing, which I was kind of thinking about the future, which is about doing more with less. um Colleagues will know that there's an institution in Scotland that just recently announced quite significant job cuts.
01:06:44
Speaker
It's an institution I used to work at, so I know people there, so i feel quite strongly about it. But I don't know whether that's the start of a process where more of this is happening across our Scottish sector. And that's this idea that we're going to have less resource, but maybe we're going to be asked to do more.
01:06:59
Speaker
And in particular, I'm seeing questions about the value and impact of the work that we do to justify what it is we're doing and why it's important. So as a concession the other day, we were talking about, okay, isn't it great that we're demonstrating all these new fellows, these senior fellows, all these people going through our professional recognition courses, but then somebody is going to ask you controversially possibly, well, so what, what's the value in that? Why these good things?
01:07:25
Speaker
And I think there's a sense in which it's incumbent upon us to demonstrate why those are good things. And we've talked about the effectiveness and and so far in this podcast. But for me, that's the challenge going forward.
01:07:37
Speaker
Why is it senior fellowships a good thing? What evidence have I got to show that that's supported by that person, for the students, for the institution, for the sector? And that is something I don't have answers to yet, but that that's the i think the driver and what the future might hold for us.
01:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Tom. And I'm sure that's going to resonate with listeners. Certainly colleagues in Wales, we're moving towards the tertiary approach with the the funding body, the new funding body meta. And also we know it's challenging time for the sector full stop.
01:08:09
Speaker
um It also made me remember the comment Leti had made earlier around the the intangible, you know, and and how do you measure the intangible? And there there is a danger, not suggesting we shouldn't be looking at impact and effectiveness, but there was a danger you know when we try and quantify some of these things, because actually that and that that intangible is just so important as well. So um um' I'm sure that will resonate with colleagues and and perhaps a call to action there as colleagues take take forward ideas ideas from this um podcast. um
01:08:40
Speaker
Colleagues, does anyone else wish to add to the future? Please, Letty. um Just very briefly, maybe the obvious one at the moment is the impact of new technologies, um you know, thinking about generative AI in particular. um And I think one of the, both both a challenge, but also probably quite ah an exciting opportunity to look at the the possibilities and the potential that embedding the use of generative AI in the learning process throughout, um you know, not just thinking about academic integrity and assessment where the focus has been so far,
01:09:17
Speaker
but thinking about the opportunities that we have to prepare students to it to the jobs of the future, which are going to be in a world that uses new technologies on a daily basis.
01:09:28
Speaker
um I think there are some really interesting and exciting opportunities there. And the PSF can be, again, you know a way into those conversations. How do we build ethical and appropriate use of ai into the learning process at every stage, you know, as a almost as a third partner in that process. You know, you've got the teacher, you've got the student and you've got you've got this new technology that brings new possibilities.
01:09:54
Speaker
So I'm quite I'm quite excited about that. Yeah, thank you, Leti. And Jani, is that something you wanted to cover? I'm conscious that Hong Kong is doing a huge amount in terms of AI in the universities over there.
01:10:05
Speaker
and um Around that, yes, it's the only thing they talk about really. But I I would say it's connected with that, ah ah linked to what Daniel said, that that I think we the future will be much more working very closely together with students rather than teaching them. So it's like co-designing, ah because especially with general AI, they are often ahead of us ah in in how they use it, and and we need to work very closely with them, I think. So i think we're looking at a kind of
01:10:39
Speaker
configuration reconfiguring the um the roles of teachers and and students and it would be a very different landscape in a few years time i think yeah there's been so much to take in and it's been really insightful and you know you're all operating in such different contexts and your student body is so diverse and you know thinking about this professional recognition of staff that and the impact on student success what would What would be one top take tip to take back to our listeners? you know, what can they take away going forward?
01:11:12
Speaker
And I'm going to come to you, Dan, first, if that's all right. OK, yeah, I'll go. There's loads of things. I've got loads of experience in teaching lots of different types of students. And the one thing that I seem to do and in every single session I deliver, whether it be with students or staff, is ah I make sure I start active.
01:11:30
Speaker
So we say active learning all the time and often I observe sessions and it might take 10 minutes, 20 minutes until someone does an activity. Well, I start active so I recognise that sometimes we'll have those late arrivers and sometimes we'll have those people who are keen and early. So before every session, five minutes before I have an activity, which people who turn up into the classroom, they're doing something straight away. It it might be and a puzzle on the table, something irrelevant, but probably better, something directly relevant to the subject matter that's coming up, like a reflective question or or a video that's playing. So they're arriving in the room and they're starting quick. And it's a nice pace um for students to to sit down and arrive in rather than sort you know, walking in and being half asleep and and finishing off their coffee. So yeah, mike my one tip would be start active and have that ah the activity that's
01:12:22
Speaker
Five minutes before the session, five minutes into the timetable start of the session, and then and you can move on from there at a nice pace. Oh, fantastic. then And that's probably something thing that's quite easy for our listeners to implement. You know, it's it's it's a good bit bit of advice.
01:12:38
Speaker
Letty, can I come to you? ah Mine is a little bit more abstract, I'm afraid. I love i love your idea, Dan, and I've seen some fantastic examples, some some teaching observations that I've done in the past. I've seen colleagues using really dynamic music in in the classroom or, you know, all sorts of...
01:12:57
Speaker
um ideas that that create that environment. Mine, as said, is a little bit more abstract. It's it's be curious. always Always be curious and embrace. I know that, that you know, in the sector that there's, you know, turbulent times and that that there's a tendency perhaps to to consider the challenges more than the opportunities.
01:13:21
Speaker
um But I think, you know, for our own well-being, I find it as a personal strategy always to try and focus on on the opportunities and and what is still exciting and and engaging. And, you know, we we are quite privileged to work in a sector where we we work with young people all the time. And I find that really energizing.
01:13:43
Speaker
Oh, that's fantastic, Leti. I do like that. Being curious, always asking questions, always looking at, you know, what's next, what to do. Brilliant. Janie, can come over to Yeah, don't think it's a top tip. It's more a message because I think in this part of the world, the professional standards framework really has made a massive impact on teaching practice.
01:14:02
Speaker
and Even if it's just, so I mean, they don't move from being presenters to teachers on one day, but it really makes them think.
01:14:13
Speaker
So our staff, it is a cultural change in the way they teach. and And you can see it every day when when they when they work through the business standards framework. So, yeah, that would be my takeaway.
01:14:29
Speaker
ah Thank you. It's really great to hear what impact the PSF has been having in Hong Kong. And, you know, it's a long way to continue. that's really good. And Tom, can I finally come to you for your top tip?
01:14:40
Speaker
Well, one thing I took from this podcast is that I'm going nick somebody's idea. I like the idea of the badges. And I remember the previous institution actually had physical badges where people had got their fellowship. but We were encouraging them to badge it to their lanyards and so on and be proud of you know achieving this.
01:14:55
Speaker
And I think that's something I want to take forward because when Karen asked the question about what do your students know about fellowships and what do they know about PG caps and so on, My answer is not a lot. So actually, I think that's something, an area for me to go away and have a think about. So like thank you.
01:15:09
Speaker
So that's what I took from this podcast. I think one thing I took from anyone. Oh, fantastic. It's always great when our institutions celebrate our ah fellows getting recognised. And yeah, that's really fantastic.
01:15:22
Speaker
Thank you, Joe. And I too am exceptionally jealous of the badge, Dan. Badges and biscuits can be sent to Advanced HE Carer Student Also, if anyone out there has either um It leads me really to thank our colleagues for joining us today.
01:15:41
Speaker
To all of our guests, to Jani, to Letty, to Dan, to Tom, thank you so much. Your insights were absolutely invaluable. And similarly to my co-hosts, Joe and Karen, thank you for giving your time up and for joining us and for really shining such a valuable spotlight on this area that is so close to so many people's hearts, my my own included.
01:16:04
Speaker
um having first got my fellowship back in the dizzy heights of 2003, I think it was, um and the journey that I've been on through awful on on receiving the different stages thereafter. so so thank you. it's ah It's a really, really important aspect.
01:16:25
Speaker
um Before we go, i wanted to remind our listeners that there are a wealth of resources on our website, including the framework and the various tools.
01:16:36
Speaker
There is also a fellowship podcast. So another one for you to to to follow and listen along. um And of course, the frameworks, the the Student Success frameworks, which again are all aligned to the PSF. And and I would urge anyone who is working in those discrete areas or perhaps looking at them at those points of intersect at more holistic level to consider those and see how those align as well. and And I think that's something that's been really valuable in terms of helping support staff through their fellowship applications and my own experience.
01:17:09
Speaker
Next month, we will be back with a podcast on internationalising higher education and the impact on student success and what promises to be an equally exciting episode. Until then,
01:17:20
Speaker
Stay curious, do tell your colleagues and friends and be sure to hit that share and like button. Thank you so much.