Teaching and learning centres : towards maturation

Approximately 70% of Australian Teaching and Learning Centres have been restructured and/or have undergone leadership changes in the last three years. The volatility of this environment reflects the number of significant challenges faced by Teaching and Learning Centres. In determining what makes Centres successful, the issues that are likely to impact on their ability to succeed were examined. It emerged that a myriad of factors influence whether or not a Centre was recognised as being an integral and valued part of the university’s teaching and learning community – a hallmark of having reached maturity. This paper identifies four factors as being critical to the ability of Centres to succeed, noting that a combination of other factors, appropriate to each unique context, must also be in place in order for Centres to maximise their value.

Australian teaching and learning centres through the eyes of their directors : characteristics, capacities and constraints

This paper is based on research to identify common factors that contribute to the effective strategic leadership of teaching and learning centres. The second of three phases of data collection involved a survey of Directors of Australian teaching and learning centres. The data collected were quantitatively analysed using a range of descriptive, parametric and non-parametric techniques. Based on a response rate of 81.6 percent, we present a contemporary, comprehensive and representative quantitative snapshot of Australian teaching and learning centres, as seen through the eyes of their Directors. The time since last restructure, incumbency of the current Director and total Directorship experience of the current Centre Director all have mean values of ‘sometime in the previous one to three years’. Most Centres would consider their work in the areas of ‘recognition and reward’ and ‘professional development of staff’ as high impact functions, and they would be pleased with their efforts in the former area, and wish to perform better on the latter. The principal constraint identified by Centres was ‘lack of staff time’, both in the Faculties and in the Centre, to engage in teaching and learning improvement activities. Overall, Centres feel well included in relevant university committees and other activities.

Changing perspectives : teaching and learning centres’ strategic contributions to academic development in Australian higher education

This article reports on a study of Australian teaching and learning centres to identify factors that contribute to their effective strategic leadership. These centres remain in a state of flux, with seemingly endless reconfiguration. The drivers for such change appear to lie in decision makers’ search for their centres to add more strategic value to organisational teaching, learning and the student experience. Through a synthesis of findings based on interviews, a survey of directors of centres and focus groups, the article identifies paradigmatic shifts in the ways centres see themselves, relate to their organisations and respond to external environmental forces. From an understanding of paradigm shifts, strategic contributions to academic development in the sector are framed organisationally through key points of leverage. Points of leverage are manageable actions that can be taken to maximise overall institutional impact and effectiveness.

Strategic leadership of teaching and learning centres : from reality to ideal

This paper reports on the third phase of a study of Australian Teaching and Learning Centres to identify factors that contribute to the effective strategic leadership of Centres. Focus groups at 10 Australian universities included 66 respondents, providing a diverse range of perspectives, from students to members of the university executive. Analysis of participant contributions extended findings from prior project phases and the wider literature. They also contributed to the final construction of the strategic leadership Teaching and Learning Centre maturity framework presented here. Centres remain in a state of flux, enduring regular reconfiguration. For most Centres, their level of interaction with students is low and increased engagement with students would be of benefit. Perceptions of Centres vary widely, reinforcing the importance of a strategic partnership between the University’s Senior Executive, the Centre and faculties as a prerequisite for implementing identified high-impact strategies for improvement in teaching and learning.

Survey of Directors of Australian university teaching and learning centres

The data provides a representative quantitative snapshot of the characteristics, capacities and constraints of Australian teaching and learning centres as seen through the eyes of their Directors. It provides evidence-based information for sector benchmarking and policy design, and identifies factors that contribute to the effective startegic leadership of Australian teaching and learning centres.

Report on survey of directors (or equivalent) of Australian University Teaching and Learning Centres

This document reports on the results and findings of a national survey of Directors (or equivalent) of Teaching and Learning Centres at Australian universities. The respondent group included 31 out of the 38 Centres invited to participate, and was a highly representative sample of the generally recognised institutional groupings in Australian higher education. While there is wide variation in the characteristics of individual Centres, the richness of which can only be appreciated by exploring the results and findings in detail, a summary of the results is provided here in the form of a description of a mythical ‘average’ Australian university Teaching and Learning Centre.

Strategic leadership and its contribution to improvements in teaching and learning in Higher Education

This paper aims to provide a strong conceptual underpinning for our project, ‘Strategic Leadership for Institutional Teaching and Learning Centres: Developing a Model for the 21st century’. The project intends to:

Developing a supportive culture for teaching and learning : a university, faculty and school perspective

In the early 1990's the University of Salford was typical of most pre-1992 Universities in that whilst students provided much of it's income, little attention was paid to pedagogy. As Warren Piper (1994) observed, University teachers were professional in their subject areas but generally did not seek to acquire a pedagogy of HE. This was the case in Alsford. Courses were efficiently run but only a minority of staff were engaged in actively considering learning and teaching issues. Instead staff time was spent on research and commercial activity.----- In the mid-1990's the teaching environment began to change significantly. As well as Dearing, the advent of QAA and teaching quality reviews, Salford was already experiencing changes in the characteristics of its student body. Wideing access was on our agenda before it was so predominant nationally. With increasing numbers and heterogeneity of students as well as these external factors, new challenges were facing the University and teaching domain.----- This paper describes how a culture which values teaching, learning and pedagogic inquiry is being created in the university. It then focuses on parts of this process specific to the Faculty of Business and Informatics, namely the Faculty's Learning and Teaching Research Network and the establishment of the Centre for Construction Education in the School of Construction and Property Management.----- The Faculty of Business and Informatics' Learning and Teaching Research Network aims to raise the profile, quality and volume of pedagogic research across the five schools in the faculty. The initiative is targeted at all academics regardless of previous research experience. We hope to grow and nurture research potential where it exists and to acknowledge and use the existing expertise of subject-based researchers in collaborative ventures. We work on the principle that people are deliged to share what they know but need appreciation and feedback for doing so. A further ain is to surface and celebrate the significant amount of tacit knowledge in the area of pedagogy evidenced by the strength of student and employer feedback in many areas of the faculty's teaching.----- The Faculty embraces generic and core management expertise but also includes applied management disciplines in information systems and construction and property management where internationally leading research activities and networked centres of excellence have been established. Drawing from this experience, and within the context of the Faculty network, a Centre for Construction Education is being established with key international external partners to develop a sustainable business model of an enterprising pedagogic centre that can undertake useful research to underpin teaching in the Faculty whilst offering sustainable business services to allow it to benefit from pump-priming grant funding.----- Internal and external networking are important elements in our plans and ongoing work. Key to this are our links with the LTSN subject centres (BEST and CEBE) and the LTSN generic centre. The paper discusses networking as a concept and gives examples of practices which have proved useful in this context.----- The academic influences on our approach are also examined. Dixon’s (2000) work examining how a range of companies succeed through internal knowledge sharing has provided a range of transferable practices. We also examine the notion of dialogue in this context, defined by Ballantyne (1999) as ‘The interactive human process of reasoning together which comes into being through interactions based on spontaneity or need and is enabled by trust’ Social constructionist principles of Practical Authorship (Shotter, 1993, Pavlica, Holman and Thorpe, 1998)) have also proved useful in developing our perspective on learning and knowledge creation within our community of practice.

Higher education, professionalism and skills in the built environment: the impact of the new urban agenda on teaching and learning

In the mid-to-late 1990s, the New Urban Agenda initiated a rethinking of urban development strategies placing a greater focus on regeneration of central urban spaces. The skills and competencies required by urban planners and built environment professionals to successfully implement regeneration schemes tend to differ from those required for greenfield development. The working paper summarises skills and competencies required by urban regeneration practitioners and how they are delivered through public and/or private sector providers at present. The role of the newly established regional Centres of Excellence and the professional bodies of the Built Environment professions in defining skills and educational requirements and providing training are explored. An analysis of supply and demand of skills training reveals that there is a mismatch rather than a lack of provision. The report draws on a conference where research findings were presented and discussed. It concludes with suggestions for improving the skills provision at the local government as well as community level. Skills audits were found useful tools in defining training needs. A set of sample workshop programmes outline flexible, tailor-made approaches guaranteed to address specific and identified needs.