Setting Up a National Learning and Teaching Centre in Higher Education:Lessons Learned from the Australian Experience

Janice OrrellCarrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher EducationDirector: Disciplines, Networks and Special Projects

Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

•An Initiative of DEST•Established and funded as a Public Company

•2005 planning year•2006-2008 first triennium

Institute Values

• Inclusiveness through networks and communities of all who contribute to the advancement of earning and teaching

•Diversity of institutional and discipline differences

•Long-term, future oriented, systemic change

•Collaboration through engagement

•Recognition and reward of Excellence

Institute Objectives•Promotion of systemic change•Recognise fundamental importance of HE learning & teaching

•Develop mechanisms to identify, develop and disseminate good practice

•Establish reciprocal national and international sharing and benchmarking

• Identify important future oriented issues that impact on higher education and facilitate national approaches to them

1. Grants2. Awards3. Fellowships4. Discipline-based Initiatives5. Resource Identification

Network

Five Schemes

Grants Scheme Carrick Director: Dr Elizabeth McDonald

$28 Million between 2006-2008Priority Projects• Academic standards, assessment practices• Teaching and learning spaces• Peer review

Competitive Grants• Research & development of issues continuing importance• Strategic approaches to L&T – diversity of student body• Innovation in learning and teachingLeadership in Learning & Teaching (enhancement of learning

& teaching through…)

• Institutional leadership capacity building

• Disciplinary and cross-disciplinary communities of practice

Recognising & Rewarding Good Teaching

Carrick Director: Denise Chalmers

Awards• Citations for outstanding contributions to student learning (210)

• Teaching excellence (including PM’s award) (27)• Programmes that enhance learning (14)

Fellowships

Indicators Project: Recognition and reward of Good Teaching

What is New?

AWARDS

Recognising a wider range of contribution to student learning

• Involvement of institutions in the assessment process

• Regional Citation Award ceremonies• Recognition of contributions of many people. eg teaching, administration and professional.

FELLOWSHIPS SCHEME• Senior Fellowship Program (4)max $330,000• Associate Fellowship Program (10)max $90,000

Fellowships

New initiative based on the best aspects of international fellowship programs

•High profile and well resourced•Designed to promote system wide initiatives•Strong encouragement for international links and networks

•Strong commitment to dissemination and implementation

Discipline Based InitiativesDirector: Janice OrrellDisciplines influence:•Ways in which academic work is organised•Relationship of academics to knowledge & their students

•Type of intended learning outcomesResearch about teaching and learning in universities (Neumann

2001, Becher and Trowler 2001, Neuman, Parry, & Becher 2002)

Higher Education Disciplines•Site of knowledge development

•Demonstrate interdependence of organisational context and what counts as knowledge

•Higher Education reflects and reconstitutes

-Classifications of knowledge,

-What is expertise

-Knowledge worth knowing

Strengths of D-b Development

•Engages those who must collaborate at the level of practice

-Builds on agreed strengths

-Attends to common problems•Facilitates common purpose and collaborative action

•Enables the development of curriculum cohesions

•Much is based on common practice, not evidence

•Common practice reinforces common practices and can constrain originality

• It is difficult to define a discipline and classify its orientation

•Risk of disciplinary silos •Limits cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary thinking

Limitations of D-b Development

Effective learning about T&L is maintained IF:

Colleagues will tolerate it•Department rules can accommodate it•Tools and heuristics are there to translate generic ideas into practice

•They have positions of influence

Professional learning of teachers (Knight, Tait and Yorke, 2006)

Inertia of Academic structures

Academic disciplinary structures have failed to respond well to changes in:

•Student demographics•Labour market requirements•Technological advances

•Longing for past glories

•Efforts focus on inventing better mouse traps

(Ewell, 1991)

Conservatism and Inertia protect cherished ideals Gumport & Snydman, 2002

Issues & Needs

•Knowledge legitimation•Encourages scholarship of learning and teaching in the disciplines

•Requires funds to conduct the research•Requires knowledge of educational research methods

•Effective dissemination systems

Objectives of Carrick’s D-B I

•Higher levels of d-b engagement with systemic change

• Increased engagement of all stakeholders

• Improved discipline-based learning outcomes

•Articulation of d-b standards and qualities

Discipline Framework

Investigation funds

Pilot DisciplinesScienceLawICT

TendersCommon Curriculum Issues

Eg.Service teachingProfessional degreesResearch education

Arts, Psychology, Mathematics, Engineering, Business, Architecture, Biotechnology, Pharmacy

Higher Education Enterprise

•Capturing the dynamic potential of D-b I•Creative interdisciplinary engagement•Focus on the student experience•Collaboration with stakeholders•Building on past successes and resources•Engage with international and global issues•Develop what is uniquely Australian •Attend to the research-teaching nexus•Sustainable, future oriented and proactive

D-B I Principles

Organisation

•Led by Discipline leaders

•Hosted by institutions

• Involve multiple institutions and organisations

•Utilise existing structures where they exist

•Vigorously involve middle management

•Adopt a common web-based architecture (RIN)

Dissemination

Transmission

•Awareness •Knowledge

Transformation

• Interpretation•Translation•Application•Regeneration

: Carrick Exchange ( a Resource Identification Network)

A centrally co-ordinated service which:• Is credible and reliable

•Facilitates sharing and adoption of good practice

•Supports dissemination

•Encourages and enables an ethos of bold innovation

•Links existing Australian resources from different sites;

•Links with, and capitalises on, international initiatives

•Fosters international collaborations;

Implementation plan

Three year project

Three project teams:•Education.au: architecture & functionality•Ascilite: landscape mapping and user engagement

• formative evaluation (out to tender)

Informed by a “Think Tank” of experts and users

Carrick Institute Philosophy & Approach• Enabling• Collaboration• Co-production Bottom-up and Top-down• Multiple modes of engagement (grants, forums, scholarship)

• Future orientation• Building on existing resources and strengths• Stakeholder engagement

Successes

• Citations

• Institutions adopting a systemised approach to Carrick Programmes

• Engagement between the institute and institutions and organisations (Forums, campus visits, think tanks)

• Utilisation of sector experts who have retired

• DVC/PVC Forum to set priorities and top down agendas

• Higher Education Enterprise Initiatives & Common Curriculum Concerns

Lessons Learned

• The value of bringing groups with common concerns together

• Need to integrate a top-down approach to address gaps and to steer attention to the “too hard” issues

• Money helps, but is not the only answer

• Need for support to be successful (leadership programme, expert consultants, seed funds)

• Importance of adopting a systems approach (all levels and stakeholders, policy and practice)

• Importance of engaging formal & informal leadership

Questions?