Peer Observation of Teaching (POT) Scheme – Updated

At the SHED meeting on the 11th May 2017 draft guidance developed by Cathy Bovill and Catriona Cunningham was presented for feedback from the SHED community.

Overview

The purpose of the SHED POT Scheme is to encourage members of the educational development community in Scotland to benefit from learning and teaching development and support opportunities from across the range of higher education institutions and colleagues . Research evidence suggests that there is great benefit to be had from observing others’ teaching practices, having your own teaching observed, and having informal conversations about teaching and learning (Blackwell & McClean, 1996; Bovill & Cairns, 2014; Gosling, 2005; Hammersley-Fletcher & Orsmond, 2004; Peel, 2005; Roxå and Mårtensson 2009; Whitlock & Rumpus, 2004).

The final version of the SHED POT Guidance can be downloaded from the link below. We plan to launch the SHED POT scheme officially at the start of the 17/18 academic year. Meanwhile, ethical approval is now being sought to research how useful the POT scheme is to people. More information on this will be provided at the first meeting of SHED in the new academic year.

Click here to read/download the full POT guidance 

Providing Feedback

For more information/feedback about the POT guidance please contact Catriona Cunningham or Cathy Bovill

 

SHED Election of Executive Member: Vice Convener

Our current Convener is due to stand down from the end of this academic session having served three years in post.  The Convener role will then be filled by the current Vice Convener as per our Terms of Reference.

Members are now asked to consider standing for the post of Vice Convenor of SHED which will become vacant at the end of this academic session.  Our terms of reference state that the role of the Vice Convenor is, over a two year period, to:

1.1 The role of the Vice Convener includes:

a) Supporting the Convener in their duties and acting as deputy where appropriate at SHED Meetings and on external bodies.

There would be an expectation that the Vice Convener would thereafter take on the role of the Convener.

1.2 The role of the Convener includes:

a) Promoting and supporting an open and inclusive community across the SHED Network
b) Liaising with, and representing SHED with external agencies
c) Organising, in conjunction with the Executive, agendas and meeting papers
d) Chairing SHED meetings

We would welcome self nomination from any member of our SHED community (ie you do not have to be an institutional member to stand).  Expressions of interest should be sent to our Secretary Janis Davidson by 22 May 2017 (Janis.Davidson@gla.ac.uk).  This will allow us to put a voting process into operation and have final selection of the new Vice Convenor before the end of this academic session.

We would encourage you to consider this CPD opportunity and get involved in further developing our Community of Practice and extending our activities.

UKPSF mapping to Certified Membership of ALT

At the last SHED meeting more information was requested on the mapping of UKPSF to ALT’s Certified Membership scheme. This post is written by Martin Hawksey who is employed by ALT and on the SHED Executive:

The Association for Learning Technology is the UK’s leading membership organisation for those whose work involves learning technology. Given the abundance of technology in learning and teaching our membership is broad covering not just those with ‘learning technology’ in their job title and encompasses many roles in the institution including lecturers and administrative support. As part of ALT’s ongoing work supporting the professionalisation of learning technology ALT has created a Certified Membership scheme, CMALT. CMALT is a portfolio-based professional accreditation scheme developed by ALT to enable people whose work involves learning technology to:

• have their experience and capabilities certified by peers;
• demonstrate that they are taking a committed and serious approach to their professional development.

CMALT is an independent, peer-led accreditation scheme. However, we always look to map CMALT to other frameworks and courses. Of particular interest to SHED colleagues is the mapping of  CMALT and UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF). This mapping is designed to help staff who have completed the UKPSF use their existing evidence as part of a CMALT portoflio and vice versa. The current mapping can be viewed as a Google Doc of downloaded as a PDF.

Here is more information about the CMALT Scheme. It is also worth noting that ALT also offers other types of membership including Associate Membership which is free to staff and students of Organisational Members of ALT. Whilst Associate Membership is not part of an accreditation scheme becoming part of this community may still be of interest as part of your broader CPD. Here is more information on ALT Membership options.

If you have any questions about ALT and CMALT please get in touch with me at martin.hawksey@alt.ac.uk

SHED 11th May 2017 Meeting, University of Stirling

Please note: that one of the people attending the event has a severe longstanding respiratory condition that means they can be vulnerable to environmental triggers. To ensure their safety it would be appreciated if you could avoid using perfumes and aftershaves on the day of the event. We apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sharing practice in the SHED – what are we doing to support learning and teaching in the digital environment

Our final CPD session of our digital focus this year is inspired by suggestions the SHED community gave at our last meeting in Edinburgh. We would therefore like to invite colleagues, ideally from each institution, to come along with a 3-4 minute case study that illustrates how academic developers are supporting academic colleagues teach in a digital environment. We hope to have enough contributions to enable a hands-on and interactive session where we will all get an opportunity to think about how we can further support our academic colleagues in this fast-changing context. This session will be facilitated by the SHED CPD Co-ordinators.

If you have something you would like to share, please could you let us know by 4^th May at the very latest.

Outline Agenda

10:30am          Arrival
11:00am          Welcome
11:05am           CPD Session. Sharing practice in the SHED
12:30pm          Lunch – see note below*
1:30pm            Dialogue with Sector Agencies
2:00pm            IMG Meeting
3:30pm           Close of day

The meeting will start at 10:30am with an opening welcome at 11:00am and here is the draft agenda for the day, along with minutes of the previous meeting. Can you please email SHED Secretary Janis Davidson to confirm your attendance or to send in your apologies asap. Reports from External Sector Body Representatives will be made available in advance of the meeting and will be updated as they are received below:

1. ALT update
2. HEA update
3. QAA & Enhancement Themes update
4. Universities Scotland update
5. SEDA update
6. OEPS

Joining instructions

Our next SHED meeting will be held on the 11^th May 2017 at the University of Stirling from 10.30-4.00. The meeting will take place in Room 2B129, Cottrell building, see campus map here. As those of you who have already visited Cottrell building know, it is a bit of a rabbit warren… we will put up some directions to the SHED meeting but to help guide you, Room 2B129 is on the ground floor and it is probably best to come into the building via either of the Cottrell car park entrances (on either side of the building under construction) where you will find you are already in B corridor. From there, turn right and just keep going until you get to B129.

Please note pay and display parking is in operation on campus and parking is extremely limited. We would encourage you to consider an alternative mode of transport to campus, including our excellent Uni Link bus service. Anyone travelling by car is advised to arrive well before 9am to ensure they find a space.  Here are details of travel options.

*Please note: Lunch is not provided and we will provide directions to local eateries. As always you are welcome to bring your own packed lunch

Recording: Effectively using Social Media in Learning and Teaching

As part of the SHED February 2017 meeting we were delighted to have a CPD session delivered by Diane Pennington on Effectively using Social Media in Learning and Teaching. For those who were not able to make the session with Diane’s permission we made a recording which is available on the SHED YouTube channel and embedded below:

Slides from Diane’s session are available here and a description of the session follows:

Have you noticed how students are on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all the time? As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them! This session will introduce you to how to use social media tools intelligently and responsibly to instruct, communicate with, and engage students in ways that are familiar and meaningful to them. You will hear about specific social media services and how they can be used for teaching and learning and will have a chance to try them out in the session. You will then be encouraged to think about how you might use social media in your own practice as well as encourage and support others to do the same.

The session will be led by,

Diane M. Rasmussen Pennington PhD FHEA
Lecturer in Information Science
Deputy Course Director, MSc/PgDip Information & Library Studies
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

http://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/diane.pennington/

Given the wide geographic spread of SHED members we will continue to endeavor to make similar event resources available and have created a dedicated page which will list these.

 

Event: Joint Webinar between Scottish Higher Education Developers (SHED) and our Canadian counterparts, the Educational Developers Caucus (EDC)

Date/Time: Monday 13^th March, 4 – 5pm (UK time);

Registration: Please complete this form to receive joining instructions (this session is delivered online via Adobe Connect)

Title: “Supporting Blended and Online Education Across the Atlantic: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities in Embedding Effective Practice”

Description: Blended and Online Education (BOE) is part of our world. How is it shaping our practices and how might it, as we think about the development of staff and students’ learning? This webinar will present a picture from both sides of the Atlantic while recognizing that the landscape is diverse and varied as each institution has different priorities. Examples from both Canada and Scotland will form the basis of the discussion and will allow participants to compare and contrast the issues, challenges and opportunities of supporting instructors to use technology in the higher education classroom. The Webinar will be hosted by Prof. Keith Smyth and Gavan Watson

Presenter/Host Biographies

Keith Smyth is Professor of Pedagogy at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), Scotland, where he leads the Learning and Teaching Academy and works on strategic learning and teaching developments, funded projects and supporting staff to engage in educational research. Keith has a particular interest in technology-enhanced learning, and in a previous role developed and led a professionally accredited and award-winning MSc Blended and Online Education. Keith also developed the 3E Framework for technology-enhanced learning and teaching, which to date has been implemented by over 40 educational institutions across and beyond the UK. He can be found online at 3eeducation.org and on Twitter @smythrs.

Gavan Watson is currently the Associate Director, eLearning in Western University’s (London, Ontario, Canada) Teaching Support Centre (TSC). He and his team work to support instructors to thoughtfully incorporate learning technologies into their classrooms with the aim of improving student learning. He has been working in educational development for over 5 years, with a disciplinary background in Environmental Education. He has published work on incorporating technology in the classroom, supporting critical reflection in higher ed., institutional support for SoTL & the scope of graduate development programs in Canada. On the service side, he is also the Secretary for Canada’s Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, which aims to be the “pre-eminent national voice, and a world leader, for enhancing teaching and learning in higher education.” He has two Border Terriers and his Twitter handle is @gavatron.

SHED February 2017 Meeting

Our first meeting of the new year will be held on the 17th of February at the University of Edinburgh, Institute for Academic Development. The meeting will take place in Room B.09, 1 Morgan Lane, (off) Holyrood Road Edinburgh EH8 8FP (details of how to find).

The meeting will start at 10:30am with an opening welcome at 11:00am and here is the draft agenda for the day, along with minutes of the previous meeting. Reports from External Sector Body Representatives will be made available in advance of the meeting and will be updated as they are received below:

1. ALT update
2. HEA update
3. QAA & Enhancement Themes update
4. Universities Scotland update
5. SEDA update

Can you please email SHED Secretary Janis Davidson to confirm your attendance or to send in your apologies by the 15th of February. Please note: Lunch is not provided and we will provide directions to local eateries. As always you are welcome to bring your own packed lunch.

As part of the event we are delighted that our CPD session will be led by Diane Pennington, details of the session included below:

Effectively using Social Media in Learning and Teaching

Have you noticed how students are on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all the time? As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them! This session will introduce you to how to use social media tools intelligently and responsibly to instruct, communicate with, and engage students in ways that are familiar and meaningful to them. You will hear about specific social media services and how they can be used for teaching and learning and will have a chance to try them out in the session. You will then be encouraged to think about how you might use social media in your own practice as well as encourage and support others to do the same.

The session will be led by,

Diane M. Rasmussen Pennington PhD FHEA
Lecturer in Information Science
Deputy Course Director, MSc/PgDip Information & Library Studies
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

http://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/diane.pennington/

Slides from Diane’s session are available here