Peer Learning Activity: Professional Development in Higher Education

BFUG Working Group on Learning & Teaching

Peer Learning Activity - The professional development of teachers at the heart of the quality of Higher Education

Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation /  The Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (Amphithéâtre Stourdzé)

Peer Learning Activity event including a roundtable discussion on professional development in Higher Education. Sessions will cover skills, digitalisation and career development

Draft Agenda27 October (Day 1)10:00 – Introductory Session<ul><li>Peer Learning Activity (PLA) objectives </li><li>Opening presentation: Staff development, teaching enhancement and careers at European universities (Thérèse Zhang)</li></ul>10:45 – Session 1: Skills for teachers in higher education<ul><li>The art of teaching: (how) can state governance encourage the development of teaching skills at autonomous universities? (Alexander Kohler)</li><li>Student-Centeredness and University-Enterprise Collaboration in Armenia (Lilit Sargsyan)</li><li>Developing teaching appreciation and quality through a national framework in Denmark (Jakob Ravn)</li></ul>12:15 – Lunch Break14:00 – Session 1 continued: Round Table 15:00 – Session 2: Teaching and Digitalisation <ul><li>Technology meets pedagogy: The role of staff support services in Norway (Silje Refnes)</li><li>Good practice in integrating technology in teaching and learning in Turkey (Mustafa Sözbilir)</li><li>Staff development for enhancing digital teaching and learning: Lessons learned from the Irish experience during the pandemic (Sharon Flynn)</li><li>Thematic digital universities and "FUN Resources": two national open education services for teachers in France (Michael Matlosz)</li></ul>16:30 – Coffee Break17:00 – Session 2 continued: Round Table18:00 – End of Day 128 October (Day 2)9:30 – Session 3: Teaching supports and careers<ul><li>The Continuing Professional Development of Higher Education teachers in France: a lever for promoting student learning? (Christelle Lison)</li><li>Academic staff development practices in Georgia and possible synergies with PROFFORMANCE project outputs: Reflection from the perspective of QA on development of indicators for academic staff development (Lasha Zivzivadze)</li><li>Varied testimonies of recent situations and developments in the careers of higher education teachers in different countries of the EHEA</li></ul>11:30 – Session 3 continued: Round Table12:30 – Concluding remarks and closure of the PLA14:00 – 16:00 – Working session for members of the WG on L&TPresentersThérèse Zhang (European University Association)Attention to learning and teaching at European higher education institutions (HEIs) has grown in recent years. At the same time, HEIs have also noted increasing expectations and pressure from students, employers and professional sectors towards teachers. Consequently, staff development is key to enhancing learning and teaching in HEIs. This opening presentation will offer an overview of the state of play across the European Higher Education Area regarding teaching enhancement (understood as any formal measure such as training) and general staff development. Based on findings from EUA's Trends 2018 report, studies on national developments in learning and teaching, and reports from European thematic peer groups, this presentation will also highlight key challenges and connect development and incentive measures with the place of teaching in academic careers.Silje Refsnes (Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education &amp; Skills)As efforts to digitalise and innovate higher education have intensified over the last few years, the importance of faculty support for technology-enhanced teaching and learning has become increasingly apparent. Little is known, however, about the status, organisation and role of teaching and learning centres and other faculty support units in various national contexts, including Norway. The Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, is dedicated to enhancing quality in higher education and skills and is also a driving force for the digital restructuring of Norwegian higher education institutions. In 2021, the Directorate carried out a national survey mapping, among other things, the organisation and make-up of faculty support units, the types of teaching support services on offer, and the roles these structures play in institutional work on digitalisation and quality enhancement. In this presentation, some of the key findings from the survey, focusing mainly on qualitative data related to lessons learnt from digitalisation efforts in the last couple of years, as seen by the support staff and their perspectives on important priorities going forward, will be shared. Some key insights emerging from the data are that all Norwegian universities and colleges now have institutional structures to support technology-enhanced teaching and learning. At the same time, a picture emerges where these support services are organised in various ways based on institutional needs. Their approaches are also different, ranging from mainly pedagogical and didactic support to software support. At the same time as the manner of organising the support units differ, there is a call for more national solutions to technical and didactic issues. Finally, there is also a need for more research on the teaching staff's needs for support and on how support services can work together with other key institutional and national stakeholders to facilitate the digital restructuring of Norwegian higher education effectively.Mustafa Sözbilir (Atatürk University, Turkey)In this presentation, the digitalisation of the teaching and learning process at Atatürk University will be presented in connection with the digitalisation policies of Turkey's Higher Education Council [YÖK]. Staff academic development programs have been developed and implemented at the Atatürk University Teaching and Learning Development Application and Research Center [ATAÖGEM] since 2018. The academic development programs aim to increase the quality of education at the university, enrich the educational processes with technology, and enable the teaching staff to carry out more effective, efficient and satisfying teaching activities. For this purpose, the use of technology in education for instructors, current pedagogical approaches, instructional design, measurement and evaluation, communication elements in the classroom, material design, lifelong learning, effective use of learning management systems, blended learning, project preparation and writing, and academic counselling seminar and workshops (face to face - online) are organised. In addition, with the philosophy of openness in education, instructors are supported with video recordings of seminars, educational video content, documents, posters and presentations through the ATAÖGEM Website and Youtube channel. Informative seminars also include training on virtual reality, professional collaboration in teaching activities and data visualisation.Moreover, instructors attend asynchronous training programs called Academic Development Certificate Program [ADCP] and the Distance Education Certificate Program [DECP]. Educational activities are also carried out for newly appointed faculty members to enrich their teaching skills. All activities are funded by the Atatürk University Scientific Research Fund or the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey [TUBITAK].Sharon Flynn (Irish Universities Association) Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning (EDTL) is a 4-year project (2019 – 2022) led by the Irish Universities Association and involving seven universities across Ireland, focused on staff development to support the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning in higher education. The project already existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was in an excellent position to inform and support the national response as higher education moved first fully online and then to a more blended/hybrid approach. Now, as we look to a post-COVID future, what lessons can we learn from the pandemic period to build capacity for a digitally transformed future environment? The student population is increasing in diversity, and student expectations are changing about how and when they engage with their learning. What are the implications for higher education staff development to support this transformation and academic career progression in our universities?Michael Matlosz (Fondation UNIT)Thematic digital universities were created in France approximately 15 years ago as part of a national effort to produce open digital-learning resources readily available free of charge to teachers and students in higher education. Each thematic digital university is dedicated to a specific disciplinary field, and the digital universities are federated into a multi-disciplinary association known as “Université Numérique” (UN). Since its creation, the UN association has become an important operator for the digital-learning policy of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. In addition, the French government has mandated the association to represent France in several international fora in connection with digital teaching and digital learning. One of the projects currently driven by the UN association, entitled “FUN-Resources”, was initiated at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. The “FUN-Resources” platform aims at aligning the catalogue of available open-education resources with the curricula of national university degree programmes to facilitate the use of the resources by teachers and students. The resources are structured by subject and education level and are organised in teaching units corresponding to what is generally practised in French higher-education institutions. The platform also offers resources to support teachers in implementing blended learning. The UN association has also developed a Moodle platform for sharing resource material to facilitate the reuse and adaptation of content.Alexander Kohler (Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science &amp; Research) The art of teaching is at the core of educational quality. At the same time, teaching performance is difficult to measure and appears to be less valued than research performance. Therefore, we do not seek to play off but for ways to foster learning and teaching through strengthening teaching skills. Learning and teaching are part of the academic freedom of higher education institutions, which therefore assume primary responsibility. However, governments are liable for the overall quality and performance of the higher education system in their countries. This includes accountability for public investment in universities that ensure inclusive access, student-centred learning throughout the student life cycle, and compliance with societal needs. Austrian public universities benefit from a high degree of autonomy. They get federal funding through triannual global budgets. Triannual performance agreements between the Federal government and each university set targets and determine specific action. The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the universities have agreed that more attention is given to the promotion of teaching skills. Universities have already set various measures, ranging from assessing teaching skills when recruiting academic staff, providing didactic training, and cooperating in networks. Current monitoring will give a better picture of mechanisms and action at the level of universities. It should also lead to better evidence about possible needs for governmental action and more favourable conditions to promote learning quality and teaching skills. Lilit Sargsyan (Armenia)In alignment with European standards and guidelines for quality assurance, the HEIs of the Republic of Armenia have acknowledged the strategic value of student-centred learning. Accordingly, they are exerting strenuous efforts to maintain the principles of student-centred learning reflected in the HEIs' capacity to demonstrate agility and flexibility and enable mobility and recognition.The expert panel reports on the institutional accreditation of the HEIs reveal that insufficient trans-institutional and transnational collaboration, as well as the scarcity of open, innovative initiatives of businesses and a few university research hubs, have served as a hindrance to some HEIs for embedding student-centred learning in their policies. Furthermore, it was acknowledged that these institutions, per se, have taken only half measures in supporting students to gain control over their learning.Conversely, the HEIs that have shown leadership in establishing continuous external cooperation has been thriving for a balanced autonomy and simultaneously contextualising best practices of the European universities with exemplary commitment to providing learner-focused education.There is a realisation and acceptance on behalf of many HEIs that to be able to show more resilience to challenges; institutions should devise a strategy for developing and exploiting innovative approaches to L&T, as well as empowering students to conduct experimental research under the measured guidance and support of the academic staff. Furthermore, they assign significance to adopt unbiased policies to become transparent and hold the public accountable.In the era of human augmentation, universities must redesign and enhance their educational services so that they will prepare specialists not only in compliance with the demands of nowadays’ the labour market but also foresee the emergence of new domains, ergo, new professions.To ensure incremental improvement of education, the Higher Education community is taking steps towards including interdisciplinary learning and recognising informal learning's complementary value.Jakob Ravn (Copenhagen Business School)The new framework adopted for teacher qualifications + new regulation on careers with a more robust focus on CPD etc.Christelle Lison (France) If today the question of training and teaching quality is at the heart of discussions, it is important to ask how to promote it. Support for the continuing professional development of higher education teachers is probably a lever which is both individual and collective. Today, we can ask ourselves what favourable conditions are for this leverage to be effective. Since 2018, France has implemented mandatory training for new teachers in higher education. We researched to see what is being done effectively by institutions and to interrogate the impact of this practice. We will see how pedagogy centres are helpful spaces for thinking about the individual and collective transformation of teachers' practices. Based on our experience, we will be able to raise some key elements that could be transferred to other European contexts.Lasha Zivzivadze (Georgian National Centre for Educational Quality Enhancement) The presentation will focus on the professional development practices of academic staff at higher education institutions in Georgia. The case of Georgia can be relevant for some of the countries in EHEA, which like Georgia, have undergone a significant process of post-soviet transformation. These transformations in higher education are also influenced by the global flow of ideas, marketisation and Internationalisation of higher education. But these developments led to specific conditions in Georgia, which made HEIs adopt new ways of fulfilling their functions. The presentation will be structured in the following form. Firstly, the presentation will deal with some of the study's significant findings on academic staff development practices at HEIs in Georgia. The study is based on external QA reports of institutional evaluations produced during 2018-2021 by the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement. Institutional evaluations are one of Georgia's external quality assurance mechanisms that were reformed by the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG-2015) in 2018. The study findings show the main trends and areas of development in academic staff development practices at HEIs in Georgia. Secondly, the presentation will reflect on how the outputs of the EU-funded project PROFFORMANCE can fill in the academic staff professional development gaps. The NCEQE was one of the partners in this project which aimed at enhancing the quality of T&L by supporting the professional development of academic staff at HEIs. One of the outputs of the PROFFORMANCE project is an assessment tool for academic performance. The tool focuses on four areas – (1) digitalisation, (2) internationalisation, (3) inclusion and diversity and (4) sustainability, which in fact, form European Higher Education Area priorities.Finally, building on the experience of the NCEQE, several questions for the discussion will be posted, the outcomes of which can be fed into the development of indicators for academic staff professional development by BFUG working group on T&L.

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