‘Sweet’ strategies for higher education developers working in the third space Photo credit: Ellen Lessner

Professor Rhona SharpeOxford Brookes University

SEDA Conference2 Nov 2016

@rjsharpe

My interests

Learner experience research

Supporting online learners

Developing digital leaders

About the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD)

“OCSLD specialises in providing bespoke staff and educational development interventions which meet institutional strategic and operational needs.

About the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD)

Our approach to working with you is distinctive and transformative, tailoring and delivering work-based interventions for existing teams to meet their immediate and future needs. This is supported by strong expertise in evaluation to monitor outcomes.”

Academic Development Framework

12 x

50,000

69 89%

1/4

OCSLD Annual Review 2015/16

www.brookes.ac.uk/OCSLD/About-OCSLD/Annual-reviews/

Strategic

Work based

Efficient

Evidence based

Technology enhanced

Our approach to higher education development

Cartoon by Bob Pomfret

@Seda_UK_

www.brookes.ac.uk/OCSLD/Research/Participative-Process-Review/

Working in the third space

OCSLD exists in the third space between academic and professional services.

Where we work as unbounded professionals . . .

. . . who have evolved a SWEET approach to higher education development

… which we use to help Brookes thrive in these changing times.

Whitchurch, 2008

Whitchurch, 2008

Bounded

professionals Unbounded

professionals

Professionals working in the third spaceCategories of identity Characteristics

Bounded professionals Work within clear structural boundaries e.g. function, job description

Cross-boundary professionals

Actively use boundaries for strategic advantage and institutional capacity building

Unbounded professionals Disregard boundaries to focus on broadly-based projects and institutional development

Blended professionals Dedicated appointments spanning professionals and academic domains

Whitchurch, C. (2008)

Make it easier to disrupt institutional practicesWorking in the third space:Faculty-based Open Online Course(s)

Make it easier to disrupt institutional practices

The stalled progress in some faculties was an uncertainty of which budgets development of MOOCs should be coming from and how to allocate staff time within the workload planning framework (Roberts et al., 2015).

Working in the third space:Faculty-based Open Online Course(s)

OCSLD Open Online Courses

- Online mentors employed by several universities (OBHE, 2013)

- Expert participants (Waite et al, 2013)

- Certificates and badges- Light touch quality assurance- Shared modules and credit

transfer- Ability to negotiate staff roles,

responsibilities and workload

“A goal of all formal education should be to graduate students who live lives of consequence” - John Henry Brookes

Brookes (Graduate) Attributes

Embedding graduate attributes into the curriculum “There is more to life

than simply doing a job. The graduates of our higher education system will be more than employees/employers, they will also be future leaders in our world and our neighbours and so affects our lives at all levels. What do we want these people to be like?”(Haigh & Clifford, 2010)

Why graduate attributes?“Every undergraduate programme will include the

development of the five graduate attributes”

• Graduate Attributes Roadshows

Awareness raising

• Graduate Attributes in Action website

• Case studies• Mapping tools• Screencasts

Programme mapping

• Programme specification

• Mapping document

• Narrative

Documentation

What do we know about how lecturers design courses?

Pragmatically, in response to changing circumstances e.g. increasing class sizes (Sharpe & Oliver, 2007).

A social practice, governed by precedent and habit (Blackmore & Kandiko, 2012)

Within the constraints of practicalities e.g. timetabling (Masterman, 2013)

Visually (Masterman, 2013)Informed by general design principles rather than learning theory (Sharpe & Oliver, 2013)

Course Design Intensives Dempster, Benfield & Francis (2012)

Working in extended teams

Visualising the learner

journey

Challenging designs through

peer review

Documentary analysis of 90 programme specification documents.

Sharing of examples of how graduate attributes had been interpreted within the disciplines

The disciplinary differences between how graduate attributes are expressed are in explaining the ways and contexts in which elements of the attributes are put to use.

Evaluation Part 1Staff EngagementEvaluation Part 1Staff Engagement

Evaluation Part 2Student Engagement

• How much has your coursework emphasised the following mental activities?

• How often have you done each of the following?

• How much has your experience at this institution contributed to your knowledge, skills and personal development in these areas?

How often have you…?

How much has Brookes contributed to..?

Graduate Attributes as a measure of learning gain

Learning gain in Active Citizenship Strategic Excellence project

ABC Learning Gains project with OU and Surrey

abclearninggains.com/openbrookes.net/cci/

• Strategy for Enhancing the Student Experience defined 5 Graduate Attributes2010/11

• Mapping exercise in programme teams• Revised Programme Specification docs2011/12• Analysis of all new documentation• Teaching Practices Collection2012/13• Development of engagement survey• Training for Validation and Review

Panels and Academic Advisors2013/14

• Benefits Realisation Review• Revised Strategy for Student Experience 2014/15

• Introduced Active Citizenship• Learning gain funded projects2015/16

Six years .. so far…

‘Disregarding boundaries to focus on institutional development’

Embedding attributes within the curriculum to encourage contextualisation

Collaboration with QA to integrate documentation and processes

• A careful, critical approach to evaluation which produces useable outputs

• Multiple initiatives running over several years

Where do we go from here?

Can we create third spaces for others to work in?

Student experience is a strategic priority.

Student experience developments are highly managed.

Proliferation of educational leadership roles.

Evaluating experiences of project managersConfidential, anonymised, semi-structured interviews (ethical approval gained).

motivations expectations management enablers and constraints professional impact recommendations

2 x Program

Managers

2 x Principle Lecturers

1 x professional services

2 x Associate

Deans

Experiences of project leaders

Deeply committed

to their projects (not

careers)

Freedom and autonomy

helped them deliver

Academic identity was less fixed, more fluid

Enabling ‘light touch’ program

support

Recommendations for working in the third space:Take advantage of the fluidity of unbounded professionals’ roles and structures to locate innovative projects in the third space.

Use the lack of protocols to develop systems, processes and skills in new ways of working.

Conduct and share institutional research to inform decision making.

Guide others carefully into this space. Create and evaluate new roles and career pathways into and out of them.

The importance of evaluation

In this presentation I have drawn on the following internal reports:Moore, S. (2016) Oxford Brookes Engagement Survey, October 2016. Pavlakou, M. & Sharpe, R. (2014) Leading institutional change projects: a qualitative study and lessons for the second Programme for Enhancing the Student Experience.. Roberts, G., Llewellyn, S., Sharpe, R. & Benfield. G. (2015) Project final report: Developing Open Online Courses for Oxford Brookes.Sharpe, R., Benfield, G., Corrywright, D. & Green, L. (2013). Evaluation of the Brookes Graduate Attributes: Year 1 Final Report.

ReferencesAnsoff, H. (1957) Strategies for diversification. Harvard Business Review, (Sept-Oct)

Beetham, H. & Sharpe, R. (2013) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age. Second edition. Routledge. Chapters by Liz Masterman and Martin Oliver

Blackmore, P. and Kandiko, C. (2012) Strategic Curriculum Change: Global trends in universities. London and New York: Routledge.

Dempster, J., Benfield, G. & Francis, R. (2012) An academic development model for fostering innovation and sharing in curriculum design. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49 (2), 135-147

Haigh, M. & Clifford, V. (2010) Widening the Graduate Attribute debate: a higher education for global citizenship. Brookes eJournal of Learning and Teaching. 2 (5)

OBHE (2013) Horizon Scanning: What will higher education look like in 2020?, Observatory of Borderless Higher Education.

Oliver, M. (2015) From openness to permeability: reframing open education in terms of positive liberty in the enactment of academic practices. Learning, Media and Technology, 40 (3), 365-384.

PA Consulting (2015) Lagging behind: are UK universities falling behind in the global innovation race? PA Consulting group Higher Education Survey 2015 http://www.paconsulting.com/our-thinking/higher-education-report-2015

Roberts, G., Llewellyn, S., Sharpe, R. & Benfield. G. (2015) Project final report: Developing Open Online Courses for Oxford Brookes, January 2015, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.

Waite, M., Mackness, J., Roberts, G. & Lovegrove, E. (2013) Liminal Participants and Skilled Orienteers: Learner Participation in a MOOC for New Lecturers, Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9 (2), http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no2/waite_0613.htm

Whitchurch, C. (2008) Shifting identities and blurring boundaries: the emergence of Third Space professionals in UK higher education, Higher Education Quarterly, 62 (4), 377-396.

Whitchurch, C. & Gordon (2013) Staffing models and institutional flexibility, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education: London.