Old and new hands at academic development
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This document discusses a graduate internship program at a university where 10 recent graduates spent 6 months interning as academic developers. It explores the perspectives of the interns, academic developers supervising the interns, and the university's institutional goals. The interns brought a fresh student perspective but struggled with ambiguity and the transition to professional work. Through reflective research, key themes emerged around low tolerance for ambiguity, becoming professional, and struggles with teamwork. While challenging to manage, the internship provided benefits like new insights and career outcomes for most interns.
Old and new hands at academic development
- 1. Old & new hands at academic development: close to the student heartbeat @solentlearning @tansyjtweets @121tuition Tansy Jessop and Claire Saunders #ISSOTL18, Bergen, Norway 2018
- 2. The interns… One modern university. Ten graduate interns. Six months. Three leaders. What did we learn? What USP did they bring?
- 3. The wider team… • Running the PgCert • HEA fellowships • Chasing good metrics • Student researchers • Academic writing culture • Curriculum transformation • TESTA - assessment • Pedagogic research 4 x academic developers 2 x post-docs 2 x L&T support officers
- 4. • Improve metrics • Climb league tables • Respond to student demography • 70% first generation • Diverse, low economic status Why the Internship? An Institutional Perspective
- 5. Why the Internship? A Graduate Perspective I need a professional job This will make me more employable Research skills are transferable Not sure I’m ready to move on…
- 6. Why the Internship? An Academic Developer Perspective The interns will bring us closer to the student experience I’m giving you an extra pairs of hands It will be fun! And we will help them become academic developers…
- 7. • Instrumental, procedural, contingent (Squires 1999) • Students might know a lot of stuff, but do they have agency or know what to do with it? • That’s the test…! Becoming professional…
- 8. “We know more than we can tell” (Polanyi 1966) - what are the tacit parts of our job? On the surface, we do professional development, work with academics, teach new lecturers… What’s the underbelly of what we do? As busy academic developers, had we given much thought to the less visible parts of our job….? Do we know why we do what we do as academic developers?
- 9. What’s missing? The hidden work of academic developers Go to www.menti.com and use the code 83 88 82 From your experience, choose three things which you think are less visible aspects of the academic developer role.
- 10. Reflective research using critical incidents Collected from 10 GIs at 4 x intervals 1. What has been most engaging? 2. When have you felt most distant? 3. What action has helped you? 4. What action has puzzled or confused you? 5. What has surprised you? Critical incident questionnaire (Brookfield 1995)
- 11. Read the raw data divided by intervals. Make jottings on the sheet: What are main issues? verbs/nouns/adjectives; main issues, loose ends/dangling questions. Plenary pulling together Your task
- 12. This is what the full analysis showed…
- 13. It can be hard to tell when is the right time to stray from the rules as it is unclear what should be set in stone. THEME 1: LOW TOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY It’s the constant “Am I doing this right?” thought you have… the ambiguity of tasks has often caused confusion and uncertainty amongst the team. I wrongly assumed that we would be working with a lot of structure….the freedom is daunting at times.
- 14. I have learnt so much about myself, my weaknesses and my capabilities, including my growing confidence. Lately there have been more projects that involve interns and staff working together which has aided the transition from student to professional THEME 2: BECOMING PROFESSIONAL Our work will create positive changes for the course due to our insight as recent graduates and fresh approach to the TESTA framework. It was good to see the process (of interviewing a lecturer) from the other side of the table and be part of this.
- 15. Theme 3: Struggles with team-working It comes down to gritting your teeth It is like having an extreme filter all the time...it feels like we are treading on eggshells Some people seem to take everything as an attack Instead of being a relatively pleasant task, it became a drama Some have made really good progress with resilience and professionalism, but others seem to have stayed at the same level
- 16. Teamwork is vital for employment
- 17. Yet there were huge achievements • TESTA assessment research on six courses • Research on student attendance and engagement • Helped promote and support students for Posters in Parliament (n=2) and British Conference for Undergraduate Research (BCUR) n=30 • Huge contribution to curriculum framework • Publications: 1 x book review, 1 x article in Dialogue 1 x articles in peer reviewed journals (in progress)
- 18. Why it was worth doing • Fresh insights into the student experience • Insider-outsider dynamic • Academics and students trusted their judgement • Informed the development of curriculum framework • Helped us to reflect on & understand academic development better • Most have graduate jobs now
- 19. But we have battle scars • 10 last year, 1 this year. • Extra workload in managing new professionals • Emotional complexity of interns being ex-students • Learning curve for us: start slow • Brilliant opportunity but count the cost!
- 20. REFERENCES Barnett, R. and Coate, K. 2004. Engaging the curriculum in higher education. Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Baxter-Magolda, M. 2001. Making their own way: Narratives for transforming Higher Education to promote self-development Brookfield, S. 1995. Becoming a critically reflective teacher. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Jessop, T., Saunders, C. and Pontin, C. The challenges of academic development as a first graduate job: ‘Am I doing it right?’ International Journal of Academic Development (Forthcoming) Palmer, P. 1983. To know as we are known: Education as a Spiritual Journey. HarperOne. Perry, W. 1998. Forms of Ethical Intellectual Development in the College Years: A Scheme. Polanyi, M. 1966. The Tacit Dimension. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Squires, S. 1999. Teaching as a Professional Discipline. London: Falmer. Tymon, A. 2013. The student perspective on employability, Studies in Higher Education, 38:6, 841-856.