Showing papers in "International Journal for Academic Development in 2012"

Betwixt and between: academic developers in the margins

Abstract: Previously, the authors developed a theoretical framework drawing on an early sociological study of migration to explore how marginality – being between cultures – might account for academic developers’ ‘hybrid’ academic identities and help them navigate institutional power dynamics. Based on data from semi-structured interviews, this empirical study reports on the extent to which the model captures the structural tensions experienced by developers from multiple countries in their working lives.

Enhancing quality learning through experiences of research-based learning: implications for academic development

Abstract: Research into undergraduate research and inquiry in Australian universities was conducted during an Australian Learning and Teaching Council National Teaching Fellowship. In this paper we share experiences of this project as a student and an academic, reflecting on key challenges, including undergraduate research as an immersion experience for students; negotiating changing staff–student relationships; funding implications; and institutional challenges. We argue that academic developers have a key role in informing institutional policy concerning the integration of research and inquiry and interpreting the spirit of this for the academic community, bridging the divide between research staff and teaching staff, making links between research and teaching committees, changing academics’ attitudes about the value and implications of undergraduate research, working with research staff on teaching and learning issues, and making available to staff resources to facilitate undergraduate research implementation.

The impact of a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education on university lecturers appointed for their professional expertise at a teaching-led university: ‘It’s made me braver’

Abstract: This article explores the impact of a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (PG Cert.) on new lecturers, appointed for their professional expertise. It focuses on staff perceptions of acculturation into the discourses of university learning and teaching. Drawing on a literature review which reveals (at best) ambivalent evidence of impact, the authors developed a case study investigating impact on staff changing careers into university teaching on the basis of their professional expertise. The data reveal positive outcomes, including the transition into confident and competent higher education professionals.

Evaluating learning and teaching: institutional needs and individual practices

Abstract: Rather than a rational, technical activity, evaluation reflects the socio-political dynamics of the evaluative context. This presents a challenge for universities and the individuals within them, who may assume that plans or policies for evaluation will result in straightforward outcomes. This small-scale study in one institution looks at the tensions between institutional evaluative needs and individual evaluative practices. The results indicate that for staff in the institution, evaluative activity is largely autonomous and self-driven, rather than following institutional policy. A discretionary framework for the evaluation of learning and teaching was developed, which may be a useful tool for educational developers in their analysis of evaluative practice.

Researching academic identity: using discursive psychology as an approach

Abstract: Current thinking on academic identities is heavily influenced by developments in other disciplines, notably sociology. This accords with Haggis’s (2007) challenge for educational researchers to engage with current theory and methods from across the social sciences. However, the traditional sister discipline to education, psychology, seems underrepresented in the academic identities literature. This article demonstrates the use of a form of discourse analysis developed within discursive psychology and argues that this offers a complementary level of analysis to studies inspired by realist social theory. Discourse analysis of this sort provides the basis for identifying the mechanisms through which identities are adopted, negotiated and altered. The demonstration of this method relates to a longitudinal study into teacher development among participants on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education at the London School of Economics. This study shows how this method might be used to develop pedagogic re...

Advancing assessment practice in continuing professional learning: toward a richer understanding of teaching portfolios for learning and assessment

Abstract: This paper reviews a range of challenges and tensions experienced when using portfolios for learning as well as for summative assessment in the context of continuing professional learning in academic development programmes. While portfolios are becoming increasingly prominent, the details of how they are used are under-examined; they are often simply assumed to be an appropriate tool. However, it is important that, as practitioners, we are able to justify our own assessment practices and convey our expectations to our participants, who may be unfamiliar with the demands of a reflective portfolio. In this paper we explore some of the appeal as well as the difficulties of using portfolios, many of which arise from the fact that portfolios are often simultaneously used for summative and formative purposes. We suggest how the challenges sometimes experienced with portfolio assessment can be addressed by course conveners.

Academic development is a creative act

Abstract: This paper argues that academic development is a creative act. Creative acts have potential to inspire, critique, inform and in many cases to change. The creativity literature identifies a number of core features of creative acts that assist in developing independent creative practitioners. Those features are observing, attending to relationships, engaging and persisting, exploring and risk-taking, problem-solving, intuiting, reflecting and envisaging. The realm of academic development in tertiary education necessitates many of those same features to support the complex human interactions involved in bringing about change in learning and teaching. In this paper we explore how the core features of creative acts are utilised in our work as academic developers. We argue that conceptualising academic development as a creative act is of value because the intent of the work is to develop creative educators who are critically reflective and responsive to change within challenging tertiary educational environments.

The Impossibilities of Neutrality: Other Geopolitical Metaphors for Academic Development Units.

Abstract: This opinion piece responds to the occasionally stated imperative in some cases to be neutral as part of an Academic Development Unit (ADU).

Developing new academic developers: doing before being?

Abstract: A small group of new academic developers reflected on their induction into the profession and wondered if things could have been done differently. The researchers decided to question the directors of three tertiary academic development units about how they recruited new developers, what skills and competences they looked for and how they inducted new appointees into the role. This article interrogates the interview data, employing Winter’s ‘dilemma analysis’ to tease out the ambiguities, judgments and problems inherent in the issues of employing new academic developers. Finally, the authors discuss ways of enhancing the induction experience for new academic developers.

Higher education research and development anthology

Abstract: The Higher Education Research and Development Anthology is a collection of published articles selected from the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) journal. HERD, as the anthology editors Peter Kandlbinder and Tai Peseta inform us, is one of four non-North American journals devoted to teaching and learning (as identified by Tight, 2003). Kandlbinder and Peseta explain that they intentionally selected papers from HERD that were ‘richer, more powerful, more exemplary, more contested or more central’ and that reflected ‘questions important in higher education (HE) teaching and learning’ (p. 17). The editors have worked with the HERD journal and its publisher, HERDSA, which presumptively is a factor in their choice of this journal as their sole source of articles. Tai Peseta serves the editorial team of HERD as Points for Debate Editor and was a National HERDSA Executive member from 2009 to 2010. Peter Kandlbinder is a regular contributor to HERD and is also a HERDSA Executive member. The editors made the smart decision to leave each article exactly as it appeared in HERD, including page numbering, thereby allowing readers to cite from the anthology without needing to locate to the original publication. The anthology has multiple audiences and purposes. First, it is structured as an educational reader for new teaching faculty, particularly as a text for those enrolled in professional education courses. The anthology contains five topical sections with three articles each, with an introduction for each section and a resource list at the end of each. The five sections are entitled reflective practice, constructive alignment, student approaches to learning, assessment for learning, and the scholarship of teaching. The editors clarify the reasoning behind their choice of these five categories in an introduction addressed directly to the new university professor:

Sustaining and Spreading the Positive Outcomes of SoTL Projects: Issues, Insights and Strategies.

Abstract: While the goal of improving student learning in a personal teaching context is considered by many to be a hallmark of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects, the outcomes are almost invariably communicated to other teachers. The intention may be to gain endorsement and support for ongoing implementation of new practices and/or to prompt other teachers to consider whether the project outcomes are relevant to their context. However, concerns have been expressed about the duration and pervasiveness of the impact of SoTL project outcomes. Impacts often have a limited shelf-life and ripple effects are few. I discuss this concern, taking into account conceptions of SoTL and views about the transferability of learning and teaching practices. Insights and recommendations concerning strategies that increase the likelihood that positive outcomes will be sustained and transferred are presented. These insights are derived from projects that the author has been involved in and related literature.

Academic development as educational inquiry? Insights from established practices

Abstract: If academic development is to contribute to (re)shaping the purposes and means of pedagogy in higher education, then it has to be based on educational inquiry, for only inquiry will allow us to undertake a critical analysis of educational policies, practices and beliefs with the goal of transforming them. However, the conditions under which academic development units (ADUs) operate may hinder rather than foster educational inquiry. This is the issue we explore in this paper on the basis of a small-scale, interview-based study that was conducted in six well-established ADUs at universities in the USA. By looking at how these units work, we gained insights into paradoxes and tensions that seem to indicate that educational inquiry cannot play a significant role within them, even though these units act as catalysts for the enhancement of teaching in the academic milieu. We should ask whether ADUs are appropriate sites for educational inquiry and whether they can contribute to (re)shaping the higher education ...

Director turnover : An Australian academic development study

Abstract: Although it can be argued that directors of central academic development units (ADUs) are critical to the implementation of university teaching and learning strategies, it would appear there is a high director turnover rate. While research in the USA, the UK, and Australia illustrates that ADUs are frequently closed or restructured, that research has not considered the longevity of directors in their positions. This paper reports on the experiences of 19 Australian directors of academic development who retired between 2002 and 2007. The research highlights the high turnover (82% in five years) and the relatively early retirement of directors from their positions, in part related to disagreement with senior managers, lack of a career path, and stress related to the role. Conclusions include that the turnover of staff in director positions has the potential to have a negative impact on the implementation of institutional strategic plans, the retention of corporate knowledge and experience, and the renewal o...

Perceptions of neutrality through a post-colonial lens: institutional positioning in Canadian academic development

Abstract: The question of whether neutrality is possible in academic development invites us to explore the particular place of academic development in our institutions and how academic development is positioned in our particular national and institutional environments. This paper, which reports on a small pilot study of how Canadian academic development is positioned institutionally, will use post-colonial metaphors of development to demonstrate the impossibility of neutrality in academic development work. It will also explore how academic developers might move forward in a decolonizing manner that acknowledges our non-neutrality, respecting the expertise and experience of our disciplinary colleagues, while at the same time ensuring a collaborative teaching and learning environment.

Authenticity in Academic Development: The myth of neutrality

Abstract: Academic developers are often positioned as intermediaries who wield value-neutral tools – languages, models, and techniques – in service of decidedly non-neutral institutional goals. We challenge the value of perpetuating the ideal of the neutrality of academic developers and their tools by examining the ways in which our resources and approaches produce imbalances of control, power, and authority in a consulting relationship. We suggest that the values embedded within the practices of academic development lead developers, and the people they help, to act inauthentically. By recognizing the improbability of neutrality in academic development work, the authors seek to open the way to constructive reflection, intentional practice, and ethical consulting choices.

Whisper it softly, professors are really academic developers too

Abstract: The university system has expanded worldwide and with it the number of those holding a full professorial title. Around a third of US academics eventually become full professors, and the title is used still more exclusively in an Australasian and UK context, representing around 10–12% of university faculty. The professoriate undertake a range of leadership and professional support activities connected with research and teaching practice, including acting as mentors, enablers, guardians and ambassadors (Macfarlane, 2012). Aside from research leadership, mentoring less experienced colleagues is regarded by professors as their most important function (Macfarlane, 2011). However, there is little evidence that universities and colleges make any systematic use of the organisational development skills of the professoriate. While professors perform a wide range of formal and informal leadership roles externally, it is less clear how their skills are utilised (and perhaps recognised) within their own institutional contexts. Indeed, evidence suggests that their expertise is often ignored at a local level (Macfarlane, 2011). How do academic development units leverage professorial talent? The answer seems to be barely at all. There is little or nothing in key texts or journals, such as the International Journal for Academic Development, to indicate that the skills professors possess are exploited in a development context. So, why do academic development units make so little use of them? The first and most obvious reason is that professors are perceived mainly as researchers rather than teachers. This does not fit the default role of academic development units as concerned with teaching and student development rather than broader aspects of academic practice, such as research or service. Typically, academic developers will seek to broker the skills of individuals with acknowledged expertise in teaching and learning, such as teaching excellence award-winners. But aside from one or two individuals, they will rarely think of professors as a group offering trans-disciplinary skills. Another possible reason for overlooking the potential of the professoriate is their image as ‘cosmopolitans’ rather than ‘locals’ (Merton, 1947). In other words, they are seen as externally focused professionals (or ‘cosmopolitans’) with strong research skills and networks beyond the institution, rather than as more loyal ‘locals’ with tacit knowledge of the institution’s internal workings, such as committees and validation procedures. It follows that professors can be seen to be

Academic development in ‘assessment for learning’: the value of a concept and communities of assessment practice

Abstract: This interview-based study investigates staff perceptions of their involvement in a university centre which focuses on the development of assessment for learning (AfL) approaches. Learning about assessment is examined both as conceptual change and within communities of practice. Involvement in the centre ranged from perceived exclusion to culture change. Interviewees held diverse, yet student-focused understandings of AfL and perceived the centre as a community of like-minded practitioners and a symbol of the university endorsing AfL practices. The centre contributed to the establishment of local ‘communities of assessment practice’, with some members acting as ‘brokers’ between communities. The study highlights the benefits of conceptually underpinned academic development and the role of AfL as a concept for the integration of implicit and explicit knowledge.

Quelles réformes pédagogiques pour l’enseignement supérieur? Placer l’efficacité au service de l’humanisme

Abstract: by Xavier Roegiers, preface by Nicole Rege Colet, Collaborators: Mohamed Miled, Ioan Ratziu, Caroline Letor, Richard Etienne, Gaelle Hubert, and Mohamed Dali, Brussels, De Boeck, 2012, 313 pp., €36...

Promoting the scholarship of academic development: tensions between institutional needs and individual practices

Abstract: Readers of this journal will be familiar with the argument that we need to add a fifth scholarship to the four that Boyer (1990) proposed – discovery; integration; application (engagement); and tea...

Disruptive cartography in academic development

Abstract: Drawing on cartography, urban design and visual data modelling, we consider how people navigate, or fail to navigate, the mental, physical and social spaces of knowledge communities. Cartographically inspired critical thinking offers opportunities to re-examine the assumptions and formal maps of post-secondary institutions, visualizing complexities such as knowledge circulation and ownership, and knowledge seekers’ regulated or unregulated traffic. We explore the contrast between the formal view given by typical institutional maps, and the uncovered view shown by maps of collective student activity generated by our prototype visualization tools. We suggest that a critical stance and consultative approaches to institutional mapping might foster collective reflection, empowerment, inquiry and engagement in academic development.

Political geographies of academic development in Jamaica, Ethiopia and Japan: Reflections on the impossibilities of neutrality

Abstract: The purpose of this dialogue was to begin grappling with notions of neutrality and academic development in three non-western contexts – Jamaica, Ethiopia and Japan. Each of us was asked to describe the political geography of academic development in our countries and to explore questions of neutrality. This dialogue therefore tries to establish whether neutrality is a useful metaphor for academic development in the light of our countries’ different histories and contexts. Each of us will briefly outline our responses, and then we present a reflection on the differences and similarities in the ways in which academic development plays out in our universities.

It is time to strengthen the conceptual focus of SoTL

Abstract: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has blossomed as a field of study over the past two decades. In addition to the highly successful conferences of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), there is now a substantial, growing, and diversifying range of refereed published outputs. Additionally, a considerable component of SoTL still occurs in the grey literature and through projects within institutions or disciplines. The purpose of this Research Note is not to suggest that all work in SoTL should satisfy the research paradigm and be published as a refereed output, but rather that it may be time to actively encourage scholars to give greater consideration to the potential benefits of adopting transversal measures, such as the use of concepts that bring together different lines of inquiry or locate their work within a theoretical or conceptual setting. The debate about the place of theory and concepts in SoTL is not new. Graham Gibbs mounted a trenchant critique of the lack of a theoretical base at the Washington, DC, ISSOTL conference in 2006. Hutchings (2007) presented an elegant response arguing that conceptual or theoretical dimensions are often present, albeit not necessarily as the dominant theme of the article or presentation. Of course, counterviews, such as those presented by Potter and Kustra (2011), continue to be aired. What would a stronger conceptual and/or theoretical dimension offer? Presently most of the output of SoTL is highly contextualised. Concepts and/or theory offer a means of going beyond specific concepts horizontally (within disciplines in the same institution), diagonally (across disciplines in the same institutions), supra-horizontally (across a discipline regionally, nationally, or internationally), and vertically (from microto mesoor macro-discussions and explorations). Why is that necessary? Not only are there pressing academic arguments in favour of some shift to transversal measures, but there are also strategic ones. Institutional managers increasingly want to see a widespread and permeating impact from the investment of time and staffing resources. Highly localised studies can function below the institutional radar and might not even be reported in national surveys of student opinion, which tend to function at the level of programmes rather than classes/modules.

Designing and supporting collaborative discipline-based curriculum change: applying Change Academy processes at department level

Abstract: Bringing about change in teaching and learning in higher education is a core aspect of the work of academic developers. This paper is novel in analysing the experience of a year-long initiative to support curriculum changes in departments in related disciplines in different universities. It applies some of the processes developed by Change Academy – an initiative sponsored by the UK Higher Education Academy and the Leadership Foundation – to the design of a three-day programme. Underpinned by consideration of models of institutional and curriculum change, the research draws on interviews to identify the features of the programme that appear to have been effective at supporting departmental teams to clarify, design and plan significant curriculum-related initiatives. Emphasis is placed on designing and supporting collaborative curriculum change. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for academic developers wanting to support department-based curriculum changes in their countries.

Learning in the global classroom: a guide for students in the multicultural university

Abstract: by Carol Dalglish, Peter Evans, and Lynda Lawson, Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011, 176 pp., £65 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-84844-869-8 This book focuses on student strategies to negotiate...

Transforming Bologna Regulations to a National and Institutional Context: The Role of Academic Developers. A case study based on the introduction of the European Qualification Framework in Norwegian Higher Education.

Abstract: Academic developers (ADs) often participate in the implementation of programs or reforms within higher education. Sometimes they agree with these and sometimes they disagree. This paper discusses possible agentic positions during an authentic policy implementation, i.e. the National Qualification Framework within a Norwegian university. Through reflexive interpretation, and by applying concepts from ’discursive institutionalism’ the process of implementation from the national level to the University departments, is described and analyzed. The actions and arguments of the ADs involved in the process are presented and their educational rationale is described. The ADs’ agency is discussed through educational and political science concepts and in light of power and of a tension between two competing world views: professional accountability and professional responsibility. Finally, we reflect upon the advantages with a collaborative and international investigation of AD’s professional s practices. (Less)

Mapping place and identity in academic development: a humanistic dialogue

Abstract: Responding to IJAD’s openness to experimentation, we present this dialogue as an invitation to readers to digress with us. We used dialogue because we wanted to capture some of the important work that conversation among intellectual peers can do, work that forms the basis of much learning at conferences, and indeed in the corridors and lounges of our workplaces, but that only rarely makes an appearance in the pages of journals. Haigh (2005) provides an analysis of conversation in academic development; although our humanistic dialogue is not illustrative of his sense of conversation, it has arisen exactly in that context for the two of us over time. As background, we work at the same institution but in different roles. Trevor is an academic developer whose disciplinary history is in literature and cultural studies, but who is now full-time support staff. Shannon is a recently tenured associate professor of philosophy. Though she does not have any official affiliation with the support unit where Trevor works, Shannon has been a participant in and an advocate for many of the programmes on offer. Methodologically speaking, what follows is a humanistic dialogue, not an interview (either in the journalistic sense or in the social science research sense of that term). The difference hinges on the definition of ‘subject’. In the social sciences, the subject is the interview subject, in fact the object of the researcher’s gaze. Trevor-the-developer could interview Shannon-the-professor, and perhaps others, code the resulting data, find themes and make an argument about conceptions of academic development, for example. Trevor could also incorporate autoethnography and thereby render himself a research subject (and hence, object) alongside Shannon. By contrast, the humanistic subject is the Kantian subject as agent. When two such subjects converse, both agents play some role in steering the conversation. The transcript is an archive of the mutual surprises, readjustments and fruitful wanderings. This approach introduces error, and no surprise there, because the Latin root of error is errare, to wander; our dialogues and yours are never a straight path, and it is exactly by wandering over terrain that we discover new geographies of place and identity.

Of passports, maps, and suitcases: geopolitical metaphors in academic development

Abstract: Working across borders – literal and metaphorical – brings to light unanticipated differences and fruitful exchanges. This Special Issue on Political Geographies in Academic Development started as workshops at the Educational Developers Caucus conferences in Canada and a symposium at the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) conference in Barcelona in 2010. In reality, this Special Issue shares a longer heritage in that some of the members of the Challenging Academic Development (CAD) Collective are involved in this extension of conversations which began in 2005 at ICED in Ottawa (see previous Special Issue of IJAD 12(1), 2007; Holmes & Grant, 2007). As such, we are contributing to some thinking that may be familiar to IJAD readers. We rely on previous thinking by Manathunga (2006, 2007) on post-colonial discourses and Lee and McWilliam (2008) on questions around academic developer identities and preoccupations, though some of these publications themselves are predated by CAD conversations. What is new here is the exploration of territoriality, place-based critique, and the politics of space and work. We challenged ourselves to think through metaphors of borders and border crossings, guarded borders, porous borders, large and small nations, mapping, and exploration. What began as an attempt to challenge a small but vocal suggestion at meetings and conferences that we be neutral or that our academic development units be seen as the ‘Switzerland’ of our schools has grown into a wider project generating more metaphors. Fundamentally, we ask – knowing that there will be differences at different institution types and in different national higher education systems – if the institution were the world, what does this entail for our work? Questions that have arisen along the way have included:

The shifting lenses of academic development: on identities, careers, and programmes

Abstract: In The Ground Beneath Her Feet, one of Salman Rushdie’s characters remarks that ‘[t]he only people who see the whole picture ... are the ones who step out of the frame’ (Rushdie, 1999, p. 43). It’s no coincidence that the narrator of that novel is a photographer – one who views the world through a lens, capturing it for posterity, sharing it with his audience. In some ways, the photographer’s world mirrors that of the researcher: our studies present metaphorical snapshots, providing readers with new perspectives as we seek to step back – out of the frame, as best we can – to see the larger picture, to consider the impact and implications of our findings. One of the pleasures of working with IJAD is having the opportunity to see the varied images captured by academic developers around the world and how they focus their lenses on different scales, from the big picture to the fine detail; in the behind-the-scenes review process, we also see how the feedback of expert colleagues helps authors bring into focus key insights from their projects. In this issue, we present articles from authors whose focus is trained on the nature of being an academic, on the careers of academic developers, and on the programmes and methods that academic developers commonly use. Our first pairing of articles examines academic identities. Neil McLean transfers a research method from psychology to a higher education setting. He proposes ‘discursive psychology’ as a means of interrogating new professors’ academic identity development, providing examples from a single tutor’s writing over a two-year period as part of a teaching portfolio. In so doing, McLean demonstrates how this approach can be used to track academics’ identity development and encourages us to consider adding it to our repertoire of qualitative methods in higher education research. The contribution from Damian Ruth and Kogi Naidoo – a developerturned-lecturer and an academic developer, respectively – contrasts with McLean’s: it is a study of their reflective journaling process over a medium timeframe, in which the authors analyse tensions in framing their enquiry, in separating (or not) the personal from the professional, and in professional academic practice itself. Their candid account and reflections offer academic developers insight into the potential of extended, structured one-on-one consultancy. Combined, these two articles ask us to consider the extent to which academic developers can nurture the identity formation of educators on our campuses and broaden our portfolio of approaches for this complex, messy, transformative work. For some of us, our own identity formation experiences a shift – in some cases a jolt – in transitioning roles from ‘regular’ academic to academic developer, dragInternational Journal for Academic Development Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2012, 93–95

Views from a former vice-chancellor

Abstract: After my first reading of the articles in this issue, I wondered whether the authors were navel gazing, as intriguing as the discussions of metaphors were. How would the identification of academic development units (ADUs) and developers as ‘Switzerland’, ‘middle power’ or ‘demilitarised zone’ help them in their actual work? Does it matter whether academic development is becoming a discipline? Does it matter whether academic developers see themselves as experts on teaching and learning or identify primarily with their original discipline? It clearly matters to those working in ADUs (Holmes et al.). The perception of others of the locus of the unit and the status of both the unit and its staff matter and may influence how willing academics are to engage with them. It is nearly 20 years ago that I left the ADU I had set up at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia to join the ranks of the senior executive at the University of Canberra as Pro, then Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Vice-President), followed by eight and a half years as Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University of New England. In the latter two universities, I set up ADUs, informed by my academic development experience. Having witnessed and experienced the anxiety academic developers have about their status, it was important to signal to the University community that the unit and the developers were academically autonomous while working within the strategic plan of the university. We/they were clearly not neutral. Indeed, I do not remember any discussion where neutrality was raised within either the unit or the stakeholders. Units were set up to facilitate excellence in teaching and learning and scholarship in teaching and to do this in a way that was informed by research and evidence. Academic development work was highly political where it was policy-oriented – as it was in all four universities I worked in. As academic developers, we wanted to be involved in policy development and, where appropriate, implementation. As a senior executive, I wanted the ADU to be the research and development centre for higher education; a resource to be drawn upon by the university in its endeavours to meet its strategic goals for teaching and learning and scholarship. I believed that the expertise of the ADU director could help develop the university’s strategic priorities and provide leadership in meeting our quality agenda as it aligned to governmental expectations. I also wanted the ADU to support academic staff in their striving to be excellent teachers across the

Professional academic development through professional journal dialogue

Abstract: This paper presents the cooperative analysis by a lecturer and an academic development practitioner of a reflective journal dialogue over the 12 weeks of teaching a postgraduate course. Through a retrospective analysis of the journal the present paper explores the following issues: the framing of an inquiry; the personal–professional nexus; and tensions in professional academic practice. These issues encompass educational dilemmas for both the lecturer and the academic development practitioner in the areas of assessment, judgement, evidence, accountability, responsibility, authority and professionalism.