Departmental Learning

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Departmental Learning Teaching Strategies

• John Dickens
• Director, LTSN Engineering
• Associate Dean (Teaching) of Engineering,
  Loughborough University

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• Why have Department Strategies?
• What should be in them?
• How should they be created?
• How should they be monitored?

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Session Structure

• National Context
• Group session
• Round up session

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University LT Strategies

• 1999 TQEF Funding required University LT
  strategies
• 2002 TQEF requires universities to update LT
  strategies

• Who writes them?
• What impact do they have on departments?
• What impact do they have on student experience?

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Government Policy(HEFCE 24/02)

• We want to have a clear strategic alliance
  between our strategies for learning and teaching,
  widening participation, and disability, within a
  framework that has the key objective of
  maintaining and improving quality and standards
  in learning and teaching.

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National Priority Areas

• widening participation (50 by 2010)
• ensuring fair access to higher education
• maintaining and improving retention rates
• enhancing the employability of graduates and
  diplomates
• encouraging and disseminating good and innovative
  practice in support of high quality learning and
  teaching

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Supply Demand(HEFCE 01/62)

• No increase in numbers of 16 year-olds in
  education since 1994
• No significant increase expected in applicants to
  HE with A-level or equivalent qualifications
• Growth must come from under represented groups

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Students with Disabilities

• SENDA legislation now in effect
• Need to have taken all reasonable steps to make
  learning accessible
• Learning Teaching offered to students with
  special needs should not be ghettoised

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QAA Audit

• Need to have defined learning outcomes
• Need to demonstrate attainment of learning
  outcomes
• Need to demonstrate appropriate standards

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HEFCE Good Practice Guides

• Institutional LTS (IS) Guide to good Practice
  (99/55)
• HEFCE have commissioned the NCT to write a guide
  for departmental strategies (DS)
• examples of DS sought
• few instances of awareness/alignment with IS
• evidence of strategic views on LT
• some good WP initiatives
• responsive not pro-active to disabilities issues
• no integrated strategies
• HEFCE Publication 02/48

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Where are we?

• HEs must align is some way to government policy
• policy moving from quality assurance to quality
  enhancement
• initiatives such as widening participation,
  access and SENDA will all impact on the mix of
  students we teach
• these priority areas can only be delivered in
  departments

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Discussion Groups

• Does your department have an integrated strategy?
• What is the awareness level of academics of
  institutional strategy?
• How should department strategies be developed?
• What key points would appear in an action plan
  that could demonstrate the effective
  implementation of the strategy

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Loughborough experience

• One department in each faculty to produce an
  integrated strategy
• Team to propose the way forward
• ADT, Directors of Staff Development, LT
  Development and Quality Enhancement units, plus
  departmental reps.
• Departmental reps developed the strategy with all
  staff at departmental meetings

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Background

• Research led, grade 5 wants a 5 and more staff
  returned, and to increase research income
• High quality intake, large numbers of applicants
• Retention rates could be better and some over
  reliance on resits
• Staff perceive that their assessment load is
  excessive

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Actions planned

• Retention
• mid-sessional tests, tutorial attendance
  monitoring, interviews with under-performing
  students
• Assessment load
• share good practice, use of CAA where appropriate
• WP
• some use of differential admissions offers

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Positive outcomes

• Holistic look at what they are doing which builds
  on work on programme specifications/ benchmarking
  in the previous year
• Written and owned by the department
• Some actions identified to address some issues

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Development ?

• Limited engagement with WP issues but this may be
  appropriate.
• Responsive rather than pro-active on disability
  issues. Need institutional support to move
  forward
• Strategy is a first draft. It should produce
  some small changes in activity and outcomes but
  will need regular update and may need to become
  more ambitious

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