Greetings to everyone and all best wishes for a restful winter break.

2013 is a really important year for SEDA and we look forward to celebrating with our members.

Do HE teacher development programmes have an impact on student learning?

Last wednesday I attended a HE Academy/Guardian Newspaper debate representing my VC. It will feed into a Guardian article to be published on 20th November. It raised some interesting questions, especially for those of us involved in these programmes. It was a good debate too mainly because the wide range of people involved held very different ,sometimes challenging, views on the value of such programmes and learning and teaching enhancement in general.It included university managers, students, educational developers and lecturers.

The debate was prompted by research commisioned by the HEA which pointed to the limited evidence of impact on student learning directly. You can see this here and hence the call for more research in this area.

Please look out for the article and use the online discussion forum to respond on 20th November.

In the meantime here are some of the views/questions which really got me thinking during the debate and which I think the SEDA community might also like to ponder:

1. Is it even possible  to find causal links between our teacher development programmes or even T&L initiatives and learning and teaching units  and the student learning experience? How do you separate the programme or the initiative and the other factors which create the learning experience? If it is, when might those links emerge? I began to think about Mentkowski's (2000) Learning that Lasts  work for example that tracked students 5 years after leaving.
2. If we can't measure impact then are we making ourselves vulnerable in the current political/economic climate? The debate included people who thought that some Pg certs were of low quality, should be closed down, mired in narrow social science paradigms, too academic (because people need teaching skills not scholarship), valued in a theraputic, self serving discourse (like homeopathy) rather than for  impact on student learning. Comments included - 'Often it's one man and a dog running these courses designed 'on  a wing and a prayer'
3. Is it true that our scholarship has focused too much on the impacts on the participants and our roles rather than impact on student learning?
4. Do we need programmes or merely spaces for academics to come together and do scholarship of L&T through action research  and hone skills and ideas?
5. What might the impacts on student learning look like and how might we measure them? Should we not start with figuring out what a good student experience should be like and the work backwards to the educational development required?
6. How do we encourage a culture where Vice Chancellor's push L+T and value it?
7. How much do we need to work with students to understand the evaluation of their HE learning experiences. UK National Students Survey is too narrow and suggests its about satisfaction not engagement / learning.
8. What provision might be shared across the sector? Not all HE providers are  in a position to offer PG certs or apply UKPSF - should we be looking at shared services?
9. Has there been too much focus on individuals and not enough on programmes?
10. HEA don't have the monopoly on UKPSF - what might be the implications in the UK?
11. Should the HEA or another body to offer a national programme?

Preparing for SEDA Executive Meeting 26 th 0ct

Wow looking at the agenda for Friday makes you realise how much is happening in SEDA at the moment:

• Preparations for SEDA's 20 th birthday continue afoot. Birthday lecture in January and Gala dinner after spring conference almost ready. lots of other things too. Look out for news soon.
• SEDA's PDF programmes in Learning and Teaching and Supporting Learning have been aligned to UKPSF to help colleagues who want to use them for CPD schemes. Thank you to Sally Brown for all her help and to the small advisory group.
• SEDA has now got agreement from HESA that SEDA programmes can be counted as teaching qualifications
• SEDA is making excellent progress with its JISC Digital literacies  project and SEDA now has a DL SIG which has its own blog http://sedasig.wordpress.com/
• SEDA is also making progress on the project for the HEA looking at use of UKPSF
• We have had an excellent response to call for papers for the November conference with David Willetts MP as one of the speakers and calls are out for next spring's conference in Leeds which will be followed by the SEDA@20 Gala Dinnerhttp://www.seda.ac.uk/index.php?p=4_1&t=1

Looking forward to seeing lots of people at the SEDA November conference at Aston Business School 

News Since May AGM - and apologies

Apologies for lack of posts over last few months. I think I have experienced the typical lull in blog enthusiasm after a few months and it was beginning to feel onerous when my institutional role was so busy. This is one of the hazards of having a SEDA co-chair who can offer an authentic voice from the from line of UK educational development - the front line is often so taxing that SEDA gets rather squeezed out.

So here is some selected news since the May Annual General Meeting:

1. The SEDA 2010-11 Annual report was presented at the AGM at the Chester Conference. The report indicated that despite a challenging year, SEDA's activities remained impressive and there was lots of evidence of good levels of engagement. membership income was robust and conferences had been very well attended. The report is available on the SEDA website http://www.seda.ac.uk/
2. A number of colleagues stood for positions on the SEDA executive. SEDA welcomes new executive members, a new vice chair Pam Parker City University and Stephen Bostock from Keele and Glyndwr Universities as co-chair. Further iformation is available on the website http://www.seda.ac.uk/
3. Roz Grimmitt is back from Argentina and is now heading up the SEDA office again.We are very pleased to have her back. Thanks to Silvia Sovic who covered while Roz was away and Ann Aitkin for the extra hours put in. SEDA continues to monitor admin processes to ensure efficiencies.
4. SEDA Summer School starts today. This year it has some sponsored places from JISC as part of the  Digital Literacies and Professional Associations project. SEDA also has a new Digital Literacies SIG linked to the project.
5. SEDA has run 3 very popular workshops to help members prepare for developing schemes mapped to the new UKPSF. Presentations can be found here
6. The November Developing the Developers conference will take place in  Aston Business School. David Willetts will be one of the keynote speakers and the theme is excellence on teaching in HE. More info here http://www.seda.ac.uk/?p=14_2&e=427
7. A good number of SEDA members are heading to Bangkok next week for the conference of the International Consortium of Educational Development and the ICED council. It will be very interesting to benchmark ourselves against other associations workdwide.
8. SEDA Twitter now has over 1000 followers @Seda_UK_

SEDA 20th Birthday celebration are being planned for 2013 with a Gala dinner, birthday awards and special publications and events.Check out the website for info...

Seasons Greeting from SEDA co-chair

Thank you to everybody who has been involved in whatever way with making 2011 such a good year for SEDA. Highlights have included:

• Sucessfully working with JISC as first professional body to receive funding from them  to co-ordinate the Embedding IT project . This has now led to a number of professional bodies, including SEDA receiving funding as part of the DIGITAL LITERACIES project.
• Two excellent conferences - one in Chester and one in Aston Business School which broke all records for attendance and twitter chat
• Invitations to contribute to the Govt HE White Paper on enhancing teaching
• Re-design of the SEDA Fellowship Programme and relaunch as the national recognition route for educational developers
• Contributing to the consultation on the UKPSF
• Making stronger links with NUS, UUK, ALDinHE, JORUM, HEDG and QAA
• Running first joint event with HE Academy
• The growth in numbers of universities and colleges wanting to develop SEDA Professional Development Programmes
• Welcoming new members onto SEDA executive
• Appointing Shan Wareing as Fellowships co-ordinator and  David Baume as Digital Literacies Project Officer
• Creating a new committee, chaired by Tony Brand to look after membership and entrepeneurial activity
• a SEDA JISC list which continues to buzz at the heart of educational development with discussion, debate and the collective wisdom on which SEDA thrives

I am sorry if I have missed anything or anybody. Thank you once again and all best wishes for 2012.

Julie Hall
Director of Leanring and Teaching Enhancement
University of Roehampton
London

SEDA's sucessful bid to the JISC Digital Literacies Project

SEDA has been successful in its proposal to support JISC Developing Digital Literacies Project with 11 other sector bodies and professional associations (ALDinHE, ALT, AUA, SCASP, LSIS, ODHE, SDF, HEDG, SCONUL, UCISA and Vitae). The 10k project will involve SEDA in disseminating and testing some of the utcomes from institutional Digital Literacies Projects relating to staff and educational development. One particular project, that at the Institute of Education actually has SEDA as a partner from the beginning and will look at developing digital literacy as a graduate attribute

SEDA is currently advertising for a development officer to support this work by embedding it into SEDA's one day events, conferences, publications professional development framework and courses. Anyone interested should contact office@seda.ac.uk

The sucess of SEDA's bid, builds upon a previous project last year with JISC - the first to involve a professional body in this way to aid dissemination and the embedding of new approaches.

The final report is available at:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/staffroles/embedit.aspx

Reflections on SEDA Conference 17th and 18th November

Had a great 2 days at SEDA conference. A key theme throughout was how we might ensure that technology leads to the real enhancement of pedagogic practice in HE. A fantastic range of people meant that technologists, academics and educational developers came together to debate how we might move this agenda forward and share ideas and experiences of doing so. At the same time people came across tools for educational development that they had perhaps not considered before. A well received workshop by Sue Beckingham and David Walker for example looked at how one might build professional  networks using social media . An extremely interesting symposium shared some of the open educational resources colleagues have been developing for Pg certs in Tearning and Teaching in HE.

The conference finished with a virtual and interactive keynote from Professor Susanne Quinsee which pulled together many of the strands which had developed over the 2 days. I particularly liked the way we were encouraged to consider the reasons for the gaps between available technology and practice in HE.

As you might expect Twitter was used extensively throughout the conference and Sue Beckinham has kindly created a wonderful story line sharing tweets which referred to particular parts of the conference

http://storify.com/suebecks/16th-annual-seda-conference-2011  Thanks Sue.

The hashtag for the conference was #sedaconf16. You can follow seda on twitter @seda_uk_

.

Please post comments below and we'd also be grateful if you would please complete the evaluation survey.

http://www2.napier.ac.uk/UltimateSurvey/Surveys/TakeSurvey.aspx?surveyid=1758

Thank you

SEDA Conference Using Technologyto Enhance Learning

Over the next two days Iwill report on the SEDA Conference at Aston University Business School UK.The programme looks really exciting and the conference venue is full. With this theme expect lots of twitter activity.Follow on twitter @seda_uk_   #sedaconf16

SEDA - summer news

Today, on behalf of SEDA Exec I have submitted a response to the BIS White Paper, based on the comments we received. In it we welcomed the focus on teaching excellence, warned about competition and suggested that the data on those meeting UKPSF at all levels could be helpful for students in choosing universities. We also welcomed the focus on rewarding teaching and promotion routes which reflect this.Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Over the summer, SEDA exec members held a meeting with William Locke, Head of Learning and Teaching at HEFCE. A point for discussion was the plan to open up degree awarding powers to bodies who wouldn't necessarily deliver the higher education programmes themselves. We discussed the kind of evidence that might be required by such bodies to indicate quality assurance and enhancement.

If you use Twitter, you may be interested in tweets from SEDA http://twitter.com/#!/Seda_UK_

SEDA is now taking registrations for its new Supporting and Leading Educational Change (Professional Qualification Course).

This is a 12 week online course designed to accredit your work in supporting and leading educational change. Successful completion confers elibility for Fellowship of SEDA.

For further details and a registration form, see www.seda.ac.uk

Any ideas for SEDA response to English White Paper?

http://c561635.r35.cf2.rackcdn.com/11-944-WP-students-at-heart.pdf

The consultation on the White Paper closes on the 2^nd September. SEDA exec would like to formulate a SEDA response and would welcome your views, particularly on the following which stem from Chapter 2:

·         The perceived link between information for prospective students and enhancing teaching excellence

·         Concerns about variations of student workload across subjects and institutions

·         Promotion routes which recognise teaching

·         Incentives for universities to focus on teaching

·         The publication of information for prospective and existing students about the teaching qualifications, fellowships and expertise of their teaching staff at all levels.

And from chapter 3 your views on this paragraph:

We want to ensure that English universities are at the forefront of

improvements in formal and informal feedback from students on their learning

experience. We believe that allowing students and lecturers within a university

to see this feedback at individual module level will help students to choose the

best course for them and drive an improvement in the quality of teaching.

So we expect all universities to publish summary reports of their student

evaluation surveys on their websites by 2013/14. Before this, we will work

with the Higher Education Council for England (HEFCE), the National Union of

Students (NUS) and others, to agree the information and format that will be

most helpful to students.

Any responses received by 1^st September will feed into the SEDA response.

Kind regards

Julie Hall

SEDA co-chair

New Programme Leader for Supporting and Leading Educational Change

I am pleased to announce that Dr Celia Popovic SFSEDA has been appointed programme leader of SEDA's on line course. The next course begins in the autumn and information can be found on the seda website.

Message from Dr Shan Wareing new SEDA Fellowships Co-ordinator

Fellowships co ordinator.

I’m introducing myself as the new SEDA Fellowships Co-ordinator, a role I’m delighted to take on, as a chance to promote and support this really important area. I only appreciated how important SEDA has been to me when I put my National Teaching Fellowship application together this year. Using the application to review my work over the last 16 years made me realise how profound SEDA's role in my own professional development has been.

I will be the first point of contact for anyone thinking about applying for Associate Fellowship, Fellowship or Senior Fellowship, so give me a ring (020 7514 8051) or drop me an email (s.wareing@arts.ac.uk). 

Information about the new scheme is now available on the SEDA website under Fellowships.  The recent changes hopefully make the scheme easier to join and have streamlined the processes for gaining professional recognition at the level that’s right for you at the moment.  We’re seeking feedback so drop me a line if there’s anything you want to ask or tell me about the scheme.

I had my first phone call this week with someone interested in applying for the Senior Fellowship – a very enjoyable half an hour talking about educational development work and how the Fellowship scheme might fit into future plans.  I’m really looking forward to working with the community of SEDA Fellows at all three levels in the future.

SEDA UPDATE

• The Universities White Paper says, ' We encourage higher education institutions to publish anonymised information for prospective and existing students about the teaching qualifications, fellowships and expertise of their teaching staff at all levels.' HEFCE will lead on this and respond by April 2012. SEDA is keen to be involved in the consultation and would welcome your views.

• SEDA exec has been asked to contribute to another Times Higher article on qualifications to teach in HE so look out for the usual arguments for and against once again :)

• We have had lots of high quality applications for the posts of tutor and course leader of the new Supporting and Leading Educational Change Programme. The panel will be able to announce results  very soon. Thank you to all applicants. The programme will begin in October.

• SEDA Summer School starts next week.This programme is always positively evaluated by participants and we wish all involved best wishes for another successful 'school'.

• SEDA website front page is being revamped over the summer. We hope you'll like it. We have added a news section and will add twitter and blog links. Thanks to all those who responded to this blog with such suggestions.

• SEDA PDF - Are you looking for a flexible CPD programme for particular groups of staff in your university that you can adapt while providing national recognition? Find out how more and more universities are using the SEDA Professional Development Framework http://www.seda.ac.uk/professional-development.html?p=3_1_5

• After a fantastic response to the call for papers, rregistration is open for:

  16th Annual SEDA Conference November 2011

  Using Technology to Enhance Learning

Announcements - Sir Michael Barber to join Pearson as Chief Education Advisor

Announcements - Sir Michael Barber to join Pearson as Chief Education Advisor

Lots decided and debated at the SEDA exec away day at Cumberland Lodge

2 days of SEDA discussion has resulted in plans for:

• this blog
• a whole year of activities to celebrate SEDA's 20th birthday in 2013. Liz Shrives is co-ordinating a group but is keen to hear of any ideas or offers of help. liz.shrives@btinternet.com
• a project to review membership packages
• formal links between the co-chairs and vice chair and key bodies like UUK, QAA, AUA etc. Also to ensure that we link with key bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• a project to review all SEDA leaflets and marketing material
• SEDA preparations for the Universities White Paper and the HEA report on UKPSF
• launching a new SEDA course: Supporting and Leading Educational Change
• SEDA protocols for working with external bodies

Lovely accommodation ,great food, lively debates,a bracing walk at 7.30am and lots of discarded post its and flip chart paper! We welcomed new exec member Yaz El Hakim from Winchester and shared our current challenges and opportunities. What a range of experiences across the sector!

Other SEDA news:

• Shan Wareing University of the Arts appointed SEDA Fellowships co-ordinator
• New SEDA course Supporting/ Developing  Work-based Learning has been successful with its first co-hort
• Great response to the call for papers for the November SEDA conference
• Lots of requests for SEDA to be a partner in JISC bids after JISC recognition of success of previous WORK-WITH -IT SEDA JISC Project
• SEDA Writing Retreat is once again proving popular
• The annual SEDA Summer School is coming up soon
• As co-chair I have had meetings with QAA and Educational Competencies Consortium
• Caroline Stainton co-chair attended the AUA Gala Dinner

Help required!
Fiona Campbell and Celia Popovic invite participants for their research into what works in conferences. We are researching the impact of participation in educational development conferences on changes to academic practice. We need your help to identify what works, why it works and what processes at conferences make a difference to individual and institutional practice. Conferences are popular and are usually valued by participants, but they are also expensive and time consuming. After several years’ experience planning and organising national conferences with SEDA and local events in our own institutions, we feel it is timely to identify what works best. To date there has been surprisingly little research in this area.
We are seeking conference organisers willing to engage with our research. Participating conferences agree to circulate our online survey. We will follow-up willing participants three months after the conference with an online interview to a randomised selection of respondents to find out if any impact has resulted, to what extent the conference participation prompted this and what else has enabled or prevented hoped-for change. We will provide a summary of responses to each conference organiser, and will share the full anonymised results with the sector after the conclusion of this work in May 2012.
If you are organising a conference and are interested in taking part, please contact Fiona (f.campbell@napier.ac.uk) or Celia (celia.popovic@gmail.com)