DEBUT - Personalised Staff Development

DEBUT personalised staff development Wayne Barry Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (LTEU) Canterbury Christ Church University

… established in 1962 first teacher training college founded by C of E in 20 th Century … largest centre in HE for the Public Services – teacher training; policing; health and social care … … in 2005 , awarded full University title 5 Faculties – Arts & Humanities; Business & Management; Education; Health & Social Care; Social & Applied Sciences … a teaching-led University … … approx 15,000 students – diverse student corpus (mature / part-time / international / widening participation) about Canterbury Christ Church …

where’s Canterbury Christ Church?

DEBUT in a nutshell … D igital E xperience B uilding in U niversity T eaching started life as an HEA funded project ... it piloted a new approach to ICT staff development ... … the aim is to enable programme participants to be more aware and more confident in exploiting a wide range of modern technologies – to be become digitally literate … … uses a personalised , contextualised , approach to developing digital literacy in staff based on the individual context and needs of participants … … now an embedded programme run by the LTEU on an annual basis …

why DEBUT ? involvement in the HEA Benchmarking e-Learning Exercise … … showed widespread use of the VLE in the institution but few examples of creative practice , or use of other digital tools. … meanwhile, the range of digital tools, and their uses is rapidly increasing, but students need support to critically use these to support their learning. systems-based staff development on different tools was not resulting in incremental gains in staff confidence in using digital tools … to develop our use of learning technologies in a sustainable way, we needed to explore new approaches which developed the digital confidence levels of staff rather than their skills on particular systems.

key elements of DEBUT … … Year One of DEBUT, expressions of interest were sought across the University … … 25 staff were accepted onto the pilot … … were representative of the academic and demographic profile of the institution … having different digital literacy levels … … asked to rank their digital literacy levels at the outset and end of the project … … some tools were standard University technologies, some were external Web 2.0 tools and others were technologies new to the institution, such as podcasting … a wide choice of digital tools (23) were offered … which they needed undertake a minimum of 6 , to gain a range of digital experiences …

key elements of DEBUT … … participants were helped in selecting tools which had meaning for them and suited their context through a demonstration and individual interviews … they were then asked to evaluate each experience … … tools were supported by a variety of staff development approaches (including workshop, 1:1 and self-directed) and each tool was offered between 1 and 3 times over the 10 months of the programme, depending on its popularity …

a bit about digital literacy ... Source: http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5iss4/martin-grudziecki.pdf interest in the concept of digital literacy derived from Allan Martin and colleagues on the DigEULit project ... “ ... digital literacy is the awareness , attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify , access , manage , integrate , evaluate , analyse and synthesise digital resources, construct new knowledge , create media expressions , and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action , and to reflect upon this process.” suggests that digital literacy is cultural rather than technological and is socially located ... no ‘ one size fits all ’, e-literacy is dynamic – needs of individuals will change as their situation and environment change ...

a bit about digital literacy ... Source: http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5iss4/martin-grudziecki.pdf Martin suggests that for the individual, e-literacy consists of five elements : awareness of the IT and information environment confidence in using generic IT and information tools evaluation of information-handling operations and products; reflection on one’s own e-literacy development adaptability and willingness to meet e-literacy challenges. The DEBUT programme uses these elements to construct the digital literacy scale on which participants could position themselves, from 1 ( complete beginner ) through to 5 ( expert ), at the beginning and end of the programme.

lessons learnt ... … key indicator of the pilot’s success was evidence of a marked increase in the digital literacy levels of the participants … … all but the most experienced had made progress on their digital journey, very significant progress in a number of cases … … participants commented on the increase in their ability and confidence not only with the tools they had experienced as part of DEBUT, but with digital tools generally … … many participants also immediately integrated the use of their chosen tools into their practice …

lessons learnt ... … key success factors quoted by the participants were … … most favoured staff development approach was group sessions where homework was given and a follow-up session enabling the opportunity to learn from others was provided … 1) the awareness raising events at the outset of the programme … 2) contextualised staff development … 3) the opportunity to explore a range of digital tools … 4) exploring these tools intensely within a short time frame … 5) the support provided … 6) the opportunity to share practice …

lessons learnt ... … key issues were … 1) mixed ability groups could be an issue … 3) relationships built on expertise and trust … 2) more differentiation needs to be built into programme … 4) time available to spend on staff development … 5) easy access to appropriate technologies …

moving forward ... … the positive outcomes from the project have led to the University committing to DEBUT being embedded as an annual programme … learning from the lessons in year one … … cohort 2 ran in June 2008 and cohort 3 began in June 2009 … … aims is to continue working on DEBUT with a new cohort of participants to further evaluate and enhance the approach … taking lessons learnt from the initial pilot we are … 1) asking participants to explicitly think how they can link DEBUT to their current work … 2) providing more group activities with follow-ups to enable sharing of practice … 3) building in more activities to allow for differentiation …

moving forward ... … working with year one participants to enable a longitudinal study of the impact on the student experience resulting from the first year of DEBUT … … DEBUT as a key element in the drive to build institutional e-capacity , to foster a community of digitally confident staff who can exploit technologies for themselves and, alongside the LTEU and support colleagues … … envisage DEBUT involving staff from across the University – not just the academic faculties … … would like to see the programme being used strategically by all departments …

any questions ?

DEBUT - Personalised Staff Development

by Wayne Barry on Jun 24, 2009

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DEBUT - Personalised Staff Development — Presentation Transcript