Congreso Internacional de Docencia Universitaria e Innovación (CIDUI)

1. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: a
Basis for a Framework for Measuring the
Quality of University Staff
Jo Peat
Co-chair of SEDA
Head of Academic Professional
Development, University of Roehampton

2. University of Roehampton

3. Frameworks

4. Faculty say …
• ‘The status is neither necessary nor sufficient
for being a good teacher. In fact, I think there
is an inverse relationship between how quickly
you get status and how good a teacher you
are. Good teachers are generally too busy
trying to produce high quality teaching and
helping students to take the time out to apply
for fellowship.’ (Faculty member)

5. Faculty say …
• ‘I have really valued the time I have had to put
aside to reflect on the work I do as a teacher
in higher education. I am very proud of my
teaching and it is very gratifying to have this
recognised officially in this way. Thank you!’
(Faculty member)

6. Professionalisation of faculty
• There is, of course, a long-standing debate
about the connections between
professionalisation and improvements in
student learning experiences and outcomes.
We don’t even have a consensus on what
might constitute teacher or teaching
excellence. (Gunn & Fisk, 2013; Law, 2011;
Little, Locke, Parker, & Richardson, 2007;
Rostan & Vaira, 2011).

7. Pressures on faculty
• ‘And now they get published, the results of
these evaluation forms, which puts, I think,
even more pressure on us to do more and
more and more, instead of saying “sorry, bad
pedagogy”’. (Faculty member)

8. The UK Professional Standards
Framework (UKPSF)
• The UKPSF document is seen as one means of
measuring performance of teaching: the
framework provides descriptions of the
dimensions of activity, core knowledge and
professional values associated with the
performance of teaching, and associated
leadership, roles, and by extension is designed to
assist institutions in defining threshold and
excellence standards within them (Gunn & Fisk,
2013; Law, 2011; Little, Locke, Parker, &
Richardson, 2007; Rostan & Vaira, 2011).

9. Browne Report, 2010
• ‘Institutions require all new academics with
teaching responsibilities to undertake a
teaching training qualification and that the
option to gain such a qualification is made
available to all staff – including researchers
and postgraduate students – with teaching
responsibilities.’ (Browne, 2010, p. 50)

10. National Union of Students and
Quality Assurance Agency
• Students want academic staff to develop their
teaching styles to be more engaging,
interactive and use technology and props to
make the subject more accessible and
interesting. Developing an active learning style
is a teaching skill which needs to be taught
and developed over time, and 34% of students
in this research articulated that they wanted
their lecturers to have better teaching skills.
(QAA & NUS, 2012)

11. Teaching Excellence Framework
• Key Criteria:
– Teaching Quality
– Learning Environment
– Student Outcomes and Learning Gain
Pedagogic CPD and evidence of this is core in this
framework.

12. Recent shifts and developments
• Increasing evidence of impact required for
development programmes
• Introduction of Key Information Set (KIS)
• Introduction of student fees
– Student expectations
– Institutional accountability
• UKPSF

13. SEDA and the UKPSF
• SEDA initiated the training and accreditation of faculty
in the early 19902 and passed it on to new national
agencies to run it (now the Higher Education Academy
(HEA)).
• SEDA therefore played a central role in designing the
national standards.
• SEDA continues to offer accreditation for its own
awards. Two are with the UKPSF, and continues to
support faculty in a number of ways.
• SEDA was the leading light behind the development
and large-scale adoption of post-graduate certificates
in learning and teaching in higher education

14. UKPSF and the HEA
• The UKPSF is a Framework agreed and owned by
the higher education sector.
• It seeks to recognise experience and expertise in
teaching and supporting learning in higher
education
• There are 4 levels at which to be recognised:
Descriptors 1 – 4.
• Levels are not to be seen as role-related.
• These levels have been badged by the Higher
Education Academy (HEA) to allow for formal
recognition.

15. Aims of the UKPSF
:
1. Supports the initial and continuing professional
development of staff engaged in teaching and
supporting learning
2. Fosters dynamic approaches to teaching and
learning through creativity, innovation and
continuous development in diverse academic and/or
professional settings
3. Demonstrates to students and other stakeholders
the professionalism that staff and institutions bring
to teaching and support for student learning
4. Acknowledges the variety and quality of teaching,
learning and assessment practices that support and
underpin student learning
5. Facilitates individuals and institutions in gaining
formal recognition for quality-enhanced approaches
to teaching and supporting learning, often as part of
wider responsibilities that may include research
and/or management activities

16. Uses for the UKPSF

17. UKPSF

18. UKPSF Dimensions

19. How to gain professional recognition
• Direct written submission to the HEA
• Accredited courses
• Accredited professional recognition schemes
that reflect the institutional ethos
– Accredited by the Higher Education Academy
– Reviewed/reaccredited every 3 years
– Can encompass a number of initiatives, but
everything must be mapped to the UKPSF.

20. What we do at Roehampton
• Our scheme is called URRAP: University of
Roehampton Reflective Account of Practice)
– allows all staff in an academic or academic-related
post, who have responsibility for teaching and/or
supporting learning to have their experience and
expertise recognised.
– mapped against the UK Professional Standards
Framework (UKPSF) and accredited by the Higher
Education Academy (HEA)

21. URRAP: what is it?
• Collection and presentation of evidence of
experience and expertise in teaching and/or
supporting learning
• Must be reflective and demonstrate application
of SoTL
• Available to all academic and academic-related
staff
• Supported, structured, collegial process
• Applications assessed by an internal panel with
external representation

22. Some reflections on the UKPSF and
certificated professional development
• Top-down compliance
• Quality assurance rather than quality
enhancement
• Positive impact on some participants
• Tensions between the duality of the academic
identity: am I a teacher or a researcher? How
can I excel at both?

23. Some reflections on the UKPSF and
certificated professional development
•affirms one’s identity as a teaching-focused
academic
•recognises teaching in more varied academic roles
•national recognition and a means of demonstrating
parity between HEIs
•provides an opportunity for a conversation around
teaching and the support of learning
HEA Impact Study Report (2010)

24. Some reflections on the UKPSF and
certificated professional development
• Positions a focus on pedagogic practices, which
hitherto seemed to have diminished in
comparison with research
• Positions a focus on SoTL: knowledge and
application
• It can also be considered a device to encourage
academics to move away from the artificial
teaching/research divide
• Bringing together of pedagogy and discipline-
focussed research

25. Benefits come from reflectiveness, and
the UKPSF specifically emphasises the
importance of reflection

26. Some reflections on the UKPSF and
certificated professional development
• Routes to recognition are about more than
just reflection: there is significant emphasis on
pedagogy and SoTL
• Internal schemes are devised to encourage
interpersonal sharing and support as part of a
‘communities of practice’ approach
• The focus is positioned on student learning
gain, facilitated through teaching

27. Shulman and Hutchings, 1999
• ‘It is important to stress that faculty in most fields
are not […] in the habit of – nor do they have the
training for – framing questions about their
teaching and students’ learning and designing the
systematic inquiry that will open p those
questions. Indeed one of the most fundamental
hurdles to such work lies in the assumption that
only bad teachers have questions or problems
with their practice.’
• For me, this is where the UKPSF and associated
recognition schemes have their place.

28. An institutional view
Julie Hall, Professor of Higher Education and
Deputy Provost, University of Roehampton
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfiZIK828
dg&feature=youtu.be&list=PL8vTun7eB_Yxswj
UHdPLtkJRbCCNlmgSv

29. Some reflections on the UKPSF and
certificated professional development:
challenges
• Academics having to prove themselves again
• Internal politics
• Key performance indicators (quality assurance
measurements)
• Artificial indicators of teaching quality
• Compliance rather than culture shift,
• Considered as unnecessary and a flagrant
disregard and lack of recognition of the high
quality of colleagues’ work to date

30. Some reflections on the UKPSF and
certificated professional development:
challenges
• It is seen as being heavily oriented towards
the Social Sciences, requiring some applicants
to adopt a discourse which is completely alien
to some practices
• Difficult to persuade colleagues that
engagement has any more merit than just
keeping line managers at bay and being
eligible for promotion and progression.

31. Good Standing
• The UKPSF was originally
conceived as a vehicle to drive
a continuous cycle of
pedagogic CPD. Need a
requirement to remain in good
standing or this will not
happen for many faculty.
• At present, this requirement
has still not been enforced.
Colleagues just have to submit
a successful application and
they are then recognised ‘for
life’.
• Is this form of CPD meaningful
without the requirement to
remain in good standing?

32. What does the teaching community
think?

33. What do academics themselves think
of recognition?
• ‘It is an indicator for current and future
students that my teaching has been externally
checked and validated.’
• ‘I immediately put the certificate on my office
wall. It may have gained some sarcastic
comments from colleagues but I wanted
students to see that a professional is teaching
them.’

34. But …
• ‘The status is neither necessary nor sufficient
for being a good teacher. In fact, I think there
is an inverse relationship between how quickly
you get status and how good a teacher you
are. Good teachers are generally too busy
trying to produce high quality teaching and
helping students to take the time out to apply
for fellowship.’

35. Student voice
• ‘I want my lecturers to know about teaching,
you know, about how we learn. I know that I
don’t learn in the same way as all my friends
so I expect my teachers to know that too. I
expect them to be able to look at us and think
‘maybe they need something different’ and
then to know what that might be.’

36. Student Voice
• I sort of think I can tell when one of my
teachers has done one of those courses or got
one of those teaching certificates. You know,
they sort of seem to think about their
teaching a bit more. They don’t just stand and
talk at us for hours. They think about how to
involve us and it makes it more exciting. That’s
when I feel like I’m a university student. And I
like that!’

37. What of SoTL?
• So, what is the link
between the UKPSF and
SoTL?
• Does having a PSF have
any bearing on the
quality of teaching and
supporting learning?
• Does it improve
engagement with and
use of SoTL?

38. Engagement with the UKPSF is the most
frequently cited activity in the UK to support
SoTL.
• According to the HEA:
– ‘SoTL is a model that is used in the higher education
(HE) sector to reflect on, and transform, teaching and
learning practices. It focuses on teaching and learning
strategies underpinning the curriculum, and promotes
research-informed teaching. Increasingly, it also seeks
to involve students by providing opportunities to learn
in research-mode and to develop undergraduate
research. SoTL is a research-led form of professional
development, and has the potential to inform policy
and practice at institutional level, for example, in
career development and in the promotion and
recognition of teaching excellence’

39. Examples of SoTL at use with the
UKPSF
• In the UK PSF we see explicit reference to scholarship.
• Clearly aligned to the development of practice and professional
recognition.
• Those who have developed institutional schemes have applied the
UKPSF to reflect upon, increase awareness of, and advance SoTL
• In many institutional schemes SoTL is articulated in explicit
institutional policies, strategies and guidelines, promotions criteria
and new approaches to teaching and learning.
• By fostering dynamic, creative and innovative approaches to
teaching and learning through continuous development, UKPSF can
support sharing of practices underpinned by SoTL.
• Impacts of these practices can demonstrate to students and other
stakeholders the benefits that SoTL brings to student learning as
well as professional development.

40. Does having the UKPSF help to
develop engagement with SoTL?
• Very difficult to claim a real causal relationship
and no-one has yet tried to do this.
• Signs that this framework is making a difference
in terms of generating real reflection on practice
and raising awareness of changes and innovations
in the sector.
• This in itself is of huge benefit and we can,
perhaps, claim that this is jogging faculty out of a
sense of complacency in terms of their teaching.
• A direct link to quality has yet to be established,
yet anecdotally, this seems to be happening.

41. Does SoTL really underpin the UKPSF?
Consider different definitions of SoTL:
• SoTL is ‘ongoing learning about teaching and the demonstration of such
knowledge; (Kreber and Cranton, 2000)
• SoTL is ‘problem posing about an issues of teaching or learning, study of
the problem through methods appropriate to the disciplinary
epistemologies, application of results to practice, communication of
results, self-reflection and peer review. (Cambridge, 2001)
• SoTL is’ engagement with the existing knowledge on teaching and
leanring, self-reflection on teaching and learning in one’s discipline, and
public sharing of ideas about teaching and learning. (Martin et al, 1999)
The ‘fit’ here becomes apparent.

42. Conclusions
• Work with colleagues and encourage them to reflect on
what they do in that really enhances the learning of
students.
• Continuous nature of reflection and change that lead to
improvement in practice, not one-off engagement.
• Consider how to maximise the benefits of a framework and
ensure it becomes embedded in a cycle of continuing
professional development that is career-long and
institution-wide and has a genuinely developmental focus.
• We need to ensure that all processes are underpinned by
SoTL to embed quality in terms of assurance and
enhancement in all of our teaching and support of learning.