Toward a Holistic View of Staff Development of Regional Tutorial Staff at the Open University

Abstract

This paper presents a personal account of the theory and practice of staff development of Open University (OU) tutorial staff, based on nearly 30 years' experience, during which I have consciously reflected on my work, continually building on what has seemed important. It results from an extensive process of reflection in which I have tried to capture an understanding of what I do, with the aid of systems models. Some of the basic assumptions and systems models I present have more or less stood the test of time for a number of years; others are the result of my latest reflections. I show how I have used systems concepts and methods to form a coherent, holistic framework for developing tutorial staff in the East Anglian Region of the OU. Two aspects of this work are emphasized: first, the role that staff development can play in improving tutors' basic skills and understanding of their role; second, how the quality of their work is managed through using feedback and the notions of single- and double-loop learning. An important feature of this work has been the setting-up of communities of practice which enable learning by individual tutors to be shared with their peers and transformed into organizational learning for general use. Starting with some basic assumptions about staff development, a number of systemic models are presented which fit into a coherent framework, linking theory to practice and embodying Rene Dubos' (1972) well-known dictum to "Think globally, act locally."