Who says academics don’t do CPD? Connecting practitioners and developing together through distributed cross-institutional collaborative CPD in the open

Abstract

In this paper, the author shares an emerging model to engage academics and other professionals who teach or support learning in Higher Education (HE) with continuing professional development (CPD). The model fosters informal cross-institutional collaboration through distributed and diverse communities of professionals for them to learn and develop with and from each other. A potpourri of pedagogical initiatives developed and offered as open educational practices and resources interwoven into each other using social media has been included. These illuminate opportunities for cross-institutional and cross-cultural CPD, highlight challenges as well as invite further exploration and research in this area. Initial evidence indicates that open practices are changing the academic development landscape, and informal cross-institutional collaborations among HE Institutions and other partners can provide valuable opportunities for self-organised informal and formal academic CPD that strengthens relationships internally and externally and has an impact on practices and the student experience.