Academic Development Practitioners Research Articles

Holding a mirror up to Academic Development through the HELTASA (un)conferencing methodology

We, Academic Development (AD) practitioners, question whether AD's objective in South Africa (SA) as a 'liberatory educational and social movement' to enhance educational quality for all students, is effectively pursued. AD practitioners often work on the fringes of the academy, fighting for relevance and legitimacy within an increasingly performative and managerialist academic culture. Despite innovative AD initiatives AD work is criticised for being unresponsive, unreflexive, conformist, and lacking theoretical, scholarly, and critical engagement. We use critical pedagogical praxis, particularly the constructs of critique, reflexivity, power, and self-reflection, to interrogate the continuous tension between AD intention and practice. Through (un)conference methodology, this auto-ethnographic account of individual and collective engagements, using the "holding the mirror up" metaphor, critically questioned the tension and misalignments between the AD mandate and practices. Although in a SA higher education context, this research could be beneficial to HE contexts globally, given the ubiquity of AD work.

Shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference: A collaborative reflective perspective on conceptual disruption

The move from the traditional academic conference format to a loosely defined format of unconference can be contentious and spark a robust debate on the conceptual disruption of conferencing. As part of HELTASA’s strategic plan of re-structuring and re-imagining its vision and purpose, it initiated a new way of conferencing; participant-driven and participant-focused. Through self-reflective written narratives, this paper explores three academic development practitioners' experiences in planning and reflecting on the HELTASA’s (un)conference. We share our accounts of (un)conference as a conceptual disruption to the traditional conference format, concepts, and ways of doing and being. Qualitative data were collected from the three written narratives through a collective descriptive autoethnography research design and methodology. The insights collected are applied to the Conceptual Disruption Framework which proposes a tripartite framework for conceptual disruption, which distinguishes conceptual disruptions occurring at three levels (individual concepts, clusters of concepts, conceptual schemes), taking on two forms (conceptual gaps, conceptual conflicts), and leading to three distinct levels of severity (mild, moderate, severe). Using this framework, we describe our personal thoughts and perspectives in engaging with the novel approach of (un)conferencing. We probe into the potential of collaborative reflection to gain deeper insights and understanding of our shift from a traditional academic conference to a HELTASA (un)conference. We explore the discomfort, displacement, and learnings of the intentional disruption of our conceptual understanding of (un)conference practices. This paper highlights our shifting mindsets as we reflect and interrogate our thoughts and perspectives on the conceptual framing of (un)conferencing. The analysis of the data reveals that the engagement in the conceptual disruption of (un)conferencing together with the engagement with the concept planning and event provided the environment and atmosphere where the team appreciated brainstorming conceptual understandings, self-reflecting, and exploring different perspectives. This study provides empirical evidence of strength in collaboration, the building of conceptual disruption as a community of practice and possibility of (un)conferencing being a shape-shifter in higher education. At an interpersonal level, the process allowed us to self-interrogate the conceptual disruption, unpacking our thoughts and shaping our own thinking. The paper asserts that shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference, involves conceptual disruption which is a messy process and requires a level of trust, openness, adaptability amongst all members of the organising team.

On ‘Becoming’ Contemplative Academic Development Practitioners: Reflections through Collaborative Autoethnography

The onslaught of COVID-19 heralded a turn in higher education as society has begun to question the purpose, values and practices of higher education. COVID-19 presented the unique opportunity to re-imagine and re-envision how one conceptualises the roles and responsibilities of academic development practitioners. How are they responding to their own evolving selves, their environmental cues, and shaping the shifts of redirection within higher education? In this article, we draw from two research traditions to examine the processes of re-imagining academic developers’ becoming: contemplative pedagogy and collective autoethnography. In our data collection, we use the concurrent model in autoethnography as we draw on personal memory data, archival materials, self-observation, self-reflection, self-analysis and interviews with each other. This contributed to a thick description of our personal and professional lives and practices. We show how these collective research traditions and approaches provided nuanced understandings of the role of place and space in evolving academic development in higher education. This article argues for the value of a contemplative autoethnography as an approach to transforming academic development practices, particularly in providing insight into professional development, identity and personal experience.

Inclusion of students as key stakeholders and agents in the induction of new university teachers: Disrupting the induction status quo

Ample research exists on the induction of new academics (NAs) or new university teachers (NUTs), but scholars are silent on students’ inclusion in such inductions. It is on this basis that this paper prompted the views of NAs on the inclusion of students in the induction of new academics. As academic development practitioners, who are part of the New Academics’ Transitioning into Higher Education Project (NATHEP) from 2019 and 2022, we submit and argue that the inclusion of students as partners in the induction of NAs empowers students to take ownership of their learning as students and affords them an opportunity to amplify their voices and contribute meaningfully to higher education spaces. This paper, underpinned by the Theory of Human Care and the Ethics of Care Theory, adopted a qualitative research approach in which both exploratory and explanatory research designs were triangulated. Utilising thematic data analysis, the findings of this paper were drawn from the induction questionnaires distributed and collected from NAs during induction. This paper found that the inclusion of students during induction provides NAs with an opportunity to interact with students and understand students’ challenges and expectations regarding critical teaching and learning issues. This paper has implications for both AD practitioners and higher education institutions on how the inclusion of students should be understood concerning professional development initiatives such as the induction of NAs.

“You become academic royalty once you’ve published”: A social practice exploration of identity in academic writing

Academic publishing plays a visible role in the lives of academics in the contemporary university. This paper, located in the academic literacies field of critical enquiry, illustrates the complex ways in which two South African academics understood and discursively constructed their identities through their writing for a recently published book exploring lecturers’ teaching and learning contexts and practices. The autoethnographic sensitivity of the research enabled the elicitation of critical self-reflective accounts, presented through detailed individual reflective sketches. The analysis uses the concepts of autobiographical self, discoursal self and affiliation (Ivanič, 1998; 2005) to show how these writers were able to discursively represent themselves in the book. It further highlights how continued disparities and inequities that characterise academic publication are experienced by the writers. The findings demonstrate the value of the social practice view of writing and its capacity to make visible how writers enact various linguistic, rhetorical and stylistic resources as they discursively construct their alignment to their scholarship community. In particular, it illuminates generative spaces where academic development practitioners can lead dialogues to re-examine current publication practices, their consequential nature for writers and explore possibilities to support emergent SOTL authors.

Textography as a needs analysis and research tool for English for Academic Purposes and learning development practitioners

The purpose of this paper to introduce textography as a useful method for English for academic purposes (EAP) and learning development (LD) practitioners to fill gaps in subject-specific knowledge and understanding. Textography is a research method that may be new to many practitioners. Textography combines textual analysis, usually associated with EAP, and ethnographic methods, often associated with LD, to investigate contexts, texts and practices. EAP and LD practitioners can use textography with accessible texts as initial needs analysis before reviewing literature or as a more in-depth, long-term research tool.

Critical interdisciplinary dialogues: Towards a pedagogy of well-being in stem disciplines and fields

Students enrolled in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) globally and in South Africa are generally not in a state of well-being. International and South African research studies show that undergraduate STEM programmes pose significant challenges to students and that many STEM programmes are marked by high attrition rates and poor student success. There is growing recognition that STEM educators need to teach the “whole student” instead of focussing only on STEM knowledge and skills. In order to teach in a holistic way, university educators themselves need to understand and achieve their own well-being. The paper argues that pedagogy of well-being and its associated concepts of competence, self-efficacy, community and inter-relatedness are key to academic staff and student well-being in the STEM disciplines. The focus of this paper is an inter-institution study on enhancing STEM educators’ capacity towards a pedagogy of well-being through teaching portfolio development in diverse institutional contexts. The research question guiding is the study is: How might academic development practitioners and STEM university educators’ successfully collaborate for the benefit of student well-being and success? Data for this study was obtained from “critical dialogues” between academic development practitioners and STEM university teachers, as well as an external evaluation of the project. The data comprise video-recordings of the critical dialogues and survey responses. The findings of the study indicate that there are barriers as well as productive spaces for interdisciplinary work towards well-being in STEM teaching and learning. The findings have implications for how STEM academics might engage in professional learning towards pedagogical competence, and offer suggestions for the ways in which academic developers might respectfully “transgress” into STEM disciplinary domains in support of a pedagogy of well-being in the STEM disciplines and fields.

Between a rock and a hard place, third space practitioners exercise agency

Academics as well as educational and academic development practitioners often find themselves in an ambiguous space in which personal and professional transformation can take place. Moving constantly between contexts and cultural learning environments at the university, these practitioners inhabit a strange, in-between space between mainstream academic support work, leadership and advocacy and other roles at the periphery.This space known as the third space from which other positions emerge, displaces the histories that constitute it and sets up new structures of authority, practice and discourses which are not always congruent with the university at large. This paper critically reflects on the experiences and insights of academics in a specific professional development course for new academics.Using a critical discourse analysis of in-depth, semi-structured narrative interviews, the authors explore the journey of new academic practitioners as they exercise their agency to carve out a hybrid identity in the third space across institutional boundaries.While resistance and struggle are challenging aspects of third space work, these constitute legitimate processes of identity construction and socialisation through contestation of traditional roles at the university. This paper interrogates the university’s role in creating and sustaining enabling institutional conditions so that academics can work in creative, responsive and relevant ways in a changing higher education landscape.

A REVIEW OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT PROVISION IN A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA: CONTEXT, CHALLENGES, MISCONCEPTIONS AND SOLUTIONS

Ponte Academic JournalDec 2017, Volume 73, Issue 12 A REVIEW OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT PROVISION IN A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA: CONTEXT, CHALLENGES, MISCONCEPTIONS AND SOLUTIONSAuthor(s): Luyanda Marhaya ,Munienge Mbodila, Fhatuwani Ravhuhali, Nancy Humbulani MutshaeniJ. Ponte - Dec 2017 - Volume 73 - Issue 12 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2017.12.9 Abstract:Academic Development (AD) as a fairly new field in South Africa has experienced a manifold degree of challenges. In spite of this, academic development practitioners have continued to make strides in providing professional development initiatives in higher education institutions. The main aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide a historic and current context of academic development practice by interrogating its strategic positioning within a higher education institution. In doing so, the paper sketches the context within which AD operates and provides a brief of professional development initiatives undertaken by AD practitioners in a particular university located in South Africa. The paper discusses challenges experienced by AD practitioners and their misconstrued identities as well as misconceptions about Academic Development (AD) field. The study recommends ways in which academic development practitioners can begin to position themselves within higher education institutions and central to these recommendations, is close working relationship with academic departments. Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning: an enhanced approach to curriculum alignment

John Biggs’ well-known curriculum design approach, constructive alignment, is widely used in higher education in the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa. Developed with one dominant account of learning through curriculum, this approach has a gap in terms of accounting for other kinds of knowledge building, and associated knower development. This paper proposes a complementary approach that accounts for different kinds of knowledge and knower building. Using Legitimation Code Theory’s concept of Specialisation, the paper argues that accounting for what makes a discipline ‘special’ in terms of its basis for legitimate achievement can enable curriculum writers to align curricula more effectively with that basis in different disciplines. Using a case study approach, this paper shows how this tool can provide lecturers and academic development practitioners with a useful mode of analyzing curriculum alignment to more ably account for differential development of disciplinary knowledges and knowers.

'I have a chameleon-like existence': A duoethnographic account of border crossing by two academic development practitioners

The practice of situating academic development practitioners within faculties poses challenges for practitioners from outside the particular discipline. Literature highlights how discourse and culture create tensions amongst role-players in cross-disciplinary contexts. This duoethnographic account examines the experiences of two practitioners as insider-outsiders in a health sciences disciplinary space. Duoethnography is a collaborative methodology where researchers, in dialogue, critique the meanings they give to social and epistemological constructs. Drawing on border crossing as theoretical lens, the study signals how the insider-outsider location might be mediated to support quality teaching. Border crossing highlights the construct of frontiers and associated identity work. The study identified critical success factors for collaboration – physical presence over time; knowing what is valued; an established identity as scholar and competent practitioner; a community of practice; recognition and an acknowledgement by faculty management; and personal flexibility, sensitivity, approachability and willingness to change.

A proposed 'ladder of learning' for academics' professional development in teaching

In higher education institutions globally, academic development practitioners whose work is to professionally develop academic staff in the area of teaching, have historically come into the profession without specific formal training. Their ideas and practice stem from the context of their work and life experience, and their knowledge grows with experience on the job. As a result, there is a great variety of knowledge and expertise that shapes professional development activities in higher education institutions. The aim of this article is to report on the findings of an investigation which drew on the collective wisdom of academic development practitioners who participated in a workshop on the topic of professional development. Activity Theory was used as an interpretive lens to identify key aspects from the data and align these onto a ‘Ladder of Learning’ – a hierarchically structured framework to inform appropriate professional development activities for academics. The insights gained from the findings may be used to strengthen academic professional development practice in support of ongoing improvement of the quality of teaching.

Being and becoming a university teacher

ABSTRACTThis study examined how one academic framed the enablements and constraints to her project of being and becoming an academic. Complexity facilitated reflection in that it provided a visual representation of data, which was used to generate a concept map, which represented as equal all the component parts of her landscape. Five spaces with emancipatory potential to assist the academic in her professional development emerged, namely: communities of practice, academic freedom, position statements, development opportunities and a supportive environment. Rather than suggesting any generalisability in the findings, the authors argue that the significance of this study is theoretical and methodological. Complexity theory has the potential to help academic development practitioners understand the landscapes in which their academics operate, and guide appropriate development opportunities.

Reflections on professional learning: Choices, context and culture

Understanding factors that enable and constrain the professional learning of academics for their teaching role provides insight into the complex space within which this teaching resides. The work of social realist Margaret Archer informed an analysis of multiple data sources as part of an exercise towards critical reflection and introspection about professional learning at the university. The data confirms previous work, but also takes the conversation forward. The university teacher – seen to be making choices, within a particular context and informed by her perceptions of the prevailing culture and her personal priorities – is central to this discussion. Academic development practitioners should consider how they might influence dominant discourses, and enhance the dispositions of teaching academics to support quality teaching.

Perceptions of Engineering students, lecturers and academic development practitioners about academic development classes at a university of technology

With the increase in student enrolments in higher education, which has resulted in changesto student profiles, academic development has become important in terms of students’success. This article is a report on a qualitative study that used in-depth interviews toinvestigate the perceptions of Engineering students and staff to academic developmentclasses at a university of technology (UoT) in South Africa. The students’ feelingsconcerning the need for academic development to continue beyond their first year ofstudy was of particular interest. Participants included five lecturers from the Engineeringfaculty and four academic development practitioners, who were all purposefully selected.The sample consisted of men and women who were interviewed individually. Interviewswere also conducted with ten first-year Engineering students and ten second-year students,who were randomly selected on the grounds of having been involved in the academicdevelopment programme during their first year.The responses of the lecturers were compared with those of the academic developmentpractitioners and the first- and second-year students’ responses were compared. It emergedthat academic development was considered questionable as it did not seem to be structuredand that the academic development curriculum, itself, was problematic.

The Role of Academic Development Practitioners towards Institutionalizing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Case Study

In this paper the authors who are Academic Developers discuss their efforts on the institutionalization of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at a South African Higher Education Institution. The 2013 annual colloquium referred to as the Teaching and Learning week is used as one example of many platforms for the dissemination of scholarly teaching and learning. Academic Developers at this institution use this form of dissemination as a means to institutionalize SoTL. Focusing on this specific platform as a single case study provides an opportunity to emphasise the importance of the SoTL in the strengthening university teacher’s pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. This paper is based on the efforts of promoting academics engagement in SoTL and the explication of academic developers’ roles in the institutionalization of SoTL. A critical analysis of the 2013 Teaching and Learning Week provides insight into the importance of the enhancement of academics approaches to teaching and the facilitation of learning. The paper attempts to debunk the incorrect perception of viewing teaching as a common sense activity. Scholarly teaching is explored as an intellectual activity intended to bring about documented developments in student learning, and those developments are shared publicly. The Teaching and Learning Week creates a physical and intellectual space for discussions on scholarly teaching to take place. From this point SoTL is producing knowledge which is available for public critique and use. In turn this legitimizes the actions and work of the presenting university teachers. As professional educators, they have an obligation to participate in pedagogical research and the sharing thereof. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n11p11

‘It's an amazing learning curve to be part of the project’: exploring academic identity in collaborative research

This article reports on an investigation into the role of academic identity within collaborative research in higher education in South Africa. The study was informed by the literature on academic identities, collaborative research and communities of practice. It was located within a multi-site study, with involvement of researcher collaborators from eight South African higher education institutions. Eighteen academic development practitioners recorded their perceptions of their participation in one higher education research project. An analysis of the research team members' experiences of participating in the first phase of the research project lent credence to the factors influencing participants' academic identities. The study found that collaborative research provided potential for knowledge generation and personal and professional growth, but noted that in order to enable participation, attention needs to be paid to the interrelationship between researchers' academic individual and collective identities and their sense of expertise in the field of educational research.

Learning in the academic workplace: the harmonization of the collective and the individual habitus

One of the challenges of research into social practice is finding a way to take both the structural aspects of the social contexts and individual agency into account. This article describes the use of Bourdieu’s social practice theory, together with Lave and Wenger’s situated learning theory, to understand how the learning of practice takes place within the academic workplace. Drawing on interviews with academics across three departments at a research‐intensive, historically white university in South Africa, the author explored how new academics engaged with the assessment practices in their departments, and developed their confidence to judge student performance of complex assessment tasks. The study provides a set of conceptual tools for academic staff development practitioners to use in supporting academics in their learning to teach. An argument is made for the process of learning in the workplace to be understood in terms of the harmonization of the individual habitus with the collective habitus in departmental communities of practice. Evidence is also provided of the importance of context in understanding how academics learn.

Theoretical perspectives on factors affecting the academic performance of students

Whilst the government, higher education authorities and institutions, academics, academic development practitioners, researchers etc. recognize that there is an increasing number and diversity of students accessing higher education, do the stakeholders really know who these students are before even thinking of enhancing their learning and teaching? Certain student retention theories like those of Tinto, Spady and Bean have described the type of students entering higher education, but have failed to describe some real attributes and life-worlds of these students.The purpose of this article is to present a theoretical model describing the ‘circles of progression’ of a university student in a South African context. This model describes the progression of a student from pre-entry (school and family background), the initial entry into university (first few weeks/orientation), entry into university (teaching and learning environment) and until completion of studies. Although contributions that report on and seek to theorise on a range of responses to teaching and learning challenges are needed, contributions and theories on who these students are, and what are the factors affecting their academic performance are also as important.

Frequently Asked Questions About Rule of Law Assistance (And Why Better Answers Matter)

Despite a voluminous ‘lessons learned’ literature, there is much that we do not understand about rule of law assistance. Conceptually it lacks clarity and in practice seems to proceed in the absence of rigorous empirical research and ‘thick’ descriptions of the institutional histories, reform politics and the legal and social cultures of the countries it targets. Many academic colleagues, development practitioners, lawyers and policy-makersand students are troubled by the knowledge vacuum in rule of law assistance. Here I consider some of the genuine and persistent questions about its scope and effect. I suggest that we need to find better answers, for our own intellectual and practical purposes, but also for the citizens of developing and transitional economies, who are the intended ‘beneficiaries’ of much rule of law assistance.