Transcript Document

SEDA Seminar
supported by the Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHES),
Institute of Education, University of London
The Framework for Higher Education and the Review of
Institutional Audit: Implications for the educational
development community
10.00 Welcome and aims
10.10 The BIS perspective: Stephen Marston, Director
General, Universities and Skills
11.00 Learning in Universities: Professor Lewis Elton
11.15 Coffee
11.45 Student Engagement: James Wisdom
1.00 Lunch
1.45
QA/QE Implications: Julie Hall
3.00
Tea
3.15
Employer Engagement: James Wisdom & Julie Hall
4.00
Departure
Aims:
To consider the 2009 debate about HE, in:
Students and Universities (Select Committee Report)
HMG’s Response to the Select Committee
Higher Ambitions (BIS)
Skills for Growth (BIS)
Thematic Enquiry into concerns (QAA)
Teaching, Quality and the Student Experience (HEFCE)
To help SEDA members respond in their institutions to
issues of:
Student engagement
Employer engagement
The review of Institutional Audit (and other parts of the
QAA infrastructure)
Perhaps to help SEDA respond as an organisation to
the QAA Review.
Student engagement:
•That the introduction of tuition fees had not resulted in
visible and measurable improvement of the student
experience.
•That a HEPI report had shown a wide variation in class
contact hours within the same subject.
•That students knew far too little about the course they
were taking – timetables, assessment processes,
learning outcomes, access to tutors etc.
•That the presentation of more detailed, standardised
information about the course experience would enable
students to make informed choices and put pressure on
institutions to deliver a better service.
The NUS Response –
Rethinking the values of HE: consumption,
partnership, community?
(On QAA web site)
Consideration and rejection of the student as
consumer
Consideration of Alistair McCulloch’s ideas of the
student as “co-producers”
And of Frank Coffield’s ideas of the development
of “communities of practice” in learning
An educational developer might focus on:
•An informed dialogue about learning outcomes
•Active engagement with assessment criteria
•Exercises to understand notions of standards
•The development in sophistication of students’
conceptions of learning
•Use of the Assist questionnaire to focus on levels of
learning
•Recognition of the significant characteristics of
module and programme design
Accepting that institutions will be expected to
publish more details about modules, programmes
and the student experience ….
How might SEDA members work with their
colleagues at all levels in their institution to
ensure that this initiative does genuinely improve
the quality of the the student experience and of
student learning?
QA/QE Implications
HE framework informed by the August 09 Select Committee
report which had 2 key questions:
Have standards fallen?
Are the current measures for safeguarding and measuring
standards adequate? (not developing or enhancing!)
According to the report “much of the evidence was
partial, incomplete and anecdotal”.
It’s recommendations went on to cover:
•How to compare standards across the sector (‘It is
absurd and disreputable to justify academic standards
with a market mechanism.’)
•Reporting on the quality of teaching and processes for
responding to ‘shortcomings’
•The training of external examiners
•Changes to institutional audit
•Reforming the QAA
In addition the HE framework highlights:
•the link between courses which fail to meet high standards
and funding
•contested funding based on evidence of strategic expertise
•‘Universities already need to be rigorous in withdrawing
from activities of lower priority and value..’
+ we now have cuts announced:
Reductions will target areas that do not support student
participation through educational programmes (Cuts to HE
Academy? JISC?)
Browne Review autumn 2010 – possible lifting of tuition fee
cap and reduction in unit of resource provided per student
(for those who lift fees above a threshold level?)
Issues:
•The data that might be used to assess quality
•The place of professional development for
academic staff and its use as evidence of quality
•The public identification of ‘shortcomings’ in
teaching quality
•Enhancing practice in a culture of evidencing
quality through data – an opportunity or a
challenge?
•Supporting and developing external examiners to
create a national pool of trained staff
•The role of educational development units and
individual developers
•A joint task of university staff and students or imposed
from an external body?
•The implications of a regime where funds are diverted
from courses ‘which fail to meet high standards’
•The role of students in QA and QE
•Is this the end of peer review?
Questions:
What are the implications for the work of educational
developers of a quality process which has as its focus
the comparability of academic standards?
(Do we come bearing gifts, clipboards or calculators?)
How should SEDA respond to the “Future arrangements
for quality assurance in England and Northern Ireland”
consultation?
Employer engagement: Drawn from the Literature Review
for the South West Higher Level Skills Project – HERDA
South West.
Important strand of government policy, the scale and
profitability of this market is uncertain, but ….
The employer engagement agenda requires a
fundamentally different approach from the traditional
market for HE, and HE has been relatively inflexible,
but ….
Engagement may erode traditional academic autonomy
(over primacy as sources of knowledge, over teaching,
learning, curriculum design and assessment) but some of
that is happening within the academy already …
Employer engagement implies a shift from producerled education to consumer-led education, which may
be happening already…
Employer engagement implies accurate and detailed
understandings of the costs of education, to ensure
profitability. Has the transparent costing approach
provided this?
HE is already working with a process-driven
curriculum, a learner-centred approach, self-directed
learning, experiential learning, flexible delivery and
evidence-based assessment, so …..
Question:
How could you help your institution meet the
challenges of employer engagement?