Go fast, go alone; Go far, go together: Changing the digital landscape through collaboration. [A-076 Home : ALT Annual Conference 2019

Public Group active 11 months, 1 week ago

Thu, Sep 5 2019, 12:15pm – 1:15pm

Authors: Paula Philpott, Stefanie Campbell, and Owen Parkes

Room: McEwan Hall

Theme: Creativity across the curriculum

Type: Research/practice (20mins)

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Description

Session Description

Go fast, go alone; Go far, go together: Changing the digital landscape through collaboration.
South Eastern Regional College’s (SERC) digital strategy integrates systems, technology, data, and people, transforming its digital landscape through a whole-college approach to enhance student engagement. Collaboration is embedded in the College’s ethos, creating collegiality and opportunities for partnership working.
An umbrella review of the evidence of effective teacher professional development undertaken by CUREE, UCL, IOE and Durham University (Cordingley et al., 2015), found that there is a need to clarify which aspects of teacher professional development are successful in ensuring teachers adopt and embed new practice in the classroom.
This session will offer participants an opportunity to analyse a collaborative model which has had direct impact on teacher professional learning. With approximately 500 lecturers having completed a mentoring programme, (based on the Japanese Lesson Study Model), this session challenges the traditional view of teacher professional development and explores how collaborative learning and communities of practice can shape the ethos and values within an organisation.
Using a mixed-methods study, research on the mentoring model highlighted the perceived impact of peer mentoring on knowledge and understanding of learning and teaching, reflective practice and self-efficacy.
360-degree feedback gathered during the study noted the impact of peer mentoring on the digital skills of staff and students, transforming the learning landscape. Learner analytics showed that in the last academic year the VLE was accessed 6.2 million times, and 30% of all access from outside of the College’s campuses. This evidences the value students place on their blended learning environment. The programme has been identified as an area of best practice by the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI), the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), and received an AoC Beacon award.
The mentoring model has been disseminated to colleges and universities in UK, Ireland, Slovenia and Italy and SERC have presented their approach and provided training at conferences in Japan, Thailand, Uganda and Singapore, showing the transferability of the programme and further strengthening it through internationalisation.
This session will explore the research around teacher professional development, peer learning and the successful implementation and dissemination of a model that has changed the digital landscape with an organisation and its partners. There will be an opportunity for questions and feedback.
Research:
Cordingley, P., Higgins, S., Greany, T., Buckler, N., Coles-Jordan, D., Crisp, B., Saunders, L., Coe, R., 2015. Developing great teaching: lessons from the international reviews into effective professional development.
Dawson, P., 2014. Beyond a definition: Toward a framework for designing and specifying mentoring models. Educational Researcher 43, 137–145.