The Learning and Teaching Support Network Working with Subject Communities and HE institutions Steph

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The Learning and Teaching Support
NetworkWorking with Subject Communities and HE
institutionsStephen Barr, Glasgow Caledonian
UniversitySylvia Alexander, University of Ulster
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Overview

• Learning and Teaching Support Network
• Progress to date
• Activities
• Future priorities
• How to get involved
• Challenges
• How can LTSN help?

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Delivering change in LT

• Institutional strategies have stimulated change
• The ILT provides the means for demonstrating
  professionalism
• Wealth of innovative and development projects
• FDTL/TLTP
• HE institutions
• JISC
• Subject centres

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LTSN so far - supporting change

• The network is extensive and growing
• Building the internal network to strengthen
  LTSN
• Providing coherence and co-ordination of effort
• Effective transfer and embedding of practice
• We need to
• Demonstrate the value of the subject strand
• Ensure close co-ordination of activity so users
  see coherence

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Subject centres
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Role

• Advice and guidance
• Promote good practice and share expertise
• Knowledge brokerage
• Facilitate communication
• Support networks of practice
• Disseminate and transfer
• Awareness - events, publications, WWW etc
• Understanding - active engagement with end users
• Implementation - promote change, embed support
  practice

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Target audience

• Full spectrum of policy makers and practitioners
• New staff
• Networking (with an international audience)
• Secondary audience
• Staff and educational developers
• Library and computing staff
• Students

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Coverage

• Tailor work to meet needs of constituent
  disciplines
• Promote change in response to policy drivers
• Quality enhancement
• Widening participation
• Student progression
• Student retention
• Employablility
• Leadership role on key issues

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Identifying Good Practice

• Collaborate with other LT programmes
• FDTL/TLTP, JISC/RDN, International
• Interaction with subject community
• support for exchange of information and ideas
• dialogue, events, shared resources
• Surveys/questionniares
• Liaison with departments
• Relevant literature
• Development fund

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Encouraging/promoting good practice

• Advisory not judgmental
• Honest broker
• Promote collegiality
• Responsive to the community
• Proactively engage with community
• Active collaborators
• Participation AND dissemination

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Subject Centre activities

• Reaching subject communities - surveys
  identifying needs, departmental contacts,
  departmental visits, regional hubs and networks
• Integration with professional bodies, subject
  associations and learned societies
• Themed networks/special interest groups
• Workshops,conferences and seminars
• Advisory service to practitioners and departments
• On-line databases and resources

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Subject centre activities

• Collection and collation of practice
• Generating development activity, transferring
  practice through mini-grants
• Support for subject based pedagogic research
  Collection and collation of practice
• Expert groups/specialist advisers
• Themed reports and briefings

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Areas for development

• Harvesting information on good practice
• Developing data and knowledgebases
• Raising the profile and awareness of subject
  networks and sustaining it
• Ensuring the brokerage role

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Why a Generic Centre for Learning Teaching in
HE?

• To.
• become a major national source of information and
  expertise
• provide a support service for HE institutions
• build links between and across the subject
  centres and the higher education community
• liaise with organisations managing research and
  development projects
• maintain an international outlook on generic
• learning and teaching developments

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Achieving the mission

• Working with Subject Centres to maximise the
  potential of the network
• Working in partnership to identify and respond to
  key priorities within the higher education
  community
• Facilitating access to the development of
  information, expertise and resources to develop
  new understandings about learning and teaching

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Generic Centre Projects

• Higher Education Portal
• Peer Observation of Teaching
• Benchmarking
• Personal Development Planning
• Part-time tutors
• Problem Based Learning
• Virtual Learning Environments
• CPD
• Assessment
• Managing change

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Dissemination Outputs

• Produce/link to/commission.
• Briefing papers
• Articles
• Case studies
• Bibliographies
• Web-based data
• Resource packs

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Dissemination Outputs

• Facilitate/attend/enable...
• Workshops/seminars
• Conferences
• Networking Clubs
• Discussions and debates
• Development projects

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Technology Centre

• Monitor developments in technologies of
  importance to LT (technology watch)
• Provide advice to the Generic Centre on when and
  how to deploy these technologies
• Identifying and promote suitable IT and
  communication standards
• Broaden applicability of JISC services to LT
• International outlook to share experience

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LTSN-ICS Early Priorities

• Establish network
• Identify needs of the community
• Engage practitioners
• Virtual interaction
• Enhance resources
• Dissemination

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Progress to Date

• 931 members registered with Centre
• 102 Institutional Reps
• 2 conferences, 19 workshops, 6 regional events
  held
• 788 delegates attended from 122 institutions
• Website Approx 3000 hits per month

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LTSN-ICS Priorities

• Entrepreneurship/Work Based Learning
• Technologies - VLEs/MLEs/virtual learning
  communities
• Independent learning
• Collaborative Working
• Assessment/CAA
• Regional Events/New Staff
• MSc Conversion Programs
• Foundation degrees
• APEL/non-traditional entrants
• Managing and Assessing final year projects
• Key/transferable Skills
• Quality enhancement
• CPD/Portfolio Development
• ICS Pedagogic research

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Upcoming Events

• Personal Development Planning, University of
  Northumbria, 31 May 2002
• New Patterns of Learning in HE, City University,
  20/21 June 2002
• Distance Learning Where are we now?, University
  of York, 3 July 2002
• 3rd LTSN-ICS Annual Conference, Loughborough
  University, 27-29 August 2002
• The 16th British HCI Group Annual Conference
  incorporating European Usability Professionals
  Association Conference 2002, South Bank
  University, 2-6 Sept 2002
• Work Based Learning, University of Salford,
  September 2002

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Get involved!

• Suggestions
• Be actively involved with your SC
• attend events/conference
• articles for journals
• news items
• focus-group participation/ resource suggestions
• book reviews
• Utilise SCs for project dissemination

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Transferability possibilities

• Establish departmental contacts
• Form a dissemination network to share effective
  practice at departmental and university level
• Encourage your colleagues to work with their
  subject centres
• Collate discipline specific resources
• Highlight generic resources

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Further information.

• www.ltsn.ac.uk
• or
• www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk
• or
• ltsnenquiries_at_ltsn.ac.uk
• or
• ltsn-ics_at_ulst.ac.uk

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Thank you for your participation!