An environment for achievement? Ruminations on the drivers for transformation

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An environment for achievement?Ruminations on
the drivers for transformation

• Carolyn Roberts
• Director, Centre for Active Learning
• University of Gloucestershire
• U.K.

ISSOTL Conference, Washington DC, November 2006
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Modelling Institutional Change Simple models 1

• Initiation
• Structure, clarity, advocacy, champions,
  understanding
• Implementation
• Responsibility, empowerment, pressure, Faculty
  development
• Institutionalisation
• Embedding, organisational, strength, spread,
  facilitation
• In Hopkins, 2002

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Modelling Institutional Change Simple models 2

• Courtship
• Choosing the target (beginning)
• Expanding the scope of change
• Making connections and sustaining the change
  process
• Rebalancing the campus to support different ways
  of doing things
• Reflection on the significance of what we have
  done
• Ending
• Ramaley, 1994

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Modelling Institutional Change Simple models 3

• The Four Factors for Success
• 1. Pressure for change
• 2. A clear, shared vision
• 3. Capacity for change
• 4. Action
• Government Office for the South West, 2004

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Modelling Institutional Change Simple models 4

• Appreciative Enquiry Approach
• 1. Appreciating and valuing the best of what is
• 2. Envisioning what might be
• 3. Dialoguing what should be
• 4. Innovating what will be
• Hammond, 1998

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Modelling Institutional Change Simple models 5

• Staff
• Style
• Systems
• Strategy
• Structure
• Skills
• Super-ordinate goals
• McKinsey, 2002

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Another simple change model
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Models of change, according to Trowler et al, 2003

• Technical-rational
• Resource allocation
• Diffusionistepidemiological
• Kai Zen or continuous quality improvement
• Models using complexity

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Case study

• University of Gloucestershire, UK
• HE since 1847, University only since 2003
• Liberal arts College plus
• 10,000 students, Bachelors, Masters and PhD
• Teaching-led, Research-informed
• School of Environment
• Limited period 1998 to 2006
• Initial merger of two Departments with
• different traditions and strengths
• c. 700 students, some distance learners
• c.50 Faculty teaching, 10 admin and technical
  staff, highly disparate professional and
  academic backgrounds
• Research management separated off, initially

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Indicators of achievement?

• Internally- Improvements in students results
  best in University awards for students
• Internally and externally - Personal awards for
  Faculty University Teaching Fellows National
  Teaching Fellows runner up National e-Tutor of
  the Year runner up BA Lyell Young Lecturer
  other esteem indicators
• Shortlisted for Queens Anniversary Prize for HE,
  2004
• Awarded national status and 5M as a Centre for
  Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 2005

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Institutional Background

• Strongly centralised quality assurance systems,
  including module evaluation, external examiners,
  professional accreditation
• Institutional level T,L and A strategy
• Vice Chancellors commitment to T,L A
• Professional Development Group system for Faculty
  (quality circles)

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The role of SoLT

• Curriculum change as a driver for wider changes
• Allow undergraduate teaching to be informed by
  research, consultancy and scholarship, including
  research into effective teaching and learning in
  Higher Education

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Teaching and Learning Methods

•  
• 7.5.2 There is still some reliance on lectures
  as a relatively efficient method of conveying
  basic information and personal perspectives
  synchronously to large groups, but every student
  spends only a minority of their learning time in
  such staff-led activities. Increased emphasis is
  placed on deeper forms of learning
  characterised by a high level of student personal
  engagement, independent study and increased
  emphasis on personal reflection. This is usually
  underpinned by the introduction of key themes and
  the introduction to sub-disciplines, imparted
  through lectures.

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Kotters Eight Stages of Change

• Establishing a sense of urgency
• Creating a guiding coalition
• Developing a vision and strategy
• Communicating the change vision
• Empowering broad-based action
• Generating short term wins
• Consolidating gains and producing more change
• Anchoring new approaches in the culture
• Kotter, 1995

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The Ladder of Divine Ascent metaphor

• St. John Climacuss text explains the journey
  to Heaven as involving many challenging steps.
  The icon shows monks on the ladder, demons trying
  to pull them off, the mouth of Hades swallowing
  up those who have fallen off, the angels
  lamenting over those who have fallen, and people
  on the earth praying for those on the ladder.
  Christ is depicted at the top of the ladder,
  waiting for the successful ones to enter His holy
  Kingdom.

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8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture 7.
Consolidating gains and producing more change 6.
Generating short term wins 5. Empowering
broad-based action 4. Communicating the change
vision 3. Developing a vision and strategy 2.
Creating a guiding coalition 1. Establishing a
sense of urgency
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Establishing a sense of urgency
Increasing understanding of HE pedagogy
ICT availability increasing
Bringing the School together
Increasing diversity of student backgrounds
Differing staff workloads
Falling applications and competition for students
in environmental disciplines
Inefficiency in delivery
Access and Widening Participation pressures
Boredom with existing courses
Dean and Directorate pressure
Opportunities for synergy
Competing academic traditions
Employability imperative
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Establishing a sense of urgency

• 1. Drivers for change
• Generic Pressures to HE
• Specific institutional pressures

• 2. Drivers for change
• Political
• Economic
• Socio-cultural
• Technological
• Legal
• Environmental

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Creating a guiding coalition

• A core team with sufficient power to lead
• The best people, regardless of their previous
  roles, and including professional support staff
• Range of backgrounds
• Three disciplinary-based
• subgroups, with some
• autonomy

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Developing a vision and strategy

• Multiple goals managerial and educational
• Excellence in all aspects of work, drawing on
  existing strengths
• High levels of student achievement
• Evidence-based practice
• Demonstrable and publicised innovation
• Involving students as collaborators
• Equity and transparency for staff and students,
  in methodologies, outcomes etc

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Educational Vocational Objectives

• To offer students high quality learning,
  underpinned by successful research and
  consultancy activities, in a wide range of
  subjects
• To prepare students for work in a volatile
  employment area, by offering vocational
  programmes, explicitly developing in students a
  range of educational skills, and working in
  partnership with appropriate professional
  organisations
• To allow students significant choice in the
  construction of their programme, whilst ensuring
  that appropriate core knowledge, skills and
  competencies are developed in a structured way
• To improve the foundation of environmental
  knowledge amongst undergraduates.

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Managerial Objectives

• To improve the efficiency of delivery 
• To increase recruitment, and make the Fields more
  accessible to a wider range of students 
• To increase the range of choice of award titles
• To permit substantial movement of students
  between Fields, at least in the early stages of
  their study
• To enable effective management of shifting
  patterns of recruitment, such that variability in
  numbers within different Fields can be
  accommodated without undue inefficiencies. 

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What did we do?

• Developed c. 125 modules, 17 Degree programmes, 3
  Higher National Diplomas as steps into
  Degree-level study
• Integrated approach to curriculum design,
  focussed on commonly shared (but not universally
  held) views on active learning
• Some shared attributes and modules shared eg core
  Level I module, Fieldweek, Methods of Enquiry,
  Dissertation
• Credit-bearing work placement available to all
  students
• Distance and campus-based students working
  together

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Communicating the change vision

• Using every vehicle possible to communicate the
  new vision and strategies (every trick in the
  book)
• Consistency of approach through establishing
  curriculum structures
• Empathy, but no exceptions
• Motivating and inspiring
• Innately top down

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Empowering broad-based action

• Getting rid of obstacles, including maverick
  ideas (well, of course this doesnt apply to
  me/our course/my research/the laboratories/the
  studios)
• Challenging structures and pushing the
  boundaries, including University regulations, and
  asking why?
• Encouraging risk-taking and non-traditional
  ideas, but evaluating carefully
• Recognising immovable objects and circumventing
  them

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Generating short term wins

• Student results and satisfaction improve
• Students win external competitions
• Faculty recognition University Teaching
  Fellowships
• Success in securing external funding for
  pedagogic projects extends beyond core team
  value increases
• Five Faculty selected to serve on national
  Quality Assurance Agency Subject Benchmarking
  Panels
• Department volunteers for successful QAA
  Developmental Engagement
• League table improvements

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Pattern of mean marks scored in all levels of all
UoG Fields of study, 2002-3
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Average of School of Environment undergraduate
module marks
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Consolidating gains and producing more change

• Student results improve further
• Associated Faculty successes with external awards
  National Teaching Fellows
• New HND courses and Degree courses developed in
  Biology, external funding for laboratories
  secured
• More Faculty become external examiners at other
  Universities

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Pattern of mean marks scored in all levels of all
UoG Fields of study, 2004-5
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School of Environment Honours Degree results,
1998-2004
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Anchoring new approaches in the culture

• Increased focus on the students experiences,
  including students performances in individual
  modules
• National conferences offered, on reflection,
  the role of support staff, etc where there were
  national gaps
• Local symposium on excellence in HE, including
  students
• New challenges - working towards submission of a
  bid to become a national Centre for Excellence in
  Teaching and Learning

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The Gloucestershire approach to active learning
The distinctive feature of the University of
Gloucestershire definition of active learning is
that it centres on the mastery of theory within a
learning by doing approach involving working in
real places with actual people and live projects

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The Gloucestershire approach to active learning
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The Gloucestershire approach to active learning

• Linking the thinking, doing and reflecting
• Innovative ways of linking the theory and
  practice
• Embedding active learning in all teaching
• Innovative methods for developing blended
  learning
• Active involvement of external agencies
• Creative ways of assessing active learning
• Underpinning practices by pedagogic research
• Involvement nationally and internationally
• Maintaining inclusivity
• Making learning enjoyable for everyone

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What were the key drivers?

• External pressure/stimulus/risk
• Guiding coalition/team
• Drawing on existing strengths
• Utilising a mixture of centralised and
  decentralised decisionmaking
• Student views and responses
• Publicity relating to early wins
• New goals appearing

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What did not drive change

• Resources, except time (especially
  transactional time)
• Technology (e.g. ICT) was not a principal driver,
  but assisted in communication of ideas and became
  more important as the operation became more
  complex
• Agonising over top down or bottom up
  approaches
• Promotion or financial rewards strategies, at
  least initially
• Specific inputs from the Centre for Teaching and
  Learning or QA systems

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8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture 7.
Consolidating gains and producing more change 6.
Generating short term wins 5. Empowering
broad-based action 4. Communicating the change
vision 3. Developing a vision and strategy 2.
Creating a guiding coalition 1. Establishing a
sense of urgency
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Models of change

• Change is highly complex, not linear, but can be
  steered to some degree
• Many changes occur concurrently, change breeds
  change
• Change can be developmental or emergent
• We shift rapidly and dynamically between states
• Goals are adjusted and we move towards a new goal
  without achieving the first
• No end point can be defined
• The seeds of self destruction may be built in
  from the start

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Whats missing from the simple models?

• Key roles and strengths of team members
• Communication amongst the team and beyond
  celebrating success E-Newsletter, and enjoyment
  of activity
• Developing mutual support, a community of
  scholars, through Faculty development
• The role of the customers, our students, in
  joining and supporting the enterprise
• Evaluating the change and developing as a
  learning institution
• Serendipity, and new challenges (and risks)
  appearing, eg the CETL opportunity

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Models using complexity

• Indeterminate systems, hence outcomes are not
  predictable. Can create likely conditions for
  change
• No locus of power power is. System not
  directly controllable but open to indirect
  influence
• Multiple small changes provide suitable
  conditions for change
• Over-optimal supply of tools required
• Change champions are organic, intellectual and
  skilled in praxis and creating affordances
• Trowler, Saunders and Knight, 2003

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Dreamtime as a metaphor of change?
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Please look at our websitewww.glos.ac.uk/ceal
Making a difference
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Bibliography

• Antonacopoulou and Bento Bennis and Nanus
  Bolman and Deal Bromage Bush Elton Fullan
  Gardner Garrett Hannan Hannan and Silver
  Hopkins Jarzabkowski Kent Kotter McBeath et
  al McKenzie McKinsey Miles Olson and Eoyang
  Pennington Prosser and Trigwell Ramaley
  Ramsden Roberts, McKenzie McKimm Trowler,
  Saunders and Knight Shulman