How will you become a master teacher in higher education?

1. Two methods

Having worked through the experiencing section of this learning path, you should now have a collection of work associated with Assignment 2, Part C. This section of the learning path will use two different lenses:

1. The rubric for Assignment 2, Part C; and
2. 4 questions and thoughts from Knight, Tait, & Yorke (2006)

The intent is to guide you in an examination of that collection of work with the aim of identifying areas for further work that will help refine and complete your plan.

2. Components and criteria of A2, Part C

Your response to Assignment 2, Part C should

should present a critical reflection that develops a plan for your continued development as a master teacher (emphasis added)

The emphasis in the above corresponds to the two main criteria in the associated rubric.

What is a plan?

Your response should include a plan that you can use over the coming years. It should connect with where you are now and help you improve your teaching in ways important to you.

The Oxford Dictionaries provide the following definition of plan

A detailed proposal for doing or achieving something.

Other definitions are provided, but this is the one relevant here. A plan does not (and in this case, probably should not) be presented as paragraphs of text. Feel free to use tables, timelines, images or other representations of your plan, especially if it is a representation that you can actively use after the course finishes.

2.1. General advice for A2, Part C

Given the centrality of the plan, the hope that it is something  you can use after the course, and the suggested word count of 700 words your submission for Assignment 2, Part C does not need to have all the formal trappings of a formal academic essay.

Some general advice:

• Don’t waste word count on an introduction or conclusion.

• Do use APA for formal academic references, but use web links for websites etc.

• Feel free to use paragraphs for your critical reflection, but also feel free to present your reflection in different ways.
  (e.g.the tables used to show the categories of teaching experience and practice, or pedagogical models from earlier in the course)

• Do not offer detailed explanations of learning and teaching concepts or terms.
  (e.g. don’t waste word count explaining what blended learning is)

• The focus your reflection and your plan should be showing that you are able to synthesise the content from the rest of this course with your other knowledge and apply it to providing a critical reflection on what is required to become a master teacher in your context, and a plan that will help  you achieve it.

Some advice extract from the assessment criteria

1. Evidence of critical reflection on what is required in order to become a master teacher in specified discipline

1. Reflection and analysis - dialogical and critical
   Question the disciplinary assumptions, compare them with other conceptions.

2. to become a master teacher in discipline & context
   Be sure to describe your specific context, personal, stage of career and discipline. Appropriate disciplinary references.

2. Development of a plan for continued development with milestones

1. A specific identified, personal goal - what is your goal, over what time frame.

2. Realistic and logical milestones along the way
   Oxford Dictionary definition of milestone: a significant stage or event in the development of something.

3. Description of the processes and activities that you plan to undertake to achieve those milestones

4. Support these specific processes and activities using the course content and other literature.

5. Where appropriate demonstrate critical reflection on the course content

3. Academic literacies

1. No need to use academic language, this is a personal plan. Don’t get too colloquial.

2. Where appropriate provide support and background to plan and reflections through the use of links and references.

3. In particular, use of links to prior blog posts you have written as part of your preparation for this task (e.g. Assignment 1, Part A)

3. Professional learning of teachers in higher education

Knight, Tait & Yorke (2006) combine findings from surveys of part-time and full-time staff from the Open University UK with literature to explain the significance of methods other than traditional professional development events for the professional learning of teachers in higher education. The following section draws on the work to help prompt additional thinking by you for your own professional learning, especially as you look to answer the question “How will I become a master teacher?”

They start by focusing on the question

How do professionals learn and develop?

And identify five sub-questions used to identify their answer.

• What do they learn?

• How?

• Where?

• When?

• Why?

3.1. What?

Knight, Tait, & Yorke (2006) argue that

Until now we have treated professional learning in a relatively undifferentiated way. However, it is well known that different student learning outcomes call for different teaching approaches, and it is assumed that the same is true for teachers and others who support student learning in higher education (pp. 334-335)

The rubric for Assignment 2, Part C includes the following

The plan identifies a clear process that will achieve the identified goal for continued development

Knight et al (2006) identify that increasingly governments, management and professional developers appears to have a desire to define what should be learned by educational professionals. Examples of this include the Australian University Teacher Standards and Criteria and the UK Professional Standards Framework. But Knight et al (2006) explain that often these people don't speak with a single voice.

Knight et al (2006) stress the importance of the what taking account of the diversity of practice in higher education, especially the most distinctive difference which exists between practice in different subject areas.

3.2. How do professionals learn?

Knight et al (2006) identify the professionals can learn through means that are combinations of intentional, unintentional, formal and non-formal. They offer the following table to summarise those combinations and the processes and outcomes involved with those combinations.

Intentional and non-intentional, formal and non-formal learning (adapted from Knight, Tait, & Yorke, 2006, p. 327)

Knight et al (2006) also report on the results of a studies of part-time and full-time staff at the UK Open University. From these studies they group responses into six clusters

1. 1. Online professional learning
   2. Personal advice
   3. Online resources
   4. Other OU materials
   5. Participating
   6. Staff development events (p. 325)

This course has focused on the use of TISL and the role of reflection in becoming a master teacher, a process that fits with the participating cluster above. A cluster that involves learning and teaching in higher education, but also engaging in action research (e.g. TISL).

3.3. Why is professional development undertaken?

Drawing on responses from UK Open University part-time staff, Knight et al (2006) developed for overlapping motivation types summarised in the following table (each is expanded in more detail in the original paper)

Table 4. Four overlapping motivation types (adapted from Knight et al (2006, p. 328)

3.4. When?

Knight et al (2006) suggest that the view of professional learning as non-formal, non-intentional learning positions it as something that happens all the time. However, they also suggest that there a four reasons why this view is insufficient, including:

1. A focus on learning happening all the time runs the “risk of staleness, professional obsolescence and institutional sclerosis” (p. 333).

2. Such learning can be locked into the specific setting and invisible outside it, there is benefit in undertaking the intentional activity of translating this implicit knowledge in ways that can be shared.

3. The needs and priorities of people change over time as they enter different stages of their career.

4. Event-based PD is useful for bringing to light new ideas.

3.5. Where?

Knight et al (2006) describe their view of educational professional development “as a creation of people’s daily activity systems” (p. 334). They conceive of professional learning as being “an interplay between individuals and their environments” (Knight et al, 2006, p. 320).

Activity system limiting professional learning

They explain how there can be issues in the activity system (environment/context) that limit the impact of professional learning. They explain that

These mismatches can be associated with underperformance, although they can also motivate system learning and change (Engeström, 2001). Our interpretation of this is that successful EPD involves attending to the person (the subject) and to the system’s tools, rules, beliefs (located in the community of practice) and division of power (or division of labour): it is concerned with personal understandings and capabilities and with addressing systems’ understandings and capabilities (Knight et al, 2006, p. 321)

Activity system as a source of professional learning

They also identify how professional learning arises from four different locations (Knight et al, 2006, p. 334):

1. The daily activity system in which educators work.

2. Distributed activity systems such as National Teaching Awards (e.g. AAUT) or disciplinary bodies focused on learning and teaching (e.g. ACM SIGCSE)

3. Formal PD events organised by specialist teams.

4. The various communities and resources online.

1. What and why?

The rubric for Assignment 2, Part C includes the following

provides succinct description of processes based on literature and/or experience, and includes evidence of critical reflection on relevant course content, e.g. evaluation, identification of emerging practices, etc.

i.e. your plan should be supported by your critical reflections on the content of this course and subsequent literature that you’ve engaged with.

This section offers my summary of the content of this course week by week. It includes my explanation of how the weekly course content might be connected to all parts of Assignment 2, but especially Part C - your plan for becoming a master teacher.

This is a personal summary intended to help remind you of content from  the course and spark your own reflections (i.e. feel free to disagree with my description or the content covered and provide arguments supporting that disagreement) on the course content and how it might help you, especially in answering the question “How will I become a master teacher?”

Where you might want to pay special attention

The following summary of the semester suggests that the following learning paths might be particularly useful for Assignment 2, Part C, including:

• Week 1 where it touches on what a master teacher is, one of the goals of your plan is to develop you into a master teacher. What is a master teacher?
• Week 2 introduces one perspective on critical reflection, demonstrating critical reflection on the course content and other literature is essential to achieving top marks in Assignment 2.
• Week 3 offers advice on how to find and evaluate emerging practice, doing this effectively could well be an important part of your plan to become a master teacher.
• Week 4 examines analytics, which is integral to the integrated model of TISL and potentially useful for your plan to become a master teacher.
• Week 5 makes mention of peer and self evaluation (amongst other types of evaluation). These two types of evaluation may be a useful component of a plan to become a master teacher.

The following also mentions other weeks that could help directly with other parts of Assignment 2.

2. Week 1 - Where do master teachers come from?

The focus of the first learning path was on the idea of master teachers and in particular “Where do master teachers come from?”. What are the behaviours, qualities, or attributes of a master teacher? It argued that master teachers arises from engaging in a reflective, self critical and theoretically informed approach to recognise their faults and struggling to improve. Week 1 introduced the idea of Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning (TISL) as the particular approach to becoming a master teacher that would be used in this course. As a first step toward this, this week shared some introductory thoughts on reflection and writing to think.

Assignment 2, Part C asks you to develop a plan to become a master teacher that is contextually and developmentally appropriate to you. The ideas introduced this week would appear to be a good starting point, both in terms of what that might look like and how you might achieve it.

The following table summarises the results of the survey you were asked to complete in Week 1. The survey asked you to rank various attributes/practices of a teacher in order of importance (1 to 10). There were four responses (hence not a large sample size). The following table ranks those attributes in descending order based on the average response rate and the standard deviation between the response.

3. Week 2 - How happy am I with my assumptions around learning and teaching?

The Week 2 learning path was based on the assumption that our development as master teachers (not to mention just about anything in our lives) is limited by our assumptions. In particular, it identified issues with engaging in TISL if assumptions were not unearthed and questioned. It started with examining the first phase of TISL - initiation - and the different types of issues that can spark TISL. It asked you to identify the context in which you would focus you attentions this semester.

Week 2 offered the idea of reflection as a means to overcome the constraints of our assumptions. It offered a developmental framework of reflection that defined four types of writing (3 of which are reflective); typical elements of reflection; three types of assumptions; and, a process for critical reflection. Week 2 also discussed the role theory can play in helping to  inform the process of critical reflection and surfacing assumptions and offered three examples of how theory could help, including: 3 levels of teaching; categories of teaching experience and practice; and, pedagogical models. You were asked to use this insight to start examining your discipline and context and start identifying what is known and accepted in terms of learning and teaching. In particular, to start identifying and surfacing the assumptions that underpin teaching in your context.

Critical reflection is a key part of Assignment 2. Your plan to become a master teacher (Assignment 2, Part C) should draw heavily on the work you did and the practices identified during this week.

4. Week 3 - How will I find and evaluate emerging practice

The week 3 learning path is based on the idea that a master teacher looks to change not (just) because of external factors, but as part of what Common (1989) called the struggle to improve (perhaps in response to external changes, but also because of student learning). Master teachers look to improve, they look for emerging practices that will help them improve. The question is how do you do this.

The learning path started by defining emerging practice as something new to your teaching practice. It then introduced two different takes on what emerging practice in higher education might look like in the coming years. The learning path introduced CLEM as one way for finding emerging practice. In terms of evaluating newly discovered emerging practices, the learning path offered PKM and a critical eye. It offered examples of CLEM (learning design) and critical evaluations of educational technology and the Horizon Reports. It also offered a deeper look at teaching as design as a form of emerging practice that is both increasingly important and importantly linked to TISL.

It finished by asking you to start developing plans for how you could identify emerging practice in your discipline. This was intended to start your development of Assignment 1, Part C.

This work should also be directly informing your work on Assignment 2 for both parts B and C.

5. Week 4 - How might I apply learning analytics? Should I?

The week 4 learning path introduced the emerging practice of learning analytics and whether or not you could or should use it in your own practice. It began by providing examples of how learning analytics has been used by an educational designer to help academics, and by the course examiner in this course. You were asked to reflect on the use of analytics in this course and its value. Learning analytics was then explained in more detail, including: its link with TISL; implications for learning and assessment; and critiques of big data and learning analytics.

The week closed with an explanation of how learning analytics might be used for Assignment 1, Part B and Assignment 2, Parts B and C.

6. Week 5 - How might I evaluate my teaching practice? (Part 1)

The week 5 learning path intended to introduce you to the idea of evaluation and introduced a range of concepts associated with evaluation. It started by providing examples of evaluation from both outside and within higher education and asking you to reflect on your experiences of evaluation. The main focus of the learning was to explain what evaluation was and touch on various topics, including: the goals of evaluation; types of evaluation; the notion of evidence; the types of methods and processes that might be used; and, to touch on criticisms of evaluation. At the end of the learning path you were asked to identify the teaching episode you would evaluate for Assignment 2, Part B.

Evaluation - covered both in the week 5 and 6 learning paths - will be of direct interest to Assignment 2, Part B, which requires that you describe your plan to evaluate your TISL process (L&T grant).

The types of evaluation section also mentions type of evaluation that may be useful for your plan to become a master teacher. In particular, the concept of self-evaluation and peer-evaluation may be useful processes to include in your plan to become a master teacher.

7. Week 6 - How might I evaluation my teaching (Part 2)

The week 6 learning path sought to move beyond the introduction to evaluation to helping you develop an evaluation plan for a specific teaching episode. It started by defining a teaching episode and providing an example of an evaluation instrument and asking you to use it to evaluate this course. Drawing on concepts from the week 5 learning path you were then asked to examine the evaluation instrument. The main new content in this learning path introduced you to topics such as: different approaches to evaluation; the components of an evaluation document (criteria, indicators and evidence); how to select/design these components by using theory and reusing other evaluation instruments; a critical view of evaluation; and, finally, four strategies for designing evaluation. The learning path closed with a set of exercises intended to step you through one process for designing an evaluation.

8. Week 7 - Which research question will I answer?

The week 7 learning path  marked the start of working directly on Assignment 2. In particular, it asked you to start thinking about the research question that you would like to answer through TISL. A research question that would/should drive the design of your L&T grant application for Assignment 2, Part B. The learning path started by presenting a series of starting points intended to help you identify a question/spark of importance to your teaching. It then offered some examples of research questions used in classroom research. You were asked to then evaluate these example research questions using some initial criteria for a good Action Research Question. The learning path then stepped through one process for developing a good research question and covered topics including: where to research questions come from; what are the characteristics of a good question; explicit advice to focus on the students and not the teacher; and, how to frame your research question. Lastly, the learning path provided a sequence of exercises to help you develop your research question.

This week is most directly connected to Assignment 2, Part B. In particular, it is suggested that the criteria and characteristics of good research questions could be usefully used to evaluate the spark behind your L&T grant application. It is also a good idea to ensure that your grant idea is focused on the students and what they do, rather than you and what you do.

9. Week 8 - What are some relevant emerging practices

Having identified a research question that you’d like to answer in the week 7 learning path, the week 8 learning path provides some insight into how to identify emerging practices that might help implement and answer your chosen research question. It starts by presenting three components - why? How? What? - that are useful for thinking about a learning and teaching intervention and provides an example of using those components. It then presents some questions to ask about the component map for a particular intervention. It then offers some advice for search for possibilities and questioning assumptions. Finally, it offers an exercise to start search for relevant emerging practices.

You should be explicitly using these questions to evaluate your response to Assignment 2, Part B.

10. Week 9 and 10 - How am I going to answer my research question?

The week 9 (and 10) learning path focuses on how you will implement and evaluate your chosen emerging practice. Looking at the remainder of the TISL process. In this course this is being documented as an L&T grant application (Assignment 2, Part B) and that’s the focus for the week 9 learning path.

It starts by explaining why we’re using an L&T grant application before offering examples of L&T grant schemes, projects, and applications. Next it asks you to become familiar with and apply the rubric for Assignment 2, Part B to evaluate one of the example L&T grant applications. It then offers more detail on L&T grant applications, including: describing the components of an EDU8702 L&T grant application; characteristics of a good application; and, some tips for writing an application. Lastly, it provides an exercise to spark work on writing your L&T grant application.

All this is directly related to completing Assignment 2, Part B and designing your TISL process. In particular, you should pay attention to the advice for each of the components of the grant application.

11. Week 13 - How might I improve my plan?

The week 13 learning path (weeks 11 and 12 were vacation weeks) is focused entirely on describing the purpose and operation of the writers workshop process.

1. Finishing up - A2 Part C

This learning path has been designed to help you examine, evaluate and enhance your plan to become a master teacher (Assignment 2, Part C). It is intended to build on and improve work you have already done in this course. It has introduced two lenses to examine your current work and provided an overview of the course content with explicit pointers to content that may help work on your plan.

It is now your turn to use this work and any insights and ideas it provides you to plan improvements to you.  If you have questions, please do ask them directly to the teaching team or via the course discussion forums.

Farewell

This marks the end of the learning paths for this course. All the best in what future paths you may travel, both personally and professionally. I hope that this course has helped positively inform the paths you will choose as you work toward becoming a master teacher in tertiary teaching.

"Farewell" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by pxlline