‘But I’ve been teaching for 20 years…’: encouraging teaching accreditation for experienced staff working in higher education

Abstract

The status of teaching and learning is an issue those providing and supporting higher education grapple with. The UK Higher Education Academy offers accreditation aligned to the professional standards framework (PSF). The PSF contextualises the role of teaching and supporting learning, and offers a mechanism for individuals' commitment to be recognised. Here, we present a case-study of 19 established academics who reflected on their experiences of gaining recognition through their university's accreditation scheme. Respondents prioritised institutional structures and outcomes such as student recruitment, job security, and status as drivers for engagement. Institutional leadership was significant in driving the accreditation agenda.

Evidencing the impact of teaching-related CPD: beyond the ‘Happy Sheets’

“…For early career lecturers, CPD tends to be focused on accredited programmes, such as postgraduate certificates, that introduce the practices of university teaching and supporting student learning (Parsons et al, 2012). Established academics commonly engage with non-accredited CPD activities such as workshops, projects, conferences, activities related to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and, more recently, schemes to provide recognition of their teaching expertise (Spowart, Turner, Shenton, & Kneale, 2015). To evaluate this spectrum of activity, data must be captured from an institution's formal CPD offer including accredited courses, as well as its informal, nonaccredited CPD offer.…”

Retrospection and reflection: The emerging influence of an institutional professional recognition scheme on professional development and academic practice in a UK university

“…The White Paper developed this notion further by proposing key changes in the way that HE in the UK is funded and argued that the marketisation of HE would drive up teaching quality as students would chose to study at institutions with the best reputations for teaching, research and graduate employability (BIS, 2011). The current White Paper, Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice (BIS, 2016), has highlighted, once more, the importance of teaching quality indicators in the light of student choice but, as Spowart et al (2015) argue, there is an implicit assumption that recognition for teaching will lead to the enhancement of the student learning experience, which this study attempts to explore further.…”

“…Although the funding for most of these initiatives has now ceased, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) requires universities to include the number of staff 'qualified' to teach in HE in their annual submission of data. This is not something universities can ignore (Spowart, Turner, Shenton, & Kneale, 2015) and within this context, it is important to understand how the growing number of professional recognition schemes in UK universities is effectively contributing to the professional development of academics in relation to teaching and learning (Hibbert & Semler, 2015). This paper provides a case study of one institutional scheme to explore the impact on individuals' professional development.…”

Demonstrating the impact of your teaching: benefits of Higher Education Academy Fellowship for librarians

“…It also brings the opportunity to improve practice by reflective engagement with the literature and creating supportive communities of practice. Of particular value to librarians could be highlighting teaching excellence to senior management, who may be unaware of our teaching roles (Botham, 2018;Peat, 2015;Spowart, Turner, Shenton & Kneale, 2016).…”