Originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 12 April 2023. A few weeks ago, many of you visited the ISA conference in Montreal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend myself, but I was able to read up on some of the many interesting discussions on teaching and learning that you seemed to have had. Indeed, this blog and others (I also shamelessly promote our own) are my go-to places for learning about and engaging with such discussions, just like I always attend dedicated teaching and learning conference panels and days (for instance, during the annual UACES conference) and enjoy attending teaching staff professionalisation workshops here in Maastricht. In fact, I coordinated and organised quite a few of those before taking on my current role of associate dean for education in September of last year. The value of these forms of exchanging experiences and ideas cannot be overestimated. In fact, I think that they should even be emphasised and pursued much more in a time in which teaching and learning seem to be gaining importance in academic careers in at least some places. For instance, in the Netherlands universities are now starting to implement a programme called Recognition & Rewards, which is all about valuing different academic careers (read more about how this is being implemented at Maastricht University here). At the start of this year, I had my best exchange experience so far. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend two full weeks at the University of Leeds on an Erasmus+ mobility grant. Leeds has embarked on an ambitious programme that I wanted to know more about, called ‘Curriculum Redefined’. But I also used the opportunity to shadow my friend Simon Lightfoot, who’s in a similar position as I am, but has much more experience than I do. Those two weeks have been among the best and most inspiring of my time in academia. I talked to many students and colleagues from a whole range of disciplines, attended super interesting events and workshops, and hosted two workshops on problem-based learning myself. I learned a lot and brought home many new ideas on issues such as assessment, decolonisation, and the hidden curriculum. But it also became clear again that the grass is not always greener on the other side; not only do we encounter similar challenges, but sometimes the solutions for these challenges back home are not that bad at all.
I also was reminded again that words matter and that a sense of belonging is important, for students and teaching staff. In fact, one of my key take-aways is the need to “find your own people”, as a participant in one of the workshops put it. I think that this blog is one way of doing so, just like attending teaching and learning events and workshops. Yet, when it comes to developing and reflecting upon your own experience nothing beats spending a little bit more time in another place. I have already decided that I want to do more of this. I’m not quite sure yet how to finance it, but, ideally, I’d want to spend one week at another university each year. Perhaps connect these visits to conference attendance? Frame it in the form of a project? Something that I will still have to explore further. But in my experience, it is equally rewarding to welcome colleagues here. Just the other month, Christopher Huggins visited us from the University of Suffolk to learn more about Maastricht University and problem-based learning. We had many interesting discussions and I’m looking forward to contributing to an online Suffolk event in July to continue those discussions. In short, while I may not be stating anything new to the converted teaching and learning geeks who read this blog (‘my own people’), do feel free to view this post as an invitation for you to get in touch to see if we can arrange a visit to Maastricht!
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Originally published by the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog on 4 November 2021. When our BA European Studies (ES) started in 2002, I embarked on a job as teaching assistant at FASoS. A crazy time, but also a fun and rewarding one. I was the only teaching assistant back then. Today, teaching assistants (usually recent MA graduates) play a central role in BA level teaching, and, in contrast to what the job title suggests, they teach the full course, are responsible for the proceedings of their tutorials, and are engaged in course assessment.
I’ve just started teaching and coordinating two courses in period 2. One of these is a first-year BA ES course that I’m teaching together with seven colleagues, all of whom are teaching assistants, and six of whom have only just started work at the faculty. In my experience teaching assistants often do a wonderful job. Nevertheless, there are also important drawbacks: for them, because in a problem-based learning (PBL) environment teaching is a team effort and a balanced team of young and experienced colleagues stimulates development and sharing of best practices; for coordinators, because the heavy reliance on teaching assistants ups the stakes for coordination. This situation now arises every first year in the BA ES and is also increasingly having an impact at the other end of the programme. Last August I had to assign no less than 26 new BA thesis first and second readers because some teaching assistants had found another job, but many more simply were at the end of their contract. Given our reliance on teaching assistants and with another ‘Erkennen & Waarderen’ (Recognition & Rewards) event just around the corner, it’s high time we talk about the future of teaching assistants at FASoS. To me ‘Erkennen & Waarderen’ is all about valuing different careers in academia; something that is more attuned to reality at many universities. But most of the discussions so far concern staff who have obtained a PhD (or are in the process of doing so). But what about teaching assistants? Each year FASoS hires new teaching assistants on temporary contracts to replace others who often have become excellent teachers with a wealth of experience and valuable insights into PBL, but whose contracts have expired. Isn’t that a waste? The argument for temporary contracts is usually twofold: teaching assistants can’t stay in academia without a PhD, and ‘we’ don’t want to determine their careers for them. The latter I find most puzzling. Some teaching assistants may actually have the ambition to teach, so is it then up to us to end contracts after 3-4 years? This argument also presupposes that teaching delivery is the only thing that they can do. But is that really the case? Teaching assistants already coordinate courses in our BA programmes and even the PBL & Tutor Training for new staff. I have co-developed course materials with teaching assistants, but they can also help improve assessment and develop innovative practices – after all, teaching assistants follow the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) programme which prepares them for such tasks. Perhaps they could even assist in teaching and learning research; find relevant literature, gather data, even publish together with FASoS staff who are already engaged in such research (who knows, this may eventually turn into a PhD after all!). Of course, constantly fluctuating students numbers require a degree of flexibility. But wouldn’t we want to keep the best teaching assistants, for instance by having one vacancy every year or every second year? This offers security and a chance to build a strong CV, even when they want to move on after a few years – by all accounts it can be quite challenging to find another job after 3-4 years of teaching. We would, of course, have to determine what criteria ‘the best’ would have to meet, but there is lots of literature that could help in designing such career paths and the accompanying training. I know that there are quite a few of you who share my view, but some of you might consider this to be the death of academia as we know it. But do teaching assistants need a PhD to teach in our BA programmes? Course evaluations certainly suggest that this may not be the case – not a surprise given that teaching in PBL is about more than substantive knowledge only. And wouldn’t we all benefit from holding on to the best ones? Experienced teachers can also contribute to coordinative and research duties. This would alleviate pressure on coordinators in our BA programmes, but also save others time and effort to continuously train new staff. Time and effort which are not acknowledged in SOLVER hours, but which would decrease demands on research time. Finally, shouldn’t we also recognise teaching assistants’ substantial contribution by rewarding them with a different job title? They don’t just ‘assist’. Indeed, the task description for tutors on our intranet does not distinguish between teaching assistants and other teaching staff. The PBL & Tutor Training and UTQ also prepare them to do the same work as the rest of us. So perhaps instructor, teacher or simply tutor are more fitting job titles? This post was originally published by Active Learning in Political Science on 11 July 2019. Last week Simon discussed the need to reflect on our teaching and learning, in particular also on what’s notworking. This made me wonder, are we actually able to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses? We all know how difficult self-reflection can be. I personally remember a management training during which I was asked to evaluate my own actions in a difficult situation of my own choice – and struggling to openly critique myself and reflect upon my behaviour. I recently witnessed how some of my colleagues find it easy to talk about teaching and learning, whereas others seemed to be struggling. Active learning is in Maastricht University’s DNA, with problem-based learning (PBL) being used across its programmes. But often PBL does not come natural to teaching staff; we are expected to take a backseat role and focus on process rather than on content. Hence, good teaching staff training is essential. New staff are introduced to PBL and need to follow a more detailed teaching training trajectory after a year of teaching. Events such as my faculty’s annual Education Day also play a role in this, through the exchange of experience and best practices. In the run up to this year’s Education Day I was asked to talk about a new teacher staff development programme, called Continuing Professional Development. This programme is aimed at stimulating further development of teaching staff and at further enhancing the university teaching community. Since it is not yet fully clear what kind of activities staff can do in this context, I planned two exercises that should give me an insight into colleagues’ needs: a bingo and a generative interview. The first exercise I have already discussed in more detail in a post published in November: a bingo. The bingo I used this time is pictured here: I explained to my colleagues that the aim of this exercise was a) to experience how easy it is to discuss and share teaching and learning ideas and best practices and b) to come up with some first ideas concerning their own training needs. This is also why I asked everyone to make sure to at least complete the box on the bottom left. The exercise worked well – and this time I timed it well too. People found it easy to talk, also because of the variety of topics to be discussed. The second exercise was one that I picked up during the recent Joint International Teaching and Learning Conference in Brighton. During the conference, Colin Brown (Northeastern University) hosted a workshop on teaching peer review in which he made use of generative interviews. We worked together in groups of three: one interviewee, one interviewer and one observer. Interviewer and observer together try to find out the interviewee’s views on a certain topic and formulate these views for them, which helps to actually more clearly formulate those views. Roles rotated. This was an interesting exercise and I decided to try it during the Education Day. I explained to my colleagues that this exercise was meant to get a more detailed understanding of their teacher training needs. While I participated in the Bingo, I decided to only observe my colleagues during this second exercise. Interestingly, where some immediately started talking (as I experienced myself during the conference workshop), others started to focus on details of procedure. I noticed that those colleagues who I know to be very involved in teaching and learning, seemed to find it much easier to do this exercise. They sometimes ignored the procedure, but they did eventually end up filling in the main part of the form pictured here: Colleagues less eagerly involved in teaching and learning were the ones who seemingly found it difficult to talk about themselves, their strengths and their weaknesses. Instead, they spend lots of time talking about the form and the procedures.
This shows that Simon’s call to speak out about our mistakes and our weaknesses may come quite natural to those of us who think about these issues on a daily basis (the readers of the ALPS blog or my faculty’s own teaching and learning blog). But this seems quite different for those colleagues for whom teaching does not come naturally or is rather viewed as a thing they have to do (instead of something they like to do). Staff training will hopefully get more teaching staff to reflect on what works and what doesn’t, but, as Simon writes, academia unfortunately encourage us instead “to big ourselves up, to represent a bold vision of progressive and successful practice.” PS During both exercises I played music to create a good atmosphere on a day that temperature went well above 35 degrees. You can find the playlist here. |
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