Increased uptake of Advance HE membership by institutions around the globe has prompted more academic staff to apply for Teaching Fellowships, internationally recognised credentials that acknowledge expertise in higher education teaching and learning.
However, fewer professional services colleagues seek these accreditations, despite the fact that many roles – such as librarians, learning developers, study skills or careers staff, learning technologists, laboratory technicians and well-being advisers – are vital for delivering and shaping students’ educational experiences. So how can we encourage them to recognise their roles as educators and pursue continuing professional development?
Focus on practice, not roles
Advance HE’s Professional Standards Framework 2023 (PSF) has shifted the focus from an educator’s job title to their practice by removing the “typical individual role/career stage” descriptions seen in previous versions. This broadens the criteria to include teaching that takes place outside the classroom, including practice with non-student learners. It allows institutional recognition schemes to broaden their understanding of who aligns with the Fellowship descriptors, a set of criteria statements that define the key characteristics of four broad categories of practice. A change in terminology from “student” to “learner” also builds inclusivity.
Drawing attention to this shift can empower professional services educators to demonstrate how their practice aligns with the Fellowship descriptors.
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Show professional services educators how to articulate their pedagogic practice
To further help professional services educators articulate their practice and gain professional recognition, it’s important to show examples of how other colleagues have successfully drawn on non-traditional (non-classroom-based) teaching and learning as evidence against the Fellowship descriptors.
To support this, we recommend providing annotated exemplar applications from both professional services and academic staff. Recent examples of professional services applications we have shared include evidence of one-to-one skills support in library or study services, extracurricular opportunities run by careers specialists and online teaching advice and support for academic staff by digital learning developers.
Showcasing the range of education practice that happens beyond the classroom helps all colleagues understand the breadth of education practice that aligns with Advance HE’s Fellowship descriptors.
Create and sustain a community of professional services educators
A community of professional services educators can help shine a light on the work of these colleagues, and encourage them to apply for Fellowship. For example, in our institution’s professional recognition pathway, we have a growing number of internal mentors and reviewers in professional services roles. Drawn from our pool of successful Fellowship applicants whose submissions were particularly strong, these colleagues provide support across all activity within the scheme and act as role models for other professional services educators. They share their experiences in applying for Fellowship and help peers develop their applications.
To support these colleagues, we suggest providing both asynchronous training resources and termly online training events. These can include calibration of Fellowship assessment criteria and discussion of effective mentoring approaches. Events should bring together professional services colleagues alongside their academic peers, and application review panels should also feature a mix of educators from different backgrounds to help facilitate networking.
Support colleagues to develop their identity as educators
To remove the perceived divide between academic and professional services staff, we must treat all Fellowship applicants as a group with a common goal (to support students). By working with educators as a community, rather than separating colleagues by roles or job families, we can help establish a more inclusive definition of an educator.
To do this, invite both professional services and academic educators to contribute to “ask the expert” Q&A panels for new educators, or internal best-practice events and resources.
For us, this has also meant changing our team’s name from “academic” to “educator” development. This reminds our professional services colleagues that they themselves are also educators, and helps highlight the diverse ways the institution supports all types of learners.
Back in autumn 2023, four professional services educators reflected on the value of Teaching Fellowships for themselves and their colleagues, noting the impact that engaging in meaningful reflection on practice can have on professional services colleagues, and on the learners they support. More than two years later, I’d like to echo their views, and to suggest that by continuing to shine a light on professional services educational practice through formal recognition schemes such as Advance HE Fellowships, we can further recognise and reward the important role they play in supporting learning in our institutions.
Eleanor Hodgson is senior educator developer at the University of Exeter.
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