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Bringing about Change in Teaching and Learning at Department Level Report on the GEES Subject Centre Departmental Change Initiative Mick Healey1, Michael Bradford2, Carolyn Roberts3 and

Bringing about Change in Teaching and

Learning at Department Level Report on the GEES Subject Centre Departmental Change Initiative

Mick Healey1, Michael Bradford2, Carolyn Roberts3 and Yolande

Knight4

1University of Gloucestershire, 2University of Manchester, 3University of Oxford, 4University

of Plymouth

May 2010

Executive Summary

“It was excellent” “It’s been really amazing” “Brilliant” “It was wonderful”

Team leaders’ comments about the Department Change Initiative residential workshop Bringing about change to teaching and learning in a department is a key issue for department leaders The department is arguably the key organisational unit at which the core teaching and learning experiences of most students are designed and implemented This GEES Department Change Initiative grew out of a desire to be more strategic about supporting changes in teaching and learning It adapted ideas developed in the Change Academy programme and applied them

at a departmental level It is an innovative initiative and GEES is the first Subject Centre to implement the Change Academy principles at department level This report investigates curricula

changes which are in the process of being implemented It covers the critical ‘framing’ stage, and

the early stages of implementation of changes to curricula.

GEES departments in four different universities established teams of four to five participants with different roles and levels of seniority, including students Whilst two teams were single-discipline department groups, one team was interdisciplinary and another was seeking synergies in course delivery from the merger of three previous departments The year long initiative was in three phases: a) bidding and support of team development; b) 48-hour three day residential event; and c) development of the projects over the subsequent six months The programme was designed and delivered by three senior staff from the GEES disciplines experienced in running learning and teaching change workshops, with the active support of the GEES Associate Director.

The main conclusion to emerge from the interviews, self-completed questionnaires and the

authors’ observations as participants is that overall the GEES Departmental Change Initiative was highly effective at supporting departmental teams to clarify, design and plan significant curriculum related initiatives Among the key features of the initiative which made it successful are:

 The inclusion of the planned initiative’s key stakeholders, including students and where appropriate learning support staff

 The supported change residential event, which took the teams off campus for at least two days and immersed them in a mixture of activities, particularly emphasising creative thinking, and time to plan

 The discipline-based nature of the event, which enhanced the benefits of networking with members of the other teams

 Pre- and post-event telephone discussions, which provided critical support to the team leaders

 Respected, experienced supporters who acted as independent critical friends of the teams and encouraged them to think of a range of ways of meeting their objectives Against these benefits has to be balanced the intensive nature of the programme from the point of view of the Subject Centre It is difficult to calculate a cost-benefit ratio, especially for changes which have yet to be implemented fully in their departments However, the indications from the participants are that the initiative has added considerable value to the quality of the teaching and learning which the four departments have designed and planned Arguably the projects supported

in this initiative will impact on the quality of student learning more extensively than many of the smaller projects traditionally supported by Subject Centres, which are usually targeted at

individual modules or courses In the context of restricted resources for Higher Education

nationally, serious consideration should be given to moving from this pilot initiative to a full

programme of supporting strategic changes at departmental level This applies not only to GEES, but to work in the other Higher Education Academy-supported Subject Centres, and to whatever other discipline-based initiatives designed to support teaching and learning may emerge in the future.

5 Understanding the management of change in higher education 7

Main Report

“I want you to imagine that you have been asked to form a new department of geography Given the rare opportunity to write without constraint, would your curricula bear much resemblance to most of the formal courses of study to be found today? With any luck your answer will be something like, good grief no! If your answer is something else … there is not much hope for the

future!”

(Gould, 1973, 253)

1 Context and rationale

This report is the outcome of a supported change programme Bringing about Change in

Teaching and Learning at Department Level analyses an initiative undertaken by the Geography,

Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) Subject Centre with the support of the Centre for Active Learning (CeAL), University of Gloucestershire The pilot initiative was developed during

2008 and ran for a year from early 2009 to early 2010 It involved four GEES departments from Aston, Bath Spa, Lancaster and Newcastle Universities, each of which had a significant

curriculum-related change project that they were either planning or were early in the process of developing Each had a team of four or five people with different roles and levels of seniority, including senior managers, experiences lecturers, new lecturers and support staff Three of the teams had a student member and one bought along two The report covers the period of project initiation and development through to the beginning of the implementation stage for the change Hence it reports on work in progress rather than completed However, it covers the critical

‘framing’ stage in designing changes to curricula

The department, or school, is arguably the key organisational unit in higher education (HE) where teaching and learning is planned, delivered and evaluated As departments have variously grown and merged in response to the exigencies of the Higher Education market-place for research and teaching, many cover several subject areas, and some draw curriculum strength from the

associations This has led department heads to seek strategic changes in the organisation of teaching and learning which straddle whole departments Alternatively, in some cases staff from more than one department may collaborate on interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary tuition

Examples of both of these types of change are seen in this study.

The report is based on research undertaken by the authors during the course of the programme to explore the department teams’ experiences of designing, developing and beginning to implement specific strategic teaching and learning projects and initiatives The research involved a mixture

of individual participant reflections and semi-structured interviews, observations and group

discussions It aimed to capture the ‘journey travelled’ by the teams in managing their change initiatives, and to draw conclusions about the transferability of the approach.

The programme was originally inspired by Change Academy© – a year-long facilitative

programme led by the Higher Education Academy and the Leadership Foundation, which enables teams from HEIs to develop the knowledge, capacity and enthusiasm for achieving complex

institutional change (Bradford, 2010) The Department Change programme is innovative in that it

is the first to apply the core principles of Change Academy at department level In its first decade

of existence GEES has largely focussed on supporting the learning and teaching needs of

individual faculty This initiative aimed to support the needs of departments It is the first of the 24 national Subject Centres to develop such a department change event A thematic-based initiative examining the development and embedding of inclusive policy and practice in 10 institutions by the HE Academy used a similar approach to this programme (May and Bridger, 2010) Although

we were not aware of this initiative when undertaking ours we found the structure of their report helpful when preparing ours

This report disseminates the learning gained from the experiences of the four departments across the GEES subject areas and the wider HE sector It is hoped that the findings will stimulate others

to undertake further work to understand the nature of the change process at department level and how it might be supported to enhance the quality of student learning

2 Key features of the initiative

The initiative shared many of the key features May and Bridger (2010) identified in their

programme:

 Self-identified change: Departments were required to identify the rationale and aims of the

proposed change and the relationship with the department’s and institution’s strategies They had also to demonstrate the impact on the students’ learning experiences.

 A facilitative initiative: The initiative was designed to support the department teams to focus

on, and exchange ideas about teaching and learning development and implementation It offered space away from the home institution, prompted discussion and debate, provided input from change consultants and access to relevant research evidence, tools and resources The programme provided a mix of institutional, role-based and cross-team working

 A longitudinal programme of engagements: The initiative involved a series of supported

events for team leaders, and a three-day residential event for all team members

 The involvement of department teams: As a condition of participation, departments were

required to nominate a team of three to five people drawn from across the department,

including where possible a student member

 Working alongside other GEES departments: By bringing teams together, the programme

enabled the participating departments to work alongside others who were planning teaching and learning changes This allowed for the sharing of experiences, challenges and solutions and supported networking across institutions

 Promoting the development of evidence-informed practice: The initiative was informed by

a number of relevant research studies

 Seeking to share the learning with the sector: From the start of the process, the initiative

was underpinned by research to capture the ‘journey travelled’ by the teams over the course of the programme so that others may learn from the work they have undertaken

Four departments from different UK universities submitted proposals One was planning a new interdisciplinary undergraduate programme in sustainable development; another wanted to

reconceptualise their first year programme following a merger of geography, environmental

science and ecology faculty into a new department The third wished to develop a programme to support the varied backgrounds of students coming into their twelve month Masters programmes; while the fourth wanted to plan how to engage employers and community groups more effectively

in their curricula (Table 1).

The main event in the programme was a 48-hour workshop over three days This intensive

structured event consisted of a mixture of plenary sessions, helping the participants explore a variety of approaches to change and curriculum design and to rethink their projects creatively; team sessions where projects were developed in more detail; and social teambuilding events (Appendix 1) The team leaders were supported in characterising their projects and choosing their teams before the event and discussing progress and issues arising during and after the

event Significantly all three supporters of the teams have experience of being Heads of GEES Departments, leading major national teaching and learning projects, and running workshops designed to facilitate change All three are National Teaching Fellows.

Table 1 Summary of the change initiatives

Department and

Institution

Theme of change initiative

Key aim(s)

Interdisciplinary Studies,

Aston University

Sustainable development and management:

designing an interdisciplinary degree

To develop a new degree in sustainable development and management that provides a coherent and innovative approach to the learning and teaching of environmental and sustainable issues Department of

Geography, Bath Spa

University

Employability and engagement in the curriculum

To develop integrated external engagement opportunities for all students whilst retaining ownership, distinctiveness and academic integrity of programmes Lancaster Environment

Centre, Lancaster

University

Creating opportunities from a departmental merger: re-evaluating first year teaching across the GEES disciplines

To explore ways of removing overlap between first year subjects, whilst maintaining a high level of embedded skills training

transition issues

To improve transition for postgraduate taught students (especially international students) by developing pre-sessional information and integrated skills and academic competency training in the early weeks of teaching

3 Researching the initiative

A mixture of qualitative methods were used to research the experience of the teams and their leaders, including interviews, discussions, self-completed reflections, and observations Although the departments and institutions who participated in the pilot are named with their agreement, comments of individual participants have been kept anonymous.

Discussions took place with the team leaders once before the residential, once during the event, and once after Each of the team members was asked to complete a one-side proforma reflecting

on their expectations before the event; 12 were returned Interviews, lasting between 10 and 20 minutes, were held with 10 team members in the final 24 hours of the residential event and with each of the team leaders in the week following the event A similar reflection proforma was

distributed six months after the event, but insufficient were returned to analyse Finally, as the researchers were also the supporters of the initiative, an important source of data was our own observations and discussions between the GEES team This data was supplemented by

summary case studies of each of the initiatives written six months after the event by the team leaders (Appendix 4), our reading of the literature on curriculum change and change

management, and our experience of facilitating curriculum change in other contexts

4 Understanding curriculum design

As the programme was concerned with bringing about change in teaching and learning at

department level it is important to put the proposed change initiatives in the context of approaches

to curriculum design Jenkins (1998) usefully distinguishes between the curriculum that:

 Is intended by staff and designed before the student enters the course

 Is delivered by the staff or learning materials (including books and software)

 The student learns and experiences

 The student makes part of herself or himself and remembers and uses some years later.

A paper outlining three different approaches was prepared for the event (Appendix 2) They were:

 Engaging the curriculum in HE, based on the work of Barnett and Coate (2005)

 Developing self-authorship through the Learning Partnership Model, drawing on the work of Baxter Magolda (2001, 2006, 2009)

 Curriculum design through the analogy of an Ouija board, based on the work of Jenkins (1998)

Delegates were asked in their teams to contrast the approaches and suggest how they might, with appropriate adjustments, inform the design of their team’s project In the following plenary,

delegates identified aspects of each of the approaches that they thought threw light on the issues they were discussing

5 Understanding the management of change in higher education

Securing change in HE can be a convoluted process, where there is a tendency to abandon the radical and revert to the familiar in the face of competing pressures, or occasionally of apparently insuperable opposition Heads of Department, programme leaders, or their equivalents may face hostility from colleagues with different priorities, or from administrative structures that militate against shifts The precise role of ‘leadership’ for innovation, and the personal qualities allegedly required to be successful, are frequently rather troubling concepts to those placed in positions of responsibility (McKimm, 2004) Lucas and Associates (2000) offer some largely American

perspectives on this, emphasising teamwork, shared goals, facilitation and individual reflection, drawing on examples of institutions evolving over decades Conversely, some of the business- related models for change emphasise decisiveness, rapidity and certainty, and the ability of

leaders to motivate and to engage effectively with opposition (for example, Government Office for the South West, 2004)

Bryman (2007), drawing on publications in the UK, USA and Australia, provides a more detailed analysis of HE leadership effectiveness, but comments on the surprising paucity of literature providing meaningful overviews Summarising, he identifies the need for the leader to be seen to foster a collegial atmosphere, and to advance the department’s cause, as aspects that are

particularly relevant to HE The subtlety of the relationship of academic staff with their work is also emphasised, a more nuanced one than that of many other professional groups, suggesting a need to pay particular attention to the mindsets of colleagues, their views on the legitimacy of the

change, and their trust in their leaders Gibbs et al (2008) take this a little further in the context of

research-intensive institutions, but argue that teaching excellence can be achieved in entirely different ways involving widely contrasting styles of leadership behaviour They conclude that advice and guidance on the leadership of teaching should pay careful attention to the context, rather than make assumptions about the general applicability of leadership theory or advice.

Beyond the level of the individual, the seminal paper on change management in HE, by Trowler et

al (2003), provides an insightful analysis of the different conceptualisations of the change

process This is of value not only in understanding the nature of change after the event, but in providing some sort of map for the journey They specifically identify the department as the key organisational unit for change, as the intellectual ‘home’ and focus for most faculty Their analysis includes a classification of models of change into five groups:

 Technical-rational

 Resource allocation

 Diffusionist: epidemiological

 Kai Zen or continuous quality improvement

 Models using complexity

Crucially, Trowler et al (2003) articulate a view that rational, linear understandings of change

(specifically curriculum innovation), and appreciations that are underpinned by an expectation of the journey being simple, are usually inappropriate Technical-rationalist approaches, such as the well known eight-stage Harvard Business School model of Kotter (1996), are nevertheless of some use in providing a checklist against which to consider different elements of change, whilst recognizing that in practice these do not necessarily occur in the suggested sequence

1 Establishing a sense of urgency

2 Creating the guiding coalition

3 Developing a vision and strategy

4 Communicating the change vision

5 Empowering broad-based action

6 Generating short term wins

7 Consolidating change and producing more change

8 Anchoring new approaches in the culture

Despite the complexity and uncertainty, discussion of these issues with the participating GEES teams and their leaders nevertheless did provide encouragement for them to stand back from the intricacy of the process in which they were engaged, to consider the broader context, and to reflect on the potentially unforeseen consequences of their initiatives The discussion was

intended to be motivational and to provide a personal development opportunity for colleagues who might not previously have given much thought to this sort of sociological or systematic issue previously Specific analyses of the ‘change academy’ approach to fostering shifts in practice have been made by Dandy (2009), Gentle (2007) and Flint and Oxley (2009), but these were not used explicitly within the workshop

6 Supporting the GEES department change initiative

The GEES team, comprising three academics and the GEES Associate Director, worked together before the event to outline the whole process and the associated evaluative research Mick

Healey had proposed the idea and co-led the initiative with Michael Bradford who was able to draw on his experience of running Change Academy to help design the process and the event (Bradford, 2010) Carolyn Roberts was brought in as an additional supporter and Yolande Knight provided the administrative support and link with GEES at Plymouth Some of the team had worked together before, but not all together on the same project They brought a range of

experience across the GEES subjects, in mounting conferences, running workshops, and

researching and developing innovative practices.

The overall Change Academy process was tailored to departmental change: bids were received from institutions which wished to participate; once selected a telephone conference was held

between the team and the four team leaders, outlining the overall process, the event programme, what was expected of teams, and answering team leaders’ questions (this replaced the Change Academy team leaders’ face-to-face meeting); the event was for 48 hours over three days (rather than 72 hours over four days) because the changes were departmental not institutional and the teams were smaller (four or five rather than about seven); and the follow-up team leaders’

telephone conference (instead of a face-to-face meeting) was held to learn about the

developments of projects and teams, discuss emerging issues and reflect on the overall process

During the first telephone conference we arranged who would be supporters of which teams and which teams might work together on the first evening The team were joined for part of the event

by Pauline Kneale, GEES Director, who acted as a supporter for one of the teams in the first half

of the event allowing Michael to concentrate on one of his two teams Carolyn and Mick each supported a team The supporter’s role varied with the teams, reflecting the different objectives of the teams and where they were on the journey, but included at different points being a critical friend, being a sounding board, or just being an encouraging observer At all times it was a

constructive, positive contribution

At the event (Appendix 1), after a brief outline of the programme and an ice breaker, sessions were held on curriculum change (Appendix 2) and models of change respectively This oriented the teams to the wider perspectives of curriculum change (where and how their project fitted) and theoretical views of change After tea the teams worked on a ‘rich picture’, which displayed their vision of their project and allowed them to share it with one other team in detail and then later at a reception enabled them to discover more about the other two teams’ projects and to network The next morning there was a session on creative thinking which enabled teams to reshape their thinking using some divergent and convergent techniques (Appendix 3) During this, teams were paired together for a while in a different pairing from the evening before Teams then made

progress on their projects during the rest of the morning and the early afternoon when their

supporter visited them The day ended with a Liquid Cafe session (a more flexible variant of World Cafe) at which someone from each team hosted a table and topic, which had emerged from the day’s work, on which they wanted other people’s views People moved from table to table when and as often as they liked At each table the discussion was recorded, almost mapped, on

a table-cloth, a photograph was taken at the end as a record

On the final morning teams concentrated on what they would do immediately they returned to their institution, having already outlined more long-term ways forward and discussed them with their supporter

The evenings were an important part of the event with dinners in two different places and on the first evening a session of five-minute theatres These allowed important networking and

discussions of other departmental changes.

The overall programme was designed to help build a supportive environment in which participants felt safe to express their viewpoints, to reveal a little about themselves, and to build trust within the teams and with their supporter

7 Expectations for the initiative

Before the residential event we encouraged delegates to reflect in writing under four headings on one side of A4 Twelve were returned The general tenor of the comments was positive and the participants were expectant of the benefits of the event.

Expectations

These varied from those emphasising specific outcomes for their project, for example:

“I would like to get a much better handle on what we really need to teach in our Part 1

subjects”

to more general expectations, such as:

“To have some feedback and information about how to organise change, managing conflict and different ideas to make the best outcome for our department’s proposed changes.”

“To have the opportunity to learn more about the process of change and, specifically, how to manage curricular change in a variety of academic contexts by identifying a) the barriers to change in oneself and others; and b) the opportunities for change which become available when such barriers are explicitly identified and tackled.”

Only one person expressed a concern:

“That there will be too many activities at the event that will take away from leaving with some substantive programme developments.”

Thoughts and feelings about team’s project

Again several of the comments were specific to the team’s project, but others expressed more general feelings:

“A desirable task to explore even without the expected outcome”

“Exciting! We are going through a lot of change within our department at the moment, and it feels good to have some responsibility for one aspect I have felt that we’ve needed to shake things up for a while.”

Thoughts and feelings about team and their ability to be effective as change agents

Most comments about the ability of their team members to work together and to be effective change agents were positive:

“I look forward to working in my team and would readily take up the challenge of being an effective change agent.”

“All staff and students involved in the team seem very committed to improving learning and teaching in … and the staff all have track records of thinking about and effecting changes in curricula and learning/teaching in their own subjects.”

“The team are likely to be persuasive change agents ‘at home’.”

But some of the potential challenges and uncertainties also surfaced:

“I am slightly concerned that the staff team members will be quite conservative about change”

“There are considerable conceptual divides within the team which I have to help resolve.”

“[I’m] uncertain at this stage.”

Preparation for role in team

Most seemed well prepared for their role:

“Having seen 30 years of curricular change … I still look forward to learning new skills in this event and having my basic assumptions challenged.”

“Well prepared and ready to contribute where possible.”

“Confident.”

Although some expressed some reservations:

“I have not attended a residential conference before so am a little nervous, but I have a clear understanding of the structure and purpose of the event so I am reassured of my role.”

“[I’m] nervous, slightly inadequate, and somewhat ill-prepared; as for every new venture.”

8 Experiences of the event

The 48-hour event over three days was the core of the initiative and was the main topic of the interviews with participants and leaders The experiences of the 14 delegates and leaders

interviewed are structured under ten headings.

Time away

A common theme in the interviews was the importance of the time spent away from the institution.

As one delegate expressed it:

“That was enormously helpful; the reason being that it actually takes you out of your

institutional mind set We’ve had numerous meetings around the table with the same people before we went, and our progress was extremely slow in that we were revisiting the same issues all the time and seemed incapable of moving it forward, but getting away was

transformational in the sense that it actually broke that mould.”

Having a break from what was going on back at the University was particularly important for one participant:

“Certainly it’s worked getting away from the job I think that’s very important People are always going to be in touch with it because they bring their laptops and the Blackberries - I didn’t, as it happens; I decided to cut myself off completely from it And so that was a

liberation.”

But the teams could have simply gone away somewhere off campus, so we asked the

interviewees what difference it made coming to an organised event They all felt that the

facilitated event made a critical difference:

“It was the more focused nature of what we did, that I think really worked, and that there was

an appreciation that it was within a framework with other people who were travelling along a similar road, and it was contained, from Monday to Wednesday, and there was a structure placed that we had not decided and we had to work within those timeframes I found that really useful.”

“There is something I think about the process of the event – the sort of having to bid, the talking through, that structure which you could do on your own, but I don’t think you would do

on your own, that was important.”

The event programme

Perhaps not surprisingly different delegates found different parts of the programme stimulating and helpful Several found the discussion of approaches to curriculum change useful and some thought the models of change management interesting, but from an academic rather than a

practical perspective It was the exercises though which generally received the most positive comments.

“The concepts around change, that was the least useful, although it provoked some thought The curriculum models were interesting and gave us something to work on, and indeed it reinforced some of our ideas, and that was very positive The activities, the various ways of brainstorming were very helpful indeed.”

“The session where we looked at creative thinking was the biggest hit with my team, and the reasons for that were - we arrived with a preset idea of what … our issue might be - and the creative thinking session … made us appreciate perhaps that we’d assumed rather too much about what our issue might be and we went back to a let’s take a step by step incremental approach to change.”

The divergent thinking exercise on the second day using Post-its received almost universal praise, particularly the democratic nature of the process which gave an equal ‘voice’ to all team members, and one which is easily transferable to the classroom (Appendix 3):

“Post-it notes are great … it democratises the process, everyone just writes stuff and sticks it

up, there’s no filter.”

“But the thing that I found most useful actually and something that I'm going to take away and use with our students has been today’s Post-it session That has been I think really useful It’s made us all think in our own space and then share our thoughts with each other and, as you’ve said, it’s very democratic and I think that’s going to be an excellent way of drawing out the more timid students and shutting the other ones up.”

The rich picture exercise on the first night was also thought to very helpful in clarifying the thinking

of several of the delegates As one stated:

“I probably gained the most from the point at which we were putting together our rich picture and beginning to really try to shape as a whole team what we thought our project looked like.” Although another expressed frustration at the exercise because:

“The issues we are dealing with are very subtle and having to capture that as a rich picture I found intensely frustrating because one was constantly representing something that wasn’t quite right.”

The same person, however, said about the second day exercise using animal and flower

“Really enjoyed having the longer periods of team work; [they were] most beneficial to our project [They] allowed discussions of issues or differences of opinion.”

The 5 minute theatre on the first evening divided opinion Some found it fun and entertaining:

“That was marvellous, I’m glad we did that after we’d had enough to drink, to make it amusing

… It was great fun; although I don’t think any of us advanced our projects by participating in it!” Others found it intimidating:

“I was really quite uncomfortable with the idea of that Obviously [I was] glad to get it out the way.”

Exercises which came later in the event, such at the liquid café or engaging others in the

department, received less comment, in part because most of the interviews with the team

members had already been undertaken by then None of the team leaders mentioned these exercises explicitly

Framing the projects

The leaders, in particular, emphasised the importance of the event in helping their teams frame their projects.

“I think it was important for us to come away and develop a framework for people to work within They may have preferences for different kinds of framework, but that’s OK, we’re not

going to go down that road We needed, as leaders, to devise a framework that we could work with and that we would want people to contribute to, having spent a year looking at a number

of other frameworks I think this is quite a bold step, actually.”

“My own thinking about my language … to achieve change, changed … It went from trying to achieve a whole department approach to externality to a not very monumental change in the way we work with others, which is quite a different perspective on things.”

of thing we were teaching, like ‘physical processes’, ‘societal processes’ etc …, then it became

OK to put what is taught in geography into the physical processes diagram, whereas before it had been ‘Oh no, that’s environmental science space, so you can’t, even though it ‘s the same subject, you have to have it in two places.’ That was a really important point for us, I think.”

“I didn’t feel it was a team at the beginning … the student member hadn’t met us before, it was the first time she’d been involved in it, she was a late replacement … and I didn’t want to position myself as ‘I have a set of priorities or answers here’, I want us just to explore this more creatively I don’t think people took me at my word so much, it was only when we took the creative thinking workshop that … [we were more on an equal basis].”

Role of supporters

Many of the delegates commented favourably on the key role of the supporters, or facilitators as they tended to call us, in helping the teams plan their changes:

“The facilitation by the facilitators … was very helpful, having a completely independent

viewpoint, both from the view of the wider context of change and programme curriculum

structure and approaches to development Also, the very concrete, the presence of someone

in the room who had no axes to grind was very helpful and the fact that we had other teams there who expressed interest, commentary, and encouragement on what we were aiming to do; and obviously we reciprocated.”

“Having a facilitator who belongs to each team was really useful.”

“I think particularly the guidance of the supporters has been enormous I have never been a great fan of this sort of activity in the past, but I have had my basic assumptions challenged, not only in terms of that particular project, but in terms of the event, and I have found it

enormously helpful, and also in terms of being able to transfer to other situations.”

“An outside perspective is really, really important because you need someone there going

‘actually you can do it differently, you don’t have to do it the same way you always do it’.”

“I think it’s been a good mix of activities I think it’s been facilitated very, very well I think the contributions from the facilitators have been valuable They haven’t imposed and asserted, they’ve added to the process, which is important.”

Role of student team members

Just as importantly was the role of the students as team members For the three teams with one

or two student members, the other team members were full of praise of the important contribution they made to their team’s thinking:

“She really, really contributed to our thinking collectively about our issue.”

“The use of the students was really important for us I included them because you told us to I was doing what I was told But they were an incredibly helpful part of our team They are

unbelievable I’ve had a meeting already this morning with … to make sure we capture

everything we have done, and … has taken all our flipcharts and notes and taken it away to capture those electronically and make some sense of it all … has emailed me independently

to say we need go away and talk to some students And they are both coming forward

independently to say ‘we want to carry on being involved with the process’.”

“It was essential to our thinking.”

“Having the students with us has been immensely helpful, and frankly they have played as full

a part as any other team member and have been just amazing.”

Presence of other teams

At various points during the event teams were paired to work with another team or to discuss their ideas with the other delegates, as in the rich picture and liquid café exercises The breaks and social activities also encouraged informal networking Several comments were made about the benefits individuals had gained from these exchanges Many of the conversations were

serendipitous and had nothing to do with their team project For example, among the topics discussed, mentioned in the interviews, were community engagement, designing courses over the three years of the degree around research groups, and teaching basic chemistry skills.

The fact that nearly all the participants shared a link through working in closely related disciplines helped the teams to work together effectively At times individuals met others with a similar

functional role (e.g students, course leaders, students) to exchange ideas related to their roles

Leadership issues

The team leaders varied in their previous experience of leadership Some tried to play down the role they had in their institution so that other team members, particularly the students and more junior members of staff, were not daunted (see also second quote above under ‘turning points’); others expressed potential issues of managing their team effectively when we asked, ‘What was it like to be the leader?’, reflecting the complexity of effective leadership in HE discussed in section 5:

“I tried my hardest to not be; well to be the leader in terms of making things happen, but not to

be the leader in terms of telling people what should be happening and how we should be working and in some ways that was harder for them than for me.”

“It was, I felt, very supportive I’m not entirely comfortable with a leadership role … I’m good

at working with a team where the team works well together, but I’m not so good with a team where there are people in the team who don’t want to come.”

A final theme which the leaders and several of the team members commented on was the

usefulness of the event for progressing their project:

“I feel that there’s a momentum, which is probably something that everyone would recognise, that we’ve got a set of priorities, we’ve got an agenda, we’ve got action points, and for this year, we’ve got events and even some things, some support already drafted in to help us, and which has acted as a bit of a focus for something that I really want to prioritise this year and I’ve achieved that through this event Might I have done it without the event? Probably not in the same way and definitely not with the same kind of creative flexible thinking that we had to

do on the event.”

“I think it’s actually fantastic! I actually thrive on interacting with other like-minded people and the group … I also tend to look at bigger pictures, the longer term plan and this has been really useful for breaking down the level of detail and actually instead of it being 101 Post-it notes, we've actually been able to identify three key areas which we can actually implement quite quickly and put an action into plan I know for a fact we wouldn’t have been able to do that without this couple of days away.”

“We started from a situation where not all of the team was on board with what I wanted It was very much I initiated it, it was my baby, and I wanted to do it and at least one academic staff on

my team was not that, hadn’t bought into it and that we were just tinkering for tinkering sake and she was very wedded to ‘this is how we do it’ and by the end she is completely on board and is now a major advocate for what we want to do So that in itself was a huge achievement from the process, and that came out from the way we approached it I would have struggled to get that change in attitude without that event.”

“I found the project work very constructive, because the team worked extremely well together, and I’m taking a different role to the one I normally take I’ve been very much a participant and

a contributor, rather than someone who is pushing something through, that’s … role, and I’ve enjoyed that very much, and I think what’s also added benefit to me is that we’ve actually achieved something, we’ve got a clear idea of where we want to go and what we need to do and how we’re going to anticipate problems.”

9 Post-event developments

A telephone group discussion took place with the team leaders five months after the event, in which each was asked to report on how their project had progressed and any leadership issues which had arisen

Perhaps inevitably, once the teams had returned to their institutions the euphoria of the event somewhat diminished and other priorities and events intervened One team reported that the Change Event had allowed the development of a vision This vision has now been developed further, with more staff being brought in to the project However, they also suggested they had been over-ambitious on the timescale needed to implement the changes “The original project team meet sporadically face-to-face, but there is a good level of email contact and informal meet- ups They still feel like a team.”

In another case reorganisation had occurred after the event, with the department participating in the initiative being integrated into a larger unit The team leader has been made head of the new department and is no longer directly responsible for the subject area This has slowed progress

as new responsibilities are negotiated, in the context of the new and unanticipated environment, but “the project has continued to move forward because of the commitment of the individual team members and because it has been embedded in the curriculum from the start.”

Slow progress was seen as an advantage by a further team Although the original team members are currently developing materials, they acknowledged that more academic staff buy-in is needed However, the team leader is working on this slowly “as a deliberate policy of letting people think it

is their own good idea.”

In contrast the fourth team reported good progress, in part driven by the need to meet the

validation timetable They found that the Change Event had given the team time to get to know each other better and where each individual was coming from in terms of the project Although the original team members are now working on individual parts of the project, they still resonate well as a team: “it may no longer be a formal relationship, but it still works All are singing from the same hymn sheet.”

All the team leaders reflected on the benefits of the event For example:

“The event took us back to first principles, challenged our assumptions, especially with respect

to staff developing new modules, and it made us more creative … In particular, the inputs from other teams were very useful.”

“The project needed focus and the event provided acceleration; it gave us a directed push, which would have been hard, especially from a leadership point of view It has been incredibly useful.”

“It allowed us to re-think, change ideas, and get us working on the ways of engaging,

influencing, getting people to think.”

“I would reiterate what everyone else has said; absolutely.”

The only possible change to the event suggested by two of the leaders was consideration of reducing the length by half a day.

Several of the leaders reported that since they had returned they had used the techniques to stimulate thinking used at the event with staff and students For example:

“I’ve used the World Café activities with staff and it gave me confidence to do that.”

“I used some of these techniques during the PGCert, when the speaker got snowed in and couldn’t turn up I also used the GEES event as a whole as an exemplar as to how you can do something different to change thinking”.

Interestingly the team leaders also said that they found the telephone discussion useful as an opportunity to reflect on their project and learn how the others were moving their projects forward All agreed that a further telephone discussion in approximately six months time would be

The main conclusion to emerge from the interviews, self-completed questionnaires and the

authors’ observations as participants in the programme is that overall the GEES Departmental Change Initiative was effective at supporting departmental teams to clarify, design and plan

significant curriculum related initiatives.

Among the key features of the initiative which made it successful are:

 The inclusion of the planned initiative’s key stakeholders, including students and where appropriate learning support staff

 The supported change residential event, which took the teams off campus for at least two days and immersed them in a mixture of activities, particularly emphasising creative thinking, and time to plan

 The discipline-based nature of the event, which enhanced the benefits of networking with members of the other teams

 Pre- and post-event telephone discussions, which provided critical support to the team leaders

 Respected, experienced supporters who acted as independent critical friends of the teams and encouraged them to think of a range of ways of meeting their objectives

On the last point an observer noted that the supporters:

“managed to achieve a delicate balance between over-whelming the participants with material and ideas, and giving them room to develop their projects Time and space has been given to the team leaders to move forward, with the post-event telephone conferences proving useful in reminding leaders of where they are, and where they want to go next I feel that this non- judgemental, encouraging, but ultimately hands-off approach is one that works in this context The role of mentor/advisor, (or, indeed, supporter!), rather than taking a didactic, strong-arm approach with a specific time-frame (‘you will have done x by this time’) has allowed for

changes in context within the participating departments This means that team leaders have felt able to continue to engage with the supporters and the other team members, despite such changes occurring - maybe it’s taking a pragmatic and realistic approach that works! I also feel it is very important that the supporters be extremely experienced and senior individuals - I’m not sure that the role of ‘change agent’ would have sat as well on the shoulders of other members of staff, either for themselves or the participants.”

Against these benefits has to be balanced the intensive nature of the programme from the point of view of the Subject Centre It is difficult to calculate a cost-benefit ratio, especially for changes which have yet to be implemented fully in their departments However, the indications from the participants are that the initiative has added considerable value to the quality of the teaching and learning which the four departments have designed and planned Arguably, the projects

supported in this initiative will impact on the quality of student learning more extensively than many of the smaller projects traditionally supported by Subject Centres, which are usually

targeted at individual modules or courses In the context of restricted resources for Higher

Education nationally, serious consideration should be given to moving from this pilot initiative to a full programme of supporting strategic changes at departmental level This applies not only to GEES, but to work in the other Higher Education Academy-supported Subject Centres, and to whatever other discipline-based initiatives designed to support teaching and learning may emerge

in the future.

This report began with the quote from Peter Gould where he asked the question: Given the

opportunity to establish a new department would your curricula bear much resemblance to most of the formal courses of study to be found today? His answer, that reflects his hope that we would

be creative and think anew, presents a challenge to all of us as we design, plan and support strategic changes to curricula He would probably agree with Barnett and Coate (1995, 6) that

“there can hardly be a more significant concept than ‘curriculum’ with which to understand higher education.”

Appendix 1 GEES Department Change Event Programme

Day 1 Monday 7 September

12.30 Lunch if requested

14.00 Introduction to event: aims, structure, ground rules and role of supporters (MB)

14.10 Ice breaker: working in teams (MH)

14 45 Types of change: what constitutes successful change for your project? (CRR)

15.10 Curricular design and change (MH)

15.35 Refreshments (supporters meeting with students)

16.00 Setting up Task 1: Rich Pictures (MB)

16.05 Teams work on Task 1

17.30 Paired teams meet to discuss Task 1: short presentations and questions Pairs (Aston and Bath Spa,

Newcastle and Lancaster) to ask for advice from each other: think of a question to ask relating to your own project)

18.00- 18.45 Free time

18.45 Taxis to Chancellors Hotel

19.00 Open Forum and refreshments: participants to circulate, study and enquire after Rich Pictures (Rich

Pictures will be brought to the hotel) Briefing for Five Minute theatre

19.30 Dinner

After dinner: Five Minute Theatre (CRR)

Day 2 Tuesday 8th September

Breakfast from 7.30

9.00 Introduction to the day and reflection on previous work Plenary: reshaping the box and creative

thinking (MB)

10.40 Refreshments

11.00 Team work and Tasks 2 and 3 (to be recorded by teams).

Task 2: what assumptions underlie the practices of your department or appropriate units?; do you all agree

on these assumptions?; can you challenge or twist them?

Task 3: what are the opportunities and challenges of your project?; how can you make the most of the opportunities and respond to the challenges?

13.00 Lunch

13.40 Brief meeting of supporters and leaders

14.00 Team work continued and working on Tasks 2 and 3, with visits by supporters

15.30 Refreshments and team work

15.50 Team work continued and Task 4: come to the plenary with question(s) that a member of your team

will host at a Liquid Café table

16.45 Liquid Café: a member of each team will host a table for discussion of a question arising from their

9.00 Introduction to morning and reflections Plenary: emerging issues (e.g engaging others in department,

bringing in outside stakeholders etc.) (MB)

9.30 Team work and Task 5: how will you engage colleagues on your return to your department/institution?

Write a plan of action

10.30 Refreshments

11.00 Team work continued and Task 5: supporters to visit

12.00 Final plenary (All)

12.30 Lunch if requested