Change leadership, management and strategies to promote quality university teaching and learning

Chapter 15DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0672-0.ch015 ABSTRACT This chapter provides an overview of change leadership and management strategies to promote the quality of university teaching an

Chapter 15

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0672-0.ch015

ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an overview of change leadership and management strategies to promote the quality

of university teaching and learning It draws attention to the organisational contexts of universities that encompass change leadership processes, emphasizing the need for whole-of-university approaches and

‘joined-up’ policies, plans and procedures that support teaching The discussion is organized in terms of five principles of action (McInnes et al., 2012) These are (1) Shape the strategic vision that puts student learning and student experience at its core; (2) Inspire and enable excellence; (3) Devolve leadership

of learning and teaching; (4) Reward, recognize and develop teaching; and (5) Involve students.

INTRODUCTION

Evidence shows that students want, and need, the full support of teachers and university services to mize their opportunities for learning (Scott 2005) This means that faculties, libraries, administration, and student support and learning technology services must coordinate their work through ‘joined-up’ policies, plans and procedures The leadership and management goal is whole-of-university change to

maxi-‘get the context right’ for teaching and learning To explore how this is done, the chapter is organised around McInnes, Ramsden and Maconachie’s (2012) five principles for action by senior university lead-ers because these sustain a sharp focus on student learning outcomes Change leadership strategies are conceptualized as push and pull drivers of change Push factors refer to quality assurance and compli-

Change Leadership, Management and Strategies

to Promote Quality University

Teaching and Learning

ance with teaching and learning standards These are normally monitored by external authorities Push factors are based on the management principle that what gets measured gets done Pull factors include incentives to enhance teaching such as awards, fellowships, grants, and career enhancement strategies such as professional development and promotion based on evidence of teaching excellence.

BACKGROUND

Traditionally, universities have focused attention on the core business of research, leaving faculties and individual teachers to determine teaching practices and programs However, the massification and glo-balization of higher education mean that universities must now promote teaching excellence in systematic ways to ensure effective learning experiences for all students The focus on teaching and learning has been prompted by external and internal pressures External drivers of change include reduced funding, increasing numbers of students, increased competition from private and public institutions, external quality audits, and developments in communications and information technology that have changed the educational landscape to make online, blended and flexible learning not only viable but necessary (Hunt

& Peach, 2009;Scott et al., 2008) Internal pressures for change arise from the strategic vision of each

university and locally determined priorities

University education is now understood by governments to be a significant business opportunity In Australia, for example, higher education earned a record $17.6 billion in 2014, making it Australia’s fourth largest export (The Department of Education and Training, June 2015) Understandably, the income-earning capacity of higher education has focused the attention of governments around the world They now want to ensure that they are getting a good outcome from their investment in universities As

a consequence, governmental agencies have emerged to assure and promote quality in university tion Over 200 national and regional quality agencies, many established by government charter, attest

educa-to the level of interest in ensuring the quality of national higher education systems and, in particular, university teaching quality (The International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Edu-cation nd) The leadership and management task is to ensure that each university meets the standards for quality teaching

Internationally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports on a

range of higher education indicators through their Education at a Glance reports, providing ties for national benchmarking International rankings, such as the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University, use metrics to rank individual institutions Whilst these

opportuni-rankings are contested in regard to the indicators and weightings used, they are important for the prestige they bestow and their role in attracting students and funding For example, governments in China and Chile will only fund scholarships for their students in universities with high rankings So far, rankings are based largely on research metrics but attention is now turning to the identification of metrics to inform international ranking tables associated with the quality of teaching and learning Benchmarking and ranking against standards assures comparability of university qualifications and student learning outcomes and it facilitates the mobility of students and university teachers between institutions and na-tions For example, the capacity to promote such mobility was a key driver in the establishment of the European Bologna Process in 1999

Governments ‘push’ universities to enhance teaching through requirements to comply with ity standards Examples of quality agencies established to do this include the Malaysian Qualification

qual-Agency and The Indian National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) These assess and accredit higher education institutions in accordance with national standards for teaching, learning, cur-riculum, and student services Governments have also implemented incentives to enhance the quality

of teaching, learning, curriculum and the student experience National examples of capacity-building organisations that encourage teaching excellence include the Higher Education Academy (HEA) in the United Kingdom It has a mission to support and improve ‘learning outcomes by raising the status and quality of teaching in higher education’ In Australia, the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) and its antecedent organisations, have offered teaching awards, fellowships and grants to promote teaching and learning In the USA, the Carnegie Foundation has a long history of promoting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) through strategic projects and awards In and of themselves, organisa-tions such as these are important in the enhancement of university teaching and learning, but they also have an extended and trickle-down effect on institutional practices For example, almost all Australian universities have established awards for teaching excellence aligned with the OLT and many have al-located significant funding for strategic initiatives in teaching and learning (Chalmers & Thompson, 2008) These international and national agencies set the targets and build capacity for institutional change leadership and management to promote university teaching and learning

MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER

Institutional Change Leadership

A key message in this chapter about change leadership to promote excellent teaching and learning is that

a whole-of-university approach is required to produce sustainable outcomes This is not always easy to achieve because universities are complex organisations with multiple and competing goals to promote teaching, research and enterprise

For Cuthbert, universities are characterised by: problematic goals, in that there is no universally shared view of the purpose of a higher education; unclear technology, meaning that we do not know how to make sure that either teaching or research takes place successfully; and fluid participation, referring

to the tendency for academic staff not to relate very closely to their ‘home’ institution, but often to be better networked with colleagues in other institutions (Blackmore, 2012, p 273)

To bring order to this complex context, this discussion about institutional change leadership is ganised in terms of McInnes, Ramsden and Maconachie’s (2012) five principles for action by senior university leaders to achieve quality in teaching and learning These are:

or-1 Shape the strategic vision that puts student learning and student experience at its core

2 Inspire and enable excellence

3 Devolve leadership of learning and teaching

4 Reward, recognize and develop teaching

5 Involve students

Principle 1: Shape The Strategic Vision

McInnes et al (2012, pp 13-15) suggest that a strategic vision encompasses: applying up-to-date knowledge of how teaching influences student learning; identifying the institutional factors that affect student success; conceptualizing the future student experience; assessing the current performance of the institution; and balancing collegial and managerial imperatives This section will explore these issues under three headings: Strategic visions; joined-up policies and plans; and teaching and learning projects

Strategic Visions for Quality Teaching and Learning

The specific strategic vision of a university informs current and prospective students, and staff, about its distinctive approach to teaching and learning For example, the vision for teaching and learning at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ, 2013-2015) is about personalized learning: ‘We promise to partner with learners in the pursuit of their study objectives regardless of their background, location or stage in life’ In order to pursue this vision, the university promises, inter alia, to provide students: access

to learning through online and blended learning opportunities; a range of pathways to higher education; and support services that respond to individual student needs

Strategic visions normally reflect international, national and local issues – the latter referring to ters such as the size and nature of a university’s student population They also draw on evidence about how students learn, contemporary understandings of which cohere around the importance of students’ active engagement in learning (see Stewart, 2012) Of late, these pedagogies have been summarized into

mat-a ‘flipped clmat-assroom’ mat-appromat-ach defined by Smat-ankey mat-and Hunt (2014, p 28) mat-as:

The term ‘flipped’ refers to the provision of tailored online resources and associated learning activities that facilitate student preparation for classroom or online discussion time focused on the application and consolidation of planned learning outcomes ‘Essentially, what was traditionally completed at home as homework has been flipped to become the focus of classroom learning’ (The Queensland Government, 2012) In simple terms, flipped university classrooms represent a move away from standard lectures and tutorials and a move towards learning experiences based on a series of deep learning activities including workshops and mediated online discussion.

A university’s strategic vision also shapes its curricula For example, some universities distinguish themselves by offering problem-based learning (Brodie, 2012), research-led curricula (Jenkins & Healey, 2012), or a particular focus on open and online learning (Reeves & Reeves, 2012) Others, such as Middlesex University, offer work-integrated curricula described by Garnett (2012, p.166) as an acknowledgement ‘that work has learning needs (i.e., workers require specific knowledge and skills) but also that high-level learning can take place at work, through undertaking work and for the specific purposes of work’

A university’s strategic vision charts a course of action for leaders and managers that is codified in the subsequent development of mission statements and goals, which direct and inform university manage-ment For example, one of the goals arising from the Strategic Vision of Charles Darwin University is

‘To become a recognised national leader in the tertiary education of Australian Indigenous students, and

in the teaching, research and understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems’ (Charles Darwin

Univer-sity, 2012) Statements at this level become quite specific and inform the development of a university’s policies and plans In the teaching and learning domain, policies can include, but are not limited to:

• Curriculum design

• Review and accreditation of degree programs

• Assessment and moderation

• Student feedback and evaluation

• Teaching standards

• Graduate attributes

• Retention and progression

• Student academic skills support

• Academic integrity

New strategic visions for teaching and learning require new policies as Hunt, Huijer and Sankey (2011, pp 187-188) noted in their case study about the redesign of learning spaces: ‘key policy changes included the introduction of a Fleximode Policy to diminish differences in the design of learning experi-ences between on-campus and distance education students and to guarantee to students appropriate and equal access to learning resources’

Joined-up Policies and Plans

A university’s vision for teaching and learning is brought to fruition in its strategic plan, normally of three

to five years’ duration This informs the shorter-term, operational plans of departments Hunt and Peach (2009) argue that the purpose of teaching and learning policies and plans is to ‘get the context right’ to support student learning This is important because, to learn effectively, students prefer a coordinated response to their needs: ‘efficient and responsive administrative, information technology, library and student support systems actively working together to support … operation[s]’ (Scott 2005, p 13) The implication of Scott’s findings is that collaboration between university departments is necessary to provide what students need to support their learning This means that policies and plans should be aligned to the common cause of teaching and learning excellence – what might be called ‘joined-up’ policies and plans Hunt & Peach’s (2009, p 7) case study of one university’s change initiative to support teaching, shows how the concept of students’ ‘learning journeys’ was used as the organising principle to ensure that policies and processes were joined-up:

The concept of the student learning journey informs all planning It is a relationships-based and holistic approach that focuses attention on the student as a whole person, as opposed to the student as the subject and object of a series of unrelated interactions with an organisational bureaucracy The aim is to ensure connectedness between the responses provided by the university at different points in a student’s journey.

Teaching and Learning Projects

The implementation of policies and plans may be organised as projects which can be monitored through normal project management processes, albeit in modified form (Hunt & Sankey 2013, p 266):

There is a difference between the necessarily punctilious approaches to, for example, engineering ects and those pertaining to human service (education) organisations Engineering projects require an exactness that is difficult to incorporate into community development However, the elements of setting targets, estimating timelines, measuring outcomes and establishing communication plans can all be used … to ensure maximum outcome.

proj-Hunt and Sankey’s (2013) case study of whole-of-university change identified ten teaching and ing projects to provide services for students and staff (See Figure 1) Whilst this set of ten projects is not definitive (other universities will have different priorities and projects), the case study does offer a useful starting point for scoping a reasonably exhaustive range of teaching and learning change leader-ship projects at institutional level

learn-Figure 1 illustrates the importance of incentives to promote teaching These include the development

of teaching awards and grants in the Teaching Excellence and Academic Professional Development projects It also shows quality assurance projects, for example, the Evaluation Project, and it indicates the need to plan support services for both staff and students

Principle 2: Inspire and Enable Excellence

The second of McInnes, Ramsden, and Maconachie’s (2012, pp 19-23) five principles for action is about inspiring and enabling teaching excellence According to them, this involves: maintaining personal credibility through leadership in interpreting and shaping the national policy landscape; leading from a strong evidence base; presenting the vision as achievable with early wins and long term change in sight; developing a focused learning and teaching plan, securing sufficient funds to support the vision; creating conditions that enable academics to strive for excellence in teaching; and stimulating staff engagement

Figure 1: Learning and teaching projects (Source Hunt & Sankey, 2013)

This section will explore these issues under three headings: Securing financial support; building an evidence base; and enabling staff engagement.

Securing Financial Support

Gibbs’ (2010) argued that the best educational outcomes for students arise from the manner in which resources are used Institutions must plan their use of resources to make the most of the students they have Gibbs (2010, p 5) claims that what really matters are the ‘well understood pedagogical practices that engender student engagement’ these he identifies as ‘class size, the level of student effort and en-gagement, who undertakes the teaching, and the quantity and quality of feedback to students on their work’ Ewell (2008, pp 10-11) agrees noting that ‘one of the most pervasive and unassailable myths about higher education has to do with the relationship between outcomes and money’ He concluded that

‘it is not how much is invested in a given collegiate experience that is important; it is how intentionally

these resources are directed’

Building an Evidence-base to Enable Teaching Excellence

In their discussion of turnaround leadership, Fullan and Scott (2009, p 80) note that: ‘A university culture, characterised by a commitment to continuous evaluation, inquiry, and quality improvement concentrates on using evidence to identify what aspects of its current provision are working well and what most needs enhancement’ The growth of evidence-based approaches to change leadership may be seen in the emergence of organisations such as the Higher Education Institutional Research networks in the UK and Ireland (HEIRNETWORK) These are networks of practitioners working to support teaching and learning through informed management decision-making The emergence of learning analytics also demonstrates an increasing thirst for information about learning and teaching outcomes

In her succinct summary of the ways in which evidence about teaching and learning outcomes might be secured, Krause (2012) notes a range of strategies including: student evaluations of teaching; professional accreditation; reviews of degree programs; evaluation of student support services such as the library; curriculum design and delivery standards; and peer review of teaching In fact, measures

of teaching and learning outcomes are now widely available at international, national, institutional and discipline-based levels (Chalmers, 2008)

Comparative analysis of the relative success of strategies designed to support teaching and learning may be secured through criterion based or quantitative benchmarking processes According to McKin-non et al (2000), benchmarking:

has three potential uses It provides senior staff with tools to ascertain performance trends in the versity and to initiate continuous self-improvement activities Second, it is sufficiently well developed for use by groups of universities wishing to compare performance on all or some of the areas covered Third, some of the benchmarks can be used by universities now to ascertain their competitive position relative to others.

uni-There are now international discipline standards that facilitate benchmarking For example, the TUNING Project (Tuning Educational Structures in Europe) has developed generic and subject specific competences for undergraduate degree programs in Europe This has followed from the national higher

education discipline-based standards developed by the British Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) It has been expanded into the USA and other countries.

While much of the data collection has been at international and national levels, Chalmers (2007) advocates a shift in focus to intra-institutional measures of teaching and learning performance To inform this process, Chalmers et al (2014) trialed a framework of good practice principles and evidence-based measures of teaching performance It is based on seven criteria of good teaching which can be used as

a basis for management planning The criteria are:

1 Design and planning of learning activities

2 Teaching and supporting student learning

3 Assessment and giving feedback to students on their learning

4 Developing effective learning environments, student support and guidance

5 Integration of scholarship, research and professional activities with teaching and in support of student learning

6 Evaluation of practice and continuing professional development

7 Professional and personal effectiveness

Enabling Staff Engagement in Teaching Excellence

Strategies to engage staff in the promotion of teaching excellence include participation in university teaching and learning and course approval committees as well as professional development programs In the UK, universities have established introductory teaching programs accredited by the national Higher Education Authority These are assessed against the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) Some 65,000 university academics have completed an accredited program (HEA, 2014) In Australia, there is more variation in professional development programs across the university sector, though most universities do offer introductory teaching programs (Hicks et al., 2010) Some universities now require all new academic staff to complete a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching to be eligible for a tenured position Such requirements for formal qualifications to teach in universities reflect international trends

to professionalise university teaching (Chalmers et al., 2014)

The establishment of professional development programs is an important task for university managers because they are demonstrably effective in encouraging teachers to adopt a reflective, learning-focused approach to university teaching (Postareff et al., 2007; Gibbs, 2010; Chalmers & Gardiner, 2015) The implementation of such programs may also be a required management task because the provision of professional development is used in quality audits as a measure of an institution’s commitment to teach-ing (HEA, 2009) Even so, the effectiveness of professional development programs has been contested because access to these programs can be limited for part-time and casual teachers (Anderson, 2007) While universities rarely exclude their part-time and limited-term staff from professional development programs, few pay additional salary costs to ensure attendance With increasing numbers of academic staff in limited-term positions, this presents a serious challenge to universities seeking teaching excel-lence (Probert, 2013)

Principle 3: Devolve Leadership of Learning and Teaching

The third principle for action concerns leadership itself McInnes et al (2012) maintain that this principle encompasses: ordered flexibility in the approach to implementation; aligning faculty and departmental leadership of teaching with institutional goals; building a critical mass of leaders of learning and teach-ing; and promoting collaborative approaches to the improvement of learning and teaching This section

of the chapter discusses leadership under four headings: Leaders and managers; teaching and learning leaders; formal and informal leadership; and whole-of-university change leadership

Leaders and Managers

There is a distinction between leadership and management (Marshall et al., 2011) In the domain of ing and learning, management is concerned with essential functions such as the allocation of teachers and students to classes, employment of casual teachers and tutors, and the collection and reporting of assignments and grades In contrast, leadership is normally described in terms of vision: ‘leaders are said

teach-to be transformative – that is, they enable people not just teach-to do the same things better, but teach-to do better things, at a different level’ (Blackmore 2012, p 270) Leadership is important because, as Scott et al (2008, p xiii) emphasized, ‘Change does not just happen – it must be led, and led deftly’

Teaching and learning managers and leaders find their tasks challenging because there is a perceived antithesis between the academic collegiality normal to a university context and some of the teaching quality assurance processes described in this chapter For example, Coady (2000, p 10) refers to cor-porate university leaders as ‘myopics’, who think that the purpose of ‘tertiary training is to grind out graduates at a certain rate for consumption by society’ This antithesis makes leadership challenging as Scott, Coates and Anderson (2008, p 10), found The learning leaders they interviewed, described their task of leading as ‘Getting butterflies into formation’ and ‘Trying to drive a nail into a wall of blanc-mange – little resistance but no result’

Who Are the Teaching and Learning Leaders?

Most universities now have senior leaders and managers whose role is focused on students and their learning In addition, new leadership roles have emerged with specific responsibilities for the quality

of teaching and learning There are now Deputy Vice-Chancellors (Vice Presidents) ‘Education’ and/or

‘Quality’ and, reporting to them, Pro Vice-Chancellors (Education/Teaching and Learning), who have university-wide responsibility related to teaching, students and/or the curriculum Similarly, in the organi-sational structure of faculties, schools, or departments there are roles such as Associate Deans (Teaching and Learning) as well as Curriculum Coordinators The expertise and knowledge about teaching and learning of people in these positions is variable and sometimes limited (West et al., 2011) This may be because, as Gibbs, Knapper and Pininnin (2009) found, the skills required for teaching leadership are distinct from formal departmental leadership

Specific programs for curriculum coordinators have been developed in Australia (see Jones et al., 2009; D’Agostino & O’Brien, 2009; Trivett, et al., 2011; LeFoe et al., 2011) Inter alia, these focus on matters such as reflective practice, leadership theory, communication skills, pedagogy, curriculum design, assessment and evaluation The principles on which they are based are adapted here from Jones et al

(2009) as a model for the development of courses elsewhere In general, such courses are not generic Rather, they are tailored to local contexts and specific disciplines Accordingly, they are:

• Role specific, practice based, authentic and custom-made

• Based on peer learning, providing opportunities for dialogue, networking and shared experiences

• Self-guided

• Supported through coaching and mentoring

• Linked to annual performance review systems

• Organized in terms of skill development such as team building, conflict resolution, and communication

Many universities provide teaching and learning leadership through academic development units, otherwise known as teaching and learning centres These advise upwards to senior managers and work outwards across faculties and departments to support and implement university teaching policies and plans Teaching and learning centres variously include functions such as student learning support, information and learning technology specialists, instructional design, student feedback and evaluation functions, and the coordination of teaching excellence initiatives such as teaching grants and awards Teaching and learning centres are typically responsible for professional development, in particular induction to teach-ing programs and foundation courses such as Graduate Certificates in Tertiary Teaching Their websites contain self-help information and best practice exemplars It is customary to deploy instructional or edu-cational designers to assist academics with curriculum development and assessment alignment (Angelo, 2012) Empowering community of practice strategies have emerged to create opportunities for university teachers to engage with their own immediate issues (Cox 2006; McDonald et al 2012) A model of what academic development units normally do may be gleaned from the benchmarking standards developed

by the Council of Australian Directors of Academic Development (CADAD) Their Benchmarks identify eight strategic domains of leadership and management normally seen in teaching and learning centres

1 Strategy, policy and governance

2 Quality of learning and teaching

3 Scholarship of teaching and learning

4 Professional development

5 Credit-bearing programs in higher education

6 Curriculum development

7 Engagement

8 Academic development unit effectiveness

Similar benchmarks prevail in the domain of learning technology services: the ACODE Benchmarks for Technology Enhanced Learning (2014) capture the following eight dimensions of leadership and management that are normally required to promote online and blended learning:

1 Institution-wide policy and governance for technology enhanced learning

2 Planning for institution-wide quality improvement of technology enhanced learning

3 Information technology systems, services and support for technology enhanced learning

4 The application of technology enhanced learning services

5 Staff professional development for the effective use of technology enhanced learning.

6 Staff support for the use of technology enhanced learning

7 Student training for the effective use of technology enhanced learning

8 Student support for the use of technology enhanced learning

Formal and Informal Leadership

Ramsden (1998, p 4) claims that leadership is the concern of all who work in universities He describes

it as, ‘a practical and everyday process of supporting, managing, developing and inspiring academic leagues … leadership in universities can and should be exercised by everyone, from the vice-chancellor

col-to the casual car parking attendant’ In saying this, he draws attention col-to the wide range of informal teaching leadership roles that are critical, though little understood For example, a new group of poten-tial leaders is emerging with, as yet, indistinct roles These are the winners of national teaching awards, grants and fellowships The majority of these do not have formal roles in the promotion or develop-ment of teaching and learning in their universities, yet, increasingly, their expertise is being engaged to enhance teaching and learning Smigiel et al (2011) trialed a faculty scholar program in six Australian universities to develop the leadership skills and capacity of this group of academics, who were invited

to devise and implement a teaching and learning initiative in their faculty to provide examples of how universities might foster their development as future leaders of teaching and learning Blackmore (2012,

p 268) argues that leadership is an implicit feature of university life Everyone is a leader of teaching and learning: ‘academic work is inherently an act of leadership because academics should always be

at the forefront of what is being thought and done in their domains of knowledge and practice’ This is intellectual leadership (Macfarlane, 2011) of which teaching forms a part

The leadership initiatives so far described are primarily targeted at tenured or full-time academics, however, a considerable proportion of teaching in universities is undertaken by casual staff and post-graduate students (Probert, 2013) So Blackwell (2012) asked, ‘how is it possible to lead from behind and below – from the position of a part-time tutor’s role? … Even if they can do little at this stage, these are the academic leaders of the future’ A partial answer may be seen in the Postgraduate Teaching Internship Scheme described by Partridge et al (2013, p 119) as a program of study designed to teach postgraduates how to teach The work-integrated program is:

scholarly, work-based and firmly embedded in the organisational structures of the university It is based

on reflective practice and the exchange of ideas and it incorporates the principles of adult learning In the context of postgraduate education, it extends postgraduate student learning beyond discipline-based study and enhances the teaching-research nexus and postgraduate students’ career prospects.

Whole-of-University Change Leadership

Barr and Tagg’s (1995) foundational observations about promoting teaching and learning emphasized that pedagogy and organisation are intertwined This means that new pedagogies must be supported by holistic, organisational change otherwise the outcomes of piecemeal changes will be distorted by old and established management practices If the structures, processes, procedures and culture of the whole university are not addressed in a coordinated manner, the risk is that universities will interact with stu-dents ‘only in discrete, isolated environments … [and] the sum of the student’s experiences [will be] a

series of discrete, largely unrelated … classes’ (Barr and Tagg, 1995, p 7) As Bamber et al (2009, p 3) observed ‘changing only an element at one level may have limited, local and provisional success because the rest of the system is not touched and established patterns prevail over the single change’ Accordingly, approaches to change leadership and management at institutional level have coalesced around the notion of learning organisations (Senge, 2006) and learning paradigms According to Tagg (2003, p 31) this means that transforming universities:

will require changing the governing organizational paradigm to one that places the end before the means

… What the Learning Paradigm proposes is simply to take hold of the horse and lead it to its proper position in the front of the cart, to put purposes before processes ‘The key’, as Edgerton (1997) points out, ‘is to think first in terms of student learning, and then reengineer the way academic work gets done from this perspective

The need for whole-of-university approaches was borne out in a study of distributed leadership and the introduction of new learning management systems: ‘there needs to be a shared understanding of what

is required by all stakeholders so that everyone’s efforts … contribute to a shared strategic direction for the online learning environment It is not enough to set up strategic planning … outside the users and then communicate it to them’ (Holt et al., 2014, p 82) Their evidence indicated that everyone must

understand why changes to learning management systems are necessary Yet, there are countervailing

analyses of distributed leadership based on perceptions of universities not only as discursive, collegial environments but also hierarchical organisations that deliver services As one senior manager observed, it’s all very well to have engagement in decision-making but, at some point, somebody is accountable for the implementation of teaching infrastructure, such as learning management systems:

If they can come up with a real description of how distributed leadership can be used for Online Learning Environments (OLE) it will be helpful … Responsibility and accountability are not always attached to leadership … managers expect to be able to control the resources they pay for So, [of] leaders … filling

‘influencer’ roles … it is worth asking: What’s their leadership potential if they are managed ‘locally’ competing with the central organisation that is trying to managing the OLE change? (Hunt, 2012, p 87)

Whole-of-university change requires leadership at all levels Exactly how that might happen is a debatable and a matter for local decision-making because:

change led from inside a department has its advantages and may be highly effective, but it has its own challenges Subject teachers frequently report that the changes they would like to see happen are im- possible to bring about, once they return to their home department after taking part in a professional development program The advantage for people advocating change, sometimes termed ‘change agents’, within a department is that they have an intimate knowledge of the department and its ways of working The disadvantage is that they have no external status or support (Blackmore, 2012, p 269)

Principle 4: Reward, recognize and Develop Teaching

The fourth of McInnes, Ramsden, and Maconachie’s (2012, p 19-23) five principles for action is about recognizing and rewarding teaching This principle includes setting clear institutional expectations

about the nature and outcomes of effective teaching; ensuring that faculty deans and heads of ments acknowledge and reward the teaching function of individuals and academic units; linking formal rewards such as promotion, awards, and financial incentives to teaching excellence and the performance

depart-of academic units; aligning prdepart-ofessional development opportunities with strategic learning and teaching goals; and promoting the university as a successful teaching institution

In the early 1990s, in some western countries, there was a growing realisation that the reward and recognition systems in universities favoured research over teaching, particularly in regard to promotion and tenure There was an evident need to redress the balance Chalmers (2011) described the three com-mon mechanisms that were then established to reward and recognize teaching as: (1) annual awards for good teaching; (2) offering programs (grants and professional development) to improve teaching; and (3) giving teaching more importance among the criteria for evaluating staff for performance review and promotion

Awards for Teaching

Awards for teaching in universities were introduced to signal that teaching is valued (Jackson, 2006; Skelton, 2004) The UK national teaching fellowships were established in 2000 (Gosling, 2004) Many North American universities already had established teaching awards (El-Khawas, 1996), with national teaching awards and fellowships conferred by organisations such as the Carnegie Foundation, 3M and professional associations In the UK and Australia, the introduction of national awards schemes has been credited with prompting universities, that previously had no teaching awards schemes, to establish their own at institutional level (Chalmers & Thomson, 2008)

Awards normally take the form of one-off rewards of a single payment that can be spent on approved activities such as professional development, conference attendance, and computer equipment (Jackson, 2006) While the intent of awards was not only to recognize but to further encourage teaching excellence, their one-off nature has been challenged (Frame et al., 2006; Young, 2006; Menges, 1996) because other career incentives, such as promotion and tenure, are of a continuing nature, with salary and increments that continue throughout an academic career Further, while awards were established with the best of intentions, and they can enhance individual careers, there is little evidence that these have contributed to addressing the prestige imbalance between teaching and research (Huber, 2004; HEA, 2009; Chalmers, 2011) The best that can be said, at this stage, is that such awards have demonstrated an investment in the domain of teaching and learning that have provided incentives to individuals and to teaching teams

Tenure and Promotion

Over the last three decades, there has been a major shift in the commitment of universities to improve tenure and promotion systems, and to redefine and expand the definition of university work to recognize teaching (Braxton et al., 2006; Diamond, 2002; Paulsen & Feldman, 2006) This has resulted in the de-velopment of teaching criteria and standards on which to make decisions about tenure and promotion The Australia University Teaching Criteria and Standards (AUTCAS) project (Chalmers et al., 2014), made significant progress in clarifying teaching criteria and evidence to assist senior leaders to make judgments about teaching performance It also clarified expectations for teachers, thereby helping them

to engage in the development of their own teaching capacity and career progression