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Introduction

OD and Learning provide effective academic development opportunities for all staff working on DMU programmes so that our students’ experience of learning ‘gets better all the time’.  OD and Learning aims to work in collaboration with faculties and departments to support their staff.  OD and Learning is both proactive and responsive and invites staff to discuss their developmental needs on an individual as well as departmental basis. 

The developmental support offered to DMU academics is focussed on three broad areas – recognition, enhancement and development.

Recognition

One specific question that the MyAppraisal form asks of all academic staff is your position regarding HE Academy recognition.  You are asked your current status – from Associate to Principal Fellow (if applicable) – and whether you intend changing that status in the coming year.  Support will be offered to anyone seeking to change that status through our Define scheme.  Such support will be focussed on colleagues who currently have no recognition in order to achieve the University Leadership Board target of 100% of DMU academics with such recognition by September 2018.  For details see:

    • MyDevelopment Blackboard Community – details of the Define scheme and how it supports enhancement and development are provided at MyDevelopment>Define

Valuable though HE Academy recognition is to individual academics and the institution, the primary purpose of Define is to reinforce DMU’s efforts to enhance and develop learning and teaching. 

Enhancement

DMU expects all academics to be observed (and to observe a colleague) teaching annually and since 2011 this has been largely achieved through reciprocal Peer Observation.  Details of the scheme are available on:

Whilst such observations are a welcome contribution to enhancement, we are currently piloting the DMU Teaching Enhancement Scheme (TES).  This involves a developmental observation by a colleague from the TES team.  Such colleagues have not only been trained in undertaking developmental observations but can carry out part of the evaluation necessary to achieve HE Academy recognition through Define.  In order to participate in this pilot you should e-mail three suitable dates for such an observation (with at least two weeks’ notice of the earliest date) and any queries regarding the pilot to the Teaching Enhancement Team.  

Development

DMU offers a range of development activities to meet the needs of academic colleagues.  If you are in the first three years of teaching in the sector you are expected to participate in the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education.  For those who do not have sufficient teaching hours to participate in that programme we offer the two-day ‘Beginning to Teach in HE’ session. Please go to Professional Development Activies for further details.

There is also a range of academic development opportunities for more experienced staff.  The focus of such activities is currently on:-

    • Universal Design for Learning – all academic staff should attend the two hour ‘UDL & DMU Replay in Practice’ (if they haven’t already attended the equivalent one hour ‘UDL in Practice’ and ‘UDL Workshop’ sessions.  For further information see the LT2020 website and the UDL Blackboard Community;

    • Personal Tutoring – any academic staff who are (or maybe in future) a personal tutor should attend, ‘Personal Tutoring: Effective & Efficient Student Support’. 

Dates and further details for these sessions are available at the Staff Development page.

Leadership Development

For those colleagues with responsibilities for leading programmes, a new series of development opportunities will be launched in September.  In addition to providing support to engage and develop your programme team, this will include an opportunity to discuss and shape the further development opportunities to meet Programme Leaders’ needs.  To register an interest in the launch, Programme Leaders’ should contact Staff Development Bookings.

We achieve our aims through:

  • Contributing to relevant strategies such as the University Learning Teaching and Assessment Strategy (ULTAS) plans in relation to learning and development, through membership of relevant committees and working groups.
  • Leading the planning, development, co-ordination and delivery of academic staff development activity which supports ULTAS, Research Strategy, Staff Development Policy and other relevant strategies and legislation such as the Equality Act 2010.  
  • Leading in the promotion of a learning culture among academic colleagues in which they are positively engaged in enhancing their own skills and effectiveness in pursuit of DMU and personal goals. In particular we co-ordinate the DMU ‘Awards to Recognise your Teaching Excellence’ Scheme and DMU's nominations for National Teaching Fellowship.  
  • Acting as a central link for faculties to external organisations, such as the Higher Education Academy and support applications for Fellowship of the HEA.

To achieve our aims we work closely with: 

  • DMU Teacher Fellows and National Teaching Fellows
  • Chairs of Learning and Teaching Committees
  • Department of Academic Quality 
  • Directorate of Library and Learning Services (Including CLaSS and ELT)