Scottish Higher Education Developers October 2018 | Page 15

DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY
APPROACH OF LEARNERS
ENGAGED IN CONTINUING
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The role of the Academic Developer at the
University of Stirling
Mary McCulloch and Catriona Cunningham, University of Stirling
Since January 2016 the University of Stirling has been running the HEA-accredited
internal CPD framework SFELTE. Of course, most of our institutions have CPD
frameworks that are also firmly wrapped around the Professional Standards Framework.
However, we would like to take this opportunity to pause and reflect on the initial
implementation of the framework which has also been designed to create a community
approach to CPD in learning and teaching.
This deliberate function of SFELTE came from the need to create a learning and teaching
community with only two academic developers and a landscape for embedding and
promoting enhanced academic practices that needed some nourishment. To apply for
recognition through us, there is a need to demonstrate explicit engagement with CPD,
which we and latterly colleagues from across the institution provide. To create our
scheme we “hot-housed” engaged colleagues through direct applications to the HEA and
they became our first SFELTE Associates, joining us in the mentoring of others and the
reviews of applications. As more colleagues are recognised as fellows and senior fellows
through both SFELTE and our accredited provision we invite them to join the SFELTE
Associates and engage in mentoring and reviewing training and development, as well as
providing some of the CPD for SFELTE recognition.
As we get close to our fifth panel, we have already supported almost 140 fellowship
recognitions through our provision and our community continues to grow as more
colleagues join and share their time, expertise and practices. Sharing the load, yes, but
also building community.
11
Celebrating 25 years of SHED