Collaborating with Heroes : Sessional Academic Learning and Teaching ( SALT )
Dr Alanya Drummond , Dr Kate Jackson Faculty of Built Environment
Propose significant insights into the area being addressed
Sessional academic staff deliver a high proportion of the university ’ s teaching with significant direct student contact yet training and support for these staff is lacking in many areas ( Steel et al . 2018 , 98 ). The Education Focused ( EF ) Sessional Academic Staff Community is leading the change to address these concerns by focusing on ways to upskill and support our sessionals . Specifically , we are creating a baseline professional development training module with videos that will build capabilities of sessional academic staff and enhance teaching performance , educational experience , as well as student and staff wellbeing .
There are considerable existing resources on teaching generally and many Faculty-specific sessional training materials across UNSW . With higher education institutions urged to “ systemically evaluate and reform the support they provide to their workforce ” ( Hitch et al . 2017 , 296 ), we completed a landscape of the existing sessional training programs and materials offered across UNSW and subsequently began development of a fully online training program for sessionals . The program is termed Sessional Academic Learning and Teaching ( SALT ). SALT will provide foundational teaching information and can be easily built upon by individual Faculties to provide additional , discipline-specific information .
Prioritising the online accessibility of this training was vital , not only because of the recent transition to remote learning and teaching due to COVID-19 but also in recognition that “ traditional approaches to academic development may not offer the best fit for the needs of sessional staff ” and a fully online program may increase the ease and accessibility for sessionals ( Harvey 2017 , 3 ). Complementing the fully online SALT program is the creation of a new SALT Teams page , a place for sessional academics to network , share best practices , ask questions and foster connection . It is hoped that the SALT Teams site will began to breakdown the sense of isolation , particularly from the intellectual community , that sessionals can often feel ( Brown et al . 2010 , 177 ).
Inclusion of student partnership or student voice as an enabler ( mandatory )
Our work has engaged the UNSW Heroes Team to incorporate the valuable student perspective into what new sessional staff need to know about UNSW students before they start teaching . Our Heroes Team informally polled their peers on what is / is not working for them . This feedback will be used to inform a series of training videos and modules that will be incorporated into SALT . The student voice on what good tutoring looks like has significantly shaped the development of the SALT training module and contributed to our formulation of best practice in sessional teaching .
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