Learning, Teaching and Scholarship Podcast

This is an audio recording of the following paper, read by Mark Breslin.  Enhancing the Agency of Early Career Academics  Mark Breslin, Julie Harvie, Brian Leslie, Evelyn McLaren University of Glasgow  ABSTRACT This article explores the lived experiences of four early career academics (ECAs) transitioning from school educators (within the  primary and secondary sectors) to lecturers in initial teacher education in a United Kingdom Higher Education institution. These  ECAs were established teachers with strong practitioner identities within their field of education and experienced in reflective  practice. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of how their agency was impacted in this transition. The concept of  agency is firstly explored, and an ecological model presented and used as a framework in this study. A collaborative  autoethnographic methodological approach is used to structure personal and professional reflections in order to gain an insight  into the evolving identities of the ECAs as they embrace and develop new careers within Higher Education (HE) as lecturers.  Factors emerge which have both hindered and enhanced agency and this paper sets out some recommendations for change. It is  hoped that HE establishments may find these findings useful to consider when inducting new staff and helping them develop and  flourish in the early stages of their academic careers.  Keywords: Agency, identity, early career academic, academic scholarship, academic induction For the full paper please follow here

What is SoTL? How do you get started? Where will SoTL be and how did it begin? Are just some of the questions we are discussing in this episode. Listen in for tips and advice about SoTL and here what colleagues from other institutions have to say. Anne Tierney is an Assistant Professor in the Learning and Teaching Academy at Heriot-Watt University. She has a particular interest in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, especially how scientists engage with it. Anne led a QAA Scotland collaborative cluster in micro-credentials in 2021-22 and is currently deputy chair of The Scottish Tertiary Education Network for Micro-credentials. She is Assistant Director for Improving University Teaching, an annual, international teaching and learning conference, and is on the editorial team for the Journal of Perspectives on Applied Academic Practice, as well as reviewing for several other SoTL journals. Have a nosey at Anne's latest papers for more SoTL learning:  TIERNEY, A., AIDULIS, D., PARK, J. & CLARK, K. “Plotting a route through SoTL: From bioscientist to pedagogic researcher”, Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 15:1, 34-42, 2021. https://www.pestlhe.org/index.php/pestlhe/article/view/233 TIERNEY, A., AIDULIS, D., PARK, J. & CLARK, K. “Supporting SoTL Development Through Communities of Practice”, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 8:2, 32-52, 2020. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/TLI/article/view/67953 WEBB, A. S. & TIERNEY, A. M.  “Investigating support for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; We need SoTL educational leaders”. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 57:5, 613-624, 2020. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14703297.2019.1635905?journalCode=riie20 With a big "Thank you!" to Anne for sharing her time and expertise with us.  

In this episode Dr Andrea Webb who is Associate Professor of Teaching & Area Coordinator (Social Studies), Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy at The University of British Columbia (Canada) was so kind to answer a host of questions about SoTL and introduce SoTL in Canada to us. You will find more information and all the resources Andrea has shared on our UofGSoTL Blog.  I hope you enjoy this episode and many thanks to Andrea for her time!   

In this podcast Dr Paula Karlsson-Brown shares her experience about becoming a SoTL scholar. This episode is a collaboration with the Open Scholarship Journal and is part of Paula's article. 

In this podcast, Prof. Border briefly explores his professional background and his move to the University of Glasgow as the newly appointed Head of Anatomy. Scott also introduces his Teaching and Scholarship Podcast series (https://meinpodcast.libsyn.com/), which has been successfully running for the past couple of years and aims to promote teaching excellence within university education.

In this podcast, Dr Nicola Veitch and Dr Michelle Welsh (University of Glasgow) are exploring how to get involved with SoTL research especially when starting as an early career academic. Based on previous experience, Nicola and Michelle discuss what scholarships means, how to start with SoTL research and how to identify projects, the importance of collaborations, the need for ethics, funding opportunities, and many more valuable nuggets of knowledge. Podcast edited by Dr Ourania Varsou (University of Glasgow).

Meet our Colleagues from the Adam Smith Business School Dr Helen Mullen, Dr Nick Quinn, and Dr Matt Offord sharing their experience moving into lecturer roles with learning, teaching, and scholarship focus after having successful careers in the private sector. Hear about the trials and tribulations adjusting to academic life and becoming involved in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. And in fact what makes the involvement with SoTL so attractive as part of the career in higher education. 

Today I have the pleasure to speak to Sam Oakley who works for the research integrity office about how RI features in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and we may or may not make reference to a Disney movie. 

In this episode I have the absolute pleasure to speak with Prof Susan Jamieson about becoming a professor on a Learning, Teaching and Scholarship track, which is a teaching (rather than research) focussed academic career path. It usually involves the engagement in a variety of SoTL activities. The academic community under #LTHEchat and #AcademicChatter as well as colleagues from our institution submitted questions I should ask Susan. We had an A4 sheet full of questions so today's episode is a bit longer than usual!  This is the paper Susan mentions during the interview: http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/59552/ And this is Susan's Twitter Handle: @SusanJHPE 

In this episode Paul Cannon who is one of our college librarians is talking about all the things the librarians can support when it comes to undertaking SoTL, but there are also some tips on searches, databases and publication. Tune in for more. And if you want to read up on some of the items we spoke about hop over to Paul's blog post on our SoTL blog.  https://uofgsotl.blog/?p=455 

In this episode Dr Vicki Dale is giving us tips about how to design questionnaires for SoTL projects. We talk question design, when to use or not to use a questionnaire, and what to do about demographic data.  Correction: Vicki referred to measures of central displacement but meant measures central dispersion. These are the references Vicki is mentioning in this episode:  References: Pallant, J., 2020. Survival manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using IBM SPSS. Ryan, F., Coughlan, M. and Cronin, P., 2007. Step-by-step guide to critiquing research. Part 2: Qualitative research. British Journal of Nursing, 16(12), pp.738-744.

Today I am having a chat with Dr Scott Ramsay about his experience of organising dissemination fairs at the University of Glasgow. Scott shares some insights and learning from these as well as resources and two different ways of organising such a fair.  If you want to listen to advice from the editors Scott speaks about you can catch up on the YouTube playlist:   HE Journal Info - Routes to Dissemination - YouTube And these are the books Scott co-authored with our colleague Dr Jennifer Boyle Writing a Science PhD - Jennifer Boyle|Scott Ramsay - Macmillan International Higher Education (macmillanihe.com) Writing for Science Students - Jennifer Boyle|Scott Ramsay - Macmillan International Higher Education (macmillanihe.com)  And the SoTL Infographic we talked about: SoTL Process Infographic – Adventures in Academic Development (acdevadventures.blog)

Today, my colleague Karen Thompson shares her experience of undertaking the MEd in Academic Practice. How this works next to a busy fulltime lecturing job, joining the masters via a non-traditional route and how it impacted her work and teaching. 

In this episode I am talking to Dr Michael McEwan head of subject for our MEd in Academic Practice program. Michael is explaining a bit how credit bearing SoTL provision at the University of Glasgow is organised, and shares findings from a case study he conducted with early career researchers on our program and their perceptions and understanding of SoTL. 

In this episode I am talking to Dr Matt Barr, who is a lecturer in the School of Computing Sciences, University of Glasgow about game based learning, gamification and how to undertake scholarship of teaching and learning to understand the impact these have on the learners.  Below are the references mentioned in the podcast and Matt's Twitter handle if you want to get in touch with him.  Barr, M. (2019). Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning: Using Video Games for Employability in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27786-4 Ada Scotland Festival - https://ada.scot https://twitter.com/hatii_matt

In this episode Dr Dawne Irving-Bell talks all things National Teaching Repository What it is, how it works, and the various sections to which you can submit or participate in other ways. And of course you can submit your SoTL working out loud, or thought papers! Please become involved, participate, share, become a critical friend or curator! Let Dawne know if you have suggestions!  Find Dawne on Twitter: https://twitter.com/belld17 And the NTR as well: https://twitter.com/NTRepository If you want to read up on the specifics yourself, have a look at the Welcome file here: https://figshare.edgehill.ac.uk/articles/presentation/NTR_-_Welcome_pdf/12673016  If you want to submit a resource to the NTR and obtain a DOI for your work and make it an official reference you can do so here: https://figshare.edgehill.ac.uk/submit 

In this episode I have the pleasure to interview Dr Natasha Taylor, about the international and asynchronous SoTLwalks she organises once a month online since the first pandemic lockdown hit. Natasha is originally from the UK but has been living in Australia for some years, so she kindly postponed her dinner and I my breakfast and we met at our respective ends of the ether to talk all things SoTLwalk. These are the links to some of the resources and projects Natasha mentioned: First of all you can follow Natasha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/taylor_dr?s=20   Last month's SoTLwalk prompts and link to the Padlet are here: https://sites.rmit.edu.au/seh-sotl/2020/10/25/join-the-october-sotl-walk/ This is the website to the 64 million artists project she mentioned: https://64millionartists.com/  If you are interested in the amazing feat of knitting and walking have a look at Annie Watson's paper: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/10200/3/Watkins_Encouraging_Research_and_Group_Cohesion_through_Walking_Art.pdf  WATSON, Annie and LEE, Jeremy (2015). Encouraging research and group cohesion through walking art. In: Where to? Steps towards the future of walking arts, Falmouth University, 16 April 2015.

The original title was 'Living by the Proverb', this is a bit of an experiment contemplating how our upbringing our background influences and shapes our teaching identities, and why this is important for our practice.