The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university

Collaboration between academic and professional support colleagues, including those working between roles or third space professionals, is essential to develop ongoing teaching practice in higher education (HE). From the perspective of a ‘third space professional’, this study evaluates the value of...

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Main Author: Alison Cornforth
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE) 2025-01-01
Series:Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1221
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author Alison Cornforth
author_facet Alison Cornforth
author_sort Alison Cornforth
collection DOAJ
description Collaboration between academic and professional support colleagues, including those working between roles or third space professionals, is essential to develop ongoing teaching practice in higher education (HE). From the perspective of a ‘third space professional’, this study evaluates the value of a university-wide collaboratively developed website as an inclusive Community of Practice (CoP) in a post-1992 university. The website aimed to share inclusive teaching resources, designed in previous practice, and initiatives for colleagues new to teaching, with the purpose of supporting new Professional Standards Framework (PSF) (AdvanceHE, 2023) criteria. A small-scale case study approach was taken using mixed methods of semi-structured interviews and pre and post launch website data analytics to triangulate and analyse data. The existence, benefits and challenges in collaboration between professional support and academic colleagues were evaluated. The value of the website was also analysed as a model to build collaboration as a CoP to promote teaching development and disseminate an inclusive pedagogy. Although the will to collaborate was identified, alongside increased recognition of professional colleagues’ credentials, opportunities to collaborate were reduced due to workloads, time and a research-intensive culture where teaching initiatives and collaborations were less valued.  This study suggests that third space professionals can promote value in teaching development in Education Developer roles by increasing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and designing theory-based teaching resources to support academic workloads and encourage collaboration.
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spelling doaj-art-dbd0e047dba14a178cf5c6cbf5c20a992025-01-31T07:56:42ZengAssociation for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE)Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education1759-667X2025-01-013310.47408/jldhe.vi33.1221The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK universityAlison Cornforth0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8926-0842Northumbria University Collaboration between academic and professional support colleagues, including those working between roles or third space professionals, is essential to develop ongoing teaching practice in higher education (HE). From the perspective of a ‘third space professional’, this study evaluates the value of a university-wide collaboratively developed website as an inclusive Community of Practice (CoP) in a post-1992 university. The website aimed to share inclusive teaching resources, designed in previous practice, and initiatives for colleagues new to teaching, with the purpose of supporting new Professional Standards Framework (PSF) (AdvanceHE, 2023) criteria. A small-scale case study approach was taken using mixed methods of semi-structured interviews and pre and post launch website data analytics to triangulate and analyse data. The existence, benefits and challenges in collaboration between professional support and academic colleagues were evaluated. The value of the website was also analysed as a model to build collaboration as a CoP to promote teaching development and disseminate an inclusive pedagogy. Although the will to collaborate was identified, alongside increased recognition of professional colleagues’ credentials, opportunities to collaborate were reduced due to workloads, time and a research-intensive culture where teaching initiatives and collaborations were less valued.  This study suggests that third space professionals can promote value in teaching development in Education Developer roles by increasing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and designing theory-based teaching resources to support academic workloads and encourage collaboration. https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1221collaborationcommunity of practiceinclusive pedagogyeducation developer
spellingShingle Alison Cornforth
The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university
Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education
collaboration
community of practice
inclusive pedagogy
education developer
title The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university
title_full The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university
title_fullStr The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university
title_full_unstemmed The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university
title_short The value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a UK university
title_sort value of a collaborative community of practice to disseminate an inclusive pedagogy in a uk university
topic collaboration
community of practice
inclusive pedagogy
education developer
url https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1221
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