About

This webpage provides a platform for the project titled ‘Managing institutional change through distributive leadership approaches: Engaging academics and teaching support staff in blended and flexible learning‘, by Childs, M., Brown, M., Keppell, M., Nicholas, Z., Hunter, C. & Hard, N. (2012). Support for this project and the production of this report has been provided by DEHub, funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the DEHub, Australian Government or DEEWR. The main purpose of this website is to provide access to the Final Report, Short Report, detailed Case Studies and full versions of the Institutional Context Pieces.

Abstract

Higher Education institutions face a challenge – how to transform learning and teaching experiences to be responsive to students who are learning in a digital age? In some universities this question is acute – particularly those Universities that focus on blended and flexible and distance education approaches to learning. In many Universities, attention has been paid to the development of leadership capacity as an answer to this question. Charles Sturt University and Massey University, through a partnership research grant funded by DeHub, sought to understand the respective institution’s approaches to fostering change in blended and flexible and distance education during the period 2008-2011. To this end, this study posed the question: What do the strategies and activities designed to foster change in blended and flexible learning and distance education developed at Charles Sturt University (Australia) and Massey University (NZ) help us to understand about learning leadership?

Findings

The study found that, in the contexts of Charles Sturt University and Massey University:

  1. Learning leadership was enabled by the large and small actions of many people working individually and collectively in relationship to change (Moncrieff, 1999, p.219).
  2. The large and small actions of many people working individually and collectively in relationship to change were fostered through a range of different operational models.
  3. Innovation in the case studies were fostered through – delegated leadership, distributive leadership model, faculty scholarship model, networked learning model and diffusion of innovation model.
  4.  Innovation in BFL and DE was aligned to strategic institutional intent through the influences of staff within each institution.
  5. ‘Innovating’, ‘influencing others’, ‘collaborating’ and ‘sharing’ had positive connotations.

Three Key Lessons

Three key lessons emerged from the study. These are discussed in greater detail in the Report:

  1. Innovation needs to be aligned to institutional vision – and the institution needs to manage the tensions that can exist between alignment, creativity and innovation.
  2. Good practice in blended and flexible and distance education needs to be manifested through sustainable, consistent and supported opportunities.
  3. Regardless of the strategy or activity, commitment to approaches that enable academics to take time, collaborate, share, network and connect are the key to innovation in blended and flexible and distance education.

Five Take Home Messages

  1. Strategies and activities generated from the centre and distributed throughout an institution need to be mapped as a basis for future strategic planning, much in the same way that a course needs to be mapped when undergoing curriculum renewal.
  2. Strategies and activities generated from the centre could be evaluated from the outside, rather than evaluated as experienced from the inside.
  3. Better understanding needs to be developed concerning what works effectively in a comparative sense. By this we mean – what initiatives should be strongly supported that will have maximum impact on a wide range of practices and staff capacity.
  4. ‘Top down’ leadership is important. Leadership development strategies need to be in place to assist positional leaders to develop leadership capabilities.
  5. ‘Micro-leadership’ and ‘micro-influencing’ is important. Further work is needed to better understand the best ways of supporting micro level activities, for example, through professional networked learning, workloads and resources.

We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of:

Janet Buchan, Manager, Faculty Educational Design & Media Team, Division of Learning & Teaching Services, (Charles Sturt University) for generously sharing aspects of her PhD study related to the changing nature of learning and teaching at Charles Sturt University.

Caroline Davis, designer and desk-top publisher for designing the front cover of both the Full and Short Reports, and ensuring the Full Report adhered to the requirements of the DeHub Template.

Helen Hughes, (Project Management & Research, National Centre for Teaching & Learning, Massey University), for contributing to writing the Massey case studies.

Betsy Lyon (formerly Research Assistant, Flexible Learning Institute; now Educational Designer, Charles Sturt University), for her contributions to the development of the Teaching Fellowship Scheme case study.

Professor Marcia Devlin, lead author of the OLT report Seven insights for leading sustainable change in teaching and learning in Australian Universities (Devlin, Smeal, Cummings & Mazzolini, 2012a) for giving permission for this project to adopt the reporting format of the Devlin et al. (2012b) short report.

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