Final Report to the Higher Education Academy Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine (MEDEV) Subject Centre

Re Mini-project 519: Supporting a community of MEDEV professional developers

Grant Holders: Clare Morris, Postgraduate Medical School, University of Bedfordshire and Judy McKimm, Unitec New Zealand (previously Postgraduate Medical School, University of Bedfordshire).

Aims of the project:

The authors’ experience of bringing together staff and educational developers working across the areas served by the MEDEV subject centre suggested a need to establish ways in which colleagues could come together to share experiences and resources. The aims of this project were two fold.

  • Firstly, to initiate the creation of a vibrant on-line community of educational/staff developers in the MEDEV subject areas.
  • Secondly, to create a forum where it was possible to share resources and best practice, to offer peer support and mentorship and to foster collaborative working.

This paper reports on both the face-to-face and on-line elements of this community of practice.

Project URL:

Background and context

The project stems from the outcome from a MEDEV funded workshop in June 2006. This workshop was well attended by participants from Higher Education Institutions, with some representation from medical Royal Colleges and the NHS. The day was facilitated by the authors and Nigel Purcell (see Annex 1 for a detailed report on the workshop).

The initial aims of the first workshop were to provide a forum for:

  1. Comparing practice and identifying potential resources available
  2. Exploring the educational and professional development needs of those designing and delivering healthcare education
  3. Discussion of identified core topics of interest, such as course design, assessment, eLearning, meeting the needs of clinical teachers, reflective practice, widening participation and inter-professional learning

Unmet development needs of educational developers were discussed and a number of key issues were agreed by the group:

  • Keeping up with the literature
  • Opportunities to discuss/develop ideas from the literature
  • Developing the pool of educational developers
  • Mapping commonalities/differences and being aware of changes and developments
  • Support educational developers as change agents and educational leaders/managers – recognising skills deficit and finding ways to support the development of self and others
  • The need to network, exchange ideas, share resources, team teach, mentor
  • Raising awareness of engagement in research by mapping what is happening/interests, identifying collaborative partners
  • The need to develop as a reflective practitioner – and enable others to be reflective/reflexive
  • Seek international perspective, develop networks and contacts overseas
  • A directory of interests/expertise

Special Interest Group

The participants considered specific ways in which educational developers’ needs might be met by the possible formation of a network or Special Interest Group (SIG) and to discuss what support such a group might need. They identified the purposes of a network, the methods and practices it might use and the support required as follows:

  1. Purposes of the network (see Figure 1):
  • counteract isolation and loneliness
  • share practice, innovations and experiences and raise standards
  • networking
  • identify ‘experts’ in the field
  • forum for developing, swapping and evaluating resources
  • a means of establishing or determining direction in staff/educational development, of offering professional leadership and support, of influencing policy and lobbying
  • peer review
  • career paths and development
  • raising the profile of staff development
  • developing theory

Figure 1Purposes of the SIG

  1. Methods and practices
  • web based database of individuals
  • mailing list with contact details, phone numbers etc
  • face to face meetings – develop relationships with others – a mix of local/regional/national meetings
  • buddy system/team teaching
  • publications
  • bid writing
  • research database
  • journal clubs
  • structured discussions and email list
  • chatrooms/ weblogs
  • lobbying power and direct action
  • shadowing/visits to other colleagues
  • ideas club
  • “question of the week”
  1. Support needed:
  • good leadership - co-ordinator/commissioner
  • funding
  • IT resources
  • think tank
  • online facilitator
  • website
  • regular updates
  • venues to meet in attractive locations
  • links to influential people and institutions, access to power, links to ASME/AMEE/GMC/GDC/HNC/SEDA etc
  • conferences/streams
  • time for CPD

It was agreed that it would be beneficial to form a SIG for educational and staff developers working in medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine.

The initial remit for the SIG identified by members was to:

Create a community of practice amongst educational/staff developers to address strategic issues

Provide a forum for discussion and debate on strategic and policy issues in healthcare education

Foster an educational development community response to the changing situation in healthcare education

Provide a mechanism for supporting and mentoring colleagues

Support the process of leadership and management in healthcare education

Provide opportunities for engagement with centres of innovation

It was agreed that the SIG would ideally combine face to face activity with engagement in an on-line environment and that the work would be taken forward by Clare Morris, Judy McKimm and Nigel Purcell (Senior Adviser, MEDEV Subject Centre). After the first workshop, the proposal for the mini-project to set up an online community of practice was submitted and accepted by MEDEV.

It was also agreed that discussions should be held in relation to the MEDEV Resource Archive for Teacher Trainers (RAFTT) project, because it would be more effective to link any new network with RAFTT. A steering group should establish aims and purposes, inform other individuals and organisations that have shared interests, set up events and discussion groups and develop a web-based directory of interests. Events could be held at different schools, for example those with examples of good practice or who have CETLs, and could be structured around a tour of the facilities and activities coupled with a meeting around specific topics with expert speakers.

It was agreed to hold a second meeting for staff and educational developers in Autumn 2007 with a focus on leadership.

Since the first event, three follow up events were held which brought colleagues together to share best practice (see Annexes 2 and 3). A pilot VLE was set up (based on BlackBoard™ technologies) to explore the ways in which the activity of the community could be supported on-line.

Table 1 summarises the workshop events and linked URLs.

Table 1

Date / Event / Facilitators
June 06 / Professional Development for Medical and Healthcare teachers: meeting the national agendas for change
/ Clare Morris Judy McKimm. PGMS, University of Bedfordshire (UB)
Nov 07 / Health Education Developers’ Special Interest Group: Leading and Facilitating Change
/ Judy McKimm & Clare Morris, PGMS, UB. Faith Hill, School of Medicine, University of Southampton
May 08 / Health Education Developers’ Special Interest Group: Sharing Good Practice in Educating Health Care Educators
/ Judy McKimm & Clare Morris, PGMS, UB.
Reg Dennick, University of Nottingham
John Spencer, Newcastle University
Sept 08 / Pre-conference workshop at ASME Annual Conference. Included: Using the Resource Archive for Teacher Trainers [ on-line communities of practice; leadership and influencing change.
/ Judy McKimm & Clare Morris, PGMS, UB.
Reg Dennick, University of Nottingham

Personal and professional development needs identified by SIG members

A key purpose of the SIG and community of practice (CoP) was to address the personal and professional development (PPD) needs of educators and staff developers. Although a number of support networks and associations exist for educators, academics and practitioners in the subject disciplines, the professional development needs of educational and staff developers are not often specifically addressed. Such people often work in relative isolation in their organisations, are in ‘middle management’ positions rather than more senior posts and are grappling with multiple challenges and agendas from education, health and professional and statutory bodies. As perceived educational leaders and experts in their field, it is often quite difficult for such individuals to maintain their own professional development as their role is seen as that of providing educational leadership to others rather than needing educational development themselves. Providing a community where peers can share practice, exchange ideas, address challenges and learn new knowledge and skills is seen as a much needed support mechanism.

The PPD needs identified by members included:

  • counteract isolation and loneliness
  • share practice, innovations and experiences and raise standards
  • networking
  • identify ‘experts’ in the field
  • forum for developing, swapping and evaluating resources
  • a means of establishing or determining direction in staff/educational development, of offering professional leadership and support, of influencing policy and lobbying
  • peer review
  • career paths and development
  • raising the profile of staff development
  • developing theory

The face to face events

In order to meet the needs of the CoP, workshops were designed around core activities which combined providing members with new skills and knowledge, centred around innovations in faculty development, leadership and change and health professions education, see Figure 3 below.

Figure 3Core elements running through the SIG workshops

Members worked collaboratively on many activities, sharing practice, co-creating knowledge, developing their own personal and professional networks and learning new skills related to leadership, change management and educational development.

Making a difference: educational developers as change agents

An emerging theme from all the events was that educational and faculty developers clearly see themselves as change agents who can make a difference, not only to individuals or curricula, but also to organizations and national agendas. Through sharing challenges and opportunities, the CoPbegan to adopt a critical stance to the policy imperatives around undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and training. Recognizing the challenges faced by educators in the communities they worked with they began to question the role of the SIG as a lobbying group who might, through their combined effort, networks and expertise be able to raise the profile of educational /faculty development in the subject areas.

However,in order to achieve this, a key need identified by the SIG members was to access leadership development and change management in the context of current policy and change agendas.

For example, the aims of the second workshop held in November 2007 were to:

Enhance participants’ understanding and awareness of key national policy agendas that impact on healthcare education and identify strategies for meeting these agendas

Further develop participants’ leadership knowledge and skills and consider their role as change agents

The SIG members clearly see themselves as educational leaders and change agents but acknowledged that their earlier education and training had often been deficient in these areas, both in terms of knowledge and skills. The SIG has provided a means for its members to participate in tailored leadership and faculty development structured around the expertise, experience and needs of members.

The on-line community

In addition to the face to face workshops, the core aim of the mini-project was to develop and evaluate an on-line CoP of faculty and educational developers.

SIG members at the November 2007 event developed the focus and purpose of the SIG as follows:

Being part of a national dynamic community of developers that advise and inform around good practice and provide a unified voice for change in education

Making a difference’ and having a real impact

Face to face and virtual networking in a safe environment

Sharing up-to-date information, resources and expertise

Access to wider contexts, experts and innovative ideas

Accessing on-line resources on policy agendas and educational innovations

Developing and exchanging ideas about leadership and organisational and educational change

Cross-institution collaboration in staff/educational development, research, working, writing and scholarship, including educational leadership as an academic subject

Personal and professional development – to ‘credentialise’ expertise of faculty developers

It was agreed to identify and agree a process for developing an on-line facility to support the SIG. This would link closely to the RAFTT project activities and enable SIG members to access and share a range of resources relevant to their role as well as provide a communication forum. It was also agreed to explore links with other staff/professional development organisations such as the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) and to identify opportunities for SIG members to formalise their learning and development from meetings and other activities.

One of the ideas that emerged from the November 2007 workshop was to establish an on-line collaborative writing forum which will produce papers and ultimately an on-line ‘journal’. Ideas that were discussed included a Journal club, collaborative working, researching and writing and to benefit from participation in a scholarly (research/evidence based) group in the subject, thus leading academic development.

The idea of collaboration using on-line resources was further explored and developed at the May 2008 meeting which took as one of its aims to facilitate members working together to develop the on-line resource and platform which would support the CoP. At the workshop Professor John Spencer led a session in which he outlined some of the challenges, pitfalls and opportunities for those wishing to publish in a range of settings including academic peer-reviewed journals, books and online publications. This led to a lively discussion and an agreement that the SIG would utilise the online CoP site (through wikis and discussions) to support members wishing to share ‘works in progress’ and receive feedback as well as to explore ways of writing more collaboratively, more creatively (using a range of publication media) and generating inputs from wider groups of SIG members. It was agreed that whilst the JISC project was ongoing, in order to facilitate the ‘safety’ of members, the pilot online community would continue to be a ‘membership’ body. This was reviewed as part of the project evaluation. Access to the site was therefore be restricted to SIG members who would agree to adhere to the online etiquette regarding feedback, sharing of information and confidentiality agreed at the workshop.

It was deemed vitally important that the nature of the relationship between the SIG and RAFFTwas explored and defined. The Resource Archive for Teacher Trainers (RAFTT) provides a means for the exchange of teacher training resources and for their review and enhancement. It is also a forum for sharing good practice and discussing issues of interest to the community. A range of RAFTT resources are available to download and use in teacher training programmes. Each resource is classified into one or more of the ‘areas of activity’ of the Higher Education Academy Professional Standards:

  1. Design and planning of learning activities and/or programmes of study
  2. Teaching and/or supporting student learning
  3. Assessment and giving feedback to learners
  4. Developing effective environments and student support and guidance
  5. Integration of scholarship, research and professional activities with teaching and supporting learning
  6. Evaluation of practice and continuing professional development

Discussions between the grant holders and MEDEV were held which considered the nature of the on-line community, issues around the platform and who should host the site and to identify ways forward for both the face to face and on-line elements of the SIG.

It was agreed that the SIG on-line environment would be a pilot site, developed and evaluated by the SIG membership group. It would be hosted on the University of Bedfordshire platform, developed with learning technology input and in consultation with subject centre/RAFTT colleagues. It was further agreed that RAFTT was a valuable resource for the proposed community and would therefore be foregrounded within the on-line site with a visible ‘hotlink’ on the landing page

The on-line learning resource: key features

The website was developed based on the Blackboard™ platform used by the University of Bedfordshire (BREO – Bedfordshire Resource Education Online). Buttons provided quick links to key collaborative resources and to RAFTT. Other key features of the site included discussion boards; blogs, wikis and a journal club (see below).

The site was piloted at the SIG workshop in May 2008 which was held at the University of Bedfordshire ‘Bridges’ CETL. SIG members provided their e-mail addresses and were given a guest account to access.The creative learning space was set up with laptops and delegates pilotedand developed the site in real time whilst sitting together in the same space. Dual conversations were held both on and off line as shared thoughts and reflections.

In addition to the online activities and discussions, some of the other creative resources in the CETL were used. Images of the CETL learning spaces can be found at: The C-space (Creative space) provided rich opportunities to work collaboratively and individually, both face to face (e.g. writing on the walls, finding postcards to capture metaphors of leadership) an on-line (e.g using discussion boards, blogs, journal club pages and wikis). This allowed a real time ‘capturing’ of experiences of learning on-line and an exploration of the possible functionality of the on-line space with regards to supporting and sustaining this emerging community of practice. Fullan’s (2001) model of educational change management was used as a framework for planning activities, structuring conversations and developing the on-line resources.

Relationship building

Introducing themselves alongside the creation of personal home pages (internal to SIG) on the on-line site. Participants were invited to use the huge whiteboard wall to link themselves and their leadership roles and activities through a ‘Leaders as connectors’ activity. This facilitated the relationship building and coherence making element, generating lots of conversation through making connections of people, roles, activities and places.