The role of the Assistant Dean, learning & teaching

The variously titled Deans or Associate/Assistant Deans (L&T/Academic) (here "A/Dean, L&T") are often an interesting but unspecified mix of visionary, strategist, mentor and micro-manager, who may or may not (and most often not) have line management and/or budgetary responsibility to develop and implement the strategies, policies and quality assurance adherence with which they are charged (Scott, 2004). Lines (2000), in the context of an Australian Technology Network (ATN) study to identify support mechanisms for implementing pedagogical change and improvement, reported that these "new academic positions have evolved over a number of years driven by the recognition of the importance of teaching and learning to the overall business of the university" (Lines, 2000, p.44).

While most Heads of School and various Program, Year and/or Major Coordinators struggle just to ensure (cf. assure) the delivery of their resource-intensive, online and on- and off-campus programs in an inferior funding environment, it is the A/Dean, L&T who undertakes the relatively thankless pivotal role in their Faculty of curriculum leadership and pedagogical transformation; indeed "anything to do with the teaching and learning environments that nobody knows what to do with" (Lines, 2000, p.44). These discipline-based academics shoulder the dichotomous responsibilities of supporting and promoting the top-level quality agenda in the Faculty (for example, by championing ongoing learning and teaching innovation, improvement and evaluation, relevantly here regarding the implementation of assessment policy imperatives), while simultaneously endeavoring to enable and support a growing minority of enthusiastic innovators, attempting to persuade the cynical spectators and seeking to neutralize the spoilers/ obstructionists; all focused around what is doable in pedagogical terms and making explicit the validity and value of engaging with this work.

It follows that the role entails the indispensable dynamic of managing downwards, upwards and sideways: of persuading teachers that implementing the institutional agenda will be both valued and of enduring value; of persuading institutional management that their expectations of teachers should be realistic and appropriately resourced; and of persuading Faculty/ School leadership that the agenda is on a par with institutional exhortations to pursue, what is perceived to be, more-valued research and commercialization opportunities.

Particularly unenviably, the role's essence is the challenging and shifting negotiation role of moderator or "honest-broker" who must mediate the indelicate balance between institutional good-policy-making and Faculty implementation-void-filling; between Faculty good-policy-making and School operational pragmatism and skepticism; and between the institutional rhetoric of valuing L&T and the valued teacher's perception of promotion-reality being still firmly skewed in favor of the more objectively quantifiable research head and commercialization quantum.

The breadth of the role, and many of both its challenges and opportunities, reside in -

• the functions undertaken: for example, drafting reports, plans, faculty responses; service on multiple Committees, sub-committees, working parties, etc. many of which the A/Dean, L&T chairs at Faculty level; responsibility for faculty online and flexible delivery; responsibility for quality assurance (QA), evaluation strategies and supportive policy development and implementation; whole of course dealings with students; liaison with the role's equivalents in other faculties and, more recently, in other universities; facilitating both Faculty, institutional and external learning and teaching grant applications;

• the stakeholders to whom the position is answerable, or at least "call-on-able-by": for example, Dean(s); Heads of School (own and Faculty others); QA officers for courses/programs; relevant DVC or PVC; students; institutional learning and teaching support services and IT services; teaching colleagues in own and other Faculties; teaching colleagues from other universities, both discipline and otherwise; sessional teaching staff, etc; and

• the role's QA aspect, particularly quality assurance compliance oversight for core program documentation, chief amongst which is the individual unit/subject/ course outline document that forms the critical contract with the student semester by semester and is the foundational document for constructive alignment in the curriculum (and which, is might also be noted, is a frequent flashpoint between the operational and the pedagogical).

Let it be otherwise overlooked, the work of an A/Dean, L&T also has a strong student aspect, which in some instances is a cause for further managing and persuasion of colleagues. Often it falls to the A/Dean, L&T to serve as the faculty’s "curriculum conscience"; to remind institutional actors that, while engaged in the busy work around the not-insignificant responsibilities of program delivery, accountability, reporting and marketing, the humble individual student, the focus of much of the busy work, should not be forgotten.

In the specific context, and more generally having regard to the indivisibility of learning and teaching design on the one hand from valid assessment practices on the other, in each of the above aspects the A/Dean, L&T has the potential to influence and lead desirable curriculum renewal and reform by enhancing learning and teaching through assessment. A simple conceptual framework for how this might be done in the role is now presented which examples the framework's enactment in the author's Faculty. The final part of the paper considers a case study in the author's Faculty which has sought to progress the valid assessment of graduate attributes in the most problematic areas of their learning design, most of which work has been progressed under the sponsorship of the A/Dean, L&T's curriculum leadership role.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يطلق الدورة السابعة للدراسات الحوزوية الإلكترونية بمشاركة 17 دولة

المجمَع العلمي يختتم دورته التطويرية الخامسة لأساتذة التربية الإسلامية في النجف

وفد العتبتين المقدستين يحضر مجالس عزاء ضحايا حريق الكوت

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تشارك في استعادة مكتبة جامعة الموصل ورئاسة الجامعة واليونيسكو تشيدان بالشراكة معها

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

أخصائية تكشف خطورة عادة "شائعة" في غسل المناشف

دراسة: بيضة واحدة أسبوعيا قد تقي من الإصابة بـ

على عكس الشائع.. هذا هو العدد المثالي للخطوات اليومية !

شهر التوعية بالساركوما... أطباء يحذرون من "السرطان الصامت"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

ذكر أم أنثى؟.. دراسة تنسف الاعتقاد الشائع حول جنس المولود

بحجم برج بيزا.. تحذير من كويكب يقترب من الأرض في هذا الموعد

أقصر يوم في تاريخ البشرية.. الموعد قريب ؟!!

مايكروسوفت تحذر شركات وأجهزة حكومية من هجوم "يوم الصفر"

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

An assessment framework: some background and a sales spiel

Why an assessment framework?

Assessing problematic graduate attributes: a case study

Influence by scholarship

Influence by operationalization

Influence as mentor

Curriculum influence

A conceptual framework for the A/ Deans learning and teaching role

An Assistant Dean, Learning and Teachings Role in Quality Assuring Assessment

Institutionalizing a General Education Program Review Process: Outcomes Assessment Next steps

GE Program evaluation

Discussion Review process