Academic Staff Development

At the University of Dortmund this week at the annual conference of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hochschuldidaktik (AHD). The focus is on the "shift from teaching to learning" and issues facing staff (faculty for our American readers) development arising from Bologna and other developments. It has an interesting mix of speakers, though I can't comment on the opening keynote presentation due to modesty! There is simultaneous (or slightly delayed since we need to wait until the end of each sentence to hear the verb) translation for those of us with linguistic deficits.

The complexity of the situation in German universities has been well aired and there are big questions about promoting a higher status for teaching and learning within the system. By the sounds of it, not an easy task, but there are certainly lots of enthusiastic advocates of change. The concept of accredited programmes has been discussed since we have such in Ireland and in the UK and other aspects such as Teaching Portfolios, individual teaching consultations, etc are all part of the wider debate.

Tomorrow we discuss aspects of elearning and it will be fascinating to share experiences across Europe since many partners of the European E-Competence Initiative are in town.