Improving the quality of the learning environment

Improving the quality of the learning environment: achieving a better partnership between academic staff and learning support staff in course delivery
A Virtual Workshop (1996)
Andrew McDonald, Director of Information Services, University of Sunderland, UK
Lorraine Hall, Site Librarian, St Peter's Library, University of Sunderland, UK

Introduction and Background

The aim of delivering an effective, stimulating and high quality learning experience for students is a central part of every university's mission and its achievement is crucial to the success of the institution. One critical component of the learning experience is the learning support environment. High quality learning support services depend upon close collaboration between the academic staff designing and delivering the curriculum and the learning support staff responsible for facilitating and supporting this learning. It places responsibility for communication both on academic staff and learning support staff, and the purpose of this interactive workshop is primarily to encourage discussion amongst academic staff about how to achieve the necessary communication and to what end.

The quality of learning support services is a key element in Funding Council teaching quality assessments and aspects are covered by the student charters and library service level agreements found in many institutions. Feedback from student questionnaires confirms the importance of library and learning resource centres. The degree to which libraries are "integrated" with the academic process is suggested as a significant performance indicator for assessing their effectiveness in a recent Funding Council Consultative Report on Performance Indicators for Libraries.

In recent years the role of the library and it staff has changed as the nature of higher education has changed. Traditionally, the role was one of storing collections and information and providing services for predominantly campus-based students. The role has become an active "partnership" in the learning process and in course delivery, and learners have become more varied in their backgrounds and may be remote from the campus. The national shift from teaching to learning across the whole sector has been accompanied by a much greater emphasis on learning in libraries and, as a consequence, a much greater use of university libraries. Indeed in some universities, surveys show that students spend most of their learning time in libraries and often more than in their academic departments. Open or independent learning similarly places an increased pressure on the learning support environment.

Institutions are now calling their learning support services by a variety of names - libraries, learning centres, resource centres, learning resource centres, flexible learning centres, curriculum support units and so on - but the debate remains just as relevant whatever the "badging" of the support service.

There are a number of fundamental questions for academic staff to consider:

• what sort of library and learning support service is required in your institution?
• how can you ensure a flexible, responsive and high quality learning support service?
• how can you design and deliver courses bearing in mind the learning resources required?
• how should you communicate with and involve learning resources staff in the learning process?

This virtual workshop is designed to stimulate discussion amongst academic staff about how to achieve the necessary collaboration with learning support staff. I have identified a number of aspects of the problem and discussion is invited around these and any other issues you consider relevant. Examples of good practice as well as of the difficulties involved are encouraged.

Learning Support Services

• what are the implications of innovations in and different styles of teaching and learning upon learning support services?
• how is the learning support required for independent, distance and flexible learning different from traditional teaching methods?
• what are the implications for learning support of resource-based, group-based, computer assisted and work-based learning?
• what are the implications of changes in the structure and organisation of courses and of changes in the academic year upon learning support services?
• what are the likely implications of the learning you are initiating on learning support centres? For example what is the impact upon opening hours, access arrangements, group study facilities, time spent in libraries?
• do you think the various types of learners have different learning support needs? For example returners, part-time students, remote students, the disadvantaged and those with disability or special learning difficulty?

Communication, Evaluation and Feedback

• how can you involve learning resources staff in course planning, course or module boards, monitoring and quality assessments?
• how and when should you explain course objectives and learning outcomes to learning support staff?
• how should academic staff or students provide feedback to learning resources staff?
• how should learning resources staff provide feedback to you about the use of learning materials?

Required Reading and Resources

• how and when should you discuss the learning resources needed with learning support staff, such as reading lists, articles in heavy demand, dossier collections etc.?
• what learning media will be needed - books, periodicals, videos, open learning materials, CD-ROMs, electronic information services?
• should your course be based on learning materials available in libraries on campus or are students expected to go beyond your library, and what are the implications of this?
• when should you request that books are included in the student textbook collection and should you check on the general availability of required reading?

Information Skills Training

• what information skills training do your students require not only for the course but also for lifelong learning?
• how and when should information skills training be delivered during the course?
• do you feel at all intimidated or uncomfortable with electronic information sources, and would skills training be useful for academic staff too?

Comments from Richard Downing (richard.downing@lineone.net)

The best way to achieve a better partnership between academic staff and learning support staff is to combine them in staff development activities. Separate initiatives only help to confirm the separation.

When combined in this way, the academic staff and learning support staff have everything that is needed to bring about the type of collaboration in course design, delivery, support and facilitation of learning. Each group has the knowledge and experience which, when combined, will bring about a more effective learning process.

The ideal situation is to include the learning support staff in course design from the start and, if agreed by the course planning team, to include the learning support staff in the delivery. If this seems a bit too radical, then a preliminary workshop, which involves both groups, can help each group to understand the objectives and processes that the other group lives with on a daily basis.

The workshop will assume that academic staff are not normally aware of the range of learning resources available, nor will they be aware of the ways in which students make use of these resources in the 'library' or of the skills that students need to make effective use of them. The learning support staff will not normally be familiar with the ways in which learning outcomes are established or how the curriculum is developed to meet them. They will also often be tentative about instructional techniques and assessment methods.

By combining the two groups, they can share their areas of expertise and develop each other to the required level. Each group creates some practical learning activities to bring about understanding in the other group and the work is peer assessed.

This type of workshop can also be used when a course is already well established. Although this makes it more difficult to implement agreed changes, there is usually sufficient space for changes to be implemented experimentally and progressively.

The types of questions raised in the article by McDonald and Hall would be addressed in the workshop by the two groups. There seems little point in asking just the academic staff how their teaching and learning methods will impact on the libraries, why not involve the learning support staff and let them sort it out together?

The workshop idea outlined above arises from a unit on the Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning at Thames Valley University. A unit called 'Learning from resources' was devised, delivered and assessed by learning support staff for the new lecturers on that programme. In order to give the learning support staff the confidence and skills needed to devise, deliver and carry out assessment for the unit, a number of collaborative workshops were created for them. These were facilitated by staff with experience of educational development The whole process becomes cyclical with the groups collaborating with each other in mutual development. After the initial stages are completed, the ongoing collaboration becomes a normal way of working.

I would be happy to expand on any aspect of this process and to hear of similar or alternative approaches.