1. Course formats

• Induction day
• Brief initial course
• Free-standing sessions
• Extended, integrated course
• Course leading to a qualification
• Hierarchy of courses

Induction day

It is usual in the UK for institutions to run a day (or sometimes two days) for new staff, often combining all categories of staff together, to induct them into the institution. Such days generally involve sight some of the key figures in the institution (such as the Vice Chancellor, the Bursar, the Chief Librarian) as well as others you may never meet again (such as the Safety Officer). There may be sessions on the institution's mission and organisation, practicalities concerning contracts and probation, a tour of facilities and an opportunity to socialise with key figures. The rhetoric about the function of such sessions to induct teachers into the culture of the institution usually falls some way short of the realities which follow from being talked at all day and herded like cattle.

Sometimes, where there is little provision for the preparation of teachers, there may be a session on teaching, though this tends to be about practicalities (classroom bookings, obtaining audio visual equipment and sending material to the print room) rather than about methods. Where there is wider provision for preparing teachers there may be an initial meeting with those who will be on the programme and those who will run it.

Induction days usually take place in a week just before the academic year begins. In some institutions there are two induction days a year because otherwise most of those who attend will have been in the instituton for up to eleven months before being inducted and given a tour of the campus!

Brief initial course

Institutions with minimal provision for preparing teachers most commonly offer a short initial course of perhaps three days, during the weeks before the academic year begins. In the most extreme cases this is the only provision and so preparation actually finishes before teaching starts.

Such courses commonly concentrate on lecturing, small group teaching and assessment, sometimes offering an option on laboratory teaching as a substitute for small group teaching.

Those attending are almost always mixed in disciplinary background and are sometimes mixed in level of experience - from complete beginners to those with very substantial teaching experience but who do not qualify for exemption through peculiarities of their previous employment.

For some this initial course takes place while they are working flat out preparing courses and lectures they have never taught before. For others teaching duties do not start for a term or more and the course interrupts research tasks which must be completed before teaching preparation begins. For those involved only in postgraduate teaching and supervision the contents of the course address few of the teaching situations they will face. For many of those who arrived at the institution in the twelve months since the past initial course it comes a little late.

Some institutions offer such courses more than once a year - for example Warwick University runs a three day programme twice a year in addition to optional free-standing sessions.

There have been several examples in the UK of institutions co-operating to share the expense and resources required to run a successful initial course, notably in Scotland around Edinburgh where such collaboration has been going on for many years. This can ensure sufficiently large groups of new teachers to create discipline-specific groups and enable specialist sessions to be provided even during an initial short course.

Several national providers (such as the Institute of Education in London, Surrey University and the Oxford Centre for Staff Development) have advertised and run week-long intensive courses for inexperienced teachers from institutions with inadequate provision of their own or from small institutions with too few new teachers to be able to mount a programme of their own. For many years these were almost the only way a teacher from a traditional University could obtain initial training, but such courses now represent a very small proportion of total provision.

Free-standing sessions

At many institutions preparing teachers involves a programme of free standing sessions, usually half a day or one day in duration. New teachers may be required, for example, to attend six during the year from a programme of a dozen or so. This partly overcomes the problem of sessions not matching needs which is so common on short initial programmes. Sometimes a proportion of these sessions are compulsory and the remainder optional. Sometimes attendance at sufficient sessions is a formal requirement, linked to probation. Sometimes key sessions (for example on lecturing) are repeated at several points during the year - in order to make them available as soon as possible after a teacher takes up her post and to keep the size of the sessions down in large institutions.

At Birmingham University, for example, key sessions are run three times and other session once or twice. Participants have to attend a set number during their first year, including several of the key sessions.

Often only a proportion of these sessions concern teaching, with the remainder addressing a variety of other aspects of academic work such as research, serving on committees, managing time and tasks, personal tutoring, and so on.

A drawback with such programmes is the lack of social coherence of the group of new teachers, who do not get to know each other and so provide little peer support. Individual programmes may be more relevant to individual needs, but probably make up a less coherent package than an integrated course, especially as free standing sessions tend to be delivered by a wide range of individuals with their own styles and beliefs rather a than a small team with a coherent philosophy and approach. There is also little opportunity for such 'pick and mix' programmes matching the developmentally changing concerns of new teachers.

Free-standing sessions tend to be scheduled throughout the year which may mean that those taking up a post at the start of the year may have to wait a long time for some vital sessions on teaching. For example new teachers may have been marking for some time before the session on assessment comes along. At Warwick University there is an intensive three day initial course as well as a programme of optional free-standing sessions throughout the year.

In some institutions (such as the University of Hull) the free-standing sessions are advertised and open to experienced teachers as well as new teachers.

Extended, integrated course

It is becoming increasingly common on the UK for programmes to involve an extended integrated course, lasting perhaps a year and involving perhaps every Monday afternoon throughout the year. There may be an intensive initial component of such a course, designed to provide 'basic skills' or a 'toolkit' to get teachers through their first anxious weeks. However the main features of such provision are that it is extended in time, allowing a more leisurely and reflective approach and development over time, and that it is coherent, adopting a consistent rational and approach, often delivered by a small coherent team. Different elements of the provision, such as the use of mentors, observation or record-keeping, are integrated together for a cumulative impact on teaching. The cohort of teachers can also establish social integration, enhancing trust, and making peer observation and peer feedback possible where it would be impossible with provision based on free-standing sessions with varying attendance.

Such integration may be achieved at the cost of flexibility of attendance and relevance of content to individuals. Whether this is perceived by teachers as a problem may depend on how well social coherence has been achieved.

Course leading to a qualification

In the 70's and 80's in the UK many of the Polytechnics offered a Certificate in Teaching in Further Education as part of their Educational Faculty offerings. Few of these programmes were appropriate for higher education teachers and recruitment was usually very patchy. Some of these Cert. Ed FE courses were adapted for higher education and some remain today as the basis of programmes for new teachers. However most of the current programmes leading to qualifications in the UK have developed outside Education departments and are designed specifically to support new teachers in higher education as they learn 'on the job'. They are generally more contextually and culturally relevant than traditional education courses.

The most common initial qualification is a Certificate, awarded by the institution, with no external accreditation. Unlike for school teaching there is no requirement for a teaching qualification in higher education in the UK and there is no government agency to validate or oversee such courses. As a result they are enormously varied in length, philosophy, process and outcomes.

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), UK, developed an accreditation scheme through which courses accredited by SEDA result in those successfully completing them becoming SEDA accredited teachers. More than a dozen institutions in the UK now have SEDA accreditation and many more are seeking accreditation. SEDA specifies outcomes and values but not processes and has allowed quite a variety of courses to flourish, but nevertheless has brought courses closer together in standard, length and philosophy.

Some institutions (such as Chester College) offer a hierarchy of courses leading to qualifications, starting with a Certificate and moving through a Diploma to a Masters and even a PhD.

Some courses leading to a qualification are offered to teachers outside the offering institution. For example the Institute of Education in London offered a Diploma course for experienced teachers for many years.

As the posts new teachers initially hold are often temporary, the teachers often value a qualification, or at least a certificate of course completion, as it may help them to obtain a subsequent post. Some institutions offering courses leading to qualifications have found that it aids recruitment of new teachers and attracts committed teachers.

Hierarchy of courses

Some programmes offer a hierarchy of courses so as to allow progression to successively higher levels and more sophisticated approaches to the development of teaching.

Courses leading to qualifications may, for example, involve a hierarchy including an initial Certificate, a Diploma, a masters and even a Doctoral programme.

The programme at The University of Central England involves a three level hierarchy in which the first three taught modules lead to a Certificate in Education (Teaching and Learning in Higher Education), the next two modules involve a project and can lead to Diploma and the third level involves a dissertation leading to an MA (Ed).

The programme at Chester College of Higher Education involves four compulsory modules which lead to a Post Graduate Certificate in the Advanced Study in Education (Higher Education). Those who complete four more modules from a choice of six can progress to a Post Graduate Diploma, and those who go on a further stage to undertake either two projects or one dissertation can obtain a Masters by Research.

In the USA some GTA programmes follow a progression of foci which map on to the development of teachers' priorities (see Nyquist et al in ch10 Literature) and this can produce multi-stage programmes.

It would also be possible to devise programmes where the first stage involved a 'basic toolkit' of teaching techniques for Graduate Teaching Assistants and Part Time Teachers as well as completely new lecturers, a second level involved reflection on teaching and might only be appropriate for those with more extensive teaching commitments. A third level could involve involved theoretical input which enabled course design to be tackled, suitable for those with overall responsibility for courses or modules. And a fourth level involved action research leading to the kind of academic writing which could form the basis of an academic qualification. In such a progression the course processes would change as the teachers worked through the hierarchy of courses.