6. Practicalities

• Duration
• Timing
• Release of lecturers from duties during preparation
• Funding
• Formal employment requirements
• Location of responsibility
• Validation, evaluation, quality assurance and enhancement

Duration

Unlike for the training of school teachers where there is, at least in the UK, some agreement about how long this takes, there is no equivalent agreement about the appropriate length of initial training for teachers in universities. Twenty years ago there seemed to be an implicit agreement that the appropriate duration of a programme of preparation was zero, but now preparation can last anything from one day to 540 hours (for the programme at the University of Bournemouth, for example). Programmes which have been approved by the SEDA Accreditation Scheme in the UK and which lead to 'Certificate' level qualifications tend to be 200-300 hours in length. The largest programmes which do not lead to qualifications in the UK are 50-80 hours in length: the equivalent of a one day induction, three to five days of initial training and three to five more optional days of workshops selected from a menu.

Programmes for GTAs seldom exceed 30 hours and are usually much shorter, sometimes less than a day.

The duration of programmes which are heavily based on practical teaching experience is harder to calculate. The preparation of school teachers in the UK now involves much less time 'in college' and much more 'in school' while the total length of programmes has stayed the same (one year full time for a Postgraduate Certificate of Education). Where teaching experience is planned and reflected on within the framework of organised and supported preparation it could be argued that much of the first year of teaching experience in university was part of the programme.

Many programmes which are modular in structure allow participants to complete modules at their own pace and this can lead to completion taking up to three years in some cases without increasing the time spent at sessions.

Timing

The main options for timing are: before teaching duties start, very early on during teaching, throughout the first year, and any of these plus intermittent longer term support. A few courses are delayed at least a year: the nationally advertised programme at the University of Surrey used to require that teachers already had a certain amount of experience before coming on the course.

Brand new teachers are often desperate for advice before they start but they often overestimate the potential benefits of such advice and are also often too anxious and hard pressed to take much advice. Short sessions dealing with classroom basics can be useful at this stage but those with no experience at all may not benefit very much.

Ideally sessions should be scheduled to address issues teachers face, as they face them. So for example they do not mark work for some weeks, or perhaps months, after they have started, and do not design courses or assignments until much later.

Some programmes have an intensive 'basics' course, regular sessions during the first term and then less frequent sessions after that. The early weeks of the first term can be a very difficult time for new teachers and extended training sessions should be avoided though short support sessions may be welcomed.

Some programmes provide 'follow-up' session about six months after initial training, to review practice - what went well and what problems remain which the group or the trainer can help with.

Release of lecturers from duties during preparation

It used to be common practice in the better funded universities in the UK to give new teachers a much reduced teaching load in their first and even their second year, in order to allow time for preparation and planning. This is now less common and in many institutions a new teacher will have practically a full load immediately. Being asked to attend a demanding programme about teaching on top of this load can be expecting too much. Some institutions require departments to reduce teachers' class contact hours by an amount equal to the length of the teaching programme. At Oxford Brookes University departments are funded to enable them to hire part time teaching replacements for 90 hours and new teachers are not allowed to be given duties of any kind - teaching or administrative - on Monday afternoons throughout the year in order that they have time to take the programme seriously.

Funding

Usually funding is allocated centrally - to the personnel department or educational development unit that runs the programme. Sometimes while these units have centrally funded trainers they have no other funding - for accommodation, materials or whatever - and the real costs of the programme are hidden. There is very little in the literature about what programmes cost per teacher or per teacher hour of support.

As central provides have been asked to run more or larger programmes they have sometimes costed these additional elements properly and handed the administration the bill. The GTA programme at Oxford Brookes University was funded in this way: the Educational Methods Unit included the bill with the proposal to run the course. In some institutions with devolved budgeting systems the central provider charges departments for each new teacher on the programme.

Where no central provision is funded from the centre, departments may have very few of their own funds allocated to staff development (compared with, for example, research funds) and it can be very difficult for a new lecturer to obtain the funds to pay course fees. In some such institutions new teachers can obtain financial support from the centre simply because departments have such a poor record of financial support.

Formal employment requirements

In the past, in the UK, once a lecturer has been offered a post in effect they had a job for life. Today probation and the transfer from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer (in new Universities) or from Lecturer A to Lecturer B (in old Universities) is no longer automatic. Appraisal of teaching and even observation of teaching is now common and adequacy as a teacher is becoming a formal requirement for probation (leading to tenure) and progression. In North America teaching adequacy is nominally required for tenure but while anything less than excellent research may stop you, only dreadful teaching is likely to cause problems in most institutions. Failure to attend or complete a GTA or other programme is unlikely to be evident on your record.

Successful completion of a programme for new teachers is now a formal requirement of probation in a number of institutions. 'Successful completion' may only mean a tick on a register at compulsory sessions but this is still a more formal requirement than in the past. There is still no institution in higher education in the UK where failing a compulsory course which has a formal assessment system, such as a course leading to a qualification would automatically cause employment problems. The situation in Further Education is very different: failing a Certificate of Education in Further Education could end your career as a teacher.

In some universities in the UK a basic provision of training in teaching has been provided because attempts to get rid of inadequate teachers have fallen foul of the legal argument that if no training was provided then the individual cannot be at fault. Some such programmes have been introduced to be the minimum that the law might require and are not seriously intended to improve teaching.

Location of responsibility

While programmes may be run by educational development units or personnel departments, responsibility is often less easy to locate. It may reside in a teaching committee or its chairperson, or as one of a huge portfolio of responsibilities of a member of the central management team. This may mean that while those delivering a programme may be able to change details of its process, as soon as resources or policy (for example about formal requirements for attendance) is involved they may be stuck. Programmes run by Education departments as award bearing academic courses often have most autonomy over content and process, being free form committee control, but least power to influence the way the course meets institutional needs, being unconnected with institutional decision-making. Many such courses work perfectly well, but only for the small minority who choose to take them and whose departments are prepared to pay for them. It is unusual in the UK for responsibility to lie with those who deliver programmes.

Validation, evaluation, quality assurance and enhancement

If programmes are run by a central unit and responsibility lies with a committee or senior manger then only the sketchiest course outlines may ever be approved and there may be little discussion or negotiation of details of the programme, its rationale or planned outcomes. Programmes may run for years with little review and any reports or evaluations may receive scant attention.

In contrast as soon as programmes lead to qualifications they are usually validated through normal quality assurance systems within the Faculty of Education and this often leads to much more rigorous review and discussion. Annual evaluation and periodic complete review may be required. However such formal quality assurance often brings with it problems associated with conventional assessment requirements and the relative difficulty and slowness of change in response to the needs of teachers.

There are several potentially conflicting vested interests involved with such programmes which impinge on quality assurance and enhancement. The institution wants an important job to be seen to be done, and as cheaply and cost-effectively as possible. Departments want to lose their staff's research time to a training programme as little as possible, want costs to fall elsewhere and don't want fancy ideas put into the heads of impressionable young teachers. Course providers want a rewarding and trouble-free job and far more resources backed up by formal policy. Teachers want help and support but are hard pressed and have divided loyalties. The academic department validating a formal course has academic standards to maintain. And students want to be taught better but are broke and don't want to have to pay any more. What is 'effective' or 'cost effective' in this context depends which vested interests are being taken into account.