University of Tasmania
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Guidance for leaders: adapting the Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme (PATS) for quality improvement, quality assurance and scholarly outcomes in teaching

conference contribution
posted on 2023-05-24, 14:47 authored by Jo-Anne KelderJo-Anne Kelder, Andrea CarrAndrea Carr, Cottman, C, de Fazio, T, Tracy DouglasTracy Douglas, Melanie GreenwoodMelanie Greenwood, Phelan, L, Justin WallsJustin Walls, Anne-Marie WilliamsAnne-Marie Williams, Zeeng, L

The Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme (PATS) is professional development program for academics that provides a structured framework for reinvigorating units and courses and focuses on units and their teachers. PATS was initially developed at Monash University, as a Faculty strategy to improve students’ learning experience by identifying units for targeted remediation, based on low satisfaction student evaluation reports. This driver influenced the initial design of the program, structured to provide an individual teacher with professional development opportunities and with a mentor and a defined process: planning improvement to their unit, implementing the change, and analysing peer and student feedback to measure outcomes. The PATS process has clearly defined activities (for example goal setting, peer observation of teaching, professional development workshops) and a semester-based timeframe. The purpose of a PATS program is quality improvement (QI) of a single unit; people who participate are the individual academic responsible for the unit, supported by a peer partnership with various forms of mentoring (including peer-to-peer). PATS has been disseminated through an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Senior Teaching Fellowship and, in 2015, an OLT extension grant funded a project titled, Adapting and Extending PATS: variations on purpose, people and process was established to collate case studies of implementations of PATS variations from four partner universities.

This paper presents a framework for varying the PATS program from the original design without compromising its integrity. The framework is based on analysis of the PATS program in relation to cases of PATS adopted within Monash University and other institutions. Variations of PATS have been analysed to identify the defining features, or core elements, of PATS and the dimensions of variation. The 3P3V matrix articulates three primary dimensions of variation identified in the analysis: Purpose, People and Process, and three variations (3V) for each ‘P’ dimension. The matrix was tested as a structure for case description and a template developed as a tool to design or describe a PATS variation. The essence of what makes PATS ‘work’ for teachers is captured in the framework and it and it provides a method for designing a PATS implementation that takes into account local context; overcomes barriers; takes advantage of opportunities and priorities, and can be measured for impact and effectiveness.

The framework embeds SoTL by adopting a multi-theoretical approach. A PATS program is intended to encourage critical-reflective practice and provide a social context in which academics can interrogate their teaching practice, engage in scholarship, and identify opportunities for improvement in curriculum, teaching and student learning. The primary lenses used to analyse the social processes and outcomes of PATS variations are: 1) mentoring; 2) agency/identity and 3) distributive leadership. The use of each lens is dependent on the scale of the PATS implementation driven by the particular purpose framing the use of the variation.

The paper concludes with a general discussion on the challenges of ‘leadership’: how PATS is (or can be) implemented in an institution and the recommendations that have been distilled from the collective experience of the project partners.

Funding

Office for Learning & Teaching

History

Department/School

College Office - College of Health and Medicine

Event title

International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL)

Event Venue

Melbourne, Australia

Date of Event (Start Date)

2015-10-27

Date of Event (End Date)

2015-10-30

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Management, resources and leadership

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC