Rationale 

The project aimed to build on the student led report “Student Transitions into Higher Education: Acceptance, Arrival, and Beyond” (2014) completed at Strathclyde University. This work was carried out in support of the Student Transitions theme and identified a number of key issues that should be addressed at Strathclyde, and we sought to address a number of these issues with a particular focus on “Getting Started – Adapting to University”. The issues identified were not only Strathclyde specific but transcended institutional boundaries to the wider HE sector therefore formed the basis for development of the planned professional development programme.

Successes

• We were offered, and gratefully accepted, help from the university Careers Service to advertise, interview and employ the student interns. This provided valuable experience for all applicants and interviewees as they were able to benefit from a rigorous, yet supportive, selection process much like what they might experience in seeking employment in the future.
• The student interns interviewed a number of student volunteers about their ‘transition stories’, providing a mechanism for those stories to be told, and ensuring that the student voice was not only heard, but integral in influencing the content of the developed programme. The openness of the students was critical in this process to capturing authentic transition issues and it is likely that telling their stories to fellow students (rather than staff) facilitated this.
• The use of a story-telling approach to enhance participant engagement continues to build upon the approach co-developed by the project lead in the Forensic Science MOOC which has subsequently been continued in other MOOCs, becoming a ‘signature pedagogy’ of Strathclyde MOOCs. By extending this to a staff development programme we are able to open a discussion with staff about the use of this method, particularly in online learning environments.
• Offering a fully online class for staff development has effectively introduced flexibility in terms of the time, space and place in which staff engage in continuing professional development.
• Through experiencing online learning as a participant staff will enhance their own understandings of online learning and how students may experience online learning environments. 
• This project was shared at a recent QAA event, which generated interest from other universities. We have subsequently been contacted by Edinburgh University regarding the project and have shared outcomes and resources with them.

Lessons Learnt

• The video-based case study was somewhat complex to organise and in similar future developments we would endeavour to work with media colleagues more closely at an earlier stage in the project development. 
• The project team have successfully used online learning both for students and for early career staff development within the university. However the challenges with staff engagement in the online class indicate that mid – late career staff may require additional support to engage fully and effectively in online courses. In the next offering of the online class we anticipate implementing a compulsory 1-hour session prior to the start of the class to provide support in how to effectively engage in an online learning environment. 

Challenges

• We initially anticipated hiring one intern from HASS/SBS and one from Engineering/Science, however despite advertising through both careers service and Vice Deans Academic, there was a very low response from Engineering students and none from science. Therefore the candidates selected were from HASS/SBS. While we don’t think this in any way affected the quality of the final project, it would have been desirable to have student representation from the more technical faculties.
• Timing for the funding and schedules for project completion meant that the project had to be completed over the summer period. This may have affected the number and diversity of students that were able to apply for the intern positions as well as the numbers of students we were able to interview regarding their transition stories. 
• The face-to-face offering of this course was highly successful and received much positive feedback, however, there have been some challenges in engaging participants with the online course. The online activities include collaborative wikis, discussion forums, glossary activities, and reflective blogs and are designed to facilitate social learning and peer feedback in an online environment. Some participants didn’t feel confident in using activities within the MyPlace environment as this was sometimes the first occasion they had heard of these activities. We offered individual and group orientation to these activities and outcomes were successful for the staff who took up this offer. Approximately 30% of participants registered on the course did not engage in the activities, citing time and workload pressures as reasons for this. On reflection, it may be that participants need more upfront support in both participating in online learning – and in designing online learning and this will inform both future offerings of the development course as well as ongoing staff development activities through the STEP programme. 

Scalability

While there would be limited opportunities for scalability in terms of student involvement, there is scalability in terms of use of the resources. For example, the video footage is currently being re-packaged for use in a student-facing first year transition course, providing a really useful parallel between staff and student development in this area.

In terms of the numbers of staff that can be developed using the materials, scalability is being addressed through development of a toolkit for both face-to-face and online delivery. 

Suggestions for Transferability

The video footage captured for this project is transferable and could potentially be used in other projects to illustrate similar concepts. For example, the video footage is currently being re-packaged for use in a student-facing first year transition course, providing a really useful parallel between staff and student development in this area.

Please contact the project leads if you wish to use the video footage. 

Student Involvement

Two student interns were employed with assistance from the careers service, one final year student from HASS and one 2nd year student from SBS. The student interns researched and developed the CPD programme with support and guidance from the Academic Development Team.

Strathclyde student volunteers were involved as actors in the video, where appropriate. 

Attachments/Links

Staff can register to attend the staff development course scheduled for June 2016 at the following link, https://bookings.strath.ac.uk/courseDetails.asp?course=SSSS

The toolkit submitted to the Higher Education Academy will be made available through the HEA website in due course and when this is done a link will be provided here.