In a competitive and volatile context, Higher Education Institutions regularly embark on transformation projects to adapt educational curricula and student experience to new student expectations, audiences and market trends. Almost always, academic and professional service ‘leads’ join up on these projects, often coming to the table with very different cultures, operating models and modes of change management and delivery. The Leading Educational Change Programme is the only leadership programme in the sector that focuses on managing and delivering education change projects collaboratively. It brings together academic and professional unit ‘leads’ to optimise mutual understanding, collaboration and co-delivery. It will address questions such as:
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- How does a Head of Estates best work with a Director of Learning and Teaching on a Learning Space transformation?
- How might a Head of Student Support work alongside a Director of Digital Education to embed inclusion and wellbeing in online communities?
- How should Associate Deans of Learning Teaching / Student Experience liaise with Heads of Quality Assurance and Collaborative Provision to design new Degree Apprenticeship and CPD portfolios?
- How might a Deputy Head of School work alongside a Student Vice President on the recruitment, training and support for Student Representatives?
Programme Delivery
Leading Educational Change will support and develop staff in positions of strategic responsibility for education delivery and change projects. It will prepare and develop education leaders (both academic and professional) to meet current and emerging challenges in relation to student education and experience, understand sector issues and trends that impact their role and optimise their impact and efficacy in relation to education change. In particular, the programme will develop participants’ ability to respond to internal and external drivers for educational change, looking at major areas of relevance such as Portfolio transformation, Student Experience Change programmes, and School, College and Faculty responses to Education Policy, Regulation and Reporting Requirements.
To note: During the course of the programme participants will be working on a project back in their institutions, progress on this project will feed into the action learning set and final session.
Introductory Networking Launch | Fri 26 Apr, 2-3.30pm UTC+1
1.5-hour scene setting introductory session and networking
Day 1 | The Strategic Landscapes for Change | Tue 30 Apr, 10am - 3.30pm UTC+1(informal check in from 9.30am)
- Your institutional strategies and ‘change’ / ‘transformation’ programmes
- How your education strategy sits in relation to institutional mission and change programme
- The different parts of organisation dedicated to leading and managing change
- Key change leaders / networks / stakeholders: how they currently relate and interconnect
Day 2 | Change Scenarios: Your Role & Project | Wed 15 May, 10am - 3.30pm UTC+1 (informal check in from 9.30am)
- Thinking about own role and change agency
- Defining and sharing own Change Project
- Preparing for ALS / “change sets”
Action Learning Sets Fri 24 May, morning or afternoon session depending on group allocations
A half-day of facilitated group coaching to bring fresh perspectives and inspiration for solutions to your real and intractable leadership challenges.
Day 3 | Collective Reflections on Educational Change | Tue 18 Jun, 10am - 3.30pm UTC+1 (informal check in from 9.30am)
- Change dimensions and challenges
- Change networks and dynamics
- Stakeholder mapping and influencing work
- Reflections on individual change roles
- Change leadership / delivery plans
Learning Outcomes
This programme aims to:
- Bring together academic and professional change leaders within and between universities, to discuss ‘change agendas’ and ‘change infrastructures’ at their respective institutions
- Facilitate frank and progressive discussion of the cultural and operational complexities of cross-service and cross-team change programmes, and the leadership challenges involved
- Set leaders in cross-institutional dialogue about the priority education change programmes they are engaged in, for example in relation to HE Policy and regulation, Portfolio development, Student Experience, Digital Transformation
- Encourage participants to define the ‘change themes’ of the Action Learning Sets, maximising relevance and usefulness of the programme learning
- Support participants in leading education change, exploring the values, collaborative principles, consultation models and project management skills that optimise success.
Why Advance HE
This programme has been created after a period of research and consultation with key stakeholders and builds on Advance HE’s experience of developing leaders across all levels of University life which includes:
- Our combined, cross-directorate expertise in Strategic Leadership Development, Educational Enhancement and Development, EDI Impact and Awareness in relation to Change Projects
- Our existing education enhancement frameworks that ‘guide’ education change and development, and could be deployed and discussed within the Leading Educational Change Programme
- Our long term experience across many of our programmes in engaging with and developing (mixed cohorts of) Academic and Professional Staff
- Our cross-sector understanding of change ‘infrastructures’ in Universities: drawing from our rich, international member network
- Our understanding of the dominant drivers for educational change, nationally and internationally, in terms of market trends, student expectation, educational innovation and policy-driven priorities and reporting / quality requirements
- Our sophisticated suite of existing leadership and development programmes from which to adapt and develop programme structure, resources, modes of delivery, participation and outputs
- Our access to a diverse pool of staff and associate facilitators with collective understanding of ‘educational change programmes’ in practice and in leadership, meaning we are delivering from a position of experience as well as expertise.