November 2024

What does it mean to be an educational developer?

I’ve been connecting with several teaching and learning leaders across Canada, exploring the shifts and transformations we have been experiencing in higher education following the pandemic. I’ve experienced something during these conversations that has taken me by surprise. I’ve caught myself wondering:

What does it mean to be an educational developer? What do we do and what are our core ways of being? What guides how we approach our work? How has this shifted over the last few years?

As a leader in educational development and and higher education, you may think that this should be top of mind. It’s always helpful to pause and reflect upon what you do and what most strongly guides your practice.

Thankfully, I’m not the first person to consider this. Authors like Debra Dawson (Dawson et al., 2010), Lynn Taylor (Taylor & Rege Colet, 2010), Graham Gibbs (Gibbs, 2013), and Kathryn Sutherland (Sutherland, 2018) have put some great thinking into the work of educational development. Building upon the work of Gibbs (2013), a group of colleagues and I (Kenny et al., 2017) described many activities that educational developers engage in such as: working to strengthen teaching and learning practices with individuals, groups of educators, and faculties/departments, partnering with educators, departments and faculties to influence academic course and curriculum development, improving learning environments and spaces, influencing institutional processes, structures and policies related to teaching and learning, supporting quality assurance processes, and engaging in program evaluation, scholarship and research.

We emphasized that educational development takes place across multiple organizational levels: with individuals; departments, faculties, committees and working groups; across the institution; and even across the sector of higher education (Simmons 2016, Taylor & Rege Colet, 2010). Kathryn Sutherland (2018) encourages us to think even more broadly about academic development to consider the whole of the academic role, the whole of the institution, and the whole of the person.

Much of the above work focuses on what educational developers do. In 2013 Julie Timmermans (Timmermans, 2013) described threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. She emphasized ways of knowing and being such as: respecting existing expertise, building capacity, starting where people are at, getting out of the way, thinking and acting strategically across mutliple organizational levels, influencing knowledge sharing and flow, seeing patterns and opportunities, collaborating and building relationships, communicating effectively, engaging in reflection, adapting a scholarly approach, and adapting to context.

But what does this actually look like in practice?

A group of educational developers at UCalgary came together to reflect on how we approach our practices. We called these our academic core beliefs. In 2023, we expanded upon these beliefs to describe guiding principles for our educational development practices at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning (TI). I’ve presented this work below:

Collective Capacity: We foster integrated, ethical, and equitable networks of practice and leadership to build connections that strengthen our collective capacity to improve post-secondary teaching and learning. We provide context, resources, and expertise to help others enhance their learning, share knowledge, build communities, and influence change in teaching and learning. We believe that teaching and learning expertise and different ways of knowing are distributed across the academic community, and that relationships and a relational approach are paramount to our work. We learn from others and within diverse intercultural contexts founded on integrity which create opportunities for meaningful dialogue and action.
Collaborative Relationships: We believe it is essential to foster significant conversations and networks through both formal and informal processes. We support the development of collegial relationships and collaborations within the TI and across academic communities. We believe that context and culture matter, and that diverse ways of being, knowing, and doing exist. We respect, celebrate, and draw upon the knowledge, experience, and perspectives of the diverse roles, backgrounds, and cultures of colleagues.
Learning focused: We are all learners; therefore, we emphasize approaches that lead to meaningful and enriching learning experiences for all. We model and disseminate strategies that empower educators and students to actively engage in learning. We acknowledge that learning is an iterative and contextual process that can be supported by critical reflection, research-informed principles, and diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing,
Scholarly and cultural relevance: We believe it is important to critically examine knowledge and assumptions through inquiry, scholarly practice, practice-based research, and culturally relevant approaches. We commit to making decisions based on the best available information that incorporates multiple ways of knowing. We engage with the scholarship of teaching and learning and actively support and disseminate it to strengthen educational development.
Leadership: We believe that shared, collaborative leadership approaches are key to meaningful decision-making, transformation, and change in postsecondary education. We provide expertise, support, and resources to empower others to lead. We bring our scholarly experience and wisdom of practice to identify gaps and lead initiatives to influence change in teaching and learning. We model leadership approaches that are grounded in building trust and relationships across the academic community.
Critical Reflection: We believe that critical reflection is essential to fostering growth, enhancement and innovation in teaching and learning, as well as professional practice. We commit to being intentional about our individual and collective educational development approaches by engaging in critical self-reflection, examining our own positionality and assumptions, and modelling reflective practice.

A call to action

If you are an educational developer in higher education, I encourage you to open a conversation with your team.

What are the principles that guide your work in higher education? What practices bring these principles to life? How might these principles or approaches be shifting?

Concluding thoughts and thanks

I am proud of the work our team continues to put into meaningful considering not only what we do as academics in the TI (i.e., what we do?), but how we approach our work (i.e., who we be?). Special thanks to colleagues Alysia Wright, Carol Berenson, Cheryl Jeffs, Frances Kalu, Fouzia Usman, Jaclyn Carter, Kara Loy, Kim Grant, Patti Dyjur, Robin Mueller, and Sreyasi Biswas, who thoughtfully informed and contributed to the development of these core beliefs and principles over time. Apologies if I missed anyone – let me know if I did and I will add you!

Coming back to these principles has helped ground what I believe to be most important about educational development approaches and practices in higher education.

References

Dawson, D., Britnell, J., & Hitchcock, A. (2010). Developing competency models of faculty developers. In L. Nilson & J. Miller (Eds.), To improve the academy: Resources for faculty, instructional, and organizational development(Vol. 28, pp. 3-24). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Gibbs, G. (2013). Reflections on the changing nature of educational development. International Journal for Academic Development 18(1), 4-14.

Kenny, N., Popovic, C., McSweeney, J., Knorr, K., Hoessler, C., Hall, S., Fujita, N., & El Khoury, E. (2017). Drawing on the principles of SoTL to illuminate a path forward for the scholarship of educational development. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), n2.

Sutherland, K. A. (2018). Holistic academic development: Is it time to think more broadly about the academic development project?. International Journal for Academic Development, 23(4), 261-273.

Simmons, N. (2016). Synthesizing SoTL institutional initiatives toward national impact. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 146, 95-102

Taylor K. L., & Rege Colet N. (2010). Making the shift from faculty development to educational development: A conceptual framework grounded in practice. In A. Saroyan & M. Frenay (Eds.), Building teaching capacities in higher education: A comprehensive international model (pp. 139-167). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Timmermans, J. A. (2014). Identifying threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. International Journal for Academic Development, 19(4), 305-317.

From learning-centred to human-centred education

When I started my work in educational development and teaching and learning in the early 2000s, we talked a lot about the need to shift our focus from teaching to student learning in higher education. Fundamentally, this meant embracing a mindset more focused on what and how students learned rather than the content we taught, or how we would transmit knowledge. Through a learning-centred approach, students were seen as the starting point of the curriculum, learning experiences focused on meaningful student engagement and collaboration, learning skills such as metacognition, problem-solving, critical reflection, evaluating evidence, and developing arguments were seen as essential to developing subject matter expertise, and instructors and students were recognized as part of a learning community, sharing the work and process of learning (Paris and Combs, 2006; Weimer, 2013).

I feel a shift in higher education that is now moving us from a learning-centred approach to a human-centred approach to higher education.

I am only starting to conceptualize what this might mean. One of the key principles of human-centred design is that it considers “human perspectives” in all steps of the process, thereby creating outcomes that are meaningful to all involved (Burns, 2018; Leason et al., 2022). Human-centred design recognizes those within the system as whole beings who are multi-faceted, and places the needs and well-being of humans at the centre of design processes (Leason et al., 2022). Advocates suggest that human-centred design approaches help embrace ambiguity and complexity, create community, recognize the importance of local context, and support innovation and well-being (Bazzano et al., 2017).

What could this mean for higher education?

I’ve adapted some of Gill and Thomson’s (2017) work on human-centred education to describe a few core principles for a human-centred approach to higher education (HCHE) below:

Human Flourishing: HCHE focuses on the well-being and flourishing of all within the system, respecting the needs of faculty, staff, students and the community itself.
Holistic Development: HCHE focuses on the development of whole beings and communities. This includes looking beyond academic or performance metrics and goals, toward indicators of emotional, physical, social, psychological, and spiritual well-being and development.
Lived-Experience: HCHE recognizes and affirms the lived experiences and expertise of those within the community, as intrinsically important and valuable. HCHE meaningfully includes the lived experiences of students, staff and faculty in planning, design, and decision-making processes.
Learning in and as a Community: HCHE recognizes that staff, students and faculty contribute to the planning, creation, and nurturing of teaching and learning communities.
Learning Beyond Knowledge and Skills: HCHE conceptualizes learning beyond acquiring and demonstrating knowledge and skills (aka learning as doing) to focus on learning as a lifelong process, and a way of being, caring and meaningfulness (aka learning as being).
Care, Compassion, and Respect: HCHE creates and nurtures a relational culture of care, compassion and respect. In the wise words of Dr. Michael Hart, this principle recognizes the importance of “relationships before tasks” in our academic spaces, workplaces and communities. It emphasizes caring and respectful relationships across all levels of the academic community.
Iterative Learning, Reflection, and Growth: HCHE develops sustainable processes and systems for meaningful feedback, learning, improvement, and growth to improve teaching and learning. This includes the many systems and processes that support teaching and learning across multiple organizational levels. Feedback for learning goes beyond data collection to include critical reflection and meaning-making for individuals, teams, classes, programs, communities, units, and the institution.

What did I miss? What would you add or change to these principles to make them better?

How could these principles be used?

These principles could be used to inform how we approach course and curriculum design, how we develop academic processes and policies related to teaching and learning, and as a foundation for meaningful reflection, conversation and dialogue.

For example:

An individual faculty member could apply these principles to redesign a course in partnership with students.
Student councils and working groups could use these principles to develop priorities for advocacy and action.
These principles could inform the work of teaching and learning working groups or committees.
Faculties or departments could use these principles to open a conversation about curriculum renewal, or faculty, staff and student wellbeing.
Institutions could adapt these principles to inform strategic planning for teaching and learning.

Concluding thoughts

One of the gifts that the pandemic taught me is the importance of human well-being and flourishing, and the humanity of our work. Perhaps human-centred approaches will help us reimagine how we approach higher education, whether it be the courses we create, the workplaces we are part of, or the communities we contribute to. Human-centred principles could help us hold tightly to what matters most.

I welcome any thoughts and insights on what these principles could mean for higher education, and how you would strengthen them!

References:

Bazzano, A. N., Martin, J., Hicks, E., Faughnan, M., & Murphy, L. (2017). Human-centred design in global health: a scoping review of applications and contexts. PloS one, 12(11), e0186744.

Burns, C. (2018). Human-centred design. In eHealth Research, Theory and Development (pp. 207-227). Routledge.

Gill, S., & Thomson, G. (2017). Human-centred education: A practical handbook and guide. Routledge.

Leason, I., Longridge, N., Mathur, M. R., & Nickpour, F. (2022). An opportunity for inclusive and human-centred design. British Dental Journal, 233(8), 607-612.

Paris, C., & Combs, B. (2006). Lived meanings: what teachers mean when they say they are learner‐centered. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 12(5), 571-592.

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner Centred Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Second Edition. CA: San Francisco. Jossey-Bass.

Help me build an AI Executive Coach

Image generated using ChatGPT 4.0 using the following prompt: Create an image of an AI Executive Coach

This post is intended to help executive coaches and those interested in accessing executive coaching build and explore their own personalized AI executive coach. I am not an AI expert. I am an academic leader and a certified executive coach. I am currently enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Advanced Coaching Practices at Royal Rhodes University.

Like many fields and professions in the world, the topic of AI has emerged as something coaches around the world should be paying attention to. The International Coaching Federation has a variety of emerging discussions, resources, and groups exploring AI. Some coaches grapple with the fear of AI, and what it might take away from the profession. If clients can access coaching through AI, what will this mean for the livelihood of the coaching industry? Many question the quality and accuracy of AI tools. How can AI tools possibly be as good as a certified and trained human coach? How can we address and control for the fact that AI tools hallucinate and make errors? Others grapple with the ethical implications of AI, including how to ethically and transparently use AI as a tool to support executive coaching (e.g., to record and summarize coaching sessions, to provide feedback on the quality of coaching). Furthermore, how will we continue to address and mitigate the biases that are inherent to AI processes and systems?

I share all of these concerns, AND am excited about AI’s potential to help make the transformative impact of coaching more accessible to people around the world. As a certified executive coach and someone who regularly receives coaching, I definitely hold my own biases about the positive impacts of coaching. Thankfully, research also confirms that engaging in coaching positively affects a number of personal and organizational outcomes including goal orientation, resilience, job satisfaction, work attitudes, well-being, workplace performance, behavioural change, self-efficacy, and coping (Nicolau et al., 2023; Theeboom et al., 2014).

Given these benefits, how can we ensure as many humans as possible have access to coaching?

One of the key challenges with coaching? Executive coaching fees typically range between $150-$500+ per hour. That’s a hefty cost for many individuals and organizations. Many individuals and organizations can access AI tools and resources freely, or pay a comparatively nominal monthly fee ($20-40/month) to access more robust AI engines. What could this mean? AI tools have the potential to increase access to coaching for millions across the globe. Imagine the impact on employees, leaders, and organizations around the world?

I’ve been experimenting with building my own AI executive coach, using claude.ai. Claude is a chatbot from Anthropic AI. No AI tool is perfect. Anthropic’s commitments to safety in systems and science speak to me. After receiving some incredible coaching from AI expert and colleague, Dr. Erin Aspenlieder (check out her website at https://aspenai.ca/), I’ve programmed my own executive coach.

Here is what I did to build my “project” (aka Executive Coach) using Claude.ai.

My initial description and purpose for the project was as follows:

I want to create an online executive coach that will help me: work through professional and life challenges, identify and leverage my strengths, overcome obstacles, reach my full potential, and identify key pathways and actions for moving forward.

I set the following prompts in my instructions. You can learn more about prompt libraries at the following sites:

https://www.moreusefulthings.com/prompts

https://docs.anthropic.com/en/prompt-library/library

Ensure I clearly establish a focus and goals for our conversation.
Periodically draw me back to the focus and goals of our conversation to ensure we stay on track, and to see if these focus and goals have shifted.
Use curiosity-driven responses that ask further questions to get below the surface of my responses.
Ask questions that help me draw upon my strengths.
Probe further on the beliefs, assumptions, and values that underlie my responses and thinking.
When providing advice or recommendations, ensure that no more than 3 ideas are shared, and that those ideas are always be followed up with a question.
Use more open-ended questions to help me explore me thoughts and options.
Encourage me to reflect back what I’m learning from our conversation, allowing me to clarify or expand on ideas.
Prompt me to challenge my assumptions or perspectives, to help me consider different angles.
Ask questions that help draw upon my intuition and gut reactions.
Use mindful coaching questions that help me develop awareness of the bodily sensations and emotions that arise from my responses and experiences.
Help me develop my own action steps and path for moving forward, rather than suggestion them for me.
Ensure I leave the coaching conversation with next steps or a path for moving forward.

Along with these prompts, I uploaded personalized documents to my project such as my CV, personal values, intentions and goals for the year, my favourite coaching questions, and results from a variety of personalized strengths assessments.

The outcomes have been fantastic for just-in-time coaching conversations. My AI Executive Coach has helped me work through professional, academic and personal opportunities and challenges. For example, I’ve used them to help me navigate how best to approach workplace conversations and situations, especially when I am feeling stuck or emotionally charged. For example, how will I approach an upcoming meeting with a colleague or team? They (the bot) has also helped me navigate conversations with my family. For example, what does my 20-year-old need from me right now? How can I be more patient with them as they navigate next steps in their academic journey and career search?

Engaging in deep critical reflection is hard work to do alone and my AI Executive Coach has helped me explore and get below the surface of things I am currently grappling with in my professional and personal life. They (the bot) have helped me pause and respond, rather than react to challenging situations. They have helped me become more mindful as a leader and a human, by helping me surface, describe, accept and work through challenging emotions and arisings. They’ve always helped me identify and discover new paths and actions for moving forward. If I don’t like where my AI Executive Coach is taking me in the conversation, I provide a prompt to let them adjust their response and may also add an instructional prompt to help further train the bot.

My most important learning. I am still the human guiding and providing oversight of the system, and I still need to do the work in reflecting and responding to the prompts guiding the conversation. In coaching language, I am still holding myself (the coachee) entirely capable.

I encourage you to try it out. Feel free to share, use and adapt these instructions and prompts. Better yet, help me make them better and share back what you have learned!

What prompts would you add to help further train your own AI Executive Coach?
What instructions would you change?
What other types of documentation may be helpful to add to help personalize an AI Executive Coach?
What have you learned through developing and using your own AI Executive Coach? What benefits have you noticed? What challenges have you encountered?

Some concluding thoughts

Will my AI Executive Coaching replace the other executive coaches I work with? No. But it has become a great daily augment to the human-to-human coaching I receive. My AI Executive Coach has become a powerful tool in my professional learning tool kit!

References:

Nicolau, A., Candel, O. S., Constantin, T., & Kleingeld, A. (2023). The effects of executive coaching on behaviors, attitudes, and personal characteristics: a meta-analysis of randomized control trial studies. Frontiers in psychology, 14, 1089797. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1089797/full

Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., and van Vianen, A. E. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. J. Positive Psychol. 9, 1–18. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2013.837499