Micro-CPD: responding to the development needs of the HE workforce in a time of disruption

Abstract

An ongoing commitment to professional development is absolutely vital for everyone involved in teaching and learning. However, the particular pressures on academic professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic have meant that, according to our staff at Strathclyde, fulfilling this commitment, recently, has felt like quite a challenge. Since 2020, staff have regularly spoken to us about the challenges of engaging in CPD when, in addition to a 'normal' workload (that can involve teaching, marking, research, writing, dissemination, administrative and other professional activities) the requirement to learn and implement unfamiliar approaches to online, blended and hybrid learning has become 'business as usual'. Beyond the anecdotal evidence, the 'landscape' of CPD in learning and teaching has changed at our institution with staff's engagement in non-credit-bearing provision decreasing markedly across the board since early 2000. To respond to this disruption and fulfil our commitment to provide staff with access to CPD, the Academic Development team at Strathclyde recently instituted a programme of micro-CPD. Micro-CPD provides staff with weekly access to bite-sized learning opportunities, delivered by email, that addresses a wide-range of development needs. 6 / 7 The rationale is that no matter how busy we get, everyone can find 3-5 minutes in their working week to learn something new about teaching in higher education. By tracking staff engagement through analytics, we know that each weekly micro-CPD input attracts between 75 and 500 staff engagements; a reach that is far beyond what would be expected from traditional in-person non-creditbearing provision (quantitatively if not necessarily in terms of the depth of learning achieved). Moreover, micro-CPD provided a means for the Academic Development team to circulate recently updated policies, guidance and information to support staff to keep pace with the many changes affecting teaching, learning and assessment associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, the Academic Development team will describe their experience in responding to the acute development needs of learning and teaching staff through micro-CPD. They will share details of the approach, the rationale, and some of the lessons learned to encourage educational developers in other HEIs to implement similar approaches to staff development.

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https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/80612/