HEA accreditation and professional development

I have always enjoyed teaching in HE (my subject area is international relations) and I very nervously took my first undergraduate seminar in 1994 or 1995 – I can’t quite remember which. Since then, I have taught many courses at a number of universities and even been a MA module convenor.

In recent years, my teaching has been for the Open University and, being a distance learning university, much of this has been online, although we do get a few face-to-face sessions in each iteration.

I consider I have a wealth of experience of teaching, but I’ve always been aware that I have no specific training and at best a cursory understanding of pedagogy. Does experience make me a good teacher? What if I’m simply doing bad things over and over again? My qualification for teaching was that I knew a little bit more about the subject than my students (sometimes only a week’s worth …).

Which brings me to professional recognition and accreditation by the Higher Education Academy. Our OU tutor forums are ‘all of a buzz’ because the university yesterday launched a moderated Moodle course area to guide us through the process for completing applications for Associate Fellowship (AFHEA) or Fellowship (FHEA) of the Higher Education Academy.

Finding time outside work to do a full 60 credit academic practice PG Cert is challenging, and the professional recognition route offers an alternative way for me to really reflect on my role as a teacher. And the great news is that now it will be with the support of my peers – my favourite way of learning.

I found gaining the CMALT qualification as a very recent learning technologist to be an enormously useful exercise, and anticipate working towards the FHEA to be equally rewarding.

In terms of my own professional development, it’s important to me to seek accreditation although I understand why others might not agree. As a reflective exercise, I’m sure it will make me a better OU teacher.

And in my role as Academic Developer here at Goldsmiths,  I want to be able to work with my academic colleagues around campus from a position of some authority, and accreditation I feel helps towards this. Or put another way, I don’t think it will do any harm.