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Recognition and rewarding of education

Updates on the achievements made regarding the recognition and rewarding teaching movement

This newsletter updates on the achievements made regarding the recognition and rewarding teaching movement at the UT. In an earlier announcement, (see here) we highlighted the aims of the 3 action clusters that work on the promulgation of recognition and rewarding of educational professionalization from the bottom up. Now we are happy to declare that we have made some very important steps forward which will be shared in this newsletter.

The action cluster 1 focuses on the further development of the educational performance criteria and professional career paths for teachers. Within the UT we already have a UT Teaching Framework for discussing educational performance with each other (based on Ruth Graham's four levels, see link). In recent months, the colleagues from this action cluster have made an inventory of all kinds of frameworks national and international, and looked how to further improve our own framework and its implementation in UT context. The result is that we would like to focus more on the use of impact narratives instead of extensive self-assessment forms (also labeled as "checklists" in the corridors). We are currently exploring the creating of a so-called impact narrative. Although subjective, this impact narrative should be evidence-based and for instance, highlight the educational leadership and innovation impact efforts of teachers to demonstrate their experience as a professional teacher.  On the basis of an experiment, we aim to gain experience with this novel assessment practice for career development of teachers. We also consider a suitable format and how the assessment can then take place properly in practice, etc.

Mark van der Meijde is leader of this action cluster. You can contact him for more information or in case you want to share any interesting thoughts on the subject.  

Action cluster 2 investigates which HR Tools are appropriate to have a comprehensive discussion about the educational performance of academic staff during annual performance appraisals (FJUT). A draft instructional handout is already available and serves as a foundation for further improvements and refinements. Action cluster 2 also works as a user-friendly version of the UT Teaching Framework. Finally, this action cluster examines which quantitative indicators can easily be extracted from existing systems to substantiate the impact narrative efforts in Action cluster 1. Consider, for example, the number of supervised master's students and PhDs in any given year.

The team leader of this action cluster is Thomas Groen. Please contact him for instance if you have any ideas or remarks on what would help to enhance the quality of a comprehensive discussion on your performance in education.   

Action cluster 3 focuses on the development of a UT Teaching Community. In recent weeks, a lot of hard work has been done to create a first vision document for a teaching community at the UT. In the process, other promising community models used in the Netherlands and abroad were reviewed as sources of inspiration. What matters is how an emerging UT teaching community aligns with other initiatives that also seek to promulgate educational professionalization and innovation for instance in faculties. So it is not for joining forces only but also to create important synergies among all the current and emergent initiatives. The vision document outlines the design and structure of this teaching community (see insert). Currently, this action cluster works on an implementation plan and proposal for funding to bring the first UT teaching community to life. The aim is to start with this community informally before the summer of 2021. The formal kick of this teaching community will be in September, around the start of the new academic year.  

Robin de Graaf en Martine ten Voorde are the team leaders of action cluster 3. Please contact them in case you want to share your ideas or in case you want to contribute to the emergence of this teaching community.

Save the date

It's apparent that the three action clusters are progressing well and that rewarding and recognizing teaching finds traction at the UT thanks to all the efforts made by so many staff members working in each action cluster. To share the progress in greater detail, a “catch up” session will be organized in May 25 (16.00-17.00) for all the UT staff members interested in de details of the aims and progress made and also to listen to your ideas and experiences.