Teaching First: Professional Development for Sessional Regional Academics

As universities rapidly moved to online learning, urgent professional development was provided to academic staff. Many academics had never taught online before, and some with little formal teaching knowledge taught key subjects. Furthermore, they were not aware, or understood, services available to support them. These key subjects played a pivotal role in transition to university, especially for students from non-traditional backgrounds. A six-session course was developed to introduce sessional academics to online teaching at a large regional university. The sessions were funded, so that sessional academics could claim hours for the readings, attendance and post-work completed. Participants were also offered a paid initial 1 hr personal consultation with an educational designer and/or an Academic Skills advisor to support the embedding and modifications of content discussed within the series. A survey to determine previous teaching experience and specific areas of interest was sent to participants. Discussion during the sessions and general feedback was collected as well as the various changes made due to the personalised support given. Feedback indicated that the sessions and the personal consultations have allowed staff to confidently modify subjects quickly and efficiently to support student learning in the online environment. Offering a series of sessions focussed on identified needs, as well as pre and post session activity, enabled deeper engagement and reflection leading to greater impact than traditional single session professional development.