Final Report: A National, Open Access Learning and Teaching Induction Program (LTIP) for Staff New to Teaching

Teaching well at university is a complex task (Fraser, 2005; Ramsden, 2003) and staff who are new to teaching have many and varied teaching professional development needs. Not only do we expect our staff to be familiar with their universitys learning and teaching (L&T) policies, we also expect them to develop an understanding of active learning pedagogies, assessment strategies, feedback, academic literacies, first-year transition pedagogies, group work, curriculum design, blended learning, use of different technologies, and of course, their specific student cohorts and learning management systems(LMS), and to then teach accordingly. This is not an exhaustive list. Based onthe evidence available, thousands2of new sessional, contract and full-time staff are appointed to teach in the Australian higher education sector annually,and many of those staff are new to teaching. In 2015, desktop and phone call research by the Fellow indicated that 25per cent of Australian universities did not provide more than one day of teaching induction for staff who were new to teaching. This result is similar to that of the 2002 report of Dearn, Fraser and Ryan,and the OLT funded project of Hicks, Smigiel, Wilson and Luzeckyj (2010)