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Connecting Legal Education #21: Career Development for Law Teachers

Nigel Duncan, Odette Hutchinson and Caroline Strevens presented a session designed to help colleagues on a career path focussed on teaching and learning rather than research to prepare for and achieve promotion. The presentation was supported by a slideshow which is available here.

Nigel went first with advice drawn from his own experience and from the work of colleagues in his university’s Learning Enhancement and Development team and Debby Cotton at Plymouth Marjoun University. This included detailed advice as to how to address the promotions criteria within your own university. It was followed by advice about CV development and presentation, developing your reputation and your relationship with your managers. Odette followed this with an exposition of how best to demonstrate objective recognition of your qualities, with specific advice as to the bodies which can help in this area. Caroline then ran a Mentimeter exercise in which participants were able to identify what they most valued within and outside their institutions. We concluded with a discussion of the issues raised, and a number of participants proposed, and then offered to assist with a group of mentors to help colleagues seeking promotion within a teaching and learning-focussed career. izmir escort

 

Key takeaways included:

  • Don’t apply until you are reasonably confident that you will be accepted.
  • Consult appropriate senior managers and follow their advice.
  • Ensure you address your own institution’s criteria for promotion.
  • Make sure that you demonstrate the impact of the quality of your work.
  • Demonstrate how you reflect on your experience and develop as a result.
  • Even on a teaching-focussed pathway, refereed publications and conference papers are highly desirable.
  • Qualify for the appropriate level of HEA Fellowship.
  • Make sure you develop your reputation, locally, nationally and internationally if possible. Social media may help here.
  • Maintain constructive relationships with colleagues and (especially) your managers.
  • Don’t apply until you are really ready, but don’t leave it too late. Remember that what recruiters present as requirements are attributes that they want you to grow into – not necessarily on Day One.
  • Annoying Senior Management to be balanced with being respected for speaking ‘truth to power’.
  • Referees – the promotion panel will use its discretion to find referees if a reference does prove problematic.
  • Think about how you will feel if you are rejected after all the work you have put in the make your case.
  • Ensure your own institutional research repository is up to date in order to provide evidence of your profile.

 

Demonstrating Objective Recognition: Writing Scholarship for Learning and Teaching Journals

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Demonstrating Objective Recognition: Awards and Professional Recognition

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