Developing collegial cultures of teaching innovation

Motivating influences and impact of university colleagues sharing digital stories of learning and teaching

Abstract

Fostering cultures of teaching innovation contributes to the transformation of learning and teaching practices in higher education. Enabling university colleagues to share their practice stories is essential for the development of collegial and collaborative communities of practice that provide peer support for colleagues engaged in continuing professional learning related to learning and teaching practice enhancement. This paper describes a university-wide technology-enhanced professional learning strategy aiming to provide a dynamic collection of multimedia digital narratives of teaching practices via an open education resources (OER) repository. This study investigated the factors that motivated university colleagues to share their learning and teaching experiences and practices, the value of sharing their practice with others and the perceived impact of creating these narratives. The results of a preliminary online survey of contributors included that respondents were very strongly motivated to share their practices with peers (92%) and found the process valuable for promoting reflective practice (75%). Semi- structured interviews with contributors indicated the value of collegial conversations involved in creation of the resources. Implications for developing sustainable cultures of university teaching innovation in discipline contexts and future directions for further studies are discussed.