Course Leader Programme
Course Leader Programme
Welcome to Solent's Course Leader Programme.
Course Leaders have a vital part to play in the successful delivery of Solent's key public-facing activities – our courses, their curricula and pedagogies - and the associated academic student experience.
Course Leaders not only lead the development, organisation and day-to-day delivery of courses, but in doing so are required to ensure the collaboration and co-operation of wider course teams. Course Leaders are also integral to creating and maintaining a sense of belonging for students and for staff.
This Course Leader programme consists of a series of workshops aimed at supporting the development of course leaders, with sessions ranging from an introduction to the role, to working with course teams, to improving curricula and the overall student experience.
We welcome attendance from current course leaders and those who are interested in becoming a course leader in future.
You can sign up to this programme by completing this short form.
Participants can use this link to give feedback for individual sessions.
Index
Workshop 1: Being a Course Leader
Workshop 2: Enhancing the Curriculum, Effective Course Design
Workshop 3: Leading Courses, Leading Teams
Workshop 4: Managing Conflict
Workshop 5: Coaching and Mentoring
Workshop 6: Course Level Inclusivity, Widening Participation and Awarding Gaps
Workshop 7: Know your Data
Workshop 8: Promoting Student Wellbeing and Resilience
Workshop 9: Enhancing Graduate Outcomes- Workshop 1: Being a Course Leader
This workshop has been designed for established, new and aspiring course leaders, and will provide the opportunity for you to meet and get to know Course Leaders. Established Course Leaders will talk about their own career trajectories, supporting you to reflect on your future development and support needs as you develop your academic career through the Course Leader role.
The session invites you to reflect on becoming a CL in your own specific context, practice and priorities.
- Workshop 1: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (10 minutes): Please complete the Course Leader self-evaluation tool below: Task 2 (7 minutes): Watch the video below on Leading Effective Teams and reflect on if this is how you see the core features of teams in HE generally and at Solent Specifically
Task 3 (20 minutes): Please familiarise yourself with these documents.
- Workshop 1: Session Resources
- Workshop 2: Enhancing the Curriculum, Effective Course Design
This workshop builds on your pre-existing knowledge in terms of enhancing the curriculum and effective course design. It provides the opportunity for you to come into conversation with fellow Course Leaders (CLs) to explore how students on your course transform into graduates - how they are introduced to your discipline, research and scholarship and how are they prepared for their future practice as professionals. It will facilitate self-and peer-evaluation of aspects of your current or planned courses, as well as collaboration between course leaders with the intention of further enhancing the student learning experience. Underpinning the workshop will be Solent’s Real-World Curriculum, the Inclusive Curriculum Framework and the University’s Designing for Coherent and Impactful Courses Principles.
- Workshop 2: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (15 minutes): Read the following materials:
Task 2 (15 minutes): Consider these 4 key principles included in each document in relation to your course – these will form the basis of discussions in the session:
Designing holistically
Working as a team
Making the implicit explicit
Embedding real-world learning
Optional Reading:
If you have time, please read through this blog post from Advance HE on Designing Programmes for Learning.
- Workshop 2: Session Resources
- Workshop 3: Leading Courses, Leading Teams
Course Leaders play a vital part in the successful design and delivery of courses, their curricula, and the associated academic student experience. Course Leaders not only lead the development, organisation and day-to-day delivery of courses, but in doing so are required to ensure the collaboration and co-operation of wider course teams. They are integral to creating and maintaining a sense of belonging for students and for staff.
This workshop aims to enable your reflection on leading courses, individuals and teams, drawing on experiences from fellow Course Leaders and some of the key literature on leading teams beyond and within the academic context. It aims to directly support the role of Course Leader in the Solent context.
- Workshop 3: Pre-workshop activities
Task (5 minutes): Watch this short video on the Belbin theory roles work in teams:
Optional reading:
- Workshop 3: Session Resources
- Workshop 4: Managing Conflict
This workshop has been designed to bring Course Leaders into conversation about a common challenge for so many of us – managing conflict. It recognises that conflict and its management (or not) can have many consequences for the busy Course Leader, not least the impact of its avoidance.
The workshop will facilitate discussions on the reality of conflict and your management of it in your context. It invites exploration of the five steps to managing conflict identified in the video, connecting them into the world of higher education, specifically that of Solent University and your particular subject group/discipline therein. The workshop will focus on the fifth step specifically – teaching new habits for managing differences. Lizard listening, the evil logic check and the elephant cards will come into play. - Workshop 4: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (15 minutes): Watch the TEDx Talk video below on 'Why there's so much conflict at work and what you can do to fix it' by Liz Kislik. As you watch, you might start reflecting on your own experiences of managing conflict (or not). Task 2 (10 minutes): Consider an example of how you have successfully (or unsuccessfully) managed conflict. Please be ready to share, and please take care to omit any identifying information. If you don't have an example of how you have managed conflict, consider an example of where you have experienced positive/negative conflict management, or any strategies that you have learnt elsewhere.
Please be ready to anonymise all examples to ensure a safe place for discussion and reflection.
Use the board below to share your anonymous examples.
Optional reading
If you have time, please read through this note on leading teams without line management responsibility.
- Workshop 4: Session Resources
- Workshop 5: Coaching and Mentoring as a Course Leader
The workshop aims to introduce you to the Coaching Habit, an approach which distils the essentials of coaching to seven core questions. The workshop will facilitate discussions on the challenges and opportunities of coaching/mentoring in your context, prior to enabling practices within the Coaching Habit framework. It seeks to ensure a safe place for engaging with and enhancing your skills in the use of the Seven Questions. An intended benefit of the workshop is the further extension of your network at Solent University which opens out the opportunities for you to be coached/mentored by a peer.
- Workshop 5: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (20 minutes): Watch the 2 videos below on coaching habits and taming your 'Advice Monster'. We will reflect on these ideas in the session. - Workshop 5: Session Resources
- Workshop 6: Course-level Inclusivity, Widening Participation and Awarding Gaps
This workshop is designed to further enhance your practice as a Course Leader by embedding Solent's commitment to improving access and success for all students into the curriculum . The workshop invites you to come into conversation, to share ideas and practices. It will engage you in hands-on data activity facilitated by Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) experts to generate discussions in respect of widening access in your course and how you are or might decrease awarding gaps. It will stimulate conversations about practical steps you could take that align with broader strategic priorities.
- Workshop 6: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (10 minutes): Review the below resources below to gain a better understanding of the motivations behind and potential impact of the frameworks.
Learning Design Framework Task 2 (15 minutes): Complete the Inclusivity Self-Evaluation document to reflect on how you and your course might start to reflect on how the principles of inclusivity described above are embedded in your course(s) and to begin considering ways that this could be improved.
Please bring this with you into the session.
Task 3 (10 minutes): Access and review Solent's equality, diversity and inclusion plan for 2021-25:
- Workshop 6: Session Resources
- Workshop 7: Know your Data
This session is designed to develop an understanding of how course performance is measured at Solent and why it is important for Course Leaders to understand and act on course and module level data. It will identify links between data and broader quality enhancement activities at the course level – recognising the role of the Course Leader in driving the interpretation, application and impact of metrics as part of the annual course enhancement cycle and feeding into broader academic planning activities. To support this, the session will identify the key metrics that all Course Leaders should know and provide a brief overview of the Tableau dashboards that are on offer to support data access and interpretation.
- Workshop 7: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (10 minutes): Familiarise yourself with the tableau dashboard. Task 2 (10 minutes): Read the SLTI's note on the theory of change.
- Workshop 7: Session Resources
- Workshop 8: Promoting Student Wellbeing and Resilience
This workshop focuses on student well-being and resilience. It acknowledges a growing concern in the sector about student mental health, before facilitating an exploration of how both well-being and resilience might be strengthened at a course level through the curriculum. The workshop will enable you to analyse the strengths of your course and its component parts and help you to identify areas which might be further enhanced. It paves the way for the creation of a realistic action plan which can inform annual monitoring, periodic review and curriculum redesign.
The workshop recognises the significance of student well-being in the context of key metrics around the student experience (National Student Survey (NSS), continuation and performance (Good Honours), but extends beyond this to consider more intangible aspects of student well-being and resilience.
- Workshop 8: Pre-workshop activities
Task 1 (15 minutes): Review the overview below from Universities UK on mental health, wellbeing and resilience in UK universities. Task 2 (15 minutes): Review the UUK StepChange Self-assessment tool for promoting mentally healthy universities. You do not need to complete the self-assessment, but please do review some of the main areas of self-assessment.
Task 3 (15 minutes): Review this report published in June 2021 by the Department of Education on the results of a survey across UK HE institutions on student mental health.
In addition, please make sure you are familiar with:
Optional reading/watching
Review this publication on the importance of resilience at university and watch this TedX talk on resilience.
- Workshop 8: Session Resources
- Workshop 9: Enhancing Graduate Outcomes
This workshop provides the opportunity for you to come into conversation with other Course Leaders to talk about and devise action focused on developing highly skilled graduates and enhancing graduate outcomes. It assumes an understanding of graduate outcomes which the workshop will seek to build upon using discussion and the exchange of ideas as the impetus for change within your course.
- Workshop 9: Pre-workshop activities
Task (10 minutes): Familiarise yourself with the Graduate Outcomes Survey: Optional Video:
If you are less familiar with the Graduate Outcomes survey, please watch this 80- minute walkthrough from HESA on some of the latest published data (the link below is to the 2022 walkthrough).
- Workshop 9: Session Resources