Building a community of practice through gentle leadership

Authors: Claire Aitchison, Alison Bell, Neil Bretana, Mary Butler, Ryan Causby, Maurizio Costabile, Mel Hull, Sophie Lefmann, Gosia Ludwichowska-Alluigi, Nayana Parange, Dannielle Post and Ines Serrada

Importance

Educational leadership is critical for educators and students to realise the transformative potential of education and to build strong communities of teaching and learning experts. In today’s competitive and high-pressure environments (Ivancheva, Lynch & Keating, 2019), this leadership becomes even more crucial. With the recent merger between the University of South Australia (UniSA) and University of Adelaide, new opportunities and challenges arise for our academic community. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has the potential to serve as a unifying force, building expertise through authentic, mutually enriching collaborations that dismantle the silos isolating educators in higher education. Establishing a Community of Practice (CoP) focused on SoTL can offer a structured yet supportive platform for staff to engage in scholarly work and share their expertise, providing the cohesive approach to teaching and learning our institution needs. A culture of support that fosters SoTL outputs is rarely the result of a single effort. Instead, it often emerges from the incidental recognition of shared goals across multiple SoTL initiatives, positive mentoring experiences, or leaders highlighting achievements. The question remains: how can these serendipitous opportunities be more systematically cultivated in higher education?

Gentle leadership in higher education fosters innovation and creativity among staff while cultivating a culture of support (Bui & Baruch, 2010; Gentle & Clifton, 2017). By promoting authentic tolerance of mistakes, collegiality, and constructive feedback, senior leaders can create safe spaces for reflection, encouraging experimentation in teaching and learning. Mentoring and cross-departmental collaboration are also seen as essential strategies for achieving a broad, unified strategic vision (Gentle & Clifton, 2017).

The UniSA CoP is pioneering its unique model of gentle academia, fostering inter-academic unit collaboration and scholarly approaches that prioritise supporting the progress of others. Both small and large-scale SoTL activities contribute to a broader network of thoughtfully conducted projects, producing high-quality outputs and enriching both scholarship and professional practice. The establishment of a Terms of Reference (ToR) will help ensure these positive outcomes are sustained in future initiatives.

Scenario

This case study outlines the emergence of gentle academic leadership across UniSA Allied Health and Human Performance (ALH), Clinical and Health Sciences (CHS), and UniSA Online (UO), which delivers a suite of programs specifically for online learning. We use four examples of SoTL activities led by a team of collaborators within our CoP to illustrate Principle 9: Support the Progress of other Scholars. The principle of supporting others across disciplines, enabled by the breadth of professions involved in these activities, is critical so that scholarship, reward, and belonging can come to characterise the diverse CoPs that we seek to build in higher education. These activities, while occurring simultaneously and independently, have organically led to wider collaboration and a shared understanding of the need for a CoP. The CoP provided a way to encourage collaboration, and a means to consciously embody a culture of gentle leadership, particularly in the context of the merger. This approach acknowledges that teaching-focused academics often feel isolated, and by bringing people together in a supportive and inclusive manner, the CoP aims to address this issue.

Activity Exemplar 1 – Formal mentorship

Gentle leadership within CHS and ALH involves Professorial Leads supporting cohorts of staff who are experts in their scientific disciplines but, in most cases, novices in SoTL. The mentoring provides a structured model by which staff can progress their SoTL ideas.

Participants are typically junior academics but encompass experienced teaching staff yet to have engaged with formal SoTL activities. In most cases, thoughts of engaging in SoTL leads to apprehension, as staff move outside their area of academic comfort. Hence, gentle leadership ensures that staff understand what activities constitute SoTL and can identify issues that resonate with their interests, their students, or the broader community.

Time constraints affect research progression, so strategies like researching while teaching and collaborating across units are critical. Once a SoTL project is initiated, ongoing mentoring and guidance are required to ensure staff success, effective dissemination, and the development of future projects to secure grant funding and publications in high ranked journals, as well as presentations at conferences, and non-traditional research outputs.

Though initially intimidating, staff flourish under gentle leadership. This is evidenced by increased confidence, success in increased publications, teaching and learning grants, teaching citations, and academic promotions.

Activity Exemplar 2 – Staff-driven professional development in SoTL

In 2023, ALH developed a Teaching Innovation Lunchtime Seminar series, aimed at improving institution-level student learning outcomes. A baseline survey identified the scholarship-related topics of interest to teaching staff in ALH. Three lunchtime seminars were facilitated, and seven broad areas of interest were raised by respondents: technology for teaching; use of artificial intelligence; course development/planning; enhancing student engagement; authentic assessment/assessment design; developing students’ critical thinking; interprofessional learning; academic integrity; and industry-focused curriculum design.

Post-seminar survey responses indicate that staff supported the seminar content, scheduling, duration, discussion quality, take-away information, and resources. The positive response indicates the seminar series addressed knowledge gaps and sparked further interest in SoTL. Our simple evaluation helps identify knowledge gaps in academics supporting student outcomes and SoTL. By following up with academics to assess whether the seminars met their knowledge needs and to understand the barriers and facilitators experienced by academics in attending SoTL activities, we can refine our approach to these seminars as a coordinated and sustained activity in the unit.

Activity Exemplar 3 – Embedding research in SoTL thinking

The UO Journal Club began in 2018. It is a unique multidisciplinary community where individuals with a shared enthusiasm for SoTL gather to enhance their evidence-based professional practices (Sims et al., 2017). Academics from UO and the Teaching Innovation Unit (TIU) come together to discuss online educational practice and pedagogy. Monthly meetings over lunch, foster an informal, collegial atmosphere conducive to open dialogue and intellectual exchange, and draw attendees from varied disciplines.

Central to the Journal Club’s purpose is fostering gentle leadership and support of colleagues. Both early career and experienced teaching academics reflect on current research in teaching and learning, share their teaching practices, and facilitate workshops, e.g. on course and contemporary assessment design in the age of artificial intelligence. The Journal Club promotes professional growth by encouraging members to lead discussions and present research findings, enhancing their communication and leadership skills while increasing research literacy and stimulating scholarship ideas.

Activity Exemplar 4 – Teaching in Action Symposium

In 2023, a team of academics organised the Inaugural ALH ‘Teaching in Action’ Symposium. This face-to-face event was committed to collegiality, inclusivity, and diversity, with the intent to stimulate curiosity. It was deliberately designed to encourage novice SoTL presenters to share their teaching and learning practice in a friendly, supportive environment. The symposium promoted SoTL within ALH as a step toward a future university-wide symposium, highlighting teaching ‘gems’ where challenges had been overcome, rooted in innovation, or linked to research. The symposium theme was Teaching in Action, with two streams: Teaching practice and Practice-based research. Presenters gave short oral presentations, discussing their teaching challenges and practices, evaluation of their initiative, and highlighting opportunities for ongoing collaboration. Each presenter shared one actionable take-away strategy.

The audience was limited to colleagues within the faculty to encourage presenters who were mainly discipline experts but emerging SoTL practitioners. The symposium included opportunities for interactivity and networking. Given that this was one of the first face-to-face activities available to academics post-COVID, it was enthusiastically received. There were ten presenters and a highly engaged audience of more than 50 academics who felt inspired and provided generous, positive feedback. The enthusiastic response from teaching-focused academics shows the symposium’s impact in fostering community and valuing SoTL.

Reflection

Our journey toward gentle leadership began with a recognition of SoTL significance at the institutional, unit, and individual levels. This realisation emerged from reflecting on how the four activities align with the principles of gentle academic leadership. The recent and ongoing merger has acted as a catalyst, driving a more intentional effort to nurture a culture of inclusivity and gentle leadership. These activities have allowed academics to develop a deeper awareness of their teaching practices, bringing together staff from various disciplines and teaching communities across the institution. As a result, there has been steady growth in engagement and participation, further strengthening the commitment to fostering SoTL through a lens of gentle leadership.

This commitment is evident in the creation of the SoTL CoP, which is dedicated to deepening the understanding of SoTL and fostering engagement with respect, open-mindedness, and a genuine enjoyment of learning. The CoP offers a structured framework for educators to collaborate, support one another, and develop a reflective, evidence-based approach to their practice by contributing to SoTL. Recognising that individuals prefer to engage at different levels, the CoP adapts its approach accordingly. For example, positive feedback from the symposium resulted in consensus that it should become an annual event, with plans to expand it across the merged university. At the same time, feedback from the Journal Club—a CoP initiative—highlights the value of smaller, discipline-specific groups in building confidence and encouraging participation in SoTL, especially for novice academics.

To formalise the purpose and activities of the SoTL CoP, a collaborative approach was taken to establish a terms of reference (ToR) that outlines the community’s goals. These goals emphasise promoting shared, flexible, and distributed leadership, alongside mentoring to engage new academics unfamiliar with SoTL while helping experienced academics develop as mentors. The CoP encourages reflective practice, fostering the exchange of both successes and challenges, and the development of strategies to enhance the former and address the latter. The CoP is dedicated to extending its influence beyond UniSA, aiming to impact the broader academic sector within the newly merged university.

To ensure the continued growth of SoTL, an interprofessional group of academics meets regularly, using the established ToR as a guiding framework to maintain clarity and consistency in their approach. The ToR serves as a key reference point for decision-making, aligning the group’s efforts, tracking progress, and shaping future strategies. In essence, it provides a roadmap for fostering collaboration, supporting leadership, and expanding the SoTL impact within and beyond the institution. These meetings also facilitate the exchange of information, identification of needs and progress, and discussions on future directions. Celebrating successes at both individual and institutional levels, and acknowledging all SoTL contributions, is essential. This approach not only promotes ongoing engagement and participation but also nurtures an understanding of gentle leadership, encouraging academics to reflect on and enhance their SoTL practices.

Advice

The SoTL CoP has grown through its involvement in interdisciplinary activities across various units. The positive engagement and feedback from these initiatives align with the principles of gentle academia, particularly Principle 9: Supporting the Progress of Other Scholars. By formalising these efforts through the establishment of a ToR the CoP has increased engagement in scholarly activities and expanded outcomes.

While we are still early in our journey as a CoP and cautious about offering definitive advice, our experience suggests that success lies in identifying existing SoTL initiatives within your institution and aligning them with the principles of gentle leadership. A key recommendation is to develop a ToR for your CoP. This document provides a formalised structure that clarifies goals, roles, and expectations, ensuring consistency and commitment.

Examples of SoTL initiatives supported by the ToR include mentoring programs, staff-led professional development sessions, journal clubs, and teaching symposiums. These activities foster a supportive and collaborative SoTL culture. To effectively measure the success of these initiatives, consider tracking key metrics such as participation rates, SoTL outputs (e.g., publications, grants, presentations), and feedback from participants on how their teaching practices and scholarly engagement have evolved. The ToR can help guide these evaluations, ensuring alignment with both institutional goals and the broader principles of gentle leadership.

Building a thriving CoP requires ongoing effort and a commitment to shared leadership and ownership. The processes we have employed so far have been inclusive, manageable, and successful. This model, when supported by a well-structured ToR, can be adapted to other contexts, serving as a foundation for fostering an inclusive SoTL culture and supporting the growth of scholarly communities.

References

Bui, H., & Baruch, Y. (2010). Creating learning organizations: A systems perspective. The Learning Organization, 17(3), 208-227. https://doi.org/10.1108/09696471011034919