Middle leaders dialogic practices: Facilitating professional learning for research academics in higher education settings

Abstract

Professional learning for academics is an important facet for teaching development in higher education. Facilitating this development work for research-intensive academics across different faculties is sometimes delegated to middle leaders. The practices of middle leaders in such situations where research academics have little experience or education for their role as teachers are undeniably complex. In this paper we present research examining a case study of dialogue practices encountered and promoted in a professional learning group in a higher education setting in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this case a middle leader responsible for leading professional learning created an intersubjective space where purposive dialogues helped facilitate shared learning about teaching practices for research-focused academics from the biological sciences. Analysis of the middle leader’s talk moves demonstrates that the dialogic practices of the middle leader create conditions for establishing genuine collegial collaboration, a pedagogically focused space and tentative knowledge building. These practices allow dialogues to be responsive to participants’ varied levels of experience and progress in becoming conscious of what is ‘best fit practice’ for their own tertiary teaching. Implications for providers of tertiary teaching development are proposed.