Dr. Jen Harvey:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. I was given the brief to talk about quality of teaching in higher education and I have interpreted it in that way. The issue has become one of increasing importance as the landscape of higher education has changed. We face international competition and there is greater diversity in the student population. Things have changed substantially in the last ten or 15 years in Ireland. There is emergent technology of which we can avail. I want to talk us through a context for consideration of quality of higher education before focusing on key elements related to teaching quality which is about the importance of student learning and engagement and academic development. I have also included for the committee's consideration a number of references which draw on some of the extensive discussions around the Green Paper and quality of teaching in the UK.

In terms of considering teaching as responding to the national agenda, from the Hunt report there has been a variety of strategies until recently. There has been the strategy of the national plan for equality of access which looks to higher education institutions to encourage participation and which seeks to give increasing accountability to higher education institutions on meeting specific targets. Of particular importance is the issue around excellence in teaching and learning to underpin a high-quality student experience within third level, which is key. Certainly, Ireland has always been a leader in this area. This is also in terms of making us globally competitive and internationally orientated.

Quality teaching is a concept which is difficult to define. It is very complex. There are many factors which impact on quality of teaching. It cannot really be looked at in isolation. One cannot separate it from discussions on quality cultures and learning support within institutions. The concept of teaching quality takes different forms depending on whether one is a full-time student or whether one is studying online, etc. It is also very much stakeholder relative in terms of employers, students, academics. Other stakeholder groups would have different interpretations as to what quality is. In looking at quality, one tends to think of the inspirational, passionate teacher. If we are considering what makes a teacher extraordinary, it is very much about the teaching experience. He or she knows how to teach, what to teach and how to improve. It is about bringing students along. He or she needs to have passion and inspiration, which is what sets him or her above ordinary teachers. He or she also needs the toolkit. That is one of the strengths DIT brings to the table in that all of our new academics undertake our postgraduate diploma and we have an extensive CPD support programme for teachers and academics who are at different stages of their career development.

I refer in particular to the importance of student retention and success. There has been a focus nationally around and about the whole issue of transition to third level and the effort to retain students. The key element within this has to be about student engagement. I welcome the consultation document which has been commissioned about how we might do this more effectively. The reality is that a lot of institutions have not taken the opportunity to do this as well as they might. That is more than just about getting students to be active learners. It is also about involving them in decisions as producers of the curriculum and negotiating and learning pathways which are appropriate to them. That also links into the quality of teaching issue. I have included some slides around the student engagement at Trinity College Dublin because I thought it was useful.

As good teachers, we need to determine what students do and direct them to purposeful activities. We need to put in place effective educational practices to do that. That is about resourcing, supporting and providing timely strategies and policies to ensure quality. We have recently undertaken to develop a student engagement strategy. I have included some examples in the slides which I circulated previously. I will pull out some which are particularly important. There is this idea of a sense of belonging and teachers ensuring that students coming into third level feel as if they should be there, building confidence and engaging them as part of a community. That is community with their peers within the institution and in terms of their professional direction into the future, which is key to retention. There is the idea of learning as a shared responsibility. Alongside that is providing a supportive learning environment where they get support from their peers and also provide feedback. It is the institution's responsibility to act on that feedback and to build alongside of this research capability.

We are putting in place the best practice. Within DIT, we have been looking to provide enriching educational experiences which aim to build our learners as lifelong, autonomous learners but also to provide them with skills so that whether they decide to move internationally or become actively engaged within their local communities, they have the confidence to do so and the appropriate skills and abilities to articulate it. Within the learning teaching and technology centre, LTTC, at DIT, we have provided a great deal of support for academics so that they might encourage the development of this high-quality learning experience. Part of that is through the postgraduate diploma, but it is also through continuous professional development with small, timely, continuous professional development, CPD, events on diverse topics, including higher educational policy. Recently, we had a CPD event for academic leaders in learning, teaching and assessment to give managers with responsibility for resource allocation the appropriate skills to better support this. Key within that is the focus on assessment and feedback.

One thing I would like to see developed and encouraged is a change to some of the assessment and feedback practices. We have elicited a number of initiatives and research founded through teaching fellowships, etc. to recognise good practice and to feed this back into models which are scalable.

Alongside that, it is about eliciting curriculum change and working with programme leaders and programme teams in order that there is a discussion about the holistic experience of students, from the pre-entry first alert on the website, where they think they will do a particular course provided there is the support, before they come in, during the first year, through their programme and into the future. In looking to the merger as the Technological University for Dublin, TU4D, into the future, it is giving us an opportunity to work and to hear the students voice. When looking at our model for learning for our students, we can put in place a quality curriculum that would support this. That is very much about preparing our students and empowering them. It is about giving the opportunity to discover and to develop through flexible learning and also tailored support. Support is key and it needs to be timely, giving them the opportunity to practise in a safe environment with their peers and with colleagues and to be able to apply the theory in a timely manner.

I hope we manage to consolidate the theory and the experience into a package that provides the students with the skills to develop the graduate attributes and to leave as reflective practitioners into the future.