The Senate Award for Leadership in Teaching & Learning

The Senate Award for Leadership in Teaching & Learning

The Senate Award for Leadership in Learning & Teaching is a tremendous honour. I am in debt to my nominees, Prof Ana Vivas and Dr Paschalia Patsala, as well as the rest of my colleagues at the International Faculty whose work and efforts also indirectly reflect this nomination.  I was among the first staff recruited, 25 years ago, when CITY College started its collaboration with the University. After so many years, I am honoured to be entrusted with the role of Director for Learning & Teaching by the administration of the College and more in particular by our Principal Yannis Ververidis. We have a vision to contribute to the development of South-East Europe, promote the University´s high standards of education provision. 

After the College became a Faculty of the University, one of my first actions was to establish the Quality Strategy and Enhancement Committee as a mechanism of forward and proactive thinking.  Much of the success in L&T must be attributed to the work done by QSEC which is a small group of charismatic leaders, the Heads of the Departments. We share the same aspirations to manage change; we meet, brainstorm, discuss issues and agree on common actions. QSEC is the central observatory and decision making body and my work, as a Chair, is to make sure that all Departments of an interdisciplinary Faculty share their good practices, filter and adopt ideas from each other and have an evenly distributed contribution to the Faculty course towards development. As an effect, the whole Faculty is coherently aligned to actions proposed and decisions taken by QSEC.      

Establishing and maintaining University procedures and standards in a context like Greece and South East Europe in general, is a challenging task. It does not have to do with people´s capacity, who given the appropriate set up have proven that they can excel, but mainly to the ambient culture and mentality against well-structured environments.  Part of my mission was to infuse my colleagues with values and methods of the British HE system in a very different cultural context, allowing them at the same time to make the most out of their natural talent for T&L. This is an ongoing effort and being physically away from the main University campus, sometimes makes it even more difficult and requires a methodical approach, based on individual needs. Each member of staff should be treated in a different way with the aim to identify the best possible place to fit within this structure, so that a personal benefit is combined with the benefit of the Department and the whole Faculty.  My approach has always been to establish an open dialogue with each individual, so as to understand the issues that might exist in applying certain policies and procedures, and find innovative solutions to any obstacles and challenges. My role is to encourage risk taking and experimentation in T&L and assessment but at the same time to maintain balance and consistency and therefore to adhere to agreed strategies.

The best way to motivate and engage staff members in L&T is by providing the appropriate support and by creating a community of peers that are open to self-reflection. We have designed in-house extensive staff induction workshops, mentoring, staff development, annual appraisal, honorary University titles procedures, etc., as opportunities for each member of academic staff for personal development and integration with TUOS standards. Apart from the formal elements of such processes, my continuous effort focuses on the essential part as well. This is the reason I joined my colleagues in attending the PG Certificate in L&T when it was suggested that all academic staff can enroll. Hopefully, my colleagues appreciated me taking the challenge with them together as a team. 

Dissemination of good practices is at the center of my everyday work. In the context of quality monitoring, I am trying to identify good practices across the Departments and ensure that everyone becomes aware. Sometimes colleagues do not realise that what they do is worth disseminating through the Best Practices Blog where everyone can post, let alone the fact that such practices could lead to a conference presentation or a journal paper. My continuous effort is to create a complementary pole to the research, that of T&L scholarship for colleagues whose primary function is teaching. Research in T&L is as of equal importance to disciplinary research and I encourage colleagues to follow such pathway in their personal development. The phases for their involvement is mentoring, internal dissemination, co-authoring a conference paper and finally cultivating ambassadors to continue this effort by taking the leading role for other younger colleagues.      

Another objective at the top of my agenda is to enhance and promote the sense of belonging to the Sheffield family by raising awareness on both sides. While colleagues at Sheffield need to be aware of the International Faculty, at the same time colleagues in Thessaloniki need to know better the University and its people. My struggle has always been to think of ways to bring both sides closer and meet each other better.  Being part of the University L&T Committee facilitates identifying those people who might be approached for new collaborations. I encourage participation in the Annual T&L Conference, implement staff exchange, organise numerous visits on all matters, establishing representation in Committees and working groups, bringing together and initiating collaboration between individuals as well as Departments at both cities. It was important for me that the IF contributes back to the University its way of carrying out all its T&L endevours and reports the developments in Annual Reflections, Periodic Reviews and Accreditation reports from academic and professional bodies. I have had the privilege to witness and contribute to the creation from scratch of two new Departments, the Psychology and English Studies, which reached excellence within few years after their initiation. The “tabula-rasa” situation we faced was a tremendous life experience, very demanding but extremely rewarding.   

I feel proud of the contribution colleagues and I have made to a holistic view of programmes and the graduates they deliver. The set of badges we designed which map Sheffield Graduate Attributes to an icon (badge), decorate all syllabi and extra-curricula activities, so that Departments can monitor which attributes of the Sheffield Graduate cover well and which need further attention. At the same time, students are aware why they are taught certain modules and why they should engage with learning communities outside the classroom in order to enhance their employability profile.  

My love for teaching is how everything started and the spark that keeps the flame lit up. Whether I am just good or an inspirational teacher, it is something that only my students can tell. But, I feel privileged to have worked with them because they gave me plenty of opportunities to think like they way they do, to reflect on what I teach, how I assess them and how to motivate them. Discovering how they approach problem solving in my area of expertise (Artificial Intelligence) assisted me considerably in co-authoring two books which are recommended as main textbooks in Greek state Universities. I am grateful to my students who, without realizing it, have been part of my “experimentation” in T&L and assessment methods. I have tried, not always successfully, everything that it could make their learning a memorable experience, such as learning technologies, competitions, peer assessment, self-reflection, feed-forward etc. I feel excited that after many years in my administration role, all four Departments of the IF ask me to contribute to their teaching, either undertaking full modules (such as Artificial Intelligence, Teaching of Informatics, Academic and Transferable Skills etc.) or lecturing as a guest in Semantics, Teaching Methodology, Interdisciplinary Research on emotions and computing.

Getting in class either as a teacher or student is something that I still do with excitement. But, what I enjoy most is discussing about it with my colleagues. By listening to their experiences, I feel that I am still able to add some “spice” to their practices, affecting the way they perceive education. I feel happy as I watch them growing mature and inviting others to this exciting journey of T&L while at the same time safeguarding the standards and reputation of the University.  

I would like to wholeheartedly thank each one of you and wish you all the best. This may be a personal award but each one of you has contributed to this. It is a great recognition to the International Faculty.

Professor Petros Kefalas

International Faculty Director for Learning & Teaching