Overall lessons on effective change implementation in higher education 

Key lessons on effective change implementation in higher education

• Give focus to achieving consensus around the data not simply around the table;
• Use a process of ‘steered engagement’ in which a small number of priorities are agreed then pursued in the ways that best fit local circumstances in different faculties and units;
• Use ‘nested ‘leadership (a process where local leaders like Associate Deans or Heads of Program work with a central leader like a Pro Vice-Chancellor or Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Learning & Teaching) to support each other in the process of ‘steered engagement’);
• Give more focus to engaging with staff than to disseminating information to them;
• Give particular attention to engaging the disengaged;
• When engaging with staff first listen (with a case for change and options known to work elsewhere) to find out what staff see as the most relevant and feasible way to proceed; link together what most people favour; then leverage what you find by commissioning a subgroup of staff to try out the preferred solution under controlled conditions. Finally when a workable solution is developed you lead – scale up this version using the team which developed it as coaches.
• Remember that there is a profound difference between ‘change’ (something becoming different) and ‘progress’ (a conclusion by individuals that this is an improvement on what went before).
• Recognise that change is a learning & unlearning process for all concerned. It is not an event;
• Learn by doing – start small, learn what works under controlled conditions then build on your successes as you scale up;
• Foster networked learning & shared solutions around a shared quality framework;
• Ensure policies, procedures, leadership structures, accountabilities, resourcing and incentives are brought into alignment to support the change;
• Make sure meetings and processes are efficient and demonstrably ‘value add’, that they leave room to implement the desired change;

How to engage all staff not just the enthusiasts?

How to move beyond ‘preaching to the converted’ and the learning and teaching enthusiasts to engaging everyone with change –including those who are unengaged and the growing number of sessional staff who may be isolated from mainstream action.

Suggested ways to handle it using the key change implementation lessons

• Seek a senior mentor in the Executive to champion the achievement standards and assessment agenda and endorse its importance.
• Undertake a stocktake of what is currently working effectively at the local level in your higher education institution in each aspect of the six keys framework at the outset. In this way focus more on engagement and listening than on dissemination and telling. Then acknowledge that the change process is building on/scaling up this effective practice which is already underway in your college or university. This builds ownership and shows that what is proposed is feasible and already successfully underway, albeit in pockets, in the HEI.
• This strategy is a practical example of the key change leadership strategy identified in all of the successful higher education leadership studies to date and roundly endorsed in every Fellowship workshop – effective change leaders and change capable universities always listen first (with a focus), then link, leverage and lead (scale up) in that order.
• Include tracking items in student feedback surveys that cover the quality of learning outcomes and assessment and use the results to help those with lower ratings for their assessment approaches by linking them to those who are attracting higher ratings.
• Recognise that change is a complex learning and unlearning process for all concerned – it is not an event like launching a new assessment policy. Because of this it is important to keep constantly in mind that everyone who is being asked to engage with the achievement standards and assessment improvement agenda will constantly be asking – what do I have to do differently? Is this relevant, desirable, feasible and clear? Will I be receiving support to help me fill in this gap in my expertise? With this in mind consider:
• replicating customised versions of the Fellowship workshops with local staff as part of a train-the-trainer approach to staff engagement and capacity building, along with
• the use of this self-teaching guide as a ‘just-in-time, just-for-me’ learning resource and
• targeted involvement in external networks focused on aspects of the six keys agenda to identify successful ways to tackle any challenges.
• In terms of sessional staff support participants suggested that reference to the BLASST Sessional Staff Standards Framework would be useful.
• Keep in mind that there is a profound difference between ‘change’ (something becoming different) and ‘progress’ (a value judgement by the individual concerned this has been/will be ‘beneficial’).
• If these engagement tests are not met then recognise that staff (just like students) will disengage and there will be no change in practice or consequent benefit to students. In order to support this learning, workshop participants suggest that we:
• Give focus to this area in professional development and review programs for staff;
• Use staff who have successfully implemented change in this area to coach staff who are just starting out;
• Get experienced staff to help new ones by asking them to write a guide on how they manage in the same role;
• Put in place an assessment-focused learning guide system for each unit of study and require all staff to ‘teach’ it in the first session of each unit delivery.
• Always listen to ‘resisters’ – because this will help you find out what change implementation challenges you have to address and because, if listened to carefully, they will often come up with a positive idea that can be acknowledged to others, thereby creating a positive not a negative incentive for them to engage. Always listen to resisters before a meeting and always discuss difficult issues personally before emailing to confirm what was discussed and the actions this it was agreed would be taken.
• Start small and build on your successes. Do this by using a small volunteer group of staff and students to try out a desired change under controlled conditions. Here the aim is to learn how best to make a desired improvement to assessment and assuring achievement standards work by trying it out in a pilot and then, once it is operating successfully, to use this pilot group as coaches for others to assist scale-up of the most workable approach. This is consistent with the ‘ready, fire, aim’ strategy endorsed at the workshops which was seen as a more productive approach than the ‘ready, aim, aim, aim’ one that has been characteristic of some change approaches in the past. It is also consistent the observation by Francis Bacon in the 17th century that in life ‘we rise to great heights by a winding staircase.’

Staff say they dont have time to engage with the six keys' agenda

Suggested ways to handle it using the key change implementation lessons

• Advocate for actively identifying and reducing duplicated effort or procedures that do not add value to student outcomes; avoid ‘busy work’;
• Meet less but meet better – consider undertaking meetings by teleconference to save travel time, especially when everyone knows one another.
• Undertake an audit of meetings to identify exactly how each of them ‘adds value’ to student outcomes and effective operation – remove or decrease the number of those that don’t meet this test.
• Ensure that those who chair meetings are trained and hold people who agreed to undertake an action in a previous meeting to account in the next one.
• Set a smaller number of institutional priorities for action and foster a ‘steered engagement’ strategy for implementing them in locally suitable ways.

Fellowship participants noted that these broader change forces are important and need to be recognised and negotiated positively as a team whenever possible 

A rapid growth in enrolments and in student diversity

Suggested ways to handle it using the key change implementation lessons

• Identify and share effective strategies for alerting students from this increasingly wide range of backgrounds, abilities, needs and experience to how assessment works. 
  For example, invite successful third year students from particular groups to write a ‘lonely planet’ guide for people from the same background just entering university on how assessment works. Targeted guides can be produced for Indigenous, mature aged, first in family and international students from specific countries.

Some common implementation challenges when seeking to assure the quality of achievement standards and assessment

For university students

• Unclear expectations (c.f. use of assessment focused unit learning guides); 

• Unclear on how each unit of study and its assessment fits into the bigger picture of where their degree program is leading; 

• Inadequate or unfocused feedback; 

• Different assessment loads between units of study 

• Assessment tasks all due on the same day; 

• Over-assessment of basic skills and knowledge out of context; 

• Group assessment and ‘free loaders’.

For university staff 

• Processes used to assure the quality of assessment don’t add value; 

• Time consuming meetings without a productive outcome for students; 

• Absence of a shared language, overall framework & clear accountabilities; 

• Unavailability of good practice models, exemplars and ‘lonely planet’ guides; 

• Unaligned services and rewards for improvements in QA for assessment; 

• Limited, timely tracking and improvement data; 

• Inadequate opportunities to benchmark for improvement; 

• Unclear leadership and accountabilities; 

• Limited access to peer support; 

• Sessional staff are not always engaged or ‘in the loop’.