Childs, M., Brown, M., Keppell, M., Nicholas, Z., Hunter, C. & Hard, N. (2013). Managing institutional change through distributive leadership approaches: Engaging academics and teaching staff in blended and flexible learning. Final Report 2012. DEHub Report Series 2013, Armidale NSW, Australia: University of New England, DEHub.
As part of an Australian Government commissioned international research collaboration, Managing institutional change through distributive leadership approaches, I contributed case studies documenting how two projects which I led – the introduction of the ePortfolio tool (Hunter, 2012a) and course team symposiums (Hunter, 2012b) – were used to foster change in blended and flexible learning and distance education. This also led to two collaborative peer-reviewed (Childs et al, 2011) and non-peer reviewed publications (Childs et al, 2012).
This research, led by Merilyn Childs from CSU and Mark Brown from Massey University, found that learning leadership wasn’t limited to delegated roles, with innovation being influenced by the small and large actions of many people.
How has this influenced my ongoing work?
While the research outcomes reflected what we probably all know intuitively, overlaying a distributed leadership framework to the work myself and others were doing had a significant impact on the way I viewed my role, both empowering my own learning leadership from within projects while also inspiring me to create opportunities and spaces for others to display learning leadership.
I’ve always loved this quote:
one of the defining principles of distributed leadership is that it arises from the interactions of diverse individuals in a setting where expertise is a dispersed quality.
Jitse, Nelson, Billsberry and van Muers (2009, p. 767)
It’s about opportunities to feed into collective decision-making, to share dispersed yet complementary knowledge and practice and to acknowledge and support the work of one’s peers. If there’s ever a context that suits this, surely it is an academic institution.
I’ve tried to promote this notion that, as we are a learning organisation, we all have considerable expertise and responsibility for student learning. Learning leadership is not the exclusive domain of a single Division – it’s distributed across Faculties and Divisions, across campuses, across roles. This is why, I believe, we need open, collaborative spaces to build on the work of each other. I initiated the CSUWiki and, collaborating with the CSU Wiki Working Party, iTeach, as two spaces to enable this kind of respect for, and enabling of our dispersed expertise in learning and teaching. We’ve had lots of successes, yet without resourcing or institutional support (beyond strong verbal support), it’s constantly an uphill battle for those involved, never having the time or space to reach the levels we know are needed.
My colleague, Merilyn Childs, wrote this statement in an ASCILITE paper coming from the project:
Distributive leadership is not about ‘delegated headship’, rather it is about situated leadership regardless of rank or role, where decision-makers understand their locus of control, the forces that drive and constrain it, and innovate or transform the learning and teaching spaces within, and where possible, connected to, their ―’situatedness’.
Childs et al (2011, p.222) – emphasis added
Understanding your sphere of influence, and the forces that drive or constrain it. I think I could write a book about that sentence alone. Influence ranges from impacting individual perspectives on what’s possible and thus empowering others to shape their own world in new and interesting ways, to feeding in ideas and strategies that shape entire cultures of learning. And while there are many, many constraining forces in an institutional context, I like to think that collaborative spaces such as the ones mentioned here can be driving forces for distributed learning leadership.
In the same vein, the SoTL Working Party’s recommended use of blogs as spaces for sharing and reflecting on scholarship of learning and teaching, as well as personal spaces for framing one’s academic identity, is yet another opportunity to drive distributed learning leadership through open scholarship.
We all work in complex intersystems with endless networks and opportunities for distributive leadership. I’ve found the key is to find the sweet spot – where community and ownership meet, at multiple levels. Distributed leadership without recognition just leads to problems, and I’ve found its success depends largely on how it’s responded to by those in delegated roles. Achieving the right balance requires continual assessment through a critical lens, knowing when and where to feed in and when and where to pull back.
Other scholarly work related to this project
Childs, M., Keppell, M., Brown, M., Hunter, C., Hard, N. & Hughes, H. (2011). Fostering institutional change through learning leadership: A study of stories of adaptation in blended and flexible learning and distance education. In ASCILITE 2011: 28th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education: Changing Demands, Changing Directions, 4-7 Dec 2011, Hobart, Australia.
Childs, M., Keppell, M., Brown, M., Hunter, C., & Hard. N. (2012, July). Learning leadership in Higher Education – the big and small actions of many people. Paper presented at the Connections in Higher Education, HERDSA Conference, Hobart, Tasmania.
Hunter, C. (2012a). The introduction of an ePortfolio Tool. UNE, Australia: DEHub. Available from: https://learningleadershipstudy.wordpress.com/case-studies/case-study-2/
Hunter, C. (2012b). Course conversations as learning leadership – The case of the Blended and Flexible Learning Course Team Symposiums. UNE, Australia: DEHub. Available from: https://learningleadershipstudy.wordpress.com/case-studies/case-study-8/
Hunter, C. (2012c). Course Team Symposia: A space for exploring course leadership. In M. Brown, M. Harnett & T. Stewart (Eds.), Future Challenges, Sustainable Futures. Proceedings ascilite Wellington 2012, pp.395-399.
