Fostering institutional change through learning leadership – a study of adaptation in blended and

flexible learning, distance and open education.

Merilyn Childs (CSU), Mark Brown (MU), Mike Keppell (CSU), Carole Hunter (CSU), Natasha Hard (CSU), Helen Hughes (MU).

Our geographic spaces

Port Macquarie

Our landscape spaces

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytdx_4/4015904028/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/suburbanbloke/2504604619/

Our proximal journey 2007-2011

• Responding with and within our institutions to the challenges presented by dynamic change in learning and teaching (BFL, open and DE)

• Building innovative, resilient, and change-capable staff

• Generating change

Our 2011 question

What do the strategies and activities developed at CSU and Massey (to foster change in BFL, open and DE) help us to understand about learning leadership?

Our emerging conceptual space – learning leadership

Positional leadership Leadership as activity Learning

leadership

Informed by Scott, Geoff; Coates,

Hamish; and Anderson, Michelle, (2008).

"Learning leadership in times of change:

Academic Leadership Capabilities for

Australian Higher Education" Higher

Education Research. Accessed 1st

February 2011

http://research.acer.edu.au/higher_educa

tion/3

Informed by Parrish, D & Lefoe, G

(2008), The GREEN resource: Growing •

Reflecting • Enabling • Engaging •

Networking. The Development of

Leadership Capacity in Higher Education,

Australian Teaching and Learning

Council, Sydney. Accessed 23rd October

2010

http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/DistributiveL

eadership/docs/GREEN_Report.pdf

Including: as fostered by

distributive leadership

The 8 case studies we chose to explore the question

Macro

Meso

Micro

•CSUEDs (CSU)

•ePortfolio (CSU)

•The Teaching Fellowship Scheme (CSU)

•Course team Symposiums (CSU)

•Stream @ the Faculty of Business (MU)

•Stream @ Bachelor of Sociology (MU)

• FLI Teaching Fellow 1 (CSU)

•FLI Teaching Fellow 1 (CSU)

What do the strategies and activities developed at CSU and Massey (to foster change in BFL, open and DE) help us to understand about learning leadership?

Planned outcomes (2012)

• Eight case studies

• wikiResearcher http://wikiresearcher.org/DEHub_Research_Projects/Charles_Sturt_University

• Methodological development

• Final report

• Further questions

• Ongoing collaboration

Generative thinking

• Can the research team make sense of the case studies by considering the

interplay of positional leadership and leadership as activity (sometimes fostered through distributive leadership)?

• No-one in the case studies uses the term “learning leadership”, nor do they use the term “leadership”. We are considering how we might write about the various leaderships shown, using a language that is respectful of this reluctance, yet defines innovation and influence as leadership.