Learner Identities: Undergraduate Interns as Staff Developers – Development of an Identity within The Wider Community

Tierney, Anne

Abstract

In the summer of 2006, seven undergraduate interns from six faculties within the University of Glasgow, came together in order to develop resources for staff and students in the area of Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) (Kahn & O’Rourke, 2005), in accordance with the University of Glasgow’s Learning & Teaching Strategy, 2006-10.
The project was carried out in two phases: in Phase 1, the interns were employed full time for a month during the summer vacation to explore the concept of EBL, using the principles of EBL to guide them. This was facilitated by a staff developer from the Learning & Teaching Centre who guided the interns’ endeavours to understand EBL. The project included interviewing staff and students on their views, and a visit to the Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning (CEEBL) in Manchester. The outcomes for Phase 1 were an EBL guide for staff and students, publicity posters and an accompanying website. In Phase 2 of the project, carried out during semesters 1 & 2, the interns worked part time with a member of staff to develop EBL materials for courses that the interns were either currently or previously participating on as students. Throughout the duration of the project, the interns were encouraged to present their work at several teaching and learning conferences. They responded enthusiastically to the opportunities given to them, and were responsible for highly professional and maturely executed conference presentations. The interns were warmly welcomed by staff, who treated them as equals and sought their opinions on the development and implementation
of EBL.
Throughout the two phases of the project, it was observed that the interns had developed their own sense of identity. During Phase 1, this community consisted of the interns and the facilitator. However, in Phase 2 of the project, this community was somewhat disrupted, as the interns separated to work with their respective member of staff. Through a series of interviews with the interns, a sense of their identity within their community of practice emerged, which resonated with the work of Lave & Wenger (2002), and Blåka &
Filstad (2007), and which included reaching legitimacy within the wider community of educational practitioners.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 2nd International Conference, Academic Identities for the 21st Century
• Start Date: Jul 6, 2010
• End Date: Jul 7, 2010
• Deposit Date: Mar 11, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 12, 2019
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1652605
• Contract Date: Mar 11, 2019