Supporting Teacher Redesign Teams: A Descriptive Framework for Role Enactment of Academic Developers as Facilitators

Abstract

In order to achieve educational changes, professional development initiatives are needed. Recently more emphasis is placed on methods in which teachers are engaged in collaborative discourse. One potential strategy for this is the use of Teacher redesign Teams (TrDT), in which the support of an academic developer is imperative for its effectiveness. Previous studies show diversified findings on role categorization and role uptake of academic developers. This study attempts to apply the existing frameworks and provides a better understanding of the varying role of a TrDT facilitator in a university setting. During two focus groups, data was collected from the university facilitators ( n = 10) who had been supporting TrDTs for 1 year. In addition, audio recordings were gathered of TrDT conversations. A thematic analysis of the collected qualitative data results in an alternative extended framework specifically altered to the roles of an academic developer in a university setting. According to our study, the facilitator can take on eight different roles, ranging from coordinating and organizing meetings and building bridges with stakeholders to being a representative, located at different levels, going from meso to micro level. In addition, the ADDIE-model for instructional design can be used to structure the implementation of innovative learning approaches.