DEVELOPING AN IRISH PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING, IN THE CHANGING HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

摘要

The context of higher education is changing. The learning environment in which staff are working is in a state of flux as it responds to new socio-economic and political drivers, including the accelerated development of the digital world. In order to be responsive to this change, staff need to be adaptive and to continuously develop new knowledge, skills and attitudes for their own and their students' learning environment. As a consequence of this, there has been much focus internationally on the development of new flexible frameworks for staff professional development (PD). There have been many international drivers for the development of these frameworks, for example, the European Standard and Guidelines (2015). In Ireland, there have also been many drivers (i.e. Irish Higher Education Authority, 2014) to support the development of a national framework that both prepares staff for their own changing learning context and is inclusive of a wider understanding of professional development. Therefore, in response to this, one of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning's key work plans was to develop a national professional development framework that would recognise, enhance, inform and support staff in a changing learning environment.