A Message from Professor Tashmin Khamis, Vice Provost on QTL_net's 10th Anniversary
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the university-wide Network of Quality, Teaching & Learning (QTL_net), established in 2013. Its function is to support academic entities and faculty to promote a high-quality learning experience for its students through excellence in academic programmes and teaching that is learning-centred and research-led. In the past decade, QTL_net has engaged over 10,000 participants through 150 different teaching and blended learning activities. This has been made possible with the support from the leadership and Deans, enabling buy-in from the Academy.
However, beyond these impressive numbers, QTL_net sought to measure its impact using a well-established educational change framework (Guskey, 2000; AUCE, 2018). Our thanks to the many faculty, students, and teaching champions who took part in the engagement surveys and IDAR for their support with analysis.
Impact on Teaching, Learning, and an Institutional Teaching Culture
Results indicate that those who have taken QTL_net courses are more likely to plan lessons, have learning outcome-driven constructive alignment in their courses, use digital tools to engage learners, and use active learning approaches in their teaching (fig 1).
New faculty who complete the online faculty orientation to teaching and learning programme report being more prepared for their role as faculty and more aware of support services available to them to play these roles.
(70% vs. 6%). There also appears to be a dose-response: the more workshops participants have attended, the greater the change in teaching practice. This aligns with literature on educational development that shows that one-off sessions on teaching development lead to less change than a series of sustained engagement in professional development around teaching.
Students also report enhanced learning experiences, with course evaluations improving steadily over the last 5 years, with post-COVID data better than pre covid data, showing that blended learning approaches work.
There has also been an impact on the institutional culture, with more research-led teaching, an exponential growth in citations from AKU faculty on SOTL by AKU faculty. The profile of teaching has been enhanced with teaching portfolios as a part of academic promotion; more faculty having HE teaching qualification through HEA fellowships as AKU remains the only accredited institution in Pakistan and East Africa; and the prestigious Haila T. Debas Teachers Academy memberships. These successes has led to QTL_net supporting capacity development of AKDN partners (UCA, IIS) as well as national partners (KU and Universities of Chitral) through the University Improvement Programme.
A recent report by Civitas Learning (2023) clearly shows that faculty development on teaching had the greatest positive impact on student success. Investing in educational development faculty had the most significant gains for student success.
My thanks to the QTL_net team, the deans, and academic staff who have engaged with us and our many teaching champions. Read impact stories in the publication: Transforming Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (Editors: Rarieya, Khamis, Spowart, 2023) at https://ecommons.aku.edu/books/120/
Thank you for your commitment to teaching and the learner experience. I wish you all a restful and peaceful holiday with your loved ones.
Professor Tashmin KhamisVice Provost, Quality, Teaching and Learning
The Aga Khan University
