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Social network perspectives reveal strength of academic developers as weak ties |
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| Authors: | Kelly E Matthews Andrea Crampton Matthew Hill Elizabeth D Johnson Manjula D Sharma Cristina Varsavsky |
| Institution: | 1. Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australiak.matthews1@uq.edu.au;3. School of Biomedical Science, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia;4. School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia;5. Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia;6. Faculty of Science, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia |
| Abstract: | Social network perspectives acknowledge the influence of disciplinary cultures on academics’ teaching beliefs and practices with implications for academic developers. The contribution of academic developers in 18 scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects situated in the sciences are explored by drawing on data from a two-year national project in Australia within a case study research design. The application of a social network lens illuminated the contribution of eight academic developers as weak ties who infused SoTL knowledge within teams. Two heuristic cases of academic developers who also linked across networks are presented. Implications of social network perspective are discussed. |
| Keywords: | social networks scholarship of teaching and learning weak ties university science education academic development |