Centre for Teaching Excellence Director Donna Ellis has been announced as the next President-Elect of the International Consortium for Educational Development. She recently sat down with a colleague in the CTE for an interview about this new position.
Donna, you’ve just been named as the President-Elect of the International Consortium for Educational Development. Congratulations and tell us about that organization.
The International Consortium for Educational Development — ICED (pronounced i-ced), for short — is a kind of “meta” organization. Started in 1993, it supports collaboration among educational development networks around the world. For example, Canada’s STLHE is a member, and so is the POD Network in the US, SEDA in the UK, and INCATHE in Israel. In total, there are 27 member networks from all around the world. The members of these networks share resources and learn from one another.
How do its member networks support each other?
One main way is the biennial ICED conference where there are lots of workshops, research sessions, and networking opportunities. In fact, I just returned from the 2022 conference in Aarhus, Denmark, where I co-facilitated a workshop on human resources management in teaching centres. Another way is through its publication, the International Journal for Academic Development.
So ICED is a consortium for educational development – and what’s educational development?
Essentially, educational development (ED) is about helping post-secondary institutions become the best teaching and learning communities they can be. To do this, those in teaching centres work at different levels — individual, departmental, and institutional — to promote capacity building, community building, and an institutional culture that promotes and enables effective teaching and meaningful learning. The heart of the work revolves around individual and institutional change.
What drivers influence educational development?
Educational developers always strive to address instructors’ needs by providing guidance and resources that fit with learning science and with institutional priorities, which are influenced by evolving societal contexts. But how those priorities manifest themselves around the world can look different. For example, in Canada they currently include equity, diversity, inclusion, Indigenization, anti-racism, and sustainability. Elsewhere, equitable access to learning technologies might be a priority, or the quality of education, or engagement with democracy and human values. The consistent aspect is that we’re always adapting our programs, services, and resources to help instructors teach effectively and prepare their students for contemporary issues and challenges. Just like instructors and students, we too are constantly learning!
Why did you decide to pursue this leadership role with ICED?
For me personally, it’s such an exciting growth opportunity! I look forward to having a lot of my professional assumptions challenged, and learn more about how educational development is done in other parts of the world. I believe I bring significant experience and skills to the role, too. For example, when I was POD Network president, I put a lot of emphasis on increasing the flow of information to, from, and amongst members to enhance transparency, inclusion, and engagement. ICED's member networks’ needs are evolving, and I am committed to helping the organization make changes to meet those needs. I’m also confident that I’ll glean ideas from this experience that can inform future directions for teaching and learning here at Waterloo. So, all in all, I’m eager to give back to the broader community of educational developers, to learn more from them, and to use that new learning to help make Waterloo an even greater place to teach and learn.
Donna will serve as President-Elect of ICED till summer of 2023 and then as President until 2025. Her candidate statement for this position is available online.