What is an Educational Developer?

As the first ever educational developer in the Emily Carr Teaching + Learning Centre, I thought I’d write my first blog post answering the question, “What is an educational developer?” In my experience, working as an educational developer combines three characteristics that most instructors share:

• a passion for teaching

• a care for students and their learning journeys, and

• countless questions about the effectiveness and impact of the ways that we teach and design our courses

Educational developers, sometimes called “ed developers,” are often long-time educators who combine their dedication to teaching and learning with scholarship and focused educational training. In my case, I’ve been teaching for fifteen years and have a PhD in Education with a focus on equity studies in relation to curriculum and pedagogy. Ed developers use their combined skills to help instructors to enhance student learning. Educational development happens in many ways, like delivering workshops, working one-on-one with instructors, or with program or institutional-level initiatives.

Examples of educational development work include:

• Helping instructors analyze how their teaching is connecting to student learning, and offering ways to adjust their teaching for different needs or contexts

• Facilitating faculty learning communities to expand teaching practice skillsets

• Undertaking and supporting scholarly inquiry about teaching approaches and how they connect to student learning

• Working with instructors, programs, and/or institutions on curriculum and/or program (re)design to ensure that program objectives, course content, learning outcomes, teaching methods and assessments are aligned

• Supporting other institutional policies or practices that enhance student learning (i.e. through involvement on institutional curriculum committees, aiding quality assurance self-study or audit processes, or engagement with accessibility offices)

Given that ed developers work with instructors to design curriculum and pedagogy in student-centred ways, educational development is also, at its core, about accessibility, equity and justice. Care for teaching and learning processes includes consideration and action to ensure that education is designed to be accessible to different learners. As such, educational developers can support accessible curriculum design, and help instructors or programs identify and reckon with the ways that educational processes may be socially unjust. It is this aspect of educational development that I am the most passionate about because of the possibilities for social activism and social change embedded within education. My research practice aligns with my work as an ed developer as I ask questions about how social injustice relates to creative industries’ educational practices.

I can't wait to work with you on your educational development explorations! Please connect with me by email to kiwight@ecuad.ca, or visit our team in the Teaching and Learning Centre. If you are interested in social justice education, please consider joining a study group I’m facilitating this Fall by responding to this short survey. Or join me for a one-day curriculum (re)design intensive on Wednesday, August 28th from 9am-4pm: sign up here as space is limited!

More resources on how educational development work is done in teaching and learning centres can be found on the Teach Anywhere website from North Island College.