Abstract:
The model presented in this poster (4P Model) is a vehicle for managing incremental progress within the ‘difficult to change’ context of supporting the work of sessional teachers in higher education.The impact of work fragmentation such as that carried out by a highly casualised workforce is a cost to the teaching identity of sessional staff (Harvey et al, 2014; Larkins, 2011; Leigh, 2014), a risk to quality learning experiences of students (Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency, 2012) and a risk to universities themselves (Percy & Beaumont, 2008). These risks have existed in universities for decades, yet policies and practices that support the work of sessional staff remain inconsistent, or, absent. Despite decades of dependence on sessional teaching staff, universities in Australia and internationally still find it difficult to support the teaching work of this large, casual workforce. In the last decade, seminal research and reports in Australia have presented the unfavorable consequences of the current employment arrangements of sessional teaching staff for the Australian university sector as a whole, the quality of students’ learning experience, and for sessional staff themselves within the professoriate (AUTC, 2003; Brown et al, 2008; Harvey, 2013, 2014; May et al 2011, 2013; Percy et al., 2008; TEQSA, 2012,). The implementation model for supporting sessional staff presented in this poster (the 4P Model) may help faculties systematise actions towards standards-based support for sessional staff that are inclusive professionally, and contribute to the development of quality teaching and learning practice. For significant organisational change to occur, particularly in sites of contested values such as universities, the author considered it helpful for faculty to have a process-orientated model for systematising change. The author’s implementation model, the 4P Model, incorporated the appropriate benchmarked standards as established in the Sessional Staff Standards Framework (Harvey, 2014) but was informed further by a framework for managing systematic change, The Collective Impact Framework (Karnia & Kramer, 2011).