Helen Gremillion is Associate Professor and Academic Leader (MAP) – Social Practice, and also holds the role of Research Professional Development Liaison in the Research & Enterprise Office. As well as her focus on supporting her colleagues with their research capability, she’s big on continuous improvement – both for herself and for the Social Practice team as a whole. In her ADEP she has included both individual and team goals that cover the Leadership, Teaching and Research Competencies.
We caught up with Helen to hear about her role and how her Professional Development (PD) goals fit into her plan for the year.
What’s your role at Unitec and what brought you to this role?
I’m an Associate Professor of Social Practice, and the Research Leader in this area.
I was born in the USA and lived there until 2008, when I moved to New Zealand. Previously I worked at Indiana University in a research-focused role. I was keen to gain more experience in applied and collaborative research so moved here with my Kiwi husband and our daughter to take up a position at Unitec, and I’ve been here ever since!
It’s been a key part of my role to help grow research culture in Social Practice. For the past several years I’ve also been seconded part time to the Research and Enterprise office as Research Professional Development Liaison, which is where my focus on raising capability comes in. I help to support research PD for staff across Unitec. As part of this, I facilitate a range of PD opportunities, including writing retreats, writing workshops, and a blended course on successful postgraduate supervision. One of the most popular workshops offered as part of Unitec’s Research PD suite is ‘turbo charge your writing’, facilitated by an external person (Hugh Kearns).
Tell us what you’re focusing on for your 70% (on-the-job), 20% (learning from others) and 10% (structured/formal) development experience this year.
When I was planning my PD, I found it helpful to scan the competencies and identify which ones I’m already doing or need to be engaging with.
As a Leadership Competency, I’ve chosen ‘Engages with Difference’, in my role as Academic Leader in Social Practice. The Social Practice team is quite diverse, in terms of gender and cultural identities for example, and I’m committed to learning new ways to work collaboratively with the team (when, for example, I am facilitating a staff meeting). This is an example of on-the-job PD (the 70%) – the kind of thing a lot of people may be doing already but not considering in the context of continuous improvement. It’s informal PD that, when pursued with intention, can result in an increase in skills.
One of the Research Competencies I’m working on also contributes to my ‘70%’ PD engagement: to ‘Lead the growth of research activity’. As part of my research leadership roles, I’ll be mentoring staff research activity, including that of staff who are working towards becoming research leaders themselves – so my PD for this competency is ‘on the job’. I facilitated the development of Unitec’s research competencies, so just want to note here that they allow for continuous improvement for staff members at any level of research development and expertise, and can be engaged in a range of ways across the 70:20:10 spectrum.
Some examples of the 20% (learning from others) goals I’ve engaged or recommended this year are:
- For the Unitec-wide ‘Demonstrating ongoing commitment to engaging in Treaty-based partnerships’, our team is continuing and expanding its work embedding Mātauranga Māori into the Social Practice curriculum. We’ve been committed to this practice for a few years already, and sharing with each other what we’re doing during staff meetings. We are now planning to work together to scaffold the embedding of Mātauranga Māori across the degree in a stair-cased way, so that for example a Māori model of practice introduced in year 2 builds upon and extends a model introduced in year 1.
- One of the core Research Competencies is ‘Embrace research that acknowledges Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the principles of Te Noho Kotahitanga’, and an associated practice is to ‘partner with Māori appropriately when embarking on a research project’. For tauiwi staff, one way this compentency can be met is to liaise with Māori staff in their School on the topics of Māori knowledge and priorities for a given research project.
- For the Unitec-wide development priority of ‘Supporting the success of priority groups’, the Social Practice team earmarks time in our team meetings for mutual learning around how we can best support student success, for example through our Fono Pasifika and through particular learning activities in the classroom. This is a chance to learn from each other – we all have different skill levels and awareness and can build our knowledge together.
When it comes to the 10% (structured/formal development activities), this year I’m focusing on completing two teaching ‘badges’. As a team, we’re planning to complete a badge on post moderation feedback, to help us with peer assessment when we moderate our courses internally. Earlier this year we worked through the ‘moderation policy and procedure’ badge, so it’s a good progression. Although we are pursuing these badges as a team, this PD work is completed and ‘credited’ individually.
How are you finding the Performance Partnering model – does it work for you in your role?
Yes, it does! I appreciate the Performance Partnering model – it’s got some structure to it but also plenty of room for choice. The ‘D’ section in the current ADEP template includes some general requirements, but there’s built-in flexibility to formulate a range of PD options, both in terms of content and mode (the 70:20:10 range).
I also like that the 70:20:10 model allows for recognition of PD that staff are engaged in all the time, on the job and with their peers – this means people are likely to give more attention to the learning involved in these activities than they may otherwise have. The model also enables structured, formalised PD when it’s necessary – it doesn’t take that away, it just highlights the different ways people can engage in PD. There’s a lot going on right here at Unitec and it’s important we make the most of all the opportunities available to us.