Building scholarly professionals: a pilot program for accenting scholarship in Student Learning Advisor practice at a regional Australian university

Building scholarly professionals: a pilot program for accenting scholarship in Student Learning Advisor practice at a regional Australian university

Focus: This presentation highlights and evaluates an initiative to support scholarly thinking and practice by professionally-classified workers in higher education.
Background/Context: Student Learning Advisors (SLA) contribute to student success effectively when their teaching of academic skills is embedded in courses (Maldoni, 2018). Like academics, SLA require mastery over and active scholarship in their content area (i.e., academic skills). Ironically, when classified as professionals, SLA’s personal development and scholarship in these skills are de-emphasised (Tran et al., 2019). To address the incongruity, a regional Australian university instigated a one-year, small-scale pilot program to accentuate including scholarship in the thinking and practice of professionally classified SLA.
Description: Eight SLA and a Project Lead at a regional Australian university participated in a pilot program to boost scholarship awareness and practice. During 2023, participants attended six two-hour online sessions. Sessions required participants to present research readings, facilitate discussion of applying the findings, work individually or collaboratively on chosen scholarship tasks, and to write reflectively on their experience in each session.
Method: Preliminary evaluative data on the pilot program were collected using three tools: an oral presentation of each individual’s experiences collated from their reflective writing; a mixed method, anonymous survey; and a 1-hour focus group discussion at the completion of the program. Data were analysed thematically.
Evidence: All participants reported that the program encouraged greater awareness of understanding, undertaking and/or applying scholarship in the SLA field. They cited positive influences on practice, including increased knowledge of learning advising content, meaningful discussions of application in their practice, and productive collaborations on research output.
Contribution: Findings suggest future programs that accent scholarship may bring positive change and deeper understanding of SLA thinking and practice.
Engagement: Throughout the session, I ask attendees: Would this program work in your Higher Education setting? What would you change and why?
References: Maldoni, A. (2018). “Degrees of deception” to degrees of proficiency: embedding academic literacies into the disciplines. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 12(2), A102-129.
Tran, L. T., Nghia, T. L. H., Khuong, C., & Le, T. T. T. (2019). Language and learning advisors as a valuable but under-recognised workforce in higher education: a Bourdieuian analysis of their professional development in international education. Teaching in Higher Education, 24(6), 755–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1499079

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