Informing principles

Peak Events (PE) have a university-wide focus and make a significant contribution to the strategically aligned Academic Professional Development (APD) program at USQ. These PE include:

an annual USQ learning and teaching forum to showcase best practice and to profile USQ learning and teaching strategic directions;
summits designed to draw together interested parties to progress specific learning and teaching issues;
learning and teaching visiting scholar programs organised as they arise, including associated web resources and audio-visual recordings.

In addition, each PE will produce L&T resources that will be used to further support the Foundations Courses and Tailored Professional Development Program. These artefacts will also become key resources on the L&T website.

Goals

The goals of this program are to:

provide USQ with a annual event/forum profiling key learning and teaching priorities for the following 12 months;
provide a forum for facilitated summits to corral university progress and future directions on particular learning and teaching strategic directions;
align PE with ongoing L&T resource production for the 8 Foundations courses and the USQ L&T website;
create an LTSU site dedicated to the support of PE; and
align with virtual booking system.

Strategic alignment

USQ Learning and Teaching plan
HR Professional Development Program
PRP, APD plan

Details of Faculty support for an 18 month period

Faculty AD (L&T) will plan events in conjunction with LTSU staff via the Faculty LTEC, the Faculty L&T Plan and USQ LTEC.

Tasks, timelines & budgets

Tasks	Timeline
Establish times and dates for PE activities for late 2008 and 2009	May 08
LTSU to establish framework for L&T summits in collaboration with USQ LTEC	Jun 08
Initial alignment of PE activities with Foundations courses	Aug 08
Develop LTSU website portal to support PE	Aug 08
Launch PE program for following 12 months	Aug 08 – Jul 09
Hold 2nd L&T Week and begin planning for late 2009 and 2010	Feb 09
Evaluate PE program with AD’s (L&T)	May 09
Make changes schedule content based on evaluation.	Jun 09
Launch Plans for following 12 months	Aug 09

Total Resources/ Budget Required

LTSU Academic Level B (.2)

LTSU Administrative staff (.2) to: manage online bookings; coordinate rooms, registrations and support materials; and format support materials for L&T website

Professional development requirements

Newer LTSU academic staff and Associate Deans will be required to become familiar with PE processes and protocols.

Scholarship opportunities

Scholarship opportunities exist in writing up the processes surrounding developing discipline-specific PE activities and benchmarking opportunities that may arise.

Communication plan

Communiqués to all Associate Deans (Learning & Teaching) for presentation to LTECs

Monthly PRP reporting process

LTSU alerts

Evaluation strategies

LTSU will conduct evaluations of each PE conducted

LTSU Evaluation Framework

B5 - Peak events