The Academy’s Matt Davis, Organisational Developer, and Dr Alex Owen, Senior Academic Developer, have recently won the Staff Development Forum ‘Developing Excellent Practice Award’ for their Developing Practice podcast submission.
The Academy’s Developing Practice podcast provides an online platform to colleagues working in or with Higher Education to share their experiences, achievements, and expertise. Since the lockdown in March 2020, as a result of the pandemic, the podcast and journal club has continued to provide online developmental opportunities for all colleagues working in Higher Education. Guests include a wide variety of colleagues from academia and professional services and industry.
Since the launch of the podcast in January 2020 the podcast has been downloaded over 3200 times by listeners in 45 different countries covering ages from 18 to 60+ years. Each podcast has an associated reading list and there is also a synchronous journal club, which both seek to support further reflection with a view to development. One listener stated, ‘Learning from other people’s experiences is invaluable in the fast-paced context of HE. This podcast introduces lots of different ideas on a variety of topics and provides a lovely stimulus to reflect on our own practice.’
As developers Matt and Alex had become aware that there was a vast range of excellent practice taking place locally across the institution, however this local knowledge was rarely shared outside of departments or even teams. Therefore the podcast was developed to provide a context to share these local experiences and practices with a view to supporting colleagues to explore new ideas, provoke development of practice and to drive education innovation across the University.
Dr James Howard, The Director of The Academy said, “We’re extremely proud of the incredible reach and impact of the Podcast and of all the hard work that sits behind its success. Through their creative and innovative practice, Alex and Matt have demonstrated the power of collating, sharing and building on the collective wisdom and experiences of our diverse HE community. We consider it a real privilege to have helped these voices be heard and to have encouraged so many conversations to flourish, across the University and beyond.”
To find out more information about the podcast and its episodes please visit https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/the-academy/podcast/ where you will find lots of related resources and a reading list for each topic covered.
You can listen and subscribe to the show by visiting your own podcast provider and searching for ‘University of Liverpool Academy’ or you can listen directly at https://anchor.fm/uolacademy