 Hello, my name is Larry McCork and I'm a Tel Analyst at Atumbria University and today I'm going to talk about the Tel Technical Mentoring Program at Atumbria University. So first of all I'd like to talk a little bit about the Tel team at Atumbria. The Tel team are part of IT services at Atumbria University. The team is managed by Lee Hall and comprises of 32 members of staff across four service areas. These are Tel Training and Innovation, Tel Content Development, Tel Client Software and Tel Customer Success. The main remer of the Tel team is to use technology solutions to improve the teaching, learning and assessment experience for both students and staff using innovative and creative approaches with a strategic objective of enhancing learning through the effective deployment of technology, supporting both the IT strategy and the university strategies. The current support offered to staff by the Tel Training and Innovation team consists of bookable online daily one-to-one sessions. These can be booked by both professional support staff and academic staff and can last up to one hour. During these sessions staff can get support and advice on a wide range of Tel technologies. There's also Tel Central. This includes help guides, videos, best practice guidance, as well as case studies and other useful information. There's also organised a face-to-face and online group training sessions and also each department within the university has a Tel liaison contact. The Tel Technical Mentor Programme. The Tel Technical Mentoring Programme, what is it? The programme is a 12-week in-house programme for Tel staff which develops and builds on existing coaching and mentoring skills. It introduces several established coaching models and techniques such as Gibbs, the grow model and the jihari window. Upon completion of this programme Tel staff would go on to mentor academic staff at Atumbria University. The mentoring programme was also one of the initiatives of Tel Strategy Tel 2008 and was employed to support Tel Strategy Tel 2003 digital induction. The Tel Technical Mentoring Programme has several stages. Step one is that members of the Tel team take part in the Tel Technical Mentoring Programme. Once these Tel staff finish the programme they are allocated mentees. These mentees are typically new staff at Atumbria with teaching responsibilities. These will normally need to be able to use technologies such as Blackboard, Pinotto, Office, Turn It In, which Tel staff can support them with and provide guidance on. Once Tel staff have been allocated their mentees they will email them and agree an initial meeting. At this meeting initial goals and objectives are agreed as well as a timeframe such as the frequency of meetings and the length of meetings. As mentees are mentored their level and understanding of Tel technologies increases. This can have many benefits including increased student engagement, creating more accessible learning materials as well as creating more inclusive learning environments. So how was the programme structured? It was structured over 12 weeks and applied using a Blackboard organisation. It offered both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities and typically took between two to four hours each week to complete. So what activities were included in the mentoring programme? There were one-to-one and group coaching sessions, formative summative assessments, role-playing, observation, self-reflection, research and problem-based learning, PBL. The problem-based learning activities used real-world problems to increase knowledge and understanding. While the role-playing activities in particular strongly encouraged team participation and allowed opportunities to employ various mentoring techniques in dealing with staff with several pre-designed scenarios. What were the programme outcomes? A non-exhaustive list of these include learning about a variety of mentoring tools, the grow model, give perspective cycle and the jihari window. Also selecting and applying the most appropriate tool in a variety of situations and contexts. An equipping staff was an essay skills and knowledge needed to mentor new academic staff in the use of digital and tel technologies. How are academics supported? So to support offering, new Natumbia staff are sending an email which outlines two support pathways depending on their roles. The email also provides some context to what tel is and what support is an offer. Both pathways offer asynchronous support with staff sent a link to the online staff digital induction e-learning module. This contains comprehensive guidance and tutorials on all of the tel technologies used on Natumbia. Staff with teaching responsibilities are also offered synchronous support with an invitation to have a tel technical mentor and are prompted to suggest a suitable time for an initial 45-minute induction session either in person or online. All staff on Natumbia, regardless of their role, can also receive synchronous one-to-one online support sessions and face-to-face or online group training sessions. How are academics contacted? So there are several steps in this. The first one is a new starter list is received once a month from human resources. Next, mentors are allocated mentees at a monthly meeting. In this case, mentors are those tel staff who have completed the tel mentoring programme. These mentors then send an email to allocated mentees and the email will include what the mentoring programme is, information on the online staff digital induction e-learning course and also a link to an introductory video. Once responses are received, initial meetings are scheduled between the mentors and their allocated mentees. Feedback So several types of feedback were collected. The first level of feedback was a 10D feedback and this was an evaluation form. Each 10D completed in the programme evaluation form. The evaluation form consisted of 18 open and closed questions. The form had a 100% respondent rate. The initial evaluation feedback was used in developing and enhancing the second intake of the programme structure. This feedback aligns with level one and two of the Kirkpatrick feedback model reaction and learning. A focus group was also used to gather attendee feedback. Five tel staff from the first and second intake of the programme took part. Both online and in person attendees participated. It was an informal conversation which lasts about one hour with six open questions. The main email of the focus group was looking at if mentor behaviour had changed. Again, this aligns with level two and three of the Kirkpatrick feedback model learning and behavioural change. Various feedback was received. Attendees strongly agreed they could apply various coaching and mentoring techniques such as the grow model to a variety of contexts and situations. Attendees also agreed they were encouraged to develop effective practitioner skills. They also felt that the programme was challenging. Attendee feedback also consisted of a focus group, which again had five or six questions. The data from the evaluation form and focus group strongly suggests that attendees had a positive outcome after completing the programme, resulting in behavioural change in how they supported sessions, with staff now asking more questions and encouraging a more conversational approach. One member of staff in the focus group also commented that they tried to encourage those staff they were mentoring to come to their own conclusions. Staff also said that they used both the grow model and Gibbs. As well as feedback from those tel staff who completed the tel technical mentoring programme, feedback was also received by academics who were being mentored by tel staff who had completed the tel technical mentoring programme. A feedback form was emailed to approximately six academics with nine respondents. Responses were anonymous and the form consisted of four closed questions and three open questions. Again, some of the responses on the screen are visible now. Feedback academic staff would suggest that they used to have tel technologies and having a tel technical mentor had not only enhanced their teaching and learning, but also had encouraged student engagement and increased their confidence in the use of tel technology. Staff also reported a greater knowledge of accessibility issues. Final conclusions on impact. Tel staff, so those staff that had taken part in the tel technical mentoring programme agreed that they had employed various mentoring and coaching tools to a variety of situations. They had adopted the Gibbs model and reflected more on situations. They listened more. They offered more options. They established more conversational tone and encouraged staff to reach a conclusion themselves rather than just be told what to do. Academic staff agreed that having a tel technical mentor helped them use more tel technologies leading to greater student engagement. Delivered confidence in using tel and increased. They were more aware of accessibility issues and helped them create a more inclusive learning environment. Overall, the tel technical mentoring programme at Atumbria has been a success and has received positive feedback from both those members of staff who completed the programme as well as academic staff who have been mentored. Final conclusion. In developing the tel technical mentoring programme, tel staff have been equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to move beyond a traditional didactic approach of teaching where the learner is largely passive and form a more collaborative relationship with academic and professional support staff. Data from the online questionnaire would indicate that tel support sessions are becoming more collaborative in nature and encourage empowerment and problem solving and they are an evolution from the Sage on the Stage behaviours approach to a more constructivist, student-centred learning approach where staff are presented with choice and play a more active part in their learning. Furthermore, this approach also acknowledges the diversity and different levels of digital literacy from Atumbria staff and presents an opportunity for a constructive and collaborative support framework suited to individual needs in an agreed timeframe and schedule. Thank you for listening to the presentation. If you have any questions regarding this presentation, please email me at larry.magurg.atumbria.ac.uk where I'll be very happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you.