Background
Achieving educational leadership can be challenging for an early career academic [ECA]. Leadership is also subjective, relating to the educational philosophy of the lecturer, and the needs of students. Leithwood (2005) states that “the core of most definitions of leadership are two functions generally considered indispensable to its meaning: setting directions and exercising influence”. Both attributes are highly related to the ECA role.
Educational leadership involves “demonstrating commitment to a core set of values” and “overcoming complex challenges” (School of Education, 2023). As a civic university, Hull’s civic values, embedded in the 2030 strategy of “People” and “Place”, has led me to consider my own teaching philosophy. Hull is a city affected by multiple deprivations, with the university aiming to tackle inequality, and meet regional health needs through education. This is a particularly important focus, given that inequality of wealth is on the rise (Kerr and Vaughan, 2024). In this blog, I reflect on how this influenced my curriculum development and developed my own educational leadership.
The student group
Across the three-year BSc (Hons) Nursing programmes which I support, each cohort contains around 300 undergraduate students who are split into four branches of nursing: adult, child, mental health and learning disability. Yet, whilst students study many core modules, there are arguments that nurse education is too generic, based on adult nursing standards (Warrander et al., 2023). To overcome this challenge, one way that the University of Hull supports nursing students to gain branch knowledge is to schedule branch-specific workshops into the curriculum.
Setting Directions
As a public health nurse, with strong policy and epidemiological knowledge, I am “module link lecturer” for a first-year module, “Promoting Health and Preventing Ill Health”. I was tasked with designing and delivering four brand-new, three-hour workshops for mental health nursing students. To align content to students’ learning needs, I adhered to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s standards for pre-registration nursing programmes (NMC, 2023), to “set out the content necessary to meet the programme outcomes for each field of nursing practice”.
To create directions around mental health learning, I examined the learning outcomes carefully. To identify key public health issues and discuss their relationship with the wider determinants of health, I acknowledged the reality that mental and physical health are strongly associated (Ohrnberger et al., 2017). Based on a range of research and collaboration with the programme director, I identified four topics relevant to mental health, with alcohol as the first workshop topic based on a wealth of research on alcohol, mental illness, and harm to health.
As an example, I applied relevant alcohol policy and research to the population of people with mental illness, who face greater inequality generally, and for whom alcohol and addiction can present alongside mental illnesses. Specifically, I introduced students to the “alcohol paradox”. This is where richer people drink higher quantities of alcohol, but yet poorer people who drink similar or lower quantities, suffer increased alcohol harm. I particularly encouraged students to challenge their assumptions about normal and abnormal drinking as well as examining ethics of minimum unit pricing. Discussions and task work were centred around reasons for drinking and wider health behaviours, and how this intersects with mental health.
To develop educational leadership and promote branch learning, also I drew heavily from my former role as a patient representative for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, strongly framing policies within the mental health landscape and defining the barriers faced by minority groups. Specifically, I incorporated group work and discussion as a heavy component of the workshops, designed to support students to articulate their role in promoting health and preventing ill health.
Influence and impact
I realised that I could only measure the impact of my influence after the workshops had finished. Accordingly, I sought student evaluation feedback via a Microsoft form, since evaluation is commonly used to measure teaching quality (Spooren et al., 2013). I received responses from over half the cohort, scoring 4.8/5 or above for teaching preparedness and organization, encouraging independent thinking, enthusiasm, and overall effectiveness. This was further supported by student feedback about the workshops separately, with students citing these as useful, positive, and relevant to their profession.
As a broader measure of impact, the module leader requested that the alcohol workshop content be adapted into a core lecture delivered to all students in future years, will which support influence on a greater scale.
Further development and next steps
From evaluating the sustainability of this curriculum as part of studying the University of Hull’s Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice [PCAP], I realised that many of the United Nations (2015) sustainable goals are directly relevant to my curriculum content, and could be incorporated in this going forwards. This critical evaluation also led to me considering “Partnership”, the third principle of the Hull 2030 strategy, and the importance of working alongside others. Co-production may be a future endeavour.
Overall, applying my educational philosophy to curriculum development was challenging but rewarding. However, this reflection also demonstrates that research informed, dynamic direction setting can influence and impact student learning, highlighting that educational leadership is possible, even as an ECA.
References
Kerr, S. and Vaughan, M. (2024). Changing the narrative on health inequality.
Leithwood, K. (2005). Educational Leadership.
Nursing and Midwifery Council [NMC]. (2023) Standards for Education and Training Part 3: Standards for pre-registration nursing programmes.
Ohrnberger, J., Fichera, E., Sutton, M. (2017). The relationship between physical and mental health: A mediation analysis. Social Science & Medicine.195, 42-49.
Royal College of Psychiatrists. (2024). It’s time to tackle the trap of inequality and mental illness.
School of Education, American University. (2023). Educational Leadership-definition and impact.
Spooren, P., Brockx, B., Mortelmans, D. (2013). On the validity of student evaluation of teaching: the state of the art. Review of educational research.
University of Hull. (2024). Strategy 2030.
Warrender, D., Connell, C., Jones, E., Monteux, S., Colwell, L., Laker, C. et al. (2024). Mental health deserves better: Resisting the dilution of specialist pre-registration mental health nurse education in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 33, 202–212.
Image credit: Katja Anokhina on Unsplash.