Designing Impactful PGCert in Higher Education Courses A Practical Guide for Staff Development

Part I: Setting the Stage            

1. PGCert values: A ‘Roots-to-Shoots’ Approach to Designing the PGCert                

2. Before joining the PGCert: Entry Routes and Links with Wider Academic Staff Development

Part II: Designing the PGCert Experience         

3. Learning Context: Setting Up and Early Engagement           

4. Learning Content: Input and Practice         

Part III: PGCert Assessment and Evaluation   

5. PGCert Learning Assessment: Outputs and Feedback

6. PGCert Learning Evaluation: Refining and Iterating for Excellence and Evidencing Impact      

7. Beyond the PGCert: Progression Routes

Part IV: Special Topics in PGCert Development      

8. Utilising the 2023 Professional Standards Framework (PSF)            

9. Education for Sustainability in PGCert        

10. Online PGCert

Biography

Virna Rossi is an Associate Professor and PGCert Course Leader in London, UK. She is an Advance HE Principal Fellow (PFHEA), a National Teaching Fellow (NTF) and on the SEDA Roll of Honour.

‘This comprehensive and invaluable text, drawing on global experts, will be highly relevant to all who design and deliver PGCHE courses internationally’

Sally Brown

 

‘Developing our staff in higher education and their capability to develop engaging, relevant and impactful curricula, is one of the most important ways to improve the student learning experience. This takes time and imagination. This practical edited volume is a contribution to the field, for everyone involved in this collaborative endeavour. As the saying goes it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an academic community of practice to develop an academic. In this book, let a passionate group of academics, with years of experience, guide you to inspire, challenge and ultimately make education better!’ 

Santanu Vasant, Former Head of Educational Development and Digital Education at London Metropolitan University and Independent Higher Education Consultant

 

‘I am hugely impressed with what Virna Rossi has achieved here. This book is a treasure trove of insights, tips and guidance on how to support HE practitioners through accredited teaching and learning courses. The book is innovative, not just in the way it curates contributions from an enormous range of perspectives, but also in being squarely aimed at those whose job is to design the qualifications themselves’.  

John Lea, Independent HE Consultant

 

This comprehensive and unique guide to the PGCert - the postgraduate qualification in teaching in HE - is there to help staff CPD designers explore and understand this contested terrain, to produce values-driven courses to empower staff to act with agency in their own development, to enter the community of academic practice and engage with confidence in the scholarship of teaching and learning - for themselves - and for the benefit of all their students.

Tom Burns and Sandra Sinfield

 

The first book of its kind, Virna Rossi invites readers to join her on a critical exploration of the PGCert journey. The range of contributions help to bring a mix of voices and perspectives to the informative, practical and values-based discussions. An important developmental text for anyone involved in designing and/or delivering a PGCert, Virna Rossi's book is an inspiring read, engaging readers to reflect, review and mobilise positive educational change through the influential vehicles that are PGCerts.

Danielle Tran - Deputy Director of Higher Education Development & Support Institute (HEDS), UCL