The range of job titles for TLT Officers is very
broad indeed, then! So too are the attempts to encompass everyone within a
single definition for 'TLT Officer'. I worry that the broader the
definition, the more difficult it becomes to recognise all the individual job
roles within it. Perhaps we could approach this another way, in terms of
clusters of roles which form the core of different TLT Officers' working
experience. Merce's list of 'Common Ground: Summary of Roles and Tasks'
provides a useful starting point. It might be that we end up with a number
of clusters of 'core roles' which reflect the wide range of career backgrounds
people in the profession have: e.g. core teaching/learning support roles; core
technical support roles; core management/strategy roles; etc. A starting
point might be for TLT Officers to review the Common Ground list, thinking about
how where they have come from has shaped their current work as TLT
Officers. From here it could be possible to identify what TLT Officers
regard as their 'additional roles'; very probably one TLT Officer's 'core role'
will be another's 'additional role' - which says something about the diversity
of work done by TLT Officers in different institutional contexts. I wonder
if this core/additional approach would enable us to identify TLT Officers' roles in a way that is both comprehensive and
flexible, so as to include everyone?
Michael
Dr Michael Frearson, Senior Advisor
The
Higher Education Training Organisation (THETO)
Universities' and Colleges'
Staff Development Agency
