LD Professional Identity

This paper is notable for several reasons. It draws attention to the poor and variable understanding of LD within HE institutions (e.g. often as a non-scholarly field), and the consequent effects on the value it is held in and therefore on its practitioners. It also suggests a road-map for how LD can move forward, drawing upon learnings from related but more advanced fields such as Educational Development. It emphasises the needs for the LD movement to take a more joined up scholarly position, to resist being inward looking, and to claim its own territory within HE. While Samuels’ argument that LD should be advanced as an academic discipline may not resonate with everyone, the paper has certainly sparked necessary conversations and actions from which the LD movement has advanced and gained more of a role in scholarly conversations.

This source takes a perspective on the future of professional identity within learning development. Briggs’s paper examines how professional identity can be strengthened. He demonstrates a method of analysis for considering the sub-types roles of Learning Developers partially to counteract the muddying of the waters even within language used in the learning development community.

Johnson and Bishopp-Martin review the theoretical foundations of LD’s professional identity and consider spaces for the development of these. They also advocate for a stronger distinction between a professional Learning Developer and others whose employment involves elements of learning development. This source takes a perspective on the future of professional identity within learning development.

Stapleford presents an analysis of 6 months of discourse from the Learning Development in Higher Education Network(LDHEN) email list. This is used to identify language that is used to describe the professional status of learning development outside of the more formal definitions of professional identity. Stapleford discusses the concept of a shared professional culture, relevant to the ALDinHE values, and in doing so discusses parts of professional identity such as social emancipation.

This article details the process of the development of the certification for learning developers from ALDinHE. It discusses the agreed unifying element of professional identity for learning developers and members of ALDinHE, structured around the five core values. This article captures the challenges of defining learning development within the complex employment environment. The author highlights the importance of the values in forming that professional identity.

Johnson’s article overviews research on practitioners’ perceptions of learning development professional identity and analyses these in relation to the different theoretical and systemic influences on the profession. This provides a useful insight into how the profession sees itself, some of the potential gaps and weaknesses within that identity, as well as some thoughts about the future development of that professional identity. This text provides a clear overview of the challenges and opportunities for learning development professional identity, which are valuable for anyone attempting to reflect on their own.