Adapting international collaborative writing groups as an academic development approach to build institutional collaborative partnerships.

Academics are undisputed disciplinary content experts. However, many are less knowledgeable of effective teaching practices and this often hinders students' learning. Many academic developers are tasked with helping to prepare academics for teaching and use workshops, seminars and graduate certificates to do so, although these are often poorly attended or simply not effective in transforming academics' teaching (Ling et al, 2009; Weaver et al, 2013). We know new approaches are needed to engage academics in ongoing, capacity-building endeavors to transform how they see themselves as university teachers with direct impact on students' learning. of the key ways in which to engage colleagues in their development as critical and reflective teachers, in a way that goes beyond the hints and tips they may need at the beginning of their teaching careers, is … to stimulate their intellectual curiosity. … The asking of questions is at the heart of intellectual curiosity and engaging staff in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) (Breslow et al, 2004). Like SoTL approaches to academic development (Hutching et al, 2011), the Australian Academic Workforce 2020 project is also affirming the discipline-specific, research-teaching link to enhance university teaching (Office for Learning and Teaching, 2012). Within this view of academic development, we become collaborative partners creating communities of academics able to reflect upon teaching practices by drawing on data and literature to enhance the learning of students. Developing capacity for scholarly teaching and SoTL, in collaborative partnerships, can take many forms. One such approach was piloted in 2012, an international collaborative writing group initiative (Healey & Marquis, 2013). I (Matthews) was a group facilitator in that pilot initiative (Matthews et al, 2013), which was evidenced to build the SoTL capacity of the participants (Marquis, Healey & Vine, 2014). In 2015, we will be adapting the international collaborative writing group initiative. The paper will outline the approach of this 'second generation innovation' along with models for scaling this as academic development activity at the institutional and discipline levels.