Education Commons^™

Faculty Development Beyond Instructional Development: Ideas Centers Can Use, Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Tara Gray, A. Jane Birch

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Most faculty development programs focus on the faculty member as teacher. However, faculty seek support in many areas, including orientation, mentoring, scholarly writing, time management, career advancement, leadership, and service. Research and practice also suggest that faculty and facuity development programs benefit from an integrated approach to professional development. This chapter fills a gap in faculty development practice by suggesting ways that centers can create programming that goes beyond instructional development, thereby supporting a more expansive range of faculty work.

Go For The Gold: Fundraising For Teaching Centers, Mark A. Hohnstreiter, Tara Gray

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

At New Mexico State University Teaching Academy, we have developed a comprehensive model to raise funds from faculty and others for our teaching center, which has resulted in a culture of giving. The payoff from a fundraising effort is huge, not only in terms of money, but in terms of the personal investment of participants, both valuable in difficult economic times. We explain in this chapter how to establish a fundraising program so that your teaching center can go for the gold.

Taking Stock: Contemplating North American Graduate Student Professional Development Programs And Developers, Dieter J. Schönwetter, Donna Ellis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A two-stage study was conducted to identify key competencies in graduate student development programs at Canadian and U.S. institutions. Once thirty-nine key competencies were identified, developers of graduate students were asked to rate the importance of each competency in their programming, the extent to which each competency was explicitly taught, and their own confidence in the training received to help teach these competencies. One key finding suggests that numerous potential gaps exist in the training of those who deliver graduate student development programs, which organizations such as the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education can help to address.

Toward A Scholarship Of Faculty Development, Mark Potter

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter critically examines the scholarship of faculty development. Using a typology adapted from one developed to understand the scholarship of teaching and learning, I reflect on the primary currents identifiable in the literature. Much of what is published in the field of faculty development consists of descriptions of the development and assessment of particular programs. One approach that is largely missing is the metastudy or review of prior studies that can serve to preserve the findings of scholar-practitioners.

Teaching And Learning Together: College Faculty And Undergraduates Cocreate A Professional Development Model, Alison Cook-Sather

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Most models of professional development assume that faculty learning is the purview of faculty colleagues or teaching and learning center staff. A program at Bryn Mawr College challenges that assumption by inviting undergraduate students to serve as pedagogical consultants to faculty members. Feedback from participants suggests that this approach affords faculty and students an unusual opportunity to coconstruct a more informed model of faculty development, deepens the learning experiences of both faculty and students, and recasts the responsibility for those learning experiences as one that faculty and students share.

Reflections On International Engagement As Educational Developers In The United States, Virginia S. Lee

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

An important aspect of the increasing complexity of the higher education landscape is its gradual internationalization. However, neither our colleges and universities nor we as educational developers have unequivocally embraced internationalization. In this chapter, I offer examples of international engagement and a framework for thinking about them. I argue that international engagement in the form of an evolving global scholarship and practice of educational development represents the ultimate extension of our thought and practice as educational developers.

Reflecting Together About Tenure And Promotion: A Faculty Learning Community Approach, Leslie G. Mcbride, Janelle Decarrico Voegele

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

What happens when faculty representing various disciplines and career stages reflect together on the tenure and promotion process? How does the learning community they form facilitate development of their academic portfolios, and what insights into various forms of scholarship does it provide? This chapter addresses these questions. It describes the learning community over a five-month period, explains how academic portfolio development was used as a common reference point for addressing tenure and promotion issues, and summarizes insights and perspectives shared among faculty members as they tried to understand the value of diverse forms of scholarship.

Defining Critical Thinking In Higher Education: Determining Assessment Fit, Martha L. A. Stassen, Anne Herrington, Laura Henderson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Critical thinking is an important learning outcome for higher education, yet the definitions used on campuses and national assessment instruments vary. This article describes a mapping technique that faculty and administrators can use to evaluate the similarities and differences across these definitions. Results demonstrate that the definitions reflected by standardized tests are more narrowly construed than those of the campus and leave dimensions of critical thinking unassessed. This mapping process not only helps campuses make better-informed decisions regarding their responses to accountability pressures; it also provides a stimulus for rich, evidence-based discussions about teaching and learning priorities related to critical …

Introduction, Volume 30 (2011), Judith E. Miller

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Introduction to volume 30 (2011) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Judith E. Miller of University of North Florida.

Emergent Shifts In Faculty Development: A Reflective Review, Shelda Debowski

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty development has largely focused on supporting the development of early-career academic skills in teaching and learning. Even recent discussions of how facuity developers might infl.uence leaders and entire organizations have remained largely focused on teaching and learning issues. This chapter suggests the need to review and reform the role of faculty development to focus more holistically on the full nature of academic work and the evolving developmental needs of academics. It argues that the faculty developer,s portfolio will need to expand to include support for academic research, career management, and leadership roles, as well as organizational development strategies to …

Distribution And Penetration Of Teaching-Learning Development Units In Higher Education: Implications For Strategic Planning And Research, Sally Kuhlenschmidt

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter presents descriptive information about 1,267 U.S. teaching­learning development units (TLDUs). It provides strategic planning and research tools previously unavailable. Results indicate that TLDUs occur in at least 21.2 percent of U.S. higher education institutions, and their presence is correlated at a higher level with student enrollment than with number of faculty. The study provides normative data on the nature of higher education in the United States and on TLDUs by Carnegie classification, location, and type of institution. Additional information is provided about the presence of centers at special-focus institutions such as Hispanic-serving institutions.

Growing A New Generation: Promoting Self-Reflection Through Peer Observation, Allison Boye, Micah Meixner

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Many faculty developers understand the value of self-reflection in effective teaching and aim to cultivate the practice in their programming. However, many instructors regard peer observation as punitive or evaluative in nature and overlook how the practice can promote thoughtful self-reflection by the observer. This chapter outlines a model of group peer observation that supports introspection and community, thereby transforming that negative perception. We discuss how the process promotes cross-disciplinary open-door teaching and reflective practice in teaching improvement and how faculty developers from institutions and programs of all sizes can help nurture that growth.

Understanding And Supporting Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty: A Needed Change, Genevieve G. Shaker, Megan Palmer, Nancy Van Note Chism

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

As the face of the American faculty profession changes, targeted academic development becomes more important. A phenomenological qualitative study of full-time, non-tenure-track faculty in English portrays an experience characterized by a love of teaching but fraught with professional challenges stemming from low status and poor reward and recognition structures. These data provide the point of departure for recommendations on expanding organizational and faculty development strategies for supporting, integrating, and encouraging full-time, non-tenure-track faculty.

Using Multimedia Case Stories Of Exemplary Teaching For Faculty Development, Tasha J. Souza, Tom Carey, Flora Mcmartin, Roberta Ambrosino, Joe Grimes

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty are more likely to embrace the possibility of change when they see change modeled by their colleagues. Through a multimedia case story, faculty can share in the experience of using an innovative teaching strategy and the process of implementing it. Integrating multimedia case stories into our work with faculty can help us meet diverse faculty needs and encourage more faculty to embrace pedagogical change. Such stories can help faculty to realize that they too can overcome pedagogical challenges and institutional constraints in order to better meet the learning needs of students.

The Citizenship Imperative And The Role Of Faculty Development, Jeffrey L. Bernstein, Rebecca S. Nowacek, Michael B. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

By teaching the capacity for citizenship across the curriculum, colleges and universities can better serve their role as socially responsive institutions. We argue that citizenship themes can be more central to a wide variety of classes, including some in disciplines not considered traditional homes for civic education. Faculty development centers can play a critical role in helping facuity integrate citizenship into the curriculum and evaluate the learning that occurs in their citizenship-oriented classes. We offer guidelines for how learning communities can best serve these purposes.

Institutional Encouragement Of And Faculty Engagement In The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning, Thomas F. Nelson Laird, Tony Ribera

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Framed by Huber and Hutchings’s defining features of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), the study described in this chapter examines institutional encouragement of and faculty engagement in SoTL. Faculty at forty-nine U.S. colleges and universities participating in the 2009 Faculty Survey of Student Engagement completed items about SoTL. Results suggest that institutional encouragement of and faculty engagement in the public dissemination of teaching investigations lag behind encouragement and engagement in other aspects of SoTL. Some faculty subgroups (among them, women and faculty in education) on average feel more institutional encouragement and engage in SoTL activities more than their …

How Mature Teaching And Learning Centers Evaluate Their Services, Susan R. Hines

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study investigated facuity development program evaluation practices at thirty-three established, centralized, university-funded teaching and learning centers (TLCs). My prior statewide study (Hines, 2009) revealed that limitations of time, resources, and assessment knowledge resulted in superficial evaluation practices. Since the majority of respondents in the previous study were part-time faculty developers with limited funding and staff, I assumed that established, centralized TLCs would have the knowledge and resources to conduct a more rigorous evaluation. This study reveals that established centralized TLCs have significantly stronger practices for evaluating their services.

Ready Or Not? An International Study Of The Preparation Of Educational Developers, Nancy Van Note Chism

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This report of an international survey of educational developers describes their entry-level background knowledge and skills for the work of educational development, how they obtained them, and their recommendations on helping prepare new entrants to the profession. Respondents reported that their experiences rendered them moderately prepared for some tasks and less prepared for others, notably consultation. The results can inform increased professionalization of educational development through more systematic preparation of future educational developers.

Down With The Sgid! Long Live The Qcd!, Barbara J. Millis, Jose Vazquez

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

No one knows better than faculty developers the difficulty of change. Numerous clichés such as “Old habits die hard” or “The more things change, the more they stay the same” express the proverbial wisdom regarding such entrenched rituals. Many faculty developers routinely use an assessment tool called Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID) developed by Joseph Clark (Clark & Redmond, 1982) during his tenure as FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education) project director at the University of Washington, Seattle. The authors challenge our colleagues to re-think these old habits and consider replacing—or at least supplementing—the SGID with a far …

Talking With Faculty About Cognitive Science And Learning, John Girash

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

When it comes to teaching, faculty at a research-intensive institution can be very much like our students in relation to their studies: very smart people whose primary interests lie elsewhere or, at least, whose expertise is not in this area. And we hear over and over again the common wisdom that faculty want research-based ideas on teaching. This implies that we can treat the teaching of teachers about research-supported aspects of learning in ways analogous to teaching students about other academic topics.

In introducing research-based ideas into the pedagogical discussion, it can be tough to find a balance between concepts …

Selecting The Right Technology Tool: Wikis, Discussion Boards, Journals, And Blogs, Tami J. Eggleston

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Maslow understood the value of knowing when to use the right tool. It is easy in teaching to over-rely on a familiar tool or a teaching technique that we are comfortable with using. In recent years the teacher’s tool box has grown and there are many new technology tools available in course management and learning systems (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle, etc.) and with free websites (e.g., Blogger, Wetpaint, etc.). While many faculty get in a teaching rut and use only lecture, or only small groups, or only discussion boards, it can also be daunting to decide which, of the many new …

A Mixed Methods Study Of How The Transition Process Impacts The Autonomy Of Pre-Service Secondary Mathematics Teachers, Linda Kasal Fusco

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This mixed methods study sought to identify the impact that transition into the practice of teaching had on the autonomy of pre-service secondary teachers of Mathematics. It was based on the belief that a Mathematics teacher’s autonomy depended on: beliefs about Mathematics and how it was learned, reflections on the teaching practice, and social constraints of a secondary school culture. Data was collected between January 2009 and March 2010. In Phase I (Quantitative) the participants (N = 30), selected from ten State University of New York teacher preparation colleges and universities, completed five instruments to quantify the three factors of …