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Educational Administration and Supervision Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2020

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Articles 1 - 18 of 18

Full-Text Articles in Educational Administration and Supervision

Impostor Phenomenon In Educational Developers: Consequences And Coping Strategies, Kristin J. Rudenga, Emily O. Gravett Oct 2020

Impostor Phenomenon In Educational Developers: Consequences And Coping Strategies, Kristin J. Rudenga, Emily O. Gravett

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A recent survey of educational developers revealed that nearly all respondents (96%) had experienced impostor phenomenon (IP) in their professional lives. Here, we use survey data to investigate the consequences of and coping strategies for IP among educational developers. We describe the repercussions of IP for the personal and professional lives of educational developers (including stress, lowered self-esteem, not speaking up, and diminished career trajectories), the ways in which they cope with IP, and the unique ways that they may be positioned to leverage their own experience with IP to work more effectively with instructors.

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The Experiences Of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members Of Color With Racism In The Classroom, Ryan Rideau, Claire K. Robbins Oct 2020

The Experiences Of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members Of Color With Racism In The Classroom, Ryan Rideau, Claire K. Robbins

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Using critical race theory, this qualitative study examined the ways non-tenure-track faculty members of Color (NTFOCs) experienced racism in their classroom environments. The sample consisted of 24 NTFOCs who worked at 4-year historically White colleges and universities. Findings revealed that NTFOCs experienced racism in their classrooms in three ways: negative evaluations, different treatment than White colleagues, and feeling unsafe in the classroom. While these findings are consistent with the experiences of tenure-track and tenured faculty members of Color, the implications for NTFOCs, particularly in terms of their employment, are stark. The article concludes with recommendations for how educational developers can …

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“Am I Really Good Enough?”: Black And Latinx Experiences With Faculty Development, Sylk Santiago-Sotto Oct 2020

“Am I Really Good Enough?”: Black And Latinx Experiences With Faculty Development, Sylk Santiago-Sotto

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study focuses on the experiences of Black and Latinx faculty in academic medicine in relation to their educational and faculty development. Narratives by participants reflect on their career path and refer to faculty development programs as valuable but also as dominant group-centric, counter to their cultural backgrounds and the underrepresented faculty experience. Findings reveal the need for faculty development to be spaces for affirmation, validation, and accountability and suggest the need for tailored programs. Furthermore, implications on the research and practice of faculty affairs within higher education and academic medicine are outlined.

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Leveraging The Power Of Course Redesign For Student Success, Rebecca Campbell, Benjamin B. Blankenship Oct 2020

Leveraging The Power Of Course Redesign For Student Success, Rebecca Campbell, Benjamin B. Blankenship

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Colleges and universities have a commitment to improve the student experience, increase persistence, and provide paths to degree completion. Course redesign, focused on student success, is a promising strategy for realizing that commitment. This article examines some of the particulars when course redesign is explicitly linked to student success. These particulars include the types of redesign outcomes, why courses should be the locus of student success initiatives, identifying which courses to redesign, and the characteristics and scope of impact of redesigned courses. The article concludes with suggestions for next steps for student success course redesign.

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Development Of A Faculty Appreciation Of Pedagogy Scale, Carol A. Hurney, Jordan D. Troisi, Lori H. Leaman Oct 2020

Development Of A Faculty Appreciation Of Pedagogy Scale, Carol A. Hurney, Jordan D. Troisi, Lori H. Leaman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Evidencing the value of programs and services challenges educational developers to measure a range of outcomes. While direct measures of faculty use of effective teaching behaviors and student learning are desirable, these methods are time consuming and resource intensive. We provide a scale that is easy to deploy and can be adapted to different programs. Our psychometrically sound scale measures one facet of faculty learning about teaching—appreciation of pedagogy. The scale measures awareness, knowledge integration, emotions, beliefs, and self-reported behaviors related to the appreciation of pedagogy. We also examine scale correlates, including teaching identity, confidence, and control.

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Students Helping Students Provide Valuable Feedback On Course Evaluations, Adriana Signorini, Mariana Abuan, Gautam Panakkal, Sandy Dorantes Oct 2020

Students Helping Students Provide Valuable Feedback On Course Evaluations, Adriana Signorini, Mariana Abuan, Gautam Panakkal, Sandy Dorantes

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The purpose of the student evaluations of teaching (SET) are to help instructors enhance the teaching and learning experience in their courses; however, student feedback can often be more unconstructive than useful because students are usually requested to evaluate instruction with little or no formal training. As a result, SET become missed opportunities for students to effectively communicate their learning needs and for instructors to collect actionable information about how the course is perceived. This project aims to improve the quality of student responses to the open-ended questions that instructors receive by partnering with undergraduates in demonstrating to their peers …

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Tell Me More About Alex: Helping Instructors Uncover And Mitigate Their Implicit Biases, Cait S. Kirby, Heather N. Fedesco Oct 2020

Tell Me More About Alex: Helping Instructors Uncover And Mitigate Their Implicit Biases, Cait S. Kirby, Heather N. Fedesco

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

All instructors bring a set of unconscious or implicit biases to the classroom. These biases can negatively impact the way they interact with students, thus affecting important student outcomes (for example, grades, sense of belonging). Facilitators leading programming on inclusive teaching may struggle to identify strategies they should include in sessions to help unearth and address these biases in others. We have created an activity that can be tailored to fit a variety of teaching contexts and audiences and that helps unveil implicit biases while potentially mitigating some challenges associated with participant responses to such conversations.

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A Mandatory Faculty Diversity Workshop: Does It Work?, Heather Dwyer, Joya Smith Oct 2020

A Mandatory Faculty Diversity Workshop: Does It Work?, Heather Dwyer, Joya Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article explores the effectiveness of a mandatory training workshop for faculty. Our center for teaching and learning (CTL) was charged with designing and implementing a diversity training workshop for all full-time faculty. The workshop included an introduction to diversity and inclusion, analysis of microaggressions, discussion of inclusive teaching strategies, and practice responding to difficult situations using realistic classroom scenarios. Data were collected on participants’ familiarity and comfort level with diversity and inclusion concepts and situations via identical pre- and post-assessment. A year later, a follow-up survey was administered, which included the original assessment. Assessment and survey responses indicated positive …

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Teaching Certificate Redesign: Making A Flexible Program For Future Faculty, Kate Z. Williams, Lauren E. Margulieux, G. David Lawrence Oct 2020

Teaching Certificate Redesign: Making A Flexible Program For Future Faculty, Kate Z. Williams, Lauren E. Margulieux, G. David Lawrence

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Higher education teaching certificate programs can improve graduate students’ and postdoctoral scholars’ teaching while preparing them for their future roles as faculty, providing a multi-tiered benefit to universities’ teaching goals. This article documents the decision points and initial success of a redesign of one such teaching certificate program.” As part of the redesign process, 10 universities’ programs were reviewed and used as a benchmark. The programs’ learning objectives and assessments, along with their connections to the literature, are discussed in detail. A new flexible pathway through the certificate program emerged, tapping into courses, workshops, and online resources for content delivery, …

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Motivated Reasoning And Persuading Faculty Change In Teaching, Gary A. Smith Apr 2020

Motivated Reasoning And Persuading Faculty Change In Teaching, Gary A. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Many faculty members demonstrate unwavering resistance to adopting research-based instructional strategies. This phenomenon commonly fits with motivated reasoning, whereby a person feels threatened by persuasion to change, leading to overtly defensive and sometimes disruptive behaviors and refusal. Changing away from established practices may challenge one’s self-identity and values as an effective teacher and triggers arguments intended to invalidate research-based alternatives. Faculty who are motivated to reject consensus best practices may impede the implementation of these practices across entire departments or institutions. Motivated reasoning and its underlying cognitive processes are explained by self-determination theory, which leads to predictions of faculty behaviors …

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What's The Problem Now?, Randall Bass Apr 2020

What's The Problem Now?, Randall Bass

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Revisiting an essay from 1999, this article explores the current conditions in higher education, and society more broadly, that help shape the roles for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and educational development. By seeing the current “crises” of higher education not only as “problems” to be investigated but as a “wicked problem,” we might be able to elevate and complicate the role that inquiry into teaching and learning might play in institutional change and the expansion of higher education. The article argues for the necessity, even urgency, of seeing educational development as a lever for change, fully engaged …

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Building A Social Network Around Sotl Through Digital Space, Shannon M. Sipes, Samy L. Minix, Matt Barton Apr 2020

Building A Social Network Around Sotl Through Digital Space, Shannon M. Sipes, Samy L. Minix, Matt Barton

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In an effort to increase visibility of and access to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) work on one campus, a collaboration formed between a faculty developer, a librarian, and a media specialist within a center for teaching and learning (CTL). Building on the frameworks of community of practice, professional learning network, and social networking, the authors strategically leveraged digital space to begin building a social network of faculty members interested in SoTL. This article will address the theoretical foundation and practical implementation of five digital strategies: (a) website redesign; (b) social media presence; (c) blog series; (d) filmed …

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Assessment Literacy In College Teaching: Empirical Evidence On The Role And Effectiveness Of A Faculty Training Course, Kyle D. Massey, Christopher Deluca, Danielle Lapointe-Mcewan Apr 2020

Assessment Literacy In College Teaching: Empirical Evidence On The Role And Effectiveness Of A Faculty Training Course, Kyle D. Massey, Christopher Deluca, Danielle Lapointe-Mcewan

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This research explores how faculty members’ conceptions of assessment and confidence in assessment change as a result of an instructor training course. Based on a sample of 27 faculty members enrolled in a semester-long instructional development course, this survey-based study provides initial evidence that faculty members can develop confidence in assessment while adopting increasingly complex conceptions of assessment. Based on this study’s findings, we argue that instructional development programs for college faculty have a critical role to play in stimulating faculty learning about assessment of student learning and are an important component in promoting a positive assessment culture.

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Motivations And Obstacles Influencing Faculty Engagement In Adopting Teaching Innovations, Wayne Jacobson, Renee Cole Apr 2020

Motivations And Obstacles Influencing Faculty Engagement In Adopting Teaching Innovations, Wayne Jacobson, Renee Cole

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Significant progress has been made in understanding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and ways it can be improved, but propagation of change remains a challenge. This study presents an analysis of STEM faculty responses to open-text survey questions that asked them to identify motivations and obstacles to making changes in their teaching. Responses reveal wide variability among faculty perceptions, conceptualizations of change, and understandings of evidence. These findings suggest reasons faculty are not uniformly receptive to calls for change and challenge educational developers and advocates of STEM education reform to be explicit about their own understandings of meaningful …

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Cultivating And Sustaining A Faculty Culture Of Data-Driven Teaching And Learning: A Systems Approach, Marsha Lovett, Chad Hershock Apr 2020

Cultivating And Sustaining A Faculty Culture Of Data-Driven Teaching And Learning: A Systems Approach, Marsha Lovett, Chad Hershock

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A prominent goal of colleges and universities today is to enact data-driven teaching and learning. Faculty clearly play a key role, and yet they tend to have limited time, a lack of training in assessment or education research, and few incentives for engaging in this work. We describe a framework designed to address the practical and cultural aspects of these challenges via a cycle of educational development and support: motivate, educate, facilitate, disseminate. We illustrate this systems approach with concrete examples and conclude with lessons learned from our experiences that should translate to a variety of institutional contexts.

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Editor's Note, Lindsay Bernhagen Apr 2020

Editor's Note, Lindsay Bernhagen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Editor's note for To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, volume 39, issue 1 from spring 2020.

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The Diffusion Of Faculty Development: A Faculty Fellows Program, Tracy W. Smith, Sara J. Greenwald, Lillian Y. Nave, Victor N. Mansure, Michael L. Howell Apr 2020

The Diffusion Of Faculty Development: A Faculty Fellows Program, Tracy W. Smith, Sara J. Greenwald, Lillian Y. Nave, Victor N. Mansure, Michael L. Howell

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This critical retrospective review describes the ideation, creation, and implementation of a faculty development fellows program at a regional comprehensive university. The authors share their perspectives as fellows regarding primary considerations for designing the program, including attention to the fellows selection process, required multilevel support, cultivation of communication and relationships, professional development of the fellows, development of unit programming, and lessons learned. Each section of the article concludes with critical questions institutions might consider when conceiving a faculty development fellows program.

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(Cultural) Taxation Without Representation? How Educational Developer Can Broker Discourse On Black Faculty Lives In The #Blacklivesmatter Era, Richard J. Reddick, Beth E. Bukoski, Stella L. Smith Apr 2020

(Cultural) Taxation Without Representation? How Educational Developer Can Broker Discourse On Black Faculty Lives In The #Blacklivesmatter Era, Richard J. Reddick, Beth E. Bukoski, Stella L. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Predominantly White institutions (PWIs) in creative class cities offer contradictory experiences for Black faculty, who engage in invisible additional labor in response to racial aggressions, termed cultural taxation (CT). With an understanding that equity-minded faculty development is an essential space in which to respond to this reality, our study employed a phenomenological focus group design to investigate how Black faculty at a research-intensive PWI located in a creative class city buffeted by racial tensions navigated their service and community experiences. While finding their work meaningful, the participants shared experiences of the multifaceted nature of CT, their stress from teaching about …

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