Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Teacher Collaboration: Implications For New Mathematics Teachers, Laura M. Gellert, Lidia Gonzalez

Publications and Research

One increasingly popular way of supporting new teachers is through the use of mentoring. New teachers are often paired with mentors as one of a number of supports meant to aid new teachers as they begin their career. The various types of mentoring range from school based mentors assigned by the school to specialty mentors, such as math coaches. Examples of other types of supports that are thought of as separate from formal mentoring are lesson studies, professional development schools, professional development workshops supported by local universities, teacher networks and sponsored professional development. Given the popularity of policies promoting support …

Mainstream Teacher Attitudes Toward English Language Learners, Cristina Gonzalez Dekutoski

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to collect and analyze data from practicing mainstream K-12 teachers currently enrolled in graduate courses at a large, urban, Midwest university regarding four categories of their attitudes toward English language learners: (a) inclusion of ELLs, (b) the second language acquisition process/language and language learning, (c) modification of coursework, and (d) ESL professional development. Though studies on teacher attitudes toward ELLs remain sparse, research on this topic is important for two reasons. First, as the rigor of grade level curriculum increases ( i.e. high school graduation requirements, state MEAP testing, NCLB) understanding complexities of ELLs …

Exploring Teacher Attitudes, Experiences, And Beliefs Of The Development And Implementation Of Faculty Data Teams (Tm) In A Midwestern School District, Bradley William Sheppard

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to describe the development and implementation of Data Teams™ in a Midwestern school district and to explore what influenced teachers to become effective team members. It analyzed the product and process of creating Data Teams™ who competently used data to make academic standards work by identifying power standards, analyzing data, setting goals, implementing research-based effective teaching strategies, and assessing student performance and adult behaviors that had a direct impact on student achievement.

Method. A qualitative case study design was used for this investigation as it explored the narratives of 10 elementary teachers on …

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.

Next Generation @ Iupui: A Leadership Development Program For Faculty Of Color, Megan M. Palmer, Julianna V. Banks, Joshua S. Smith, Sherree A. Wilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Next Generation @ IUPUI is an intensive one-year leadership program designed to develop the leadership potential off acuity of color. The program expands the pool off acuity who are ready to assume leadership positions. In addition to addressing higher education administration theories and trends, participants receive individualized coaching and mentoring to develop a broad network of peers.

There Was Something Missing: A Case Study Of A Faculty Member’S Social Intelligence Development, Tamara Rosier

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Some faculty members seem to lack the social intelligence or relational skills needed to successfully “read” and respond to their students. This chapter describes the process of developing social intelligence skills in one faculty member. During a series of ten coaching sessions, there was demonstrable change in the faculty member’s behavior and a self-reported increase in his social intelligence skills. The findings of this exploratory study suggest that social intelligence can be developed, and it has the potential to have a positive effect on teaching practices and faculty success.

About The Authors, Volume 29 (2011)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

About the editors and authors of volume 29 (2011) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Preface, Volume 29 (2011), Judith E. Miller

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Preface to volume 29 (2011) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Judith E. Miller of University of North Florida.

Acknowledgments, Volume 29 (2011)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Acknowledgments for volume 29 (2011) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Judith E. Miller of University of North Florida.

Ethical Guidelines For Educational Developers

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Ethical guidelines for educational developers.

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.

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.

Support Needs Of University Adjunct Lecturers, Sarah M. Ginsberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Little is known about the support needs of the part-time instructors on university campuses, despite the fact that they represent more than 50 percent of the instructors teaching in higher education. This study of adjunct lecturers investigated their support needs and their preferences for receiving support. Results indicated that adjuncts wanted information about their students and effective teaching methods beyond lecturing. They expressed frustration over the fact that there was no systematic approach to information sharing, particularly with the tenure-track faculty in their programs. They evenly favored resources provided either electronically or face-to-face.

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.

Cross-Domain Collaborative Learning And The Transformation Of Faculty Identity, James B. Young

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter addresses how faculty from disparate backgrounds collaborate in interdisciplinary learning communities and how this cross-domain collaboration leads to a tangible change in identity. Faculty enter learning communities playing the more common roles of expert and teacher, but they leave taking on the additional roles of novice, learner, and knowledge integrator. The experience of cross-domain interaction is both rewarding and transformative for faculty as they are well equipped to communicate across the disciplinary landscape and gain a rhetorical awareness that is an invaluable ingredient for learning community participation.

A Coaching-Based Framework For Individual Consultations, Deandra Little, Michael S. Palmer

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational developers committed to promoting effective teaching and learning practices often make the same mistake we advise instructors to avoid: privileging content over process in individual consultations. We describe a process-oriented consultation model based on effective practices from the literature on individual consultations, coaching, learning, and motivation. Using this three-step model, educational developers can systematically create a collaborative environment that is nonjudgmental and nonprescriptive and draws on the client’s capabilities, experiences, aspirations, and resourcefulness.

Professional Conversations: A Reflective Framework For Collaborative Development, Peter Shaw, Bob Cole

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A small team of faculty and faculty developers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies launched a professional development initiative by adapting Edge’s (1992, 2002) framework of cooperative development into a model they labeled the professional conversation. This structured interaction involves a speaker exploring a topic of professional and personal significance through the facilitation of an understander. The details of the model are presented, along with heuristics for practicing the two roles. Assessment data indicate that the struggle to master the model is judged worthwhile for community building, professional development, and, unexpectedly, pedagogical practice.

Intersecting Identities And The Work Of Faculty Development, Cerri A. Banks, Jonathan Luzzini, Susanne M. Pliner

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

On increasingly diverse college campuses, faculty members look to faculty developers for support in facilitating difficult classroom dialogues and in handling challenging interactions around their students’ identities and their own. We propose that faculty developers’ work around issues of diversity, social justice, and inclusive excellence can be enhanced by developing a foundation in the theory of intersectionality, which engages the complexity of identity and the resulting power structures that inform institutions. We discuss this theoretical perspective and provide examples of faculty development initiatives that can be strengthened through the use of an intersectional lens.

The First Day Of Class: How Should Instructors Use Class Time?, Sal Meyers, Brian C. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Students and instructors rated first-day class satisfaction and completed scales assessing the time that instructors spent on introductions, course policies, procedures, and course content. For students, interest on or before the first day, and for faculty, excitement and confidence in students’ abilities, strongly predicted satisfaction on the first day. Student and instructor satisfaction also were positively associated with time devoted to hows and whys, content, and introductions. Findings contradict previous empirical studies of student satisfaction but are consistent with faculty development recommendations.

Student And Faculty Perceptions Of Effects Of Midcourse Evaluation, Whitney Ransom Mcgowan, Russell T. Osguthorpe

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We report on faculty and student perceptions of the effects of midcourse evaluations on teaching improvement and student learning. We provided faculty with a midcourse evaluation tool, surveyed faculty and students, interviewed faculty, observed debriefing sessions, and compared midcourse with end-of-semester ratings. Of 510 mean ratings on individual learning items, 342 (67 percent) mean scores showed improvement from midcourse to the end of the semester. Faculty who read their midcourse feedback, discussed it with their students, and made pedagogical changes saw the most improvement in their ratings.

Evolution Of A Peer Review And Evaluation Program For Online Course Development, Cynthia L. Adams, Dianna Z. Rust, Thomas M. Brinthaupt

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The faculty peer assistants (FPAs) program combines a mentoring and peer review process for initial online faculty course development and subsequent course revision. An FPA mentors colleagues during course design and conducts peer reviews when the courses are complete. The program incorporates a peer review and evaluation form that outlines course standards and guides the faculty course developer, the peer reviewer, and the department chair. Feedback about the program from department chairs, faculty course developers, and FPAs was uniformly positive.

Completing The Faculty Development Cycle: Using Data From Syllabi Review To Inform Action, Phyllis Blumberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Consistent with the mission of the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, the Teaching and Learning Center has emphasized implementation of learner-centered practices for eight years. To assess the impact of these development efforts, I reviewed syllabi and course approval forms of seventy-two recently approved courses. The documents revealed a disappointing lack of evidence of learner-centered course design features. Voluntary faculty development programming cannot force faculty to change their course designs. However, the results prompted discussions with administrators and faculty and yielded calls to action for greater implementation of learner-centered practices.

Social Capital And The Campus Community, Andrew N. Carpenter, Linda Coughlin, Susanne Morgan, Christopher Price

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Investigating colleges’ and universities’ social capital through its five dimensions—civic engagement, norms and trust, collective action, bonding capital, and bridging capital—provides a powerful way of thinking about organizational and faculty development. Four very different institutions of higher learning have promoted their organizational development through efforts that build social capital. We seek to inspire additional application of and research into this topic by demonstrating that confronting the complexities of social capital within diverse campus communities can help faculty developers understand those communities with greater nuance and in ways that improve their ability to design and implement development initiatives.

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.

Using Students To Support Faculty Development, Teresa M. Redd, Carl E. Brown Jr.

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Howard University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CETLA) provides faculty development for more than fifteen hundred facuity. Yet it is CETLA’s students who make the difference. They are both the motivation for improving teaching and the means to that end. Students have contributed to everything from the design of CETLA’s infrastructure, to the implementation of instructional technologies, to the assessment of student learning. Meanwhile, supporting faculty development has contributed to the students’ own development. A cost-benefit analysis as well as survey data confirms that working with students at CETLA is a win-win opportunity for the university, faculty, …

The Ta Consultant Program: Improving Undergraduate Instruction And Graduate Student Professional Development, Mikaela Huntzinger, Paul Mcpherron, Madhumitha Rajagopal

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Graduate students, particularly at research-oriented universities, are well prepared for future research careers, but they often lack knowledge or training in other aspects of academic life. A teaching assistant consultant program was created to improve the professional development opportunities for campus teaching assistants and provide a community of practice in which graduate students pursue teaching interests, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and service. We offer recommendations for creating similar programs and conclude by recommending the development of communities of practice to create opportunities for graduate students to improve their teaching skills.

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.

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.

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.

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.