To Improve the Academy
1982 – 2011
Vol. 1, 1982 — Editors — Sandra Cheldelin Inglis and Stephen Scholl
Section I. People and Priorities: Reflections on Our work
L. Buhl, Empowerment in Academic Cultures: Whose Responsibility Is It?
R. E. Rice, Dreams and Actualities: Danforth Fellows in Mid-Career
M. Fisher, The Unaccepted Challenge: Faculty Development for Women
Section II. Intellectual Journeys in Faculty Development
R. J. Menges, The Scholar-Practitioner Dilemma
R. A. Smith, A Mathematician’s Journey: From Applying the Pure to Purifying the Applied
R. E. Young, Tanning My Hide with Research
R. Weathersby, On Doing Intellectual Work: Grasping the Power of the Gestalt
J. D. W. Andrews, The Creativity of Being Marginal: A Style of Generating Research in Education
M. Piechowski, The Path of Passionate Inquiry: A Comment on Smith, Young, Weathersby and Andrews
Section III. Evaluating Practices to Improve Teaching
R. J. Menges & J. Wilson, Undergraduate Reactions to Teaching Assistants
R. M. Diamond & R. R. Sudweeks, A Comprehensive Evaluation of a College Course
M.D. Sorcinelli, Effect of a Teaching Consultation Process Upon Personal Development in Faculty
Section IV. Tools for Training and Development
B. L. Erickson & G. R. Erickson, Knowing, Understanding, and Other Forms of Learning
D. L. Finkel & G. S. Monk, The Design of Intellectual Experience
P. Frederick, The Dreaded Discussion–Ten Ways to Start
J. D. Milojkovic, Teaching with Charisma
P. Frederick, The “First Day” Workshop
M. Fisher & W. Anderson, A Second Look at Faculty Development and the Second Sex
L. Fisch, Overview of Trigger Film Strategies
M. Estabrook, The Classroom Information Manual: A Guide to the Teaching Environment
D. E. Simpson, K. A. Dalgaard & C. A. Parker, Instructional Improvement Through Individual Consultation
Vol. 2, 1983 — Editors — Michael Davis, Michele Fisher, Sandra Cheldelin Inglis, Stephen Scholl
I. Approaches to Teaching
L. Fisch, Coaching Mathematics and Other Academic Sports
R. K. Snortland, An Individualized Teaching Approach: “Audio-Tutorial”
M. Estabrook & D. L. Wick, On Improving Testing: A Student Evaluation Study
II. Promoting Adaptability in Higher Education
B. C. Mathis, Faculty Development in a Decade of Transition
L. L. Mortensen, Career Stages: Implications for Faculty Instructional Development
R. Smith, A Theory of Action Perspective on Faculty Development
S. W. Whitcomb & D. B. Whitcomb, Equity and Collaboration: The Move from Women’s Issues Toward Gender Issues in Higher Education
III. Faculty Development and Institutional Planning
R. E. Rice, Linking Faculty Development and Academic Planning
F. H. Gaige, Long-Range Planning and Faculty Development
C. A. Paul, The Relationship of Institutional Planning and Institutional Research to Faculty Development
L. T. Oggel & E. L. Simpson, Personal Consultation and Contractual Planning in Stimulating Faculty Growth: The Faculty Development Program at Northern Illinois University
S. R. Hruska, Improving Academic Departments
D. B. Whitcomb & S. W. Whitcomb, Intervention: Moving University Units Toward Organizational Effectiveness
IV. Heads Open, Hands On!
J. Davis & R. Young, Making Workshops Work
J. Buckwald & S. Scholl, Recognizing and Using Cognitive Learning Styles: An Exercise
B. M. Florini, Computer Literacy: Teach Yourself
N. Nowik, Workshop on Course Design and Teaching Styles: A Model for Faculty Development
Vol. 3, 1984 — Editors – Lance C. Buhl, Laura A. Wilson
I. The Keynote Address to the 1983 POD Annual Conference
R. E. Rice, Being Professional Academically
II. Renewing Centers for Professional Development
C. K. Knapper, Staff Development in a Climate of Retrenchment
L. Wilkerson, Starting a Faculty Development Program: Strategies and Approaches
R. M. Diamond, Instructional Support Centers and the Art of Surviving: Some Practical Suggestions
D. N. Osterman, Motivating Faculty to Pursue Excellence in Teaching
III. Professional Development Interventions
A. O. Roberts, J. H. Clarke & D. Holmes, The Development of Faculty as Teachers: A Multifaceted Approach to Change
D. W. Wheeler & L. L. Mortensen, Career and Instructional Consulting with Higher Education Faculty
H. B. Slotnick, The Study Group: Faculty Helping Themselves to Improve Their Instructional Abilities
L. D. Fink, Year-Long Faculty Discussion Groups: A Solution to Several Instructional Development Problems
R. Lee & M. Field, Hidden Opportunities for Faculty Development and Curricular Change
C. D. Kaylor, Jr. & J. W. Smith, Faculty Development as an Organizational Process
IV. Using Evaluation for the Improvement of Teaching
L. D. Fink, The Evaluation of College Teaching
R. D. Tiberius, Individualized Consulting to Improve Teaching
J. T. Povlacs, Reading Students’ Written Comments on Evaluations of Teaching
V. Student Development: Intellectual Growth and Writing
J. Kurfiss, Developmental Perspectives on Writing and Intellectual Growth in College
C. C. Burnham, Cognitive Growth Through Expressive Writing: All That Jazz
J. N. Hays, Stages in the Development of Analytic/Argumentative Writing Abilities During the College Years
L. Barry, Writing for Learning: The Student/Content Connection
Vol. 4, 1985 — Editors — Julie Roy Jeffrey, Glenn R. Erickson
I. What We Can Learn from Other Cultures
S. & D. Whitcomb, The Kahuna as Professional and Organizational Development Specialists
L. Ainsworth & E. Rau, Institutional Development: Impressions from Abroad
P. Seldin, Applying Japanese Management Techniques to American Higher Education
G. C. Helling & B. B. Helling, It’s the Institution That Teaches
II. The Diversity of Faculty Development
M. D. Sorcinelli, Faculty Careers: Satisfactions and Discontents
R. A. Smith & F. S. Schwartz, A Theory of Effectiveness: Faculty Development Case Studies
D. Morrison, The Instructional Skills Workshop Program: An Inter-Institutional Approach
L. L. Mortensen & W. D. Moreland, Critical Thinking in a Freshman Introductory Course: A Case Study
D. L. Wright, Improving Classroom Climate for Women: The Faculty Developer’s Role
C. A. Paul, Buyouts and a Career Transition Program as a Response to Retrenchment
III. Looking at Teaching and Learning in a Direct and Uncomplicated Fashion
L. Wilkerson, Learning in a Clinical Setting
M. D. Svinicki, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”: Uncovering Some Assumptions About Learners and Lectures
R. G. Pierleoni, Academic Counseling Techniques
B. L. Erickson, Teaching Students to Think: A Workshop Design
W. Holmes, Small Groups in Large Classes
C. B. Peters, Silk Purses
Y. Ramstad, Group Problem-Solving Exercises: An Application in Economics
L. Cuddy, One Sentence is Worth a Thousand: A Strategy for Improving Reading, Writing and Thinking Skills
J. L. Fasching & B. L. Erickson, Techniques for Teaching Scientific Reasoning and Problem Solving
Vol. 5, 1986 — Editors — Marilla Svinicki (coordinating ed.), Joanne Kurfiss, POD, Jackie Stone, NCSPOD
I. Reflections
W. H. Bergquist, Reflections of a Practitioner: Ten Years of Professional and Organization Development
S. R. Hruska, Social Commitment: A Vision for Higher Education
II. Conceptualizations
J. L. Turner & R. Boice, Coping with Resistance to Faculty Development
D. H. Wulff & J. D. Nyquist, Using Qualitative Methods to Generate Data for Instructional Development
A. Farquharson, Peripheral Programming: An Approach to Faculty Development
N. V. N. Chism & D. P. Sanders, The Place of Practice-Centered Inquiry in a Faculty Development Program
III. Practice
J. D. Nyquist, CIDR: A Small Service Firm Within a Research University
S. W. Whitcomb, When Funds Won’t Stretch: Faculty and Organizational Development Projects for Miniscule Budgets
D. Hustuft, Getting Development Underway Through Faculty Involvement
L. T. McGill & J. M. Shaeffer, Using Interviews in Development Programs for Beginning Teachers
A. F. Lucas, Academic Department Chair Training: The Why and How of It
E. Sarkisian, Learning to Teach in an American Classroom: Narrowing the Culture and Communication Gap for Foreign Teaching Assistants
R. G. Tiberius & R. J. M. Gold, Genetics in Jeopardy: The Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Disease in an Undergraduate Medical Course — A Case Report
D. L. Wright, Teaching the Introductory-Level Course: A Special Challenge
L. Fisch, How to Prevent Students
R. L. Flagler, J. E. Hamlin & A. Z. Russell, Instructional Developers and Instructors as Collaborators in the Oral Presentation Assignment
IV. Research
M. D. Sorcinelli, Tracing Academic Career Paths: Implications for Faculty Development
G. Erickson, A Survey of Faculty Development Practices
Vol. 6, 1987 — Editors — Joanne Kurfiss, Linda Hilsen, Lynn Mortensen, Emily Wadsworth
I. Research — Toward a Research Agenda on Classroom Teaching
K. P. Cross, The Need for Classroom Research
II. Reflections — Career Development Patterns and Needs of Faculty
M. P. Mann, Developmental Models of Faculty Careers: A Critique of Research and Theory
S. P. Barber, Faculty Development Needs as a Function of Status in the Academic Guild
J. L. Turner & R. Boice, Starting at the Beginning: The Concerns and Needs of New Faculty
S. Supapidhayakul & E. L. Simpson, Patterns of Successful Faculty Career Change: A Study of Career Transition Within the University
III. Conceptualizations — Models for Program Planning
J. Bailiff & S. Kahn, The University and the Rediscovery of Teaching: A System-Level Model
R. J. Menges, Colleagues as Catalysts for Change in Teaching
E. A. McDaniel, Faculty Collaboration for Better Teaching: Adult Learning Principles Applied to Teaching Improvement
R. Boice & J. L. Turner, Faculty Developers as Facilitators of Scholarly Writing
L. Hilsen, E. Wadsworth & J. Cohen, A Marketing Approach to Conducting Successful Workshop-Based Programs for Faculty
A. Ferren & K. Mussell, Strengthening Faculty Development Programs Through Evaluation
IV. Practice — Improving Teaching and Learning
K. Conner & H. G. Lang, Teaching the Hearing-Impaired College Student: Current Practices in Faculty Development
R. M. Smith & C. L. Ainsworth, It’s Working: A Training Program for Foreign Teaching Assistants
J. D. Nyquist & A. Q. Staton-Spicer, Non-Traditional Intervention Strategies for Improving the Teaching Effectiveness of Graduate Teaching Assistants
C. B. Peters, Rescue the Perishing: A New Approach to Supplemental Instruction
Vol. 7, 1988 — Editor — Joanne Gainen Kurfiss
Assoc. Editors — Linda Hilsen, Susan Kahn, Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Richard G. Tiberius
I. Classroom Research
K. Brooks, Project Learn: Encouraging Innovation and Professional Growth Through Classroom Research
B. L. Erickson & G. R. Erickson, Notes on a Classroom Research Program
The URI Projects:
- W. Holmes, Art Essays and Computer Letters
- J. E. Knott, Alternatives for Evaluating the Death Education Student
- J. Stevenson, Evaluating Structured Group Activities for the Large Class
- B. E. Brittingham, Undergraduate Students’ Use of Time: A Classroom Investigation
- J. Matoney, Weekly Quizzes and Examination Performance in Intermediate Accounting
- B. Lord, Student Styles and Learning in Two College of Business Courses
- R. Smith & F. Schwartz, Improving Teaching by Reflecting on Practice
II. Fostering Student Inquiry
D. H. Wulff & J. D. Nyquist, Using Field Methods as an Instructional Tool
S. L. Brodie, Topics in Question: Active Learning through Inquiry
III. Academic Life: Realities and Possibilities
J. Hageseth & S. Atkins, Assessing Faculty Quality of Life
M. D. Sorcinelli, Satisfactions and Concerns of New University Teachers
R. Boice, Helping Faculty Meet New Pressures for Scholarly Writing
R. Thompson, J. Turner, & R. Boice, On Being a Faculty Member Or Things Your Dissertation Adviser Never Told You
B. L. Smith, The Washington Center: A Grass Roots Approach to Faculty Development and Curricular Reform
IV. Emerging Contexts for Development
N. Chism, Collaborating with Departmental TA Coordinators: The Next Step?
M. Wilhite & A. Leininger, Practices Used by Excellent Department Chairs to Enhance the Growth and Development of Faculty
L. Ainsworth, Developing Management Skills of Academic Professionals
Vol. 8, 1989 — Editor — Susan Kahn
Assoc. Editors — Robert Boice, Laura Border, Linda Hilsen, Alton Roberts, Mary Deane Sorcinelli
I. Faculty Development: Where It Is; Where It’s Going
R. J. Rodrigues, Playing God in Academe
J. B. Cuseo, Faculty Development: The Why and How of It
T. A. Angelo, Faculty Development For Learning: The Promise of Classroom Research
II. Building Successful Faculty Development Programs
M. Wunsch, The Words Made Fresh: Transforming the Language and the Context of Faculty Development
H. G. Lang & J. J. DeCaro, Support from the Administration: A Case Study in the Implementation of a Grassroots Faculty Development Program
R. J. Menges and M. Svinicki, Designing Program Evaluations: A Circular Model
III. Issues and Approaches in Faculty and Instructional Development
A. S. Ferren, Faculty Development Can Change the Culture of a College
R. Boice & J. L. Turner, The FIPSE-CSULB Mentoring Project for New Faculty
D. Taylor-Way & K. T. Brinko, Using Video Recall for Improving Professional Competency in Instructional Consultation
J. Eison, W. L. Humphreys, & W. M. Welty, Promoting Critical Thinking Among Faculty About Grades
J. M. Shaeffer, L. T. McGill & R. J. Menges, Graduate Teaching Assistants’ Views on Teaching
R. A. Lucas, Summer Research Appointments at Federal Research Laboratories
IV. Improving Teaching and Learning
W. M. Welty, Discussion Method Teaching: A Practical Guide W. M. Welty
M. T. Brown, Feminist Pedagogy and Education in Values
M. N. Browne, N. K. Kubasek, & J. A. Harris, The Challenge to Critical Thinking Posed by Gender-Related and Learning Styles Research
B. J. Millis, Helping to Make Connections: Emphasizing the Role of the Syllabus
Vol. 9, 1990 — Editor — Linda Hilsen
Assoc. Editors — Robert Boice, Nancy Diamond, Lion Gardiner, Diane E. Morrison, Mary Deane Sorcinelli
I. Teaching and Research: Coming into Balance
R. Boice, The Hard-Easy Rule and Faculty Development
M. P. Mann, Integrating Teaching and Research: A Multidimensional Career Model
II. Teaching: Making It Even Better
L. Fisch, Strategic Teaching: The Possible Dream
B. J. Millis, Helping Faculty Build Learning Communities Through Cooperative Groups
P. Mangiameli, S. Narasimhan, & G. Erickson, Strategies for Monitoring and Improving Seminars: An Application in a Course on Managing Computer Integrated Manufacturing
III. Faculty Development: Seeing and Envisioning Ourselves
J. Kurfiss & R. Boice, Current and Desired Faculty Development Practices Among POD Members
S. S. Atkins, J. A. Hageseth, & E. L. Arnold, The Faculty Developer as Witchdoctor: Envisioning and Creating the Future
V. van der Bogert, K. T. Brinko, S. S. Atkins, & E. L. Arnold, Transformational Faculty Development: Integrating the Feminine and the Masculine
IV. Faculty Development: Modeling Effective Practice
M. D. Sorcinelli & K. H. Price, State-wide Faculty Development Conference Promotes Vitality
M. S. Wilhite, Department Heads as Faculty Developers: Six Case Studies
S. A. Ambrose, Faculty Development Through Faculty Luncheon Seminars: A Case Study of Carnegie Mellon University
R. A. Lucas & M. K. Harrington, Workshops on Writing Blocks Increase Proposal Activity
J. P. Doyle, The Freshman Seminar and Faculty Development
V. Diversity: Addressing the “…isms” of the ’90s
B. Flannery & M. Vanterpool, A Model for Infusing Cultural Diversity Concepts Across the Curriculum
J. Collett, Reaching African-American Students in the Classroom
VI. Faculty: Looking at the Spectrum
R. Edgerton, Excerpted from “The Making of a Professor”: The Teaching Initiative
R. M. Diamond & F. P. Wilbur, Developing Teaching Skills During Graduate Education
R. A. Armour, B. S. Fuhrmann, & J. F. Wergin, Senior Faculty Career Attitudes: Implications for Faculty Development
A. L. Crawley, Meeting the Challenge of an Aging Professorate: An Opportunity for Leadership
Vol. 10, 1991 — Editor — Kenneth J. Zahorski
Assoc. Editors — Howard B. Altman, Nancy A. Diamond, Lion F. Gardiner, Diane Morrison, Deborah Du Nann Winter, Donald H. Wulff
I. Faculty Development: Past, Present, Future
Wilbert J. McKeachie, What Theories Underlie the Practice of Faculty Development?
Joan North, Faculty Vitality: 1990 and Beyond
G. Roger Sell & Nancy V. Chism, Finding the right Match: Staffing Faculty Development Centers
II. A Primer for Faculty Development Professionals
R. F. Lewis, How Attitudes Change: A Primer for Faculty Developers
R. Lee & M. Field, University Faculty Attitudes Towards Teaching and Research
C. A. Stanley & N. V. Chism, Selected Characteristics of New Faculty: Implications for Faculty Development
V. van der Bogert, Starting Out: Experiences of New Faculty at a Teaching University
M. Nemki & R. D. Simpson, Nine Keys to Enhancing Campus Wide Influence of Faculty Development Centers
D. R. Rice, What Every Faculty Development Professional Needs to Know about Higher Education
M. Nemko, Outside Consultants: When, Who, and How to Use Them
III. Promoting Diversity: Gender and Multicultural Issues in Academe
D. Du Nann Winder, The Feminization of Academe
D. Olsen, Gender and Racial Differences among a Research University Faculty: Recommendations for Promoting Diversity
M. A. Wunsch & V. Chattergy, Managing Diversity Through Faculty Development
R. M. Smith, P. Byrd, J. Constantinides, & R. P. Barrett, Instructional Development Programs for International TAs: A Systems Analysis Approach
IV. Meeting the Challenge of the Adult Learner
D. Morrison, The Place of Narrative in the Study and Practice of Adult Development
D. L. Robertson, Adult Students as Catalysts to Faculty Development: Effective Approaches to Predictable Opportunities
V. Enhancing Teaching-Learning and Classroom Climate
P. J. Frederick, The Medicine Wheel: Emotions and Connections in the Classroom
B. J. Millis, Putting the Teaching Portfolio in Context
D. L. Wright, Recognition from Parents: A Variation on Traditional Teaching Awards
E. Fenton, Coping with the Academic “Tragedy of the Commons”: Renovating Classrooms at Carnegie Mellon University
L. Hilsen & L. Rutherford, Front Line Faculty Development: Chairs Constructively Critiquing Colleagues in the Classroom
M. J. Smith & M. LaCelle-Peterson, The Professor as Active Learner: Lessons from the New Jersey Master Faculty Program
Vol. 11, 1992 — Editors — Donald H. Wulff & Jody D. Nyquist
Assoc. Editors — Howard B. Altman, Nancy Chism, Nancy A. Diamond, Diane Morrison, Alton Roberts, Deborah Du Nann Winter
I. The Context for Faculty, Instructional, and Organizational Development
W. Bondeson, Faculty Development and the New American Scholar
M. Weimer, Improving Higher Education: Issues and Perspectives on Teaching and Learning
S. S. Atkins & M. Svinicki, Faculty Development in Out-of-the-Way Places
D. Olsen, Interviews with Exiting Faculty: Why Do They Leave?
E. L. Simpson, Gender Differences in Faculty Perceptions of Factors that Enhance and Inhibit Academic Career Growth
C. Stanley & T. D. Lumpkins, Instructional Needs of Part-Time Faculty: Implications for Faculty Development
D. G. Way, What Tenure Files Can Reveal to us About Evaluation of Teaching Practices: Implications for Instructional/Faculty Developers
S. Wright & A. Hendershott, Using Focus Groups to Obtain Students’ Perceptions of General Education
II. Strategies for Enhancing Teaching and Learning
L. K. Michaelsen, Team Learning: A Comprehensive Approach for Harnessing the Power of Small Groups in Higher Education
A. S. Knoedler & M. Shea, Conducting Effective Discussions in the Diverse Classroom
N. D. Fleming & C. Mills, Not Another Inventory: Rather a Catalyst for Reflection
III. Strategies for Enhancing Faculty/Instructional Development
E. F. Fideler & M. D. Sorcinelli, Hard Times Signal Challenges for Faculty Developers
M. J. Smith, S. Golin & E. Friedman, Cosmopolitan Communities for Faculty Developers
M. A. Wunsch & L. K. Johnsrud, Breaking Barriers: Mentoring Junior Faculty Women for Professional Development and Retention
B. J. Millis, Conducting Effective Peer Classroom Observations
L. Gappa, Effective Programming for TA Development
K. T. Brinko, R. G. Tiberius, S. S. Atkins, & J. A. Greene, Reflections on Teaching Courses in Faculty Development: Three Case Studies
E. C. Wadsworth, Inclusive Teaching: A Workshop on Cultural Diversity
M. B. Paulsen, Building Motivation and Cognition Research Into Workshops on Lecturing
L. Wilkerson & J. Boehrer, Using Cases About Teaching for Faculty Development
IV. Teaching Cases for Use in Faculty/Instructional Development
R. Silverman & W. M. Welty, The Case of Edwinna Armstrong
M. Svinicki, Just Tell Us What You Want
E. C. Wadsworth, The Case of the Missed Exam
E. F. Fideler & D. Yameen, See You on Wednesday!
L. Wilkerson, How Can I Be Heard?
N. Brockunier, A. G. Heffner, & B. J. Millis, Bill Jasper’s First Night
K. J. Zahorski, The Return of Bill Jasper
Vol. 12, 1993 — Editors — Delivee L. Wright & Joyce Povlacs Lunde
I. Working with Faculty Communities
J. A Lamber, T. Ardizzone, T. Dworkin, S. Guskin, D. Olsen, P. Parnell & D. Thelen, A “Community of Scholars”: Conversations Among Mid-Career Faculty at a Public Research University
G. Drops, Integrating Part-Time Faculty into the Academic Community
J. Eison & M. Vanderford, Enhancing GTA Training in Academic Departments: Some Self-Assessment Guidelines
M. A. Kerwin & J. Rhoads, The Teaching Consultants’ Workshop
II. Communities and Voices: How to Practice Inclusive Behavior
J. E. Cooper & V. Chattergy, Developing Faculty Multicultural Awareness: An Examination of Life Roles and Their Cultural Components
A. S. Ferren & W. W. Geller, Faculty Development’s Role in Promoting an Inclusive Community: Addressing Sexual Orientation
III. Teachers and Students in the Classroom
S. Kahn, Better Teaching Through Better Evaluation: A Guide for Faculty and Institutions
L. K. Michaelsen, C. F. Jones, & W. E. Watson, Beyond Groups and Cooperation: Building High Performance Teams
B. J. Millis, Creating a “TQM” Classroom through Cooperative Learning
IV. Addressing Change in Progams of Faculty Development
L. Evans & S. Chauvin, Faculty Developers as Change Facilitators: The Concerns-Based Adoption Model
T. A. Vigil, G. Price, U. Shama & K. N. Stonely, Helping Faculty Integrate Technology in Research and Teaching: CART at Bridgewater State College
R. Shackelford, Teaching the Technology of Teaching: A Faculty Development Program for New Faculty
G. Gordon, New Trends in Assuring and Assessing the Quality of Educational Provision in British Universities
S. Hellyer & E. Boschmann, Faculty Development Programs: A Perspective
V. The Roles Faculty Developers Play
K. Zahorski, Taking the Lead: Faculty Development as Institutional Change Agent
M. Bowman, The New Faculty Developer and the Challenge of Change
E. Porter, K. Lewis, E. W. Kristensen, C. A. Stanley & C. A. Weiss, Applying for a Faculty Development Position: What Can Our Colleagues Tell Us?
M. A. Wunsch, From Faculty Developer to Faculty Development Director: Shifting Perspectives and Strategies
Vol. 13, 1994 — Editor — Emily C. (Rusty) Wadsworth
Assoc. Editors –Beverly Black, Linda Hilsen, Mary Pat Mann, Diane Nyhammer, Charles Spuches
I. Teaching Improvement Practices and Programs
W. A. Wright & M. C. O’Neill, Teaching Improvement Practices: New Perspectives
J. R. Davis, Deepening and Broadening the Dialogue About Teaching
A. Gandolfo, Assessment and Values: A New Religion?
N. D. Aitken & M. D. Sorcinelli, Academic Leaders and Faculty Developers: Creating an Institutional Climate That Values Teaching
M. D. Cox, Reclaiming Teaching Excellence: Miami University’s Teaching Scholars Program
D. Lynn Sorenson, Valuing the Student Voice: Student Observer/Consultant Programs
D. Hoffman, Metaphors of Teaching: Uncovering Hidden Instructional Values
S. E. Sugar & C. A. Willet, The Game of Academic Ethics: The Partnering of a Board Game
II. Including the “Other”: Transforming Knowledge and Teaching
J. A. Afolayan, The Implications of Cultural Diversity in American Schools
J. E. Butler, A Report Card for Diversity
S. M. Aubrey & D. K. Scott, Knowledge Into Wisdom: Incorporating Values and Beliefs to Construct a Wise University
J. Mintz, Challenging Values: Conflict, Contradiction, and Pedagogy
K. McGinnis & K. Maeckelbergh, Do You See What I See?
T. Knowles, C. Medearis, & A. Snell, Putting Empowerment to Work in the Classroom
M. Johnston, Increasing Sensitivity to Diversity: Empowering Students
L. Hilsen & D. Petersen-Perlman, Leveling the Playing Field
III. Listening to Each Other
D. Olsen & A. B. Simmons, Faculty Perceptions of Undergraduate Teaching
H. Rallis, Creating Teaching and Learning Partnerships with Students: Helping Faculty Listen to Student Voices
R. C. Rodabaugh, College Students’ Perceptions of Unfairness in the Classroom
IV. Classroom Practices for Teaching Improvement
P. G. Cottell & B. J. Millis, Complex Cooperative Learning Structures for College and University Courses
B. J. Millis, Conducting Cooperative Cases
R. J. Nichols, B. T. Amick, & M. Healy, The Value of Classroom Humor V. POD Values: Reflections from the 1993 Conference
W. Berquist, Unconscious Values Within Four Academic Cultures
K. McGrory, An Outsider’s View of POD Values and of POD’s Value to the Academy
Vol. 14, 1995 Editor: Ed Neal
Reviewers: Shirley Adams, Cheryl Amundsen, James Browne, Phillip G. Cottell, Arthur Crawley, Deborah DeZure, Nancy A. Diamond, Madelyn Healy, Erin Porter, Rita Rodabaugh, Chuck Spuches, Christine A. Stanley, Emily C. (Rusty) Wadsworth, Dina Wills
Section I: Reconceptualizing the Practice of Faculty Development
Ronald A. Smith, Reflecting Critically on Our Efforts to Improve Teaching and Learning
Ben Ward
Improving Teaching Across the Academy: Gleanings from Research
The field of faculty development is at least thirty years old, and although we have learned many things about improving teaching skills during that time, we have not developed many definitive answers to the larger questions of our craft; e.g., how do we raise the status and quality of teaching across an entire institution? This article surveys the research literature to ascertain what we do know about these questions, with the hope that it will stimulate a dialogue among faculty developers that will yield a fuller understanding of these broad issues.
Donna Qualters
A Quantum Leap in Faculty Development: Beyond Reflective Practice
Quantum theory has introduced a new perspective of looking at reality. This article reviews current theories of reflective practice, discussion, and transformative learning as they apply to faculty development and explores dialogue and quantum theory as the next step in faculty information.
Margaret M. Morgan, Patricia H. Phelps, & Joan E. Pritchard
Credibility: The Crux of Faculty Development
Credibility, the quality through which leaders earn the trust and confidence of their constituents, underlies effective faculty development. Drawing upon the work of Kouzes and Posner (1993), this paper examines six practices, or disciplines, by which faculty developers can increase their credibility.
Arthur L. Crawley
Faculty Development Progams at Research Universities: Implications for Senior Faculty Renewal
This article examines the research findings from that portion of the National Survey on Senior Faculty Renewal which pertains to the faculty development programs available to senior faculty at research universities in support of their career development and renewal. Survey respondents were coordinators and directors of faculty development programs and selected academic affairs administrators with faculty development responsibilities at their respective institutions. In general, the findings reveal a high level of support for the traditional approaches to faculty development for senior faculty in the context of their teaching and research. However, the findings suggest that faculty development approaches that are targeted to enhance senior faculty careers by either expanding employment options or by creating new roles and responsibilities are more limited. Additional findings concern the availability of post-retirement options, opportunities for collaborative work, and incentives to encourage excellence in teaching, research, and service.
Lynda J. Emery
Teaching Improvement: Disciplinary Differences in Faculty Opinions
Improving teaching and learning at universities where faculty are rewarded primarily for research and scholarly activity is difficult. Faculty opinions about participating in teaching improvement activities at a research university were surveyed. This article presents survey results by college. Faculty opinions about incentives for participating in teaching improvement activities, promotion and tenure criteria, faculty development interests and outcomes for participating are included. Implications for faculty development are discussed.
Section II: Faculty Collaboration and Collegiality Kate Kinsella, Peers Coaching Teaching: Colleagues Supporting Professional Growth Across the Disciplines
Roy Killen
Improving Teaching Through Reflective Partnerships
The purpose of this paper is to explain how both experienced and inexperienced faculty can improve their teaching and their students’ learning through a systematic process of reflecting on their day-to-day teaching by collaborating with a “reflective partner.” The suggestions are based on the author’s experiences as a teaching, teacher educator and faculty developer, and on the belief that good teachers are those who help students to learn and to achieve their full potential as individuals. The reflective teaching techniques in this paper have a strong focus on the technical aspects of teaching. However, the techniques also provide faculty with opportunities to reflect on broader issues such as the beliefs that guide their teaching practices. By following the suggestions in this paper, faculty can identify their teaching strengths and limitations, develop the confidence to experiment with the new teaching strategies to overcome these limitations, and gain a better understanding of all aspects of their teaching.
Richard J. Nichols & Beverley T. Amick
The Case for Instructional Mentoring
James K. Wangberg, Jane V. Nelson, & Thomas G. Dunn
A Special Colloquium on Teaching Excellence to Foster Collegiality and Enhance Teaching at a Research University
Section III: The Changing Student Constituency
Deborah Jefferson & Susan Peverly
Faculty Development and Changing Environments of the Urban Campus
Robert R. Dove
Academic Syndromes Revisited
Matthew L. Ouellett & Mary Deane Sorcinelli
Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom: A Faculty and TA Partnership Program
Section IV: New Practices
James M. Hassett, Charles M. Spuches, & Sarah P. Webster
Using Electronic Mail for Teaching and Learning
Robert W. Lewis
Exploring Student Ratings Through Computer Analysis: A Method to Assist Instructional Development
S. Kay A. Thornhill & Mellisa Wafer
Improving Students’ Critical Thinking Outcomes: A Process-Learning Strategy in Eight Steps
Afterword: The 1994 POD Conference
Jon Travis, Lisa Cohen, Dan Hursh, & Barbara Lounsberry
Family Portrait: Impressions of a Nurturing Organization
Vol. 15, 1996 Editor: Laurie Richlin
Reviewers: Marva Barnett, Joseph Brocato, Michele Chase, Will Davis, Rita Rodabaugh, Ben Ward, Cheryl Amundsen, James Browne, Philip G. Cottell, Art Crawley, Madelyn M. Healy, Chuck Spuches
Section I: Instructional Development Stephen Brookfield, Through the Lens of Learning: How Experiencing Difficult Learning Challenges and Changes Assumptions about Teaching
Stephen Brookfield
Through the Lens of Learning: How Experiencing Difficult Learning Challenges and Changes Assumptions About Teaching
The author challenges faculty to cast themselves in the role of learners for tasks or subjects which, unlike their areas of expertise, do NOT come easily to them. The purpose is to better understand what it is to experience the struggle shared by many students to grasp new material. The author recounts his own efforts to master a daunting new skill and the many lessons he learned about teaching and learning in the process.
Ernest T. Pascarella
On Student Development in College: Evidence From the National Study of Student Learning
This paper summarizes some of the major findings of the National Study of Student Learning, a longitudinal investigation of the factors influencing student intellectual development at 23 diverse colleges and universities in 16 states. Findings from the following analyses are presented: effects of perceived teacher behaviors on general cognitive skills of two- and four-year colleges; cognitive effects of historically Black and predominantly White colleges; and cognitive effects of Greek affiliation.
Larry K. Michaelsen, L. Dee Fink, & Robert H. Black
What Every Faculty Developer Needs to Know About Learning Groups
This article advances two related propositions. One is that virtually all of the commonly reported “problems” with learning groups, such as less content coverage, free-riders, and students’ feeling that instructors are not teaching unless they are talking, are a natural consequence of the way the groups are being used. The other is that the vast majority of the problems can be prevented by avoiding group assignments that retard the development of effective learning teams and limit student learning. This article will a) examine the underlying causes of the most commonly reported problems with learning groups, b) outline some simple, but effective, strategies for preventing their occurrence in the first place and, c) describe a new tool, the Learning Activity Impact Grid (LAI-Grid), that can be used to ensure that assignments promote both team development and learning.
Karin L. Sandell, Robert K. Stewart, & Candace K. Stewart
Computer-mediated Communication in the Classroom: Models for Enhancing Student Learning
The introduction of computer-mediated communication into the college classroom has been a subject of concern to faculty interested both in exploring means of enhancing communication with their students and in facilitating students’ learning about the technological revolution occurring in the business and professional worlds. The tools available to faculty include electronic mail (e-mail), bulletin boards, electronic conferencing, and electronic searching (surfing) for information, via the Internet. This paper reviews the findings from different measures taken during a campus-wide project to test computer-mediated communication, in order to provide some suggestions about ways of enhancing the teaching-learning connection through classroom projects utilizing e-mail and the Internet.
Harold B. White, III
Dan Tries Problem-Based Learning: A Case Study
Problem-based learning approaches to education often generate justifiable enthusiasm among faculty who have become frustrated with the limitations of traditional lecture-based education. However, faculty contemplating a change to a problem-based format rarely anticipate the many practical difficulties that can destroy one’s enthusiasm and create chaos in the classroom. This case study, about the trials and tribulations of a fictional anthropology professor, attempts to alert faculty who are interested in trying the method to some of the unexpected challenges they might encounter.
Section II: Faculty Development
Jon E. Travis, Dan Hursh, Gentry Lankewicz, & Li Tang
Monitoring the Pulse of the Faculty: Needs Assessment in Faculty Development Programs
Although needs assessment is a common and necessary element of faculty development programs, the process never seems to be as easy or as effective as we might like it to be. Sadly, the literature is relatively weak in this all-important area of responsibility. Such a problem, no doubt, is due in part to the individual environment of each institution. Based on a presentation at the 1995 POD Conference, this article reviews a number of institutional approaches to gathering data from faculty, which may suggest some options for the reader.
Nancy Van Note Chism and Barbala Szabo
Who Uses Faculty Development Services?
Information about who uses faculty development services exists more in the oral tradition than in the literature. This study sought to explore the question systematically, based on a review of the literature and the conducting of a descriptive survey of faculty development programs. The findings of the study show that most programs collect information on their users, that this information is usually not shared publicly, and that aggregate usage is broad-based, rather than concentrated within particular types of faculty. These findings contradict some popular claims and support others. Recommendations suggest that information be collected systematically and that claims about users be based on data.
Ronald A. Smith & George L. Geis
Professors as Clients for Instructional Development
Although there is a large amount of activity and a sizeable literature in the area of instructional development, there has been relatively little research on faculty members, the clientele for improvement efforts. This paper highlights some characteristics of professors that are relevant to improvement activities. Professors are interested in, value, and work on their teaching; they think they teach rather well. However, they demonstrate a lack of sophistication in talking about teaching and the development of instruction. They focus primarily upon content rather than design or methodology. Teachers’ views of what should be done to enhance instruction are discussed and contrasted with those of faculty developers. One conclusion is that faculty developers and faculty members may have very different views on how to go about improving instruction.
Joyce Povlacs Lunde & Myra S. Wilhite
Innovative Teaching and Teaching Improvement
To discover who innovative teachers are, their practices, and how they might have impact on the improvement of teaching on campus, the authors surveyed 310 faculty on our campus, including recipients of Distinguished Teaching Awards, non-recipients of awards, and newer faculty. Items included sources of ideas, teaching strategies, relating to students, and persistence in making successful changes in teaching. A focus group was selected from those displaying persistence. We believe that innovative teachers are passionate about teaching, persist in its improvement, listen to their students, use active learning adapted to the context, are risk takers, and keep themselves vital. The authors recommend that teaching and learning centers encourage and recognize innovative faculty, helping them become visible as presenters and models for their peers.
Robert J. Menges
Experiences of Newly Hired Faculty
Faculty experiences during the first three years in a new job were investigated by following new hires at five colleges and universities. Their initial years are characterized by stress, dilemmas about how to allocate time to competing responsibilities, uncertainty about what is expected of them, and dissatisfaction with feedback about their progress. Faculty development offices can promote more enlightened policies and practices to help ease faculty transition into a new job.
Section III: Organizational Development
Delivee L. Wright
Moving Toward a University Environment Which Rewards Teaching: The Faculty Developer’s Role
This article describes the role of the faculty developer in a departmentally-focused, campus-wide program to revise the rewards system in an AAU-Land Grant University. This process took into account the local values and attitudes of a department as well as the broader mission and values of the institution. It emphasizes a sense of faculty ownership of decisions combined with the collaborative efforts of academic administrators, faculty, and faculty developers.
Robert Dove & Dina Wills
Transforming Faculty into an Agile Work Force
Some institutions of higher education have begun to implement agile operational strategies as they work to take advantage of new technologies and respond to new demands made from their various constituencies. Key to the success of these agile strategies is the ability of the faculty to create an agile learning environment. This paper focuses on the role of the faculty developer in creating that agile environment. It presents concrete programming suggestions and a model for faculty developers to follow as they assume the role of helping faculty become agile.
Mary L. Everley & Jan Smith
Making the Transition from Soft to Hard Funding: The Politics of Institutionalizing Instructional Development Programs
The institutionalization of grant-funded instructional development programs is a political process. This paper reviews the experiences of programs that have both failed and succeeded to cross the hard-to-soft-money divide and the literature on planning and change in higher education, and offers strategies that will encourage institutionalization. Changing institutional culture, building a strong advocacy group, and gaining the support of key administrators are essential to program continuance.
Deborah A. Lieberman & John Reuter
Designing, Implementing, and Assembling a University-Pedagogy Institute
This article describes two models for designing and implementing technology-pedagogy institutes as part of university wide faculty development. Each model contains similar learning objectives for Institute participants, yet describes different institute designs. The authors describe the strengths and weaknesses of each model as learned through assessment evidence gathered during institutes on their campus. Assessment of student learning in relation to technology introduced within the class is discussed. Suggestions for more effective Institutes and assessment tools are addressed.
Victoria Harper
Establishing a Community of Conversation: Creating a Context for Self-Reflection Among Teacher Scholars
This paper will discuss how the Teacher Scholars Project was created to encourage thoughtful conversations about teaching at the university, how portfolio activities such as videotape sessions and the sharing of narratives about teaching were integrated into project activities, and how faculty were encouraged to seriously look at their own practice and to reflect on it in conversations with a group of peers over the course of an entire academic year. It concludes by considering the importance of the creation of a community of conversation across disciplines in establishing conditions for more meaningful discussion and self-reflection on campus.
Gabriele B. Sweidel
Partners in Pedagogy: Faculty Development Through the Scholarship of Teaching
The Partners in Pedagogy project uses a three-pronged plan of action to address faculty development through the scholarship of teaching: a) the formation of faculty pairs to conduct classroom observations of each other’s teaching, b) interviews with three of each other’s students, and c) collegial discussion, both between faculty pairs and course-discipline at monthly meetings. The combination of monthly meetings to discuss pedagogy, feedback from peers concerning teaching methods and techniques unrelated to evaluations, student interviews, and cross-discipline participation contribute to the powerfulness of this campus-wide program.
Milton D. Cox
A Department-Based Approach to Developing Teaching Portfolios: Perspectives for Faculty Developers
The Department-Based Teaching Portfolio Project, now in its third year at Miami University, provides departments the flexibility to design and implement teaching development processes that honor the diversity of disciplines, departmental cultures, and leadership styles of department project coordinators. This approach has generated an interesting variety of departmental processes and results, for example, in the use of off-campus consultants and in the manner in which teaching portfolios are developed. Based upon the outcomes of the Project, 20 recommendations inform faculty developers in their roles as department developers.
Vol. 16, 1997 — Editor: Deborah Dezure, Eastern Michigan University
Reviewers: Joseph Brocato, Laura L. B. Border, Will Davis, Patricia Kalivoda, Deborah A. Lieberman, Liz Miller, John P. Murray, Laurie Richlin, Rita Rodabaugh, D. Lynn Sorenson, Ben Ward
Section I: Changing Roles for Faculty and Faculty Developers
Ann E. Austin, Joseph J. Brocato, and Jonathan D. Rohrer
Institutional Missions, Multiple Faculty Roles: Implications for Faculty Development
The authors review the context in which the topic of faculty roles is gaining attention, draw on data from a qualitative study of how faculty construct their roles, and argue that faculty developers and other institutional leaders should consider expanding the scope of faculty development activities in ways that support faculty across the full breadth of their roles. The article concludes by suggesting that faculty developers ask questions about faculty roles in the institutional context and “map” faculty development opportunities to ensure that multiple roles are supported.
Irene E. Karpiak
University Professors at Mid-life: Being a Part of…But Feeling Apart
This article explores the experiences of mid-career and older faculty members in higher education through a qualitative study of 20 associate professors (15 men and 5 women) between the ages of 41 and 59 at a Canadian university. In non-directive interviews, “gray-ing” professors discussed their satisfactions and struggles, not only in relation to their students and their academic work, but also in relation to the whole university and its administration. An emergent schema is presented that identifies four attitudes characteristic of this group of professors: Meaning, Malaise, Marginality, and Mattering.
James A. Anderson
Faculty Development and the Inclusion of Diversity in the College Classroom: Pedagogical and Curricular Transformation
Colleges and universities are confronted with a plethora of questions and concerns that are associated with the inclusion and success of diverse student populations. Especially critical is the role that faculty will play in fostering a supportive and effective learning environment which benefits the wide range of racial, cultural, gender, and class groups. Faculty development activities can assist faculty to make their courses more inclusive both in content and in pedagogy. Those who direct teaching excellence and faculty development efforts must be more proactive as they impact faculty attitudes toward diversity.
Karron G. Lewis and Eric Kristensen
A Global Faculty Development Network: The International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED)
Although higher education systems around the world differ considerably in structure and the methods used in teaching, there is universal concern for the quality of undergraduate teaching and learning. Thus, faculty and educational development activities are a worldwide phenomena. In 1993, The International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) was born to facilitate exchange of faculty and educational development information. This article looks at the history of ICED and the accomplishments of this organization since its inception. We look at examples of faculty development work in Sweden, Australia and Finland and consider the implications these international programs might have for faculty developers and faculty development work in the U.S. and Canada.
Joyce Povlacs Lunde and Myra S. Whilhite
Teaching Improvement Consultation for Teaching on Television
Instructional consultants have traditionally offered individual consultation to faculty members on their campuses to improve teaching and learning. This kind of consultation to improve teaching is also valuable for those teaching on television, but consultants may need to prepare themselves in learning technologies and distance education in order to help faculty offering instruction via television. In addition, the phases of initial interview, data-gathering, data-feedback, implementation, and evaluation, which constitute a process often used to improve teaching, need to be expanded to address teaching over television.
Section II: Faculty Development Program Models
Alenoush Saroyan, Cheryl Amundsen, and Cao Li
Incorporating Theories of Teacher Growth and Adult Education in a Faculty Development Program
This paper describes a theory-based faculty development program and provides preliminary evidence as to its effectiveness in promoting change in thinking about teaching. The program design was based on Ramsden’s (1992) theory of teacher growth and Mezirow’s (1991) transformative theory in adult education. The program was offered as a three-credit course to graduate students and as a week-long (40 hours) workshop to faculty. Assessment included responses to pre- post- questions about participants’ views from teaching. Results indicate that both groups changed their focus from viewing teaching as transmitting knowledge to a more integrated and complex conception of teaching.
Katherine Sanders, Christopher Carlson-Dakes, Karen Dettinger, Catherine Hajnal, Mary Laedtke, and Lynn Squire
A New Starting Point for Faculty Development in Higher Education: Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment
Traditional faculty development approaches often focus on teaching faculty skills to use in their classrooms. In order to have a deeper cultural impact, we have found it useful to start the conversation at a different point than teaching skills; that is, to have faculty learn how people learn by experiencing a learning environment that is substantively different that their previous classroom experiences. Our program, Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment (CCLE), has been successful in helping faculty from diverse disciplines at a major research institution to work together to learn about learning and redesign teaching.
Tracey Sutherland and James Guffey
The Impact of Comprehensive Institutional Assessment on Faculty
In this age of accountability, colleges and universities are being called on to provide evidence of their effectiveness. As a result, comprehensive assessment initiatives are being implemented on most campuses, requiring increasing numbers of faculty to become involved. Beginning with an overview of a faculty-driven assessment model, this article describes specific roles faculty play and the results of a study in which faculty describe how their involvement influences their teaching and professional development. The primary purpose of faculty development is to improve the learning environment. Faculty participation in institutional assessment efforts enhances that environment. The results of the study provide compelling evidence of the benefits of faculty involvement in institutional assessment initiatives.
James S. Laughlin
WAC Revisited: An Overlooked Model for Transformative Faculty Development
Recently, higher education specialists have called for new faculty development initiatives, claiming current faculty development efforts need to go beyond a reductive “teaching tips” approach to consider transformative practices aimed at improving learning. While such critiques are valuable, they tend to overlook one mode of development that has had undeniable success in initiating significant individual and institutional transformations in the realms of teaching and learning. Over the past two decades, the faculty workshop in writing across the curriculum (WAC) has become a major part of successful WAC programs across the country. This article discusses how, at their best, such workshops go beyond a bag of tips for assigning and grading writing and lead faculty members through a powerful dialogic reexamination of their pedagogy. For some it is a transformative experience, resulting in wholesale changes in the ways they teach and in the ways their students learn. The article concludes by asserting that a well-conceived WAC workshop continues to offer an excellent model for other faculty development initiatives, such as those concerned with implementing teaching technology and interdisciplinary.
Section III: Assessing Faculty Development Activities
Nancy Van Note Chism and Borbala L. Szabo
Teaching Awards: The Problem of Assessing Their Impact
Although teaching awards are a popular approach to the reward and improvement of teaching, their impact has not been studied extensively. The studies that have been done find that they are motivational and affirming, but extensive, clear effects on teaching improvement have not been documented. Part of the difficulty in studying effects of awards involves goal complexity and vagueness. Suggested ways of studying effects begin with goals and employ a variety of approaches, ranging from interviews and surveys to document analysis.
Karen List
“A Continuing Conversation on Teaching:” An Evaluation of a Decade-Long Lilly Teaching Fellows Program 1986-1996
This study assesses what difference the Lilly Teaching Fellows Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has made in its first ten years, both to the fellows who have participated in it and to the University community. Based on a survey of the fellows, the study concludes that the program has had significant positive effects on teaching skills and attitudes, collegiality, research and service. The study also assesses the seven major components of the Lilly Program and suggests ways in which they might be improved. The author then recommends increased institutional support for teaching to decrease the tensions between the programs’ emphasis on teaching and institutional emphasis on research.
Milton D. Cox
Long-Term Patterns in a Mentoring Program for Junior Faculty: Recommendations for Practice
Faculty developers believe mentoring programs are beneficial for new and junior faculty. Although there are reports on the early years of these programs, few have existed for more than 15 years. This article reports on a junior faculty program in place for 18 years with the same goals, format, and activities. The endurance of its mentoring component, with continuing support of faculty, former mentors and protégés, and administrators, is a measure of its success. Mentoring patterns relative to gender, mentor repetition, protégés who later mentor, and multidisciplinary within pairings may be of assistance and encouragement to anyone initiating or continuing a mentoring program. Over 70 recommendations are included.
Section IV: Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness
Pat Hutchings
The Pedagogical Colloquium: Taking Teaching Seriously in the Faculty Hiring Process
In an effort to make teaching and learning more central, a growing number of campuses are adopting some form of the “pedagogical colloquium,” a strategy proposed by Lee Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in the context of a national project on the peer review of teaching. The purpose of the pedagogical colloquium is to create an occasion for examining and assessing the teaching skills and potential of faculty job candidates. Different models are now evolving, from formal presentations parallel in nature to the research colloquium commonly expected of job candidates, to more informal discussions of pedagogy, sometimes in combination with other strategies, such as teaching demonstrations. The pedagogical colloquium has the potential to make teaching more important in hiring decisions and to prompt important departmental campus conversation about expectations of faculty in the teaching arena, but it also raises a number of difficult issues. In this article, Pat Hutchings describes three emerging models, analyzes issues, and looks ahead to next steps in making the pedagogical colloquium a route to a more scholarly conception of teaching.
Jamie Webb and Kathleen McEnerney
Implementing Peer Review Programs: A Twelve Step Model
Nationally, universities and colleges are expressing increased interest in peer review of teaching in response to public calls for accountability from academe. Further motivation comes from within campuses themselves as they respond to an increasingly non-traditional student body. Based on our experience with a peer observation program at California State University-Dominguez Hills, we identified twelve steps for planning and implementing a peer review process. In this article we discuss each of the twelve steps, presenting a rationale and sharing our experiences.
Patricia Hagerty, Kenneth Wolf and Barbara Whinery
Improving Teaching Through Faculty Portfolio Conversations
The authors recount their experiences using portfolios of their teaching as the basis for conversations with colleagues and students about their teaching effectiveness. The authors identify a number of features that affected the quality of these conversations, including group composition, individual commitment, artifact collection, and conversation structure. The authors conclude that these portfolio conversations enabled them to develop insights into their teaching that they might not have been able to gain otherwise.
Peter Seldin
Using Student Feedback to Improve Teaching
Student feedback has become the most widely used-and, in many cases, the only-source of information to evaluate and improve teaching effectiveness. Some instructional developers use the approach effectively while others do not. This paper discusses important new lessons learned about what works and what doesn’t, key strategies, tough decisions, latest research results, and links between evaluation and development.
Section V: Designing Effective Courses, Assignments and Activities
Barbara E. Walvoord and John R. Breihan
Helping Faculty Design Assignment-Centered Courses
Faculty developers must help faculty shift from a teaching paradigm to a learning paradigm. Workshops that help faculty plan the “assignment-centered” course are a productive approach to that challenge. This article shows faculty developers how to plan and lead such a workshop. Research suggests that faculty often focus on content and coverage in their course planning. To combat this tendency, the workshop leads faculty through the course-planning process. In the workshop, faculty first develop learning objectives, then plan the assignments and exams that will both teach and test the essential skills and knowledge of the course. Then faculty choose and organize their instructional methods and the use of in-class and out-of-class time to maximize the development of the most important knowledge and skills. This approach contrasts with the text-lecture-coverage-centered course, in which the teacher concentrates first on the topics she or he will cover. The assignment-centered course is one of the strategies that research suggests will enhance students’ critical thinking in higher education.
Larry K. Michaelsen, L. Dee Fink and Arletta Knight
Designing Effective Group Activities: Lessons for Classroom Teaching and Faculty Development
The primary objective of this article is to provide readers with guidance for designing effective group assignments and activities for classes and workshops. In doing so, we examine the forces that foster social loafing (uneven participation) in learning groups and identify four key variables that must be managed in order to create a group environment that is conductive for broad-based member participation and learning. We then discuss the impact of various types of activities and assignments on learning and group cohesiveness. Finally, we present a checklist that has been designed to evaluate the effectiveness of group assignments in a wide variety of instructional settings and subject areas.
Sandra A. Harris and Kathryn J. Watson
Small Group Techniques: Selecting and Developing Activities Based on Stages of Group Development
Research shows that active and cooperative learning activities can be effective teaching methods; however, developing and carrying out these practices is often challenging, perhaps even confusing and frustrating, to educators who have not been trained in group processes. This article reviews basic principles for using group techniques in college classrooms, describes the developmental stages of groups, and provides examples of activities and assignments as well as processes for reflection and evaluation.
Vol. 17, 1998 — Editor: Matthew Kaplan, University of Michigan
Reviewers: Carol A. Bailey, Judith E. Miller, Eileen T. Bender, Liz Miller, Laura L. B. Border, John P. Murray, Nancy A. Diamond, Karen M. Peters, Patricia Kalivoda, Laurie Richlin, Barbara B. Kaplan, D. Lynn Sorenson, Victoria M. Littlefield, Gary Wheeler, Henryk R. Marcinkiewicz, Alan Wright
Section I: Changing Roles for Faculty Developers
Marilla D. Svinicki
Divining the Future for Faculty Development: Five Hopeful Signs and One Caveat
The fortunes of faculty development centers rise and fall on the waves of change that roll through postsecondary education on a regular basis. These waves can swamp us, or we can ride their crest. This article points out some of the waves the author sees now and in the immediate future and how we can benefit from them. She ends with a caution about improving our chances of survival through our own efforts rather than waiting for someone else to draw us along.
Diana Kardia
Becoming a Multicultural Faculty Developer: Reflections from the Field
There has been a significant amount of activity in the area of multicultural faculty development; yet, this is an area where our profession continues to require growth and attention. Many faculty development practitioners are in a unique position to work with multicultural issues but need additional knowledge, strategies, and skills to do this work well. By attending to the specific challenges and areas of expansion needed for faculty developers to work with diverse institutions, we can increase the effectiveness of our work while continuing to actualize the potential of our profession.
Glenda T. Hubbard, Sally S. Atkins, and Kathleen T. Brinko
Holistic Faculty Development: Supporting Personal, Professional, and Organizational Well-Being
In recent years, higher education has begun to realize the great influence that faculty quality of life has on student learning and on overall institutional effectiveness. This article examines the interactive effect of personal, professional, and organizational well-being and describes a center that integrates four kinds of services-faculty development, employee assistance, health promotion, and organizational development-that work both separately and collaboratively. The result is a synergistic organization that is able to tackle complex institutional problems that could not be addressed by any one program alone.
Carol Fulton and Barbara L. Licklider
Supporting Faculty Development in an Era of Change
A Paradigm shift is underway in higher education. Realizing the hoped-for gains of new student-centered approaches will require significantly different approaches to faculty development. This paper describes one such approach to faculty development and how it is currently being used to improve the learning and teaching experience in the College of Engineering at a land grant institution in the Midwest. Considerations for the widespread application of this approach are also offered.
Section II: Working with Faculty at Different Career Stages
Graham Gibbs
Developments in Initial Training and Certification of University Teachers in the UK: Implications for the US
Initial training of university teachers is developing in a different direction in the UK than in the US. It concentrates on tenure-track faculty rather than on TAs, on course design rather than on classroom practice, and is much more extensive. This paper contrasts UK and US faculty development practices and their implications. It describes two recent developments in the UK: the establishment of national certification of university teachers and the development of a national course for new faculty to help institutions meet the requirements of certification. The potential for similar mechanisms operating in the US is explored.
Kathleen S. Smith and Patricia L. Kalivoda
Academic Morphing: Teaching Assistant to Faculty Member
This paper discusses the process by which graduate teaching assistants (TAs), participating in a longitudinal study, used their graduate TA experience to successfully survive the transition from being a teaching assistant to becoming a faculty member. A theoretical framework is presented that describes how individual characteristics of the TAs worked together with disciplinary, institutional, and departmental forces to shape a set of professional values. These professional values helped to form strategies for success: one set used for securing the first faculty position and the other set used to balance professional roles during the first year as a faculty member. These strategies for success contributed to the socialization process of the TAs in the first year of their faculty positions. The results of this study may help institutions broaden opportunities for graduate student support.
Gail E. Goodyear and Douglas Allchin
Statements of Teaching Philosophy
Well-defined teaching philosophy is essential to creating and maintaining a campus culture supportive of teaching. Presented in this paper are reasons for statements of teaching philosophy as well as descriptions of how the statements are beneficial to students, faculty, and university administrations. Described are ways of creating a statement of teaching philosophy and dimensions that may be included in such statements. This article begins a discussion of roles, composition, and evaluation of statements of teaching philosophy.
Richard G. Tiberius, Ronald A. Smith and Zohar Waisman
Implications of the Nature of “Expertise” for Teaching and Faculty Development
Over the last two decades cognitive theorists have learned that the development of expertise goes beyond the accumulation of knowledge and skills: expertise includes the development of pattern recognition and learned procedures that enable practitioners to deal with problems effortlessly or intuitively. Even more recently, theorists are distinguishing experts from experienced non-experts by how they use the bonus time and energy gained from solving problems intuitively. Experts invest it in tackling problems that increase their expertise rather than reduce problems to previously learned routines. Some implications of these different views of expertise for teaching and faculty development are discussed.
Section III: Fostering Organizational Change and Development
Nancy Van Note Chism
The Role of Educational Developers in Institutional Change: From the Basement Office to the Front Office
Educational developers can play a crucial role in helping colleges and universities respond to change. Among the roles they can play are researcher, assessment resource, friendly critic, messenger, translator, and coach. To perform these roles, developers need certain characteristics and special knowledge bases as well as enabling conditions within their environment. The current state of higher education may be calling for a paradigm shift in educational development as well.
Sondra K. Patrick and James J. Fletcher
Faculty Developers as Change Agents: Transforming College and Universities into Learning Organizations
In the face of demands for institutional restructuring and competition from new internet-based degree programs, the authors argue that campus-based colleges and universities may continue to serve their students well by becoming effective learning organizations. They argue, further, that faculty developers are in the best position to help their institutions become learning organizations. After describing the features of learning organizations as articulated in the work of Peter Senge, the authors reinterpret Senge’s theory to make specific application to academic settings. Concrete suggestions are provided for faculty developers to assist in transforming their institutions.
Mark A. Chesler
Planning Multicultural Organizational Audits in Higher Education
Colleges and universities are struggling with issues of diversity and multiculturalism-in classrooms, social interactions, staff relations, admissions and hiring processes, and overall campus climate. As part of organizational change efforts, many institutions are calling on faculty development offices to help plan, staff, and implement cultural audits or assessments. This article suggests tested procedures for designing and carrying out such audits, with examples of specific data-gathering techniques (and in some cases evidence) from various institutions. Cultural audits will be most successful, accurate, and useful when these procedures are considered carefully and built into the audit design at the beginning.
Joan K. Middendorf
A Case Study in Getting Faculty to Change
Academic support professionals have a lot to share with faculty, but it is our special challenge that faculty do not always welcome our help. We can achieve greater success and suffer less frustration by understanding some principles about the process of change. This article offers four principles of implementing change and illustrates their application to a project. If academic support professionals prepare to offset resistance, model a vision of success, involve key people, and match strategies to the stages faculty move through in accepting a change, we can enhance adoption of new approaches.
Brenda Smith
Adopting a Strategic Approach to Managing Change in Learning and Teaching
Universities are having to become more accountable for the quality of the student experience. This is taking place in a climate of expanding student numbers, a greater diversity of students, and reduced resources. How then do we motivate faculty, take on board new initiatives, reflect on current practice, and at the same time provide an organizational structure that is supportive and visionary? This article illustrates how a major externally funded project on peer observation led to a change in university culture and facilitated a major structural change to the organization that supports the ongoing development and enhancement of learning and teaching.
Section IV: Reexamining Approaches to Instruction and Instructional Development
Beverly Black
Using the SGID Method for a Variety of Purposes
The Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID) process (Redmond & Clark, 1982) has been used for consultation purposes at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan since 1990. Since then it has become a multi-purpose tool with far-reaching results. This article describes a variety of ways we have used this process: to provide feedback to individual faculty and teaching assistants on their teaching, to inform coordinators of large multi-sectioned courses on how the course is working as a whole, to inform coordinators of TA training on the effectiveness of their programs, to advocate for better classroom design, and to get feedback and inform changes in curriculum design.
Margie K. Kitano, Bernard J. Dodge, Patrick J. Harrison, and Rena B. Lewis
Faculty Development in Technology Applications to University Teaching: An Evaluation
Progress in integrating new technologies into higher education classrooms has been slow despite emerging evidence on benefits for students when technologies are applied in ways that support teaching and learning. This article describes a program used by a college of education to support faculty applications of technology in instruction and reports results of a formal evaluation following the first year of implementation. The program provided intensive training and follow-up support to a heterogeneous cohort of 14 faculty members and was designed to enhance their ability to integrate technology into their teaching, use a new “smart” classroom facility, and/or develop products for instruction. Evaluation data were collected from program participants, their students, and the general faculty as a comparison group. Purposes of the evaluation were to determine the extent and quality of participants’ applications of technology in their courses, other effects on their professional development, and students’ perceptions of impact. Results demonstrate the program’s efficacy for increasing participants’ integration of technology in instruction. Students reported that these instructors’ applications of technology enhanced students’ learning and confidence in using technology.
Terrie Nolinske
Minimizing Error When Developing Questionnaires
Questionnaires are used by faculty developers, administrators, faculty, and students in higher education to assess need, conduct research, and evaluate teaching or learning. While used often, questionnaires may be the most misused method of collecting information, due to the potential for sampling error and non-sampling error, which includes questionnaire design, sample selection, non-response, wording, social desirability, recall, format, order, and context effects. This article offers methods and strategies to minimize these errors during questionnaire development, discusses the importance of pilot-testing questionnaires, and underscores the importance of an ethical approach to the process. Examples relevant to higher education illustrate key points.
Elisa Carbone and James Greenberg
Teaching Large Classes: Unpacking the Problem and Responding Creatively
Teaching large classes well is a continuing challenge for many universities. This article looks at one university’s systematic approach to the problem. It describes how faculty and administrators from all over campus were involved in a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) process, how the problems were clearly defined and recommendations made, and how the solutions that emerged also involved faculty from across the curriculum.
Keith Kelly and Roberta C. Teahen
An O.P.E.N. Approach to Learning
O.P.E.N. Learning, an open-entry, open-exit delivery system that is supported by a computerized instructional management system and an extensive learning team, is a fundamental restructuring of the approach to education. This article summarizes the rationale for eliminating the traditional calendar by framing and educational system around a performance-based approach.
Vol. 18, 1999 — Editor: Matthew Kaplan, University of Michigan
Reviewers: Carol A. Bailey, Eileen T. Bender, William E. Cashin, Nancy A. Diamond, Julie A. Furst-Bowe, Edmund J. Hansen, Madelyn M. Healy, Barbara B. Kaplan, Victoria M. Littlefield, Henryk R. Marcinkiewicz, Lisa A. Mets, Judith E. Miller, Karen M. Peters, William M. Timpson, Ben Ward, Gary Wheeler
Section I: Organizational Change in the Academy and POD
Edith A. Lewis
Diversity and Its Discontents: Rays of Light in the Faculty Development Movement for Faculty of Color
Two faculty development conferences held within a six-day period during October, 1998, yielded important experiences and lessons for faculty and professionals interested in working with faculty of color. This paper, written from the standpoint of a faculty member of color, outlines the strengths and challenges of working on these issues in higher education institutions.
Kay Herr Gillespie
The Challenge and Test of Our Values: An Essay of Collective Experience
Departing from a specific experience at the 1998 POD conference, the values of the organization—most specifically and directly the “valuing of people”—were challenged and put to the test of whether or not we genuinely and sincerely strive to actualize our values. This situation is generalizable to our daily professional and personal lives, and the essay invites readers’ reflection through an examination of our values in combination with the story. The challenge continues, and the test is not finished.
Christine A. Stanley and Mathew L. Ouellett
On the Path: POD As A Multicultural Organization
Since 1993, the Professional and Organizational Development Network (POD) has made an increasingly stronger commitment to becoming a multicultural organization. Poised at the entrance to a new century, it seems useful to examine the current standing of this goal in the context of the overall growth and development of POD. In this article the authors take stock of the organization’s history related to multiculturalism, discuss POD’s current organizational strengths and challenges related to models of multicultural organizational development, and offer suggestions for further progress on the path to becoming a
multicultural organization.
Barbara L. Cambridge
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A National Initiative
As part of the scholarship of teaching and learning, faculty members study the ways in which they teach and students learn in their disciplines, and campuses foster this scholarship at the institutional level. A national initiative called the Carnegie Academy
for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning constitutes three programs to engage and support individuals, campuses, and disciplinary associations in this form of scholarly work. This article describes the Pew Scholars Fellowship Program, the Campus Program, and the Work with Scholarly Societies and invites participation of campuses in this exciting initiative.
Mike Laycock
QILT: An Approach to Faculty Development and Institutional Self-Improvement
In a climate of increasing emphasis on quality assurance and extra-institutional quality scrutiny, the author argues that faculty developers have a role in encouraging an enhancement-led culture. Faculty ownership of, and responsibility for, continuous
quality improvement can help to provide an engagement with teaching and learning issues and may help to overcome resistance and mistrust. At the University of East London, UK, an enabling, whole-institutional framework called QILT (Quality Improvement in Learning and Teaching), whereby faculty create and implement funded improvement plans, has helped to
generate this culture.
Joan K. Middendorf
Finding Key Faculty to Influence Change
To succeed in getting faculty to accept new teaching approaches, academic support professionals can benefit from the literature on planned change. By understanding the different rates at which faculty accept change, we can also identify the faculty most
likely to lead their colleagues to accepting new approaches. Opinion Leaders can offer insight into faculty reactions to new approaches; their involvement in project planning can influence acceptance. Innovators, when selected carefully, can demonstrate and test new teaching approaches. Knowledge of when and how to involve these two kinds of faculty can reduce frustration and enhance efforts to spread new ideas about teaching and learning.
Section II: Collaborations and Partnerships
Milton D. Cox and D. Lynn Sorenson
Student Collaboration in Faculty Development: Connecting Directly to the Learning Revolution
Although faculty developers have worked successfully with faculty to focus on ways to enhance learning and listen to student voices, developers have rarely formed partnerships with students. This article reviews established practices involving students directly in faculty development, such as student observer/consultant programs. It also describes the nature, dynamics, and outcomes of some interesting new programs involving students in teaching development activities, thereby empowering students to join developers as change agents of campus culture. Finally, the article raises issues for faculty developers to reflect on as
they consider establishing direct connections—partnerships—with students.
Randall E. Osborne, William F. Browne ,Susan J. Shapiro, and Walter F. Wagor
Transforming Introductory Psychology: Trading Ownership for Student Success
As colleges struggle to maintain enrollments, many have shifted from a primary focus on recruitment of new students to an increased focus on retaining students once they begin attending the college or university. An examination of introductory courses on our campus, however, revealed significant differences between faculty perceptions of student skills and the actual skills students brought into the classroom. This prompted shifts in the manner in which we teach introductory psychology on our campus in order to enhance the skills necessary for success in survey courses and to provide a foundation of learning and
thinking skills that would translate to other courses. These changes have resulted in enhanced consistency between sections of the course, increased cooperation between faculty teaching the course, and enhanced performance on the success measures we
outlined for this project. This systematic transformation of the course and immediate and long-term outcome data are fully explored in this paper.
Mei-Yau Shih and Mary Deane Sorcinelli
TEACHnology: Linking Teaching and Technology In Faculty Development
As a coordinator of teaching technologies and director of a center for teaching in a large research university, we have worked collaboratively over the last year to achieve a common goal: to implement and refine several faculty development initiatives that
create linkages among the domains of teaching, learning, and technology. In this case study, we will describe the kinds of programs we’ve developed and summarize lessons we’ve learned. We hope that faculty developers on other campuses who are grappling with how to define their mission related to technology and how to work with faculty to integrate teaching and technology can adapt some of what has worked well for us.
Philip G. Cottell Jr., Serena Hansen and Kate Ronald
From Transparency toward Expertise: Writing-Across-the-Curriculum as a Site for New Collaborations In Organizational, Faculty, and Instructional Development
This paper will inform readers about a comprehensive approach to collaborative efforts between faculty developers, discipline specific faculty, and writing specialists. Miami University’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration has begun to support a team of writing specialists, led by a faculty developer. This team has worked with business faculty to build a model of collaboration for using Writing-Across-the-Curriculum that addresses some of the shortcomings of earlier models. This paper recounts the successful use of this new model in one accounting class.
Myra S. Wilhite, Joyce Povlacs Lunde and Gail F. Latta
Faculty Teaching Partners and Associates: Engaging Faculty as Leaders in Instructional Development
Special interest discussion groups provide opportunities for faculty to address specific instructional issues in a variety of areas including technology, distance learning, general teaching topics, pre-tenure issues, honors teaching, and the like. In 1995, to leverage the Teaching and Learning Center’s resources, outstanding classroom teachers were invited to provide leadership for discussion groups by serving as Partners or Associates. This paper describes how an inexpensive faculty discussion-group leadership program maximizes a teaching improvement center’s resources, makes innovative teaching visible, and provides peer models for other faculty while helping promote an overall institutional culture that actively supports teaching excellence.
Roseanna G. Ross, Anthony Schwaller and Jenine Helmin
Creating a Culture of Formative Assessment: The Teaching Excellence and Assessment Partnership Project
In a year-long, grant-supported collaborative effort, St. Cloud State University’s Assessment Office and Faculty Center for Teaching Excellence created a Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) faculty development project. This project was targeted at departments across campus at St. Cloud State University, with the intent of creating a university climate of formative assessment while improving teaching and learning. This article describes the purposes, stages of implementation, and results of the project as measured by a pre-test and post-test survey. The pre- and post-test surveys indicate that the project was highly effective in impacting the use of CATs among participants and their departmental colleagues.
Section III: Examining Assumptions About Teaching and Faculty Development
Carolin Kreber and Patricia Cranton
Fragmentation Versus Integration of Faculty Work
Present faculty development practice encourages new faculty to integrate teaching, research, and other aspects of academic work early in their careers. By drawing on both the cognitive and the developmental psychology literature, we propose integration as an advanced stage of adult development that comes about as a result of extensive experience and expertise. We argue that faculty should be advised to focus on either research or teaching at different times during their early years and that integration of professorial roles should only be expected at a later stage. We discuss the implications of such an approach for faculty development.
Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill
Getting Lecturers to Take Discussion Seriously
In this paper we examine how faculty resistant to experimenting with discussion methods can be encouraged to take them seriously. We begin by acknowledging and addressing publicly the objections to using discussion most frequently raised by skeptical faculty. We then turn to proposing what we believe are the most common reasons why attempts to use discussion sometimes fail: that teachers have unrealistic expectations of the method, that students are unprepared, that reward systems in the classroom are askew, and that teachers have not modeled their own participation in, and commitment to, discussion
methods. For each of these reasons we suggest a number of responses and strategies.
Martha L. A. Stassen
“It’s Hard Work!”: Faculty Development in a Program for First-Year Students
Academic programs designed specifically for first-year students provide an important opportunity for faculty growth. This article contributes to the limited literature on this topic through a qualitative analysis of interviews with faculty members who taught in an experimental living-learning community for first-year students at a Research One Public University. The analysis suggests at least four dimensions of faculty growth as a result of their involvement in first-year programs. In addition to outlining the types of impact this experience has on the faculty involved, the article suggests the implications of these findings for faculty development.
Virginia S. Lee
The Influence of Disciplinary Differences on Consultations with Faculty
In recent years researchers have begun to investigate the nature of disciplinary differences in higher education and their implications for teaching and learning. While researchers have studied several aspects of disciplinary differences, they have given comparatively little attention to the significance of these differences for faculty development. After reviewing selective, representative studies from the literature on disciplinary differences, this paper develops a general framework for determining how the characteristics of a discipline influence the dynamics of the consulting relationship using the example of the hard
sciences. It explores what kinds of discipline-specific knowledge will be important for consultants and under what circumstances and the implications for effective consulting strategies. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research in this area.
Delivee L. Wright
Faculty Development Centers in Research Universities: A Study of Resources and Programs
The purpose of this study was to compile updated information on resources and programs of faculty/instructional development centers in Carnegie classification Research I and Research II universities. It allows centers across the country to see where they stand in regard to a number of specific aspects of center operation. Size of institution, mission, resources, budgets, and staffing vary greatly, while activities and services have a greater degree of similarity. The data reveal a number of questions for further study and discussion.
Vol. 19, 2000 — Editor, Deborah Lieberman; Associate Editor, Catherine Wehlburg
Section 1: Focus on Trends in Faculty Development
Barbara L. Cambridge
Fostering the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Communities of Practice
As part of the scholarship of teaching and learning, faculty members study the ways in which they teach and students learn in their disciplines, and how campuses foster this scholarship at an institutional level. A national initiative called the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning constitutes three programs to engage and support individuals, campuses, and disciplinary associations in this form of scholarly work In To Improve the Academy (Vol. 18) this program was discussed. The article this year offers examples of individual faculty and campus initiatives centered o the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Irene W. D. Hecht
Transitions and Transformations: The Making of Department Chairs
When we talk about a need for leadership in higher education, we are in fact demanding that chairs be leaders. Is there then another level of transition that is required today of those who become chairs? Is task mastery a guarantee of being a leader? If there are other adaptations needed, what might they be? That is the focus of this exploration. This chapter examines the theory behind leadership and applies to it models that are aligned with the leadership skills needed for successful chair leadership. This article specifically addresses the role of faculty developers in supporting department chairs in their roles as institutional leaders and visionaries.
Thomas Ehrlich
Education for Responsible Citizenship: A Challenge for Faculty Developers
Higher education professionals need clearer, stronger frameworks for the integration of both civic and moral learning and the more common cognitive learning that occurs in traditional classrooms. This article addresses when and why this author chose to focus on community service-learning as a way to reengage in direct work with students and other civic responsibilities. His discussion focuses on student acquisition of academic knowledge and skills through service-learning and the study of ethical dilemmas facing professionals in different fields. He proffers in-depth discussion on service-learning programs championed by the Carnegie Foundation and addresses how these programs working with faculty across the country ground their philosophy in moral and civic responsibility. Finally, and in some ways most importantly, he discusses how all of us in higher education need clearer, stronger frameworks for the integration of both civic and moral learning and the more common cognitive learning that occurs in the traditional classrooms.
James Francisco Bonilla and Patricia R. Palmerton
A Prophet in Your Own Land? Using Faculty and Student Focus Groups to Address Issues of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Classroom
In this study, six focus groups of faculty and students addressed issues of how race, ethnicity, and gender affected their classroom experiences. Consistent themes emerged across all groups, including feeling unsafe and vulnerable, concerns about equity, power, and role modeling. As importantly, the research process itself became a vehicle for growth and change in the community at large, both inside and outside the classroom. Six recommendations are offered for those who seek innovative approaches to addressing race and gender in the classroom.
Milton D. Cox
Faculty Learning Communities: Change Agents for Transforming Institutions into Learning Organizations
In my 20 years of faculty development, I have found faculty learning communities to be the most effective programs for achieving faculty learning and development. In addition, these communities build communication across disciplines, increase faculty interest in teaching and learning, initiate excursions into the scholarship of teaching, and foster civic responsibility. They provide a multifaceted, flexible, and holistic approach to faculty development. They change individuals, and over time, they change institutional culture. Faculty learning communities and their “graduates” are change agents who can enable an institution to become a learning organization. In this article I introduce faculty learning communities and discuss ways that they can transform our colleges and universities.
Section II: Focus on Faculty Development and Student Learning
Thomas A. Angelo
Doing Faculty Development as if We Value Learning: Most: Transformative Guidelines from Research to Practice
If producing high-quality student learning is American higher education’s defining goal, how can faculty development best contribute to its realization? In response to that question, this essay synthesizes theories, findings, and strategies from a variety of literatures into seven transformative ideas which, taken together, have the potential to make our mental models of and approaches to faculty development more effective. It also offers seven guidelines based on these ideas, as well as related, practical strategies for doing faculty development as if student learning matters most.
L. Dee Fink
Higher-Level Learning: The First Step toward More Significant Learning
In order to design significant learning experiences for students, teachers first need to be able to formulate powerful and challenging goals for their courses. This essay describes a taxonomy of higher-level learning that consists of six kinds of learning: foundational knowledge, application, integration, the human dimension, motivation, and learning how to learn. The argument is made that this taxonomy goes beyond the familiar taxonomy of Benjamin Bloom and encompasses a wide range of goals that are currently advocated by many national organizations and scholars in higher education. The taxonomy can be used to design better courses, choose among alternative teaching strategies, and evaluate teaching.
Nira Hativa
Clarity in Teaching in Higher Education: Dimensions and Classroom Strategies
This essay presents research knowledge regarding the main dimensions of effective teaching in higher education, concentrating on clarity in teaching, and its components–classroom behaviors and strategies that promote clear teaching. On this basis, I suggest arranging all dimensions and classroom strategies of effective teaching within a logical structure of interconnected teaching behaviors whose contribution to student learning is based on theory and research. The model organizes all dimensions and strategies of effective teaching in three hierarchical levels and is illustrated by successively breaking down clarity in teaching into intermediate dimensions and classroom behaviors and strategies. The model may help faculty understand how classroom strategies work-how they contribute to the higher dimensions of effective teaching, and eventually to student learning. In this way, understanding the model may promote faculty knowledge of and motivation for adopting and using effective strategies in teaching, and their perception of teaching as a scientific activity rather than a disorganized and random collection of isolated techniques with no scientific rationale and structure.
Patrick Nellis, Helen Clarke, Jackie DiMartino, and David Hosman
Preparing Today’s Faculty for Tomorrow’s Students: One College’s Faculty Development Solution
Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida, has created a faculty development program underwritten for the past five years by a US Department of Education Title III Strengthening Institutions Grant. Our program rose from a deliberate desire to build active, collaborative faculty teams that would, in turn, build active, collaborative classrooms; our results demonstrate that faculty development programs based on observable and measurable outcomes can positively affect student academic performance and persistence. This essay details this faculty development project.
Michael B. Paulsen
After Twelve Tears if Teaching the College-Teaching Course
This essay provides a detailed presentation of the perspectives, approaches, activities, material, and evaluative information that characterize and distinguish a formal, credit-earning, semester-long graduate course in college teaching. This report is based on the author’s experiences and reflections drawn from, and expressed after, 12 years of teaching the college-teaching course. Based on an intensive study of advances in theory and research related to teaching, learning, learners, and diversity; students engage in 1) actual teaching, in which they integrate learning theory and other pedagogical knowledge with the content knowledge of their own subject-matter areas; 2) extensive theory and research informed observation and analysis of the teaching of others; 3) the giving and receiving of detailed, theory and research informed feedback about the teaching and learning that they have practiced and observed; and 4) the creation of pedagogical content knowledge essential to advancement of the scholarship of teaching.
Kathleen S. Smith
Faculty Development that Transforms the Undergraduate Experience at a Research University
Rethinking the undergraduate experience at research universities is a necessary goal for the new millennium according to the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates(1998). Faculty development efforts provide a starting place for a transformation of the traditional teaching-learning model. This essay describes the faculty development support structure included in a FIPSE sponsored program to promote learning by inquiry. The Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO) at the University of Georgia meshes teaching and research so that undergraduate students become participants in the strengths of a research university by becoming part of a community of learners.
Michael J. Strada
The Case for Sophisticated Course Syllabi
Just as the last thing a fish would notice is water, academics tend to overlook the value of a comprehensive course syllabus. It seems too prosaic for some instructors to take seriously. Despite operating largely in obscurity, a nascent body of literature appreciative of the syllabus’ latent potential is emerging. The distinguishing features of model syllabi are traced here and their respective benefits analyzed. First and foremost, good syllabi enhance student learning by improving the way courses are taught. But the potential of syllabi can also be tapped by using them more prominently in the faculty evaluation process. Much slower to develop has been an awareness of how exemplary syllabi can forge substantive links among three curricular levels of the academy often proceeding randomly: individual courses, programs of study at the departmental level, and general studies requirements at the institutional level. The assessment movement now sweeping American higher education can broaden its analytical base by recognizing the exemplary syllabus as a rare fulcrum uniting each of the three academic levels pursuing institutional mission statements.
Constance Ewing Cook
The Role of a Teaching Center in Curricular Reform
Instructional consultants can play a crucial role in curricular reform. They gather evaluation and assessment data about the current curriculum so that faculty decisions about improvements are based on empirical evidence. They organize and facilitate meetings and retreats at which faculty make curricular decisions, and they provide pedagogical expertise and resources to help with course design and enhancement. They also provide ongoing data for formative evaluation of the new curriculum. Examples from the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching illustrate instructional consultants’ contributions to the curricular reform process.
Sean Courtney
Technology and the Culture of Teaching and Learning
Faculty development professionals in postsecondary institutions face many challenges helping faculty adapt to the new forms of information technology. Chief among them is understanding how technology is forcing us to rethink current classroom practices. To aid this effort, this essay identifies and analyzes six key dimensions of traditional cultures of teaching and learning and attempts to show how technology, particularly computer-mediated forms, is transforming their meaning and potential impact.
Section III: Focus on Faculty Development and Professional Support
Gloria Pierce
Developing New Faculty: An Evolving Program
This essay describes the evolution of a program for the development of new faculty at a public teaching university. The year-long process of orienting the newest professors to the campus and assisting them with their scholarship and teaching results in additional (albeit unplanned and unexpected) benefits, such as professional renewal of senior faculty who serve as advisors and enhanced functioning of the university itself. Vital to the program’s success is the productive involvement of key campus constituencies and responsiveness to feedback.
Jane Birch and Tara Gray
Publish, Don’t Perish: A Program to Help Scholars Flourish
Faculty often believe that if they do not publish, they will perish. Faculty developers can respond to this need by helping faculty increase their scholarly productivity. Research shows that faculty are more productive if they write for 15-30 minutes daily, organize their writing around key sentences, and get extensive feedback on drafts. This article evaluates a program hosted on two campuses that aimed at supporting 115 faculty achieve these goals. Throughout the program, participants kept records of time they spent writing and the number of pages they wrote and at the end of the program, they were surveyed. These data reveal that if participants continued to write and revise prose at the rate they did during the program, they would produce 75 published pages per year. According to survey results, 83% of participants would participate in the program again, and 95% would recommend it to their colleagues.
Carolin Kreber
Designing Teaching Portfolios Based on a Formal Model of the Scholarship of Teaching
Many universities now encourage, and some even require, faculty to submit a teaching portfolio as part of their tenure application package. How to evaluate these portfolios, however, remains as unresolved issue, particularly if the task is to make a judgment about whether what is demonstrated in the portfolio reflects engagement in the scholarship of teaching. The thesis of this chapter is that judgments regarding the validity and truthfulness of a teaching portfolio can be made by assessing the extent to which the author has attended to an agreed-upon process of knowledge construction and validation in teaching. A model of the scholarship of teaching is proposed that could guide the design and evaluation of portfolios and an illustration of the process is given.
Gerlese S. Akerlind and Kathleen M. Quinlan
Strengthening collegiality to Enhance Teaching, Research, and Scholarly Practice: An Untapped Resource for Faculty Development
Collegiality lies at the intersection of various aspects of academic practice, including teaching as well as research. As such, assisting junior faculty in learning to build their collegial networks becomes a powerful point of intervention for faculty developers, even for those who focus on teaching development. Data from interviews with faculty engaged in both teaching and research, plus our experiences in conduction a series of career building initiatives are analyzed to identify junior faculty perceptions of the role of collegiality and barriers to establishing collegial ties. Two main barriers are identified: 1) knowing that collegiality and networking is important, and 2) knowing how to go about establishing oneself as a colleague. Recommendations are then offered to faculty developers for working with junior faculty to help address each of those barriers, drawing on the author’s experiments with various workshops and forums.
Sally S. Atkins, Kathleen T. Brinko, Jeffrey A. Butt, Charles S. Claxton, and Glenda T. Hubbard
Faculty Quality of Life
An interdisciplinary research team conducted a formal assessment of campus culture and faculty quality of life at Appalachian State University. Interviews with a stratified random sample of full-time, tenure-track faculty revealed five themes: 1) the importance of human relationships, 2) the deep commitment of faculty to student learning, 3) general satisfaction with academic life, 4) the personal sacrifice of faculty members for their work, and 5) perceptions of incongruence between institutional rhetoric and action. Recommendations are offered for readers to apply to their own universities to help faculty, staff, students, and administrators work together toward becoming an institution that is a true community of learners.
Joan Middendorf
Getting Administrative Support for Your Project
For faculty development professionals to succeed with projects, we need the help of key administrators. More than anyone else, they can link our efforts to campus priorities, help us understand the decision-making system and facilitate our efforts. This essay describes six steps for gaining and maintaining administrative support for projects. The steps entail 1) knowing administrator needs, 2) identifying likely supporters, 3) maintaining good working relationships, 4) involving the sponsors, 5) evaluating the sponsors’ commitment, and 6) recognizing the support of sponsors. Collaboration with administrators and application of the stages is illustrated with a case study if Indiana University’s Freshman Learning Project.
Vol. 20, 2001 — Editor, Deborah Lieberman; Associate Editor, Catherine Wehlburg
Section I: The University
Peter D. Eckel
Institutional Transformation and Change: Insights for Faculty Developers
This chapter presents a series of insights about the process of institutional change and how leaders might implement it. Since the majority of energy goes into what the institution should do, little attention in higher education is given to how institutions should go about change. Based upon six years of work with 24 diverse institutions working on a range of change agendas in two projects, this chapter presents some conceptualizations of change and offers some language to discuss the type of intended change that might be useful for faculty developers and other campus leaders. It identifies three key elements in the change process and offers insight on strategies to implement them. It then connects these elements to the important role of faculty developers.
Richard G. Tiberius
A Brief History of Educational Development: Implications for Teachers and Developers
An historical review of the practice of educational development identified four belief systems about teaching and learning that shape the practice. Each system is characterized by an assumption about the teacher’s role: content expert; performer, who makes learning happen; facilitator, who encourages learning through interaction; and helper, whose relationship with learners is a vehicle for learning. The good news is that even teachers who are limited to only one of these belief systems can be successful. On the other hand, developers must have an appreciation for more than one belief system if they are to be successful at helping teachers.
Barbara Cambridge
Linking Change Initiatives: The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the Company of Other National Projects
The scholarship of teaching and learning provides an overarching framework for progress on a number of important educational issues today. The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning encourages connections with other national projects that deal with issues such as defining student learning outcomes, building an infrastructure of support, and establishing evidence for purposes of accountability in mutually supportive ways. Connecting such efforts honors faculty time in the midst of multiple demands and raises the likelihood of significant, lasting impact on the quality of teaching and learning.
Terrel Rhodes
Could It Be That It Does Make Sense: A Program Review Process for Integrating Activities
This chapter presents a model for a comprehensive program review process that can be used on any campus. Faculty developers maintain a critical role in a campus-wide initiative. This model is based upon the development of institutional priorities that guide the development of goals and objectives for academic units across the campus. The program review process is based on a core of regularly produced institutional data that can be used by all units to inform decision-making. The review process is conducted on an annual or biannual basis with periodic major review coinciding with accreditation visits. The ultimate success of the model is tied to making budgetary and resource allocation decisions based on the assessment that grows out of the program review process.
Section II: Teaching and Learning Centers
Nadia Cordero de Figueroa and Pedro A. Sandin-Fremaint
Getting Started with Faculty Development
As a result of an academic senate decision to reconceptualize the baccalaureate, the Rio Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico began, in late 1994, a major transformational process that has led it to rethink itself as a community of learners. One of the principal instruments of change has been our Center for Academic Excellence, created in early 1998 as a result of the transformational process. This chapter discusses the process that led to the creation of the center, as well as its structure, activities, and vision for the future. We hope that our experience will be useful to those institutions thinking about venturing into the area of faculty development.
Linda von Hoene, and Jacqueline Mintz
Research on Faculty as Teaching Mentors: Lessons Learned from a Study of Participants in UC Berkeley’s Seminar for Faculty Who Teach with Graduate Student Instructors
This chapter describes the results of a research study of the University of California, Berkeley’s annual seminar for faculty teaching with Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs). It demonstrates that such a faculty development activity can have a significant impact not only on faculty mentoring of GSIs but also on faculty teaching, attitudes, and behaviors vis-Ã -vis teaching and learning in higher education. The chapter presents an overview of the seminar, a description of the format and methodology of the research project, and qualitative and quantitative outcomes.
David G. Way, Virleen M. Carlson, and Susan C. Piliero
Evaluating Teaching Workshops: Beyond the Satisfaction Survey
Workshops are a prevalent approach to fostering instructional development for both teaching assistants (TAs) and faculty. Frequently we evaluate workshops by asking participants to fill out a satisfaction- oriented survey at the end. To what degree do such surveys evaluate adequately the workshop’s long-term effect on participants’ learning? The authors explicate earlier investigative work on transfer of training, and present the results of a follow-up survey to two groups of TA workshop participants designed to assess the degree to which conditions theoretically conducive to the transfer of training exist as their institution.
Mona B. Kreaden
Mandatory Faculty Development Works
This chapter tells the story of a successful, ongoing, mandatory faculty development program. It explains the historical reasons why a business school in a large, urban Research I institution felt the need to make their program mandatory, examines how it was developed, and the university faculty development program’s role in the process. The author makes the case that mandatory programs can be successful in faculty development when they are administered by an outside credible entity, are faculty driven, and guarantee confidentiality.
Wayne Jacobson, Jim Borgford-Parnell, Katherine Frank, Michael Peck, and Lois Reddick
Operational Diversity: Saying What We Mean, Doing What We Say
Diversity issues, ranging from individual learning styles to institutional equity, are central to teaching and learning, but identifying and addressing these issues is a formidable task. At the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR), our staff is gaining ground on this work through the Inclusive Practices Portfolio, a collaborative forum for documenting, sharing, and supporting our individual and organizational diversity initiatives. The process of developing the center’s portfolio and the portfolio itself are mechanisms for change within the center and a model for change at our institution and beyond.
HeeKap Lee and Amy Lawson
What Do the Faculty Think? The Importance of Concerns Analysis in Introducing Technological Change
Change management strategies tend to focus on the inherent characteristics of the proposed change. However, there is a personal side to change and it is reflected in what are called perceptions or personal concerns. To manage change successfully, facilitators must take measures to understand the personal concerns had by those who are required to implement the change. Moreover, this concerns analysis should be done early in the project, ideally before the change is implemented. The purposes of this chapter are to explain the importance of conducting a concerns analysis and to propose a theoretical framework for concerns analysis. The framework has been developed based on a case study of an information technology innovation project in a theological seminary. While these approaches are ideally suited for higher education settings, they are also relevant outside the academy.
Timothy P. Shea, Pamela D. Sherer and Eric W. Kristensen
Harnessing the Potential of Online Faculty Development: Challenges and Opportunities
This chapter explores several issues regarding the current state of online faculty development resources. First, it describes the breadth and depth of today’s online teaching and learning resources. Then, it explains the benefits of designing an institutional teaching and learning center portal as a means for organizing and focusing resources. Finally, it discusses the importance of the faculty developer’s role in harnessing these resources for individual and institutional advantage. The online portal provides a powerful tool for institutional change on a scale heretofore impossible for most, and puts faculty development at the center of an institution’s mission.
Section III: The Learner, the Professor, and the Learning Environment
Saundra Y. McGuire and Dennis A. Williams
The Millennial Learner: Challenges and Opportunities
Students enrolled in college today are, in many respects, quite different from students enrolled a few decades ago. Learners today seem more focused on being credentialed, and less concerned with obtaining a broad-based, liberal arts education. Today’s faculty may find it challenging to provide engaging learning activities for this generation of students. Millennial educators must instill in students a desire to think critically and provide them with strategies that will make them more efficient learners. Campus learning centers and faculty development centers can work together to foster an academic climate that helps all students to realize their full academic potential.
Fred Hebert and Marty Loy
The Evolution of a Teacher-Professor: Applying Behavior Change Theory to Faculty Development
This chapter introduces the sage, the thinker, the builder, and the master as four evolutionary archetypes to use as identifiable characters in the process of teaching development. Once defined, behavior change theory is applied, and stage-specific strategies are used to aid these archetypes in their evolutionary process.
Joan Middendorf and David Pace
Overcoming Cultural Obstacles to New Ways of Teaching: The Lilly Freshman Learning Project at Indiana University
Evidence has been accumulating for over a decade that approaches such as collaborative and active learning have potential for creating real increases in student learning. Yet on many campuses these ideas are having little impact on what is actually happening in classes and in the formation of institutional practices. What are the cultural obstacles that are preventing the exploration of new ways of teaching and how can these be overcome? In this chapter we will describe cultural obstacles that prevent the adoption of new ways of teaching. After presenting a few opportunities created by the current sense of crisis in the university classroom that can help offset these obstacles, the Lilly Freshman Learning Project (FLP) is outlined. The main portion of the chapter details the multiple strategies we used to overcome cultural obstacles. The chapter concludes by presenting eight strategic principles for getting new ways of teaching to take hold.
Kathleen McKinney
Instructional Development: Relationships to Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
The purpose of this chapter is to review recent literature on instructional development in higher education. More specifically, it defines and illustrates instructional development as a major component of faculty development. Next, it reviews research on how development activities are associated with teaching and learning. Finally, it argues there is a critical need for additional research and offers suggestions for accomplishing that research agenda.
Linda B. Nelson
The Graphic Syllabus: Shedding a Visual Light on Course Organization
Students rarely understand how a course is organized from the week-by-week topical listing in traditional syllabi. This chapter explains a teaching tool called a graphic syllabus, which elucidates (and may improve) course design/organization and increases student retention of the material. It may resemble a flow chart or diagram or be designed around a graphic metaphor with another object. Included here are materials, experiences, and graphic syllabi from a workshop conducted several times on how to compose one (involving about 115 faculty and faculty developers). Graphic representations of test-based material appeal to the visual learning preferences of today’s students and complement distance and computer-assisted learning as well as traditional classroom instruction.
Stephen D. Brookfield
Teaching Through Discussion as the Exercise of Disciplinary Power
The French philosopher Michel Foucault spent much of his lifetime analyzing the way in which power flows through all human interactions, including those of discussion groups within higher education. His analysis of disciplinary power and surveillance is directly applicable to the practice of discussion-based teaching.
John P. Hertel, Barbara J. Millis, and Robert K. Noyd
A Modified Microteaching Model: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Faculty Development
Three departments at the United States air force Academy successfully used a microteaching model to train new faculty. Like other models, its structured approach used videotaping and peer coaching. The model also contained several unique features, including a cross-disciplinary approach to supplement feedback from department members and focused small group feedback with built-in preparation time. Thus, this model results not only in enhanced teaching performance, but also in departmental and institutional collegiality.
Vol. 21, 2002 — Editor, Catherine M. Wehlburg; Associate Editor, Sandra Chadwick-Blossey
Section I: Faculty Development and Its Role in Institutional and National Crisis
Edward Zlotkowski
September 11, 2001, as a Teachable Moment
The Opening Plenary at the 2001 POD Conference was given by Edward Zlotkowski. Using the reactions to the events of September 11, 2001, as an example, he urged those in higher education to search out opportunities for academically based civic engagement and to focus on Boyer=s concept of the scholarship of engagement.
Michele DiPietro
The Day after: Faculty Behavior in Post-September 11, 2001 Classes
What is the best thing to do in the classroom in the face of a tragedy like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? What should instructors do to help students, if anything? This article describes the results of a faculty survey at Carnegie Mellon University. Faculty reported what actions they took in the classroom to help their students (or their rationales for not mentioning the attacks), and their degree of confidence in the effectiveness of their behaviors. Statistical techniques are used to assess the significance of some trends, and implications for faculty developers are discussed in light of cognitive, motivational, and developmental theories.
Deborah DeZure
Internationalizing American Higher Education: A Call to Thought and Action
In the wake of the World Trade Center disaster, many faculty developers are asking themselves what they do to promote international peace and understanding. But even before these events, there has been an indication that there was a pressing need to focus on global competencies as an important part of higher education for the 21st century. The purpose of this essay is threefold: 1) to summarize the research on the status of internationalization on American campuses, 2) to make the case for the active involvement of faculty developers in internationalizing higher education, and 3) to offer strategies with which we can begin or expand our efforts.
Section II: Faculty Focus in Faculty Development
Edward Nuhfer and Delores Knipp
The Knowledge Survey: A Tool for All Reasons
Knowledge surveys provide a means to assess changes in specific content learning and intellectual development. More important, they promote student learning by improving course organization and planning. For instructors, the tool establishes a high degree of instructional alignment, and, if properly used, can ensure employment of all seven best practices during the enactment of the course. Beyond increasing success of individual courses, knowledge surveys inform curriculum development to better achieve, improve, and document program success.
Patricia Kalivoda, Josef Broder, and William K. Jackson
Establishing a Teaching Academy: Cultivation of Teaching at a Research University Campus
The University of Georgia (UGA) has worked hard over the last 22 years to increase the respect and reward for teaching through the faculty development programs of the office of instructional support and development and through the establishment of two campus-wide teaching awards. Looking for a means to extend a celebration of teaching beyond one-time recognition or one-time participation, the university established a campus-wide teaching academy. The purpose of this chapter is to chronicle the evolution of the teaching academy that was founded at the University of Georgia in 1999. The mission, goals, membership, funding, and programs and activities of the teaching academy will be described, as well as the faculty development programs and teaching awards that laid the foundation for the teaching academy.
Barbara J. Millis
Using Cooperative Games for Faculty Development
Learning through games has been going on for centuries. Faculty developers, however, are only now realizing the impact of well-structured and well-planned games. They not only educate engaged faculty members, but they can also motivate them. This chapter discusses the educational value of games, reveals their key underlying principles, and offers two examples of successful faculty development (scavenger hunt and Bingo) that can be replicated on any campus.
Milton D. Cox
Proven Faculty Development Tools That Foster the Scholarship of Teaching in Faculty Learning Communities
Faculty learning communities have played a key role in the development of the scholarship of teaching and learning at Miami University of over 20 years. This chapter describes a sequence of developmental steps, evidence of success, and supporting documents and artifacts that can guide faculty developers in a community approach to the development of this scholarship.
Kathleen S. Smith
Assessing and Reinvigorating a Teaching Assistant Support Program: The Intersections of Institutional, Regional, and National Needs for Preparing Future Faculty
This chapter discusses an assessment of an 11-year old teaching assistant (TA) support program at a Research I institution. The TA support program was developed on the premise that professional preparation of teachers includes fundamental teaching competencies or skills that can be identified, developed, and evaluated (Simpson & Smith, 1993; Smith & Simpson, 1995). The purpose of this longitudinal study was to identify and enhance the institutional enabling factors that help graduate teaching and laboratory assistants in performing their duties and in using their graduate experience to prepare for careers at a variety of academic institutions.
Laurie Bellows and Joseph R. Danos
Transforming Instructional Development: Online Workshops for Faculty
Two vastly different institutions, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and Delgado community college, cooperated in the delivery of online faculty development workshops in syllabus construction. This chapter describes the experiences of a flagship university and an urban community college in employing electronic delivery of the same workshop content to their respective faculty members. It shares successful and unsuccessful strategies, nuts and bolts, and the discovery of an unexpected, pleasant irony: the technology that can separate and isolate us has the potential to bring us together, as though we were on electronic legs in a virtual Athenian agora.
Section III: Student-Centered Faculty Development
Sheryl Burgstahler
Accommodating Students with Disabilities: Professional Development Needs of Faculty
Faculty members play an important role in making academic programs accessible to postsecondary students with disabilities. However, instructors do not always possess the knowledge, experiences, and attitudes that result in the most inclusive environment for these students. A literature review was conducted to explore what faculty members need to know about accommodating students with disabilities in their courses and how they can best gain this knowledge. These results were used to develop a comprehensive set of training options that can be used with postsecondary instructors nationwide. The content of these options focuses on legal issues, accommodation strategies, and resources. Modes of instruction include on-site training, printed materials, distance learning, web-based self-paced instruction, and video presentations.
Douglas Robertson
Integrity in Learner-Centered Teaching
Learner-centered teaching challenges teachers with inherent conflicts and can be viewed as a conflicted educational helping relationship. This chapter explores fundamental conflicts in learner-centered teaching as well as ways to handle them constructively. Learner-centered teacher integrity is seen as the degree to which contradictory demands on the teacher (e.g., facilitating learning as well as evaluating it) are brought into synergistic relationship. A process for enhancing these synergies is suggested. This discussion emerges from a line of work that attempts to further develop the learner-centered teaching role in higher education (Robertson, 1996, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2001).
Richard G. Tiberius, John Teshima, and Alan R. Kindler
Something More: Moments of Meeting and the Teacher-Learner Relationship
The Boston Group, drawing upon developmental and clinical research, has identified special moments in human interaction that they call “moments of meeting.” These moments can occur spontaneously within the context of ongoing relational interaction and can effectively restructure relationships. We think of these moments of meeting as pivotal moments because of their potentially pivotal effect on relationships. In this chapter we briefly describe the theory underlying these moments of relational change, using examples from education. Then we suggest strategies that may help teachers participate creatively in such moments. Finally, we explore the implications of this theory for the concept of authenticity.
Candyce Reynolds
Undergraduate Students as Collaborators in Building Student Learning Communities
Colleges and universities have recently used the concept of learning communities as a strategy to improve undergraduate student learning. This chapter describes a learning community approach where upper-division undergraduates serve as mentors for freshman and sophomore students and develop and sustain learning communities with faculty partners. The impact of this program is described and implications are discussed.
X. Mara Chen, Ellen M. Lawler, and Elichia A. Venso
Improving Teaching and Learning: Students’ Perspectives
Despite much debate among educators over methods to improve the climate and effectiveness of teaching and learning, very limited effort has been directed toward seeking input from students. In this study, a survey of students’ opinions regarding college teaching and learning was given in six courses with 163 students completing the survey. This chapter analyzed the survey results and proposed specific strategies that professors can use to make teaching engaging as well as informative, and thus, to enhance student learning.
Section IV: Philosophical Issues in Faculty Development
Deborah A. Lieberman and Alan E. Guskin
The Essential Role of Faculty Development in New Higher Education Models
There is a growing interest in and active discussion about new educational environments, which shift the emphasis of education from faculty and their teaching to students and their learning. This shift enables us to view the education of students in multiple educational environments beyond the traditional model of faculty teaching students in a classroom. Combining both different instructional roles and educational settings into new higher education models of undergraduate educate education will demand that faculty learn new roles. It also holds out the hope that reducing the demands on faculty time and increasing the availability of other institutional resources will enhance the quality of faculty work- life. To successfully address factors like financial constraints and accountability while creating, implementing, and sustaining new higher education models will require the commitment of a number of significant groups in the institution. Among the most important will be the work of faculty development professionals and the centers they lead.
Michael Anderson and Virginia Baldwin
Are They Really Teachers? Problem-Based Learning and Information Professionals
Traditionally, working with teaching faculty is the primary consulting role for most faculty development professionals. The boundaries, however, are not always clear regarding instructional assistance that is provided to other personnel. This chapter demonstrates how collaboration among faculty consultants and information specialists can result in enhanced library utilization and better research-related instruction. Our model uses problem-based learning (PBL) as a vehicle for teaching research and retrieval skills in either a single class experience or in multiple classroom visits with an engineering librarian.
Carolin Kreber
Embracing a Philosophy of Lifelong Learning in Higher Education: Starting with Faculty Beliefs about Their Role as Educators
Recent events on the international political scene point to a need to teach course content and learning skills that focus on issues of equity and diversity, understanding of the local culture and differences among cultures; learning for ethics, citizenship, and democracy, interpersonal skills; and an ability to make informed and responsible value judgments. These, among others, are important aspects of lifelong learning. To embrace a philosophy of lifelong learning in higher education it seems paramount to focus on faculty beliefs about teaching to encourage a critical interrogation of course and program goals. The chapter concludes with several suggestions for the practice of faculty development.
Laura Bush, Barry Maid, and Duane Roen
A Matrix for Reconsidering, Reassessing, and Shaping E-Learning Pedagogy and Curriculum
Educational stakeholders are increasingly engaged in discussions about the effective design, distribution, and evaluation of e-learning. We invite educators to build on already existing scholarship as they make future e-learning decisions. Specifically, we combine four categories of academic scholarship from Boyer (1990) with six assessment criteria from Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997) to construct a matrix that may be applied to any post-secondary learning or teaching context. We argue that while each medium in which faculty might find themselves teaching differs from others, the teaching itself, and effective teaching in general, is definable and, therefore, can be evaluated using the matrix.
Vol. 22, 2004 – Editor, Catherine M. Wehlburg; Associate Editor, Sandra Chadwick-Blossey
Section I: Past, Present, and Future of SoTL
Kathleen McKinney
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Past Lessons, Current Challenges, and Future Visions
This chapter reviews the complex history of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) including SoTL as a social movement and various conceptualizations of the term. Based on extant work, I also discuss past lessons, current challenges, and future directions for SoTL. Additional theorizing and research are needed in many areas. Suggestions related to faculty and organizational development and change are imbedded in this discussion.
Section II: Assessment and Faculty Development
D. Lynn Sorenson and Timothy W. Bothell
Triangulating Faculty Needs for the Assessment of Student Learning
To enhance assessment of student learning, the Brigham Young University (BYU) Faculty Center undertook a needs assessment to guide new initiatives. Researchers reviewed results from the National Survey of Student Engagement and an earlier BYU faculty survey. In addition, they conducted a qualitative study with faculty and administrators. The qualitative study can serve as a model for other faculty developers considering new initiatives. The findings raised thought-provoking issues for faculty development, particularly faculty readiness. As a result of this research, the center bolstered current services and developed new ones to support the assessment of student learning.
Phyllis Blumberg
Documenting the Educational Innovations of Faculty: A Win-Win Situation for Faculty and the Faculty Development Center
Compiling faculty members’ teaching innovations into an annual campus-specific publication allows others to learn about these ideas and adapt them. This chapter will describe 1) the process used to develop such a Document of Innovation, 2) the types of innovation abstracted, and 3) this document’s impact on an institution. A dissemination process including individual meetings with campus leaders provides greater visibility for the Teaching and Learning Center and the featured faculty. An analysis of these annual publications yield comprehensive data about the campus’ faculty, their innovative teaching trends, and describes the current teaching climate on the campus.
Timothy W. Bothell and Tom Henderson
Evaluating the Return on Investment of Faculty Development
How can the return on investment of faculty development be determined? One way to do this is through the application of a highly replicated and reported return on investment (ROI) process. This chapter reviews briefly an ROI process used by organizations throughout the world, a process that has been the basis for over 100 published studies and is the most validated and reported ROI process used for determining the monetary impact of learning. The process utilizes a five-level framework and a step-by-step ROI process model. These components are reviewed in this chapter and an example of return on investment based on student retention in a Freshman Seminar Program is explained.
Pamela M. Milloy and Corly Brooke
Beyond Bean Counting: Making Faculty Development Needs Assessment More Meaningful
Faculty development centers face many challenges including shrinking resources while providing an increasing array of programs and services to enhance learning. Needs assessment can be seen as a valuable tool to help centers focus efforts to meet the most salient needs relevant to the institutional mission. This chapter describes a faculty development needs assessment project that was implemented at a large public institution. Data collected was used to focus programming and guide decision-making. Based upon a presentation at the 2002 POD conference, selected needs assessment findings and their programmatic implications for the center are presented.
Section III: Curriculum Design and Evaluation
Marlene M. Preston
Color-Coded Course Design: Educating and Engaging Faculty to Educate and Engage Students
In a weeklong seminar, “Course Design to Foster Student Engagement and Learning,” faculty created course charts to reflect their various plans for an upcoming semester. With colorful Post-it Notes, they applied theoretical principles of course design. Participating in the kind of active environment they might want to create for students, faculty constructed their charts, rearranged the components to achieve balance across the semester, and discussed the plans with their colleagues. This case study includes the rationale for and description of “Color-Coded Course Design,” a process that allows faculty to recognize and experience the power of an active classroom.
Margaret K. Snooks, Sue E. Neeley, and Kathleen M. Williamson
From SGID and GIFT to BBQ: Streamlining Midterm Student Evaluations to Improve Teaching and Learning
Faculty members want feedback about ways to improve learning. Midterm assessments are more useful than end-of-term student evaluations. Not all institutions provide faculty development consultants. This chapter presents and innovative process appropriate for institutions currently without teaching enhancement centers. The Bare Bones Questions (BBQ) process consists of empathic trained colleagues facilitating students’ evaluative discussions. Students and faculty members are overwhelmingly positive about the process piloted for the past three years. Students’ suggestions can include simple changes in classroom environment or enhanced sensitivity to cultural diversity. BBQ may build intra-institutional collegiality by reducing the isolation of teaching.
Barbara J. Millis
A Versatile Interactive Focus Group Protocol for Qualitative Assessments
A highly flexible focus group protocol captures efficiently and economically useful data for immediate and longitudinal course and program assessment. Special features include an index card activity that deals with satisfaction levels and a Roundtable/Ranking activity that allows participant-generated judgments about the most positive and the most negative features of a course or program. These later activities, with data displayed in an Excel histogram and in a colored-coded Word table, can be used for what is called a “Quick Course Diagnosis” (QCD).
Section IV: Faculty Development Tools
David J. Langley, Terence W. O’Connor, and Michele M. Welkener
A Transformative Model for Designing Professional Development Activities
A new model for professional and organizational development is presented based on concepts derived from Wilber (2000) and Astin (2001). The model consists of an individual/public dimension and a reflection/performance dimension. Four quadrants that result from connecting these dimensions are formed: 1) individual reflection, 2) public reflection, 3) individual performance, and 4) public performance. We believe this model offers faculty developers a framework for designing thoughtful programs to aid faculty in meeting the wide range of internal and external demands that confront higher education institutions.
Scott E. Hampton, Craig D. Morrows, Ashleah Bechtel, and Marjorie H. Carroll
A Systematic, Hands-On, Reflective, and Effective (SHORE) Approach to Faculty Development for New and Seasoned Faculty
The purpose of the faculty development program for teaching Introduction to Psychology in this study is to further develop skills for new and seasoned faculty to enable them to teach and inspire students more effectively. This Systematic, Hands-On, Reflective, and Effective (SHORE) approach provides a forum to practice teaching skills, gain familiarity with course material, incorporate classroom management techniques, evaluate teaching effectiveness, and build a cohesive teaching team. Evaluative feedback indicates the approach positively affects both the faculty and 1,100 students annually. Implications for faculty development programs and research are also discussed.
Peter Felten, Deandra Little, and Allison Pingree
Foucault and the Practice of Educational Development: Power and Surveillance in Individual Consultations
A common goal of educational development is to create a neutral, “safe” place for clients in individual consultation. Such an approach, while well intentioned, obscures the multifaceted web of power threading through and around our work. Using Michel Foucault’s theories of sovereign and disciplinary power, we trace the forms that power can take in specific types of consultations (small group instructional diagnosis, course evaluations, and videotape). While power is always “dangerous,” it is less likely to be damaging if we are conscious of its presence and impact-and of our own participation in its complexity.
Ellen N. Junn, Ellen Kottler, Jacqueline K. Coffman, Pamela H. Oliver, and Fred Ramirez
Approaching Faculty Development Support From the Grassroots: Establishment of an Innovative, Formal, Untenured Faculty Organization
This chapter describes an innovative faculty support program designed for untenured faculty and full-time lecturers. Working closely with members of the administration, untenured faculty and full-time lecturers established and created a voluntary, formal, cross-departmental faculty organization called the ULO (Untenured Faculty and Full-Time Lecturer Organization). The ULO has formal bylaws, elected officers, and a mission that initiated activities all designed to support junior faculty and full-time lecturers within the college. Even within its initial year, this organization offered a significant variety of meaningful support activities with positive outcomes. The activities include formation of a Research Writing Workgroup, workshops on the tenure and promotion process, teaching brown bags, greater opportunities for leadership development and service, reduced sense of faculty isolation (Fullan, 1993) and stress, and enhanced collegial social opportunities. Discussed here are activities, current accomplishments, strengths, challenges, caveats, and recommendations.
Mathew L. Ouellett and Christine Stanley
Fostering Diversity in a Faculty Development Organization
Since 1994, the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD) has articulated a goal of becoming a more multicultural organization. In support of this goal, POD sponsors two key initiatives: travel and internship grants. This chapter offers an historical overview of the first nine years of these programs, selected perspectives from participants on the individual and organizational benefits of these initiatives, and a context within which to explore how POD is evolving as a multicultural organization and how it may benefit from increased attention to diversity related issues in the future.
Nancy Van Note Chism
Playing Well With Others: Academic Development as a Team Sport
An important first step to attacking significant institutional problems is working across the organizational silos that encompass campus units. This chapter draws upon an experience in collaboration through which an academic development center chose to partner with a variety of campus units to address a vexing problem facing many campuses: unacceptable rates of first-year student retention. The chapter then goes beyond the case to identify the kinds of collaborations that can be created to treat other pressing academic issues and highlight characteristics of successful collaborations that academic development centers can initiate or join.
Section V: Student Learning and Faculty Development
Kenneth France
Problem-Based Service-Learning: Rewards and Challenges with Undergraduates
Students in three Abnormal Psychology sections participated in problem-based service learning (PBSL). Desired learning outcomes included humanizing persons diagnosed with mental health disorders and more fully appreciating challenges experienced by such individuals. Students completing the PBSL projects evidenced decreased negative feelings and increased positive feelings toward consumers of mental health services. According to the community partners, students made valuable contributions to both the organizations and the mental health consumers served by those organizations. Students saw the activity as being challenging and rewarding.
Debbie Williams, Doug Foster, Bo Green, Paul Lakey, Ray Lakey, Foy mills, and Carol Williams
Effective Peer Evaluation in Learning Teams
Evaluating student performance in learning teams is challenging. This chapter reviews the student learning team and peer evaluation literature. The authors share the results of their experience using four rubrics for peer evaluation in student learning teams. Student learning teams involve forming students into teams for the semester to enhance their active learning. A portion of the course grade is dedicated to team quizzes, activities, and projects. The authors conclude that peer evaluation data should be used both formatively and summatively to enhance team cohesion and accountability and provide their preferred rubric for the peer evaluation process. Usage of forced differentiation in peer evaluation is discussed. A mathematical formula for calculating the impact of peer evaluations in learning teams on course or team project grades is presented.
Deborah Willis and Barbara J. Millis
An International Perspective on Assessing Group Projects
The value of group work for enhancing learning is well documented. However, to maximize the impact of group work on student learning, faculty should carefully consider course design and assessment. This chapter draws on research, policy, and practice from the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to emphasize the importance of adopting an integrated approach to group work through careful planning. Guidelines emphasize ways to provide for the responsive, responsible assessment of group projects.
Kevin Kecskes, Amy Spring, and Devorah Lieberman
The Hesburgh Certificate and Portland State University’s Faculty Development Approach to Supporting Service Learning and Community-University Partnerships
Service learning now has a prominent home in hundreds of diverse campuses across the nation. Developing service-learning expertise and other community-campus partnership enhancement strategies for faculty requires innovation. Recently, Portland State University’s Center for Academic Excellence received the Theodore M. Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence for Community-University Partnerships. This chapter outlines the center’s three-tiered approach to supporting and sustaining civic engagement practices that are sensitive to individual needs on campus and in the community, while also working toward ongoing departmental and institutional transformation.
Section VI: Faculty Development With Part-Time Instructors
Karen Krupar
Making Adjunct Faculty Part of the Academic Community
Hundreds of adjunct faculty in four-year colleges and universities teach over 45% of the courses, especially in the general education programs, but few institutions have chosen to construct adjunct faculty development programs that integrate these faculty into the instructional community. Metropolitan State College of Denver, recipient of a Title III grant to build an adjunct development program received a TIA-CREF Hesburgh Award of Excellence in 2001 for its innovative adjunct support activities. This chapter articulates the features of this successful program and its effect on the adjunct faculty cohort at the college.
Chris O’Neal & Jennifer Karlin
Graduate Student Mentors: Meeting the Challenges of the Ongoing Development of Graduate Student Instructors
Training and mentoring Graduate Student Instructors (GS Instructors) at large institutions presents three challenges to instructional developers: 1) training numerous GS Instructors from multiple departments, 2) the vast array of duties GS Instructors need training in, and 3) the continual sophistication of GS Instructors. Here we describe how the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan has met these challenges through the use of Graduate Student Mentors (GS Mentors). GS Mentors are experienced GS Instructors who are trained to mentor and advise their peers. We discuss how the GS Mentors are selected, trained, and supervised, and how they have helped to meet the challenges outlined above.
Vol. 23, 2005 – Editor, Sandra Chadwick-Blossey; Associate Editor, Douglas Reimondo Robertson
Section I: Faculty Development in a Climate of Change
Lion F. Gardiner
Transforming the Environment for Learning: A Crisis of Quality
This chapter addresses academic leaders and summarizes research findings on the conditions needed to produce learning and student development in higher education at the level required by society, and our relative success in doing this. It attempts to make clear the urgency for change that exists in the way in which we conduct our educational affairs. It describes the causes of less-than-optimal learning, outlines 10 key elements for effectively managing learning in complex institutions, presents eight steps required to lead a successful transformation in an institution or unit, and provides resources with detailed information and guidance.
Robert M. Diamond
The Institutional Change Agency: The Expanding Role of Academic Support Centers
Higher education is going through significant changes stimulated by the rapid growth of the internet, the increasing globalization of higher education, and the ever-pressing question of institutional quality. New modes of educational delivery through virtual networks are breaking the traditional mold of instructional provision. New players, new pedagogies, and new paradigms are redefining higher education. The rules are changing, and there is increased pressure on institutions of higher education to evolve, adapt, or desist.
Patricia M. Dwyer
Leading Change: Creating a Culture of Assessment
In Leading Change, John Kotter (1996) outlines an eight-step process to effect major organizational change. At Shepherd College, the assessment process that evolved into a culture of assessment mirrors the steps that Kotter describes. In 1998, Shepherd College found itself in a predicament that many colleges and universities can relate to: slated for an accreditation visit in 2002 with campus assessment efforts stalled at every turn. A new director organized an assessment task force, established a template for assessment plans and reports, and began grassroots education about assessment. Over the four years, a vision that aligned assessment with improving student learning effected dramatic changes in attitudes about assessment.
Connie M. Schroeder
Evidence of the Transformational Dimensions of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Faculty Development Through the Eyes of SoTL Scholars
This analysis began from two unlikely starting pints: a favorite Marcel Proust quote below that has nothing to do with faculty development but could, and Pat Hutchings (2000) descriptive quote, “The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is characterized by a transformational agenda” (p.8). Do SoTL faculty development programs foster transformation? Is there evidence of a transformational process and transformative learning? The project summaries of eight SoTL scholars were analyzed for evidence of transformation. The evidence for transformation of landscapes of learning, teaching, scholarship, and self are explored from SoTL scholars’ perspectives in a faculty development program, providing insight into and support for transformational faculty development.
Alan C. Frantz, Steven A. Beebe, Virginia S. Horvath, JoAnn Canales, and David E. Swee
The Roles of Teaching and Learning Centers
This chapter shares findings from a survey of teaching and learning centers on college and university campuses in the United States. Topics addressed include organizational infrastructure, assessment and accountability, factors/challenges contributing to successful implementation, and a list of functions and program offerings found in teaching and learning centers across the country.
Section II: Quality of Work Life for Faculty and Faculty Developers
Kathleen T. Brinko, Sally S. Atkins, and Marian E. Miller
The Quality of Life of Faculty Development Professionals
Responses to a questionnaire revealed that faculty development professionals typically juggle several roles-which they find to be energizing-and typically balance multiple challenges and stressors-which they feel they handle well. These faculty developers are enthusiastic about and, in many cases, sustained by their work because they find opportunities for lifelong learning, professional growth, and meaningful work.
Christine M. Cress and Jennifer L. Hart
The Hue and Cry of Campus Climate: Faculty Strategies for Creating Equitable Work Environments
Quantitative and qualitative data from faculty at a large public research university provide contrasting work life experiences for faculty of color and white faculty. Significant differences are evident regarding teaching and research, institutional priorities, individual goals, job satisfaction, and sources of stress. Specific faculty strategies for creating equitable environments are highlighted.
Libby Falk Jones
Exploring the Inner Landscape of Teaching: A Program for Faculty Renewal
To improve the quality of faculty life, Berea College developed a yearlong program exploring teaching as a vocation. Sixteen faculty from different departments participated in the series of seven experiential, dialogic sessions. Participants reported experiencing increased empathy and patience, deeper engagement with their work, a stronger sense of community, and encouragement to meet the challenges of being educators.
Cathie J. Peterson
Is the Thrill Gone? An Investigation of Faculty Vitality Within the Context of the Community College
This single institutional case study investigated faculty vitality within the context of the community college by answering the following research questions: What are the characteristics of vital faculty within the community college? What effect does the environment have on faculty vitality? What do the vital faculty do to maintain their vitality? Qualitative research methods were employed to study the lives of the faculty within their naturalistic setting, thereby giving voice to the vital community college faculty.
Section III: Best Practices for Faculty Development
Catherine M. Wehlburg
Using Data to Enhance College Teaching: Course and Departmental Assessment Results as a Faculty Development Tool
This chapter highlights the need for using assessment of student learning outcomes data to guide teaching-related faculty development decision-making. Literature on the topic suggests that using assessment results to inform faculty development discussions makes better use of both the assessment data and the time spent in faculty development. Feedback and consultations regarding feedback seem to be important variables in determining if changes in teaching will occur. Types of assessment data that may especially inform teaching-related conversations are discussed.
Kathryn M. Plank, Alan Kalish, Stephanie V. Rohdieck, and Kathleen A. Harper
A Vision Beyond Measurement: Creating an Integrated Data System for Teaching Centers
Assessing the work of teaching and learning centers is crucial to maintain the support of our institutions; however, collecting and interpreting the right data can be a challenge. This chapter explores practical strategies for integrating assessment into daily work flow in order to generate information that accurately measures our impact, helps others understand and value our work, and enables us to improve what we do without creating a major “add-on” task. We discuss ways to measure, track and report work, and share means to use data for both summative and formative purposes that we hope will make the work of faculty developers easier, better, and appreciated.
Phyllis Blumberg and Justin Everett
Achieving a Campus Consensus on Learning-Centered Teaching: Process and Outcomes
Fifty faculty and staff members attended a consensus conference on learning-centered teaching. Within small groups, participants agreed that 1) this approach develops student responsibility for their learning; 2) a consistently implemented philosophy yields a culture of learning-centered teaching, and 3) graduates of such programs become lifelong learners, self-directing, self-initiating leaders. Not all participants agreed that they could fully implement this method. They emphasized that support by administrators is a prerequisite to making changes in teaching approaches. However, the conference effectively determined levels of agreement and stimulated discussion. Results were consistent with the literature on learning-centered teaching.
Richard A. Holmgren
Teaching Partners: Improving Teaching and Learning by Cultivating a Community of Practice
The Teaching Partners Program and its follow-up activities demonstrate that a carefully designed faculty development program can shift a campus culture to derive significant, measurable benefits for faculty and students. The program seeks to transform the institutional culture from one in which teaching is sequestered behind closed doors to one that supports substantive conversations about both the learning-teaching process and the methods by which that process might best be facilitated. Following Shulman’s (1993) lead, the program opens the doors of the classroom, reenvisions teaching as community property, and nurtures informed and sustaining discussions of teaching.
Kim M. Mooney, Traci Fordham, and Valerie D. Lehr
A Faculty Development Program to Promote Engaged Classroom Dialogue: The Oral Communication Institute
The St. Lawrence University faculty development program in oral communication promotes and enhances teaching strategies and philosophies for productive and civil classroom discourse. Started in January 2002, the Oral Communication Institute (OCI) provides a sustained forum in which faculty explore the relationship among oral communication, critical thinking, and deep learning. In addition to creating discourse communities, the OCI affords participants opportunities to develop strategies for interactive, reflective student learning. This chapter addresses the essential components for developing an oral communication institute: clear teaching and learning goals, a deliberate format and curriculum, experiential pedagogy, and opportunities for faculty dialogue and reflection.
Rona J. Karasik
Whispers and Sighs: The Unwritten Challenges of Service-Learning
Documentation of the benefits of service-learning abound, and published case studies of successful service-learning programs may be found for a variety of disciplines. Faculty new to service-learning, however, are likely to find themselves facing a variety of unexpected challenges. While these challenges are neither insurmountable nor unknown to experienced service-learning practitioners, they can make starting a service-learning program remarkably time-consuming and unnecessarily frustrating. Unfortunately, pitfalls and program flops are rarely published. This chapter forewarns some of the challenges associated with service-learning and offers realistic approaches to dealing with them successfully.
Judi Hetrick
Junior Faculty Participation in Curricular Change
Participation in curriculum change can be both a necessity and a professional landmine for junior faculty members. They do not, however, have to choose between sitting on the sidelines or sacrificing young careers by working for large-scale change. This chapter presents the elements of successful curriculum change, roles junior faculty can play, and roles they should avoid –or accept with caution.
Laurie Bellows and Ellen Weissinger
Assessing the Academic and Professional Development Needs of Graduate Students
This chapter will describe the results of a survey that assessed the self-perceived career goals and academic and professional development needs of master’s and doctoral-level graduate students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Both graduate students (n=440) and graduate program coordinators (n=23) were surveyed to provide an empirical basis for developing a strategic plan for graduate student academic and professional development activities. Results suggested that doctoral and master’s students express different developmental needs, and that doctoral students’ needs differed at different stages of their academic career. Implications for practice inherent in the survey findings are discussed, and the benefits of broadening the definition of graduate student training and development are examined.
Mary Rose Grant
Faculty Development in Community Colleges: A Model for Part-Time Faculty
Historically, part-time faculty have not received the same development opportunities as full-time faculty. This study surveyed current practices in faculty development for both full-time and part-time faculty in 232 public two-year colleges throughout the United States. Over 90% reported that they had a formal faculty development program for both faculty cohorts, funded with 1%-5% of their operating budgets. About one half of the colleges designated a faculty development coordinator, used needs assessment to determine program content, and evaluated program outcomes. Results of this study were used to design a generic model for part-time faculty development.
Patricia Hanrahan Valley
Entertaining Strangers: Providing for the Development Needs of Part-Time Faculty
For institutions of higher education that have increasingly relied upon part-time faculty members to meet the needs of a rapidly changing society, the challenge has been to provide adequate preparation and development opportunities for these instructors, many of whom have never taught before. This study investigated the characteristics of the part-time faculty, the extent to which they believed they had been oriented by the institution to assume their teaching roles, and their reported need for selected professional development activities at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Extended Campus, an institution employing more than 2,800 adjuncts. The data provided by the needs assessment were instrumental in developing programs for part-time faculty development.
Nancy Van Note Chism
Promoting a Sound Process for Teaching Awards Programs: Appropriate Work for Faculty Development Centers
Examination of a sample of teaching awards programs at colleges and universities in the United States shows that the selection process for most is not based on explicit criteria, evidence that matches the criteria, and announced standards for making judgments about the candidates. If teaching awards programs are to be effective on any level, whether serving as a symbol of institutional commitment, affirming good teachers, or inspiring others to teach well, the quality of their selection process must be credible. This chapter provides recommendations for how faculty development centers can help their institutions to craft a selection process that will enhance their existing programs or help shape new ones.
Vol. 24, 2006 – Editor, Sandra Chadwick-Blossey; Associate Editor, Douglas Reimondo Robertson
James Downey
An Adventure on POD’s High Cs: Culture, Creativity, and Communication in the Academy: A Humanist Perspective
Keynote address given at the November 2004 POD Conference in Montreal, Quebec
Section I: Reflections and Propositions
Raoul A. Arreola
Monster at the Foot of the Bed: Surviving the Challenge of Marketplace Forces on Higher Education
The impact of technology on society has caused a paradigm shift in the basic support for higher education. Where higher education was traditionally supported as a function of government, the knowledge explosion and global economy resulting from the impact of computer and other technologies is moving the underlying support of higher education to the marketplace. There is evidence that traditional academic strategies and practices that were successful under the old paradigm may no longer be working. Twelve suggestions are offered for revolutionary changes that the academy must make in order to survive, even thrive, in the new paradigm.
Leora Baron
The Advantages of a Reciprocal Relationship Between Faculty Development and Organizational Development in Higher Education
No campus organization exists in a vacuum, nor can it afford to be an island unto itself. Thus the functions of faculty development need to be viewed in the context of the entire institution. The effectiveness of faculty development, and sometimes its very survival, are dependent to a large extent on its ability to influence and participate in organizational development outside of its own confines. This chapter suggests practical ways in which faculty development can contribute to, and indeed benefit from, a reciprocal relationship with institutional organizational development.
Marc Cutright
A Different Way to Approach the Future: Using Chaos Theory to Improve Planning
Strategic planning is a good idea that gets a bad name from dubious efforts carrying the title. Much of this rap comes from half-hearted exercises, but some of it comes from efforts that founder due to faulty or limited conceptions of how the future “works.” Chaos theory is an alternative approach and metaphor with potential to let us see the future and its dynamics in new ways. Cognizance of chaos’s nature and underlying structure might help us do planning in new, non-intuitive, and more successful ways.
George Keller
The New Demand for Heterogeneity in College Teaching
The past half century has brought an astounding increase in U.S. college and university enrollments. The rapid rise of mass higher education has forced major changes at every institution and is reshaping the U.S. higher education enterprise. Each college needs to ask itself what the huge expansion means for future faculty hires, programs, and modes of teaching.
Patricia Cranton
Not Making or Shaping: Finding Authenticity in Faculty Development
Authenticity is defined as a multifaceted concept that includes self-awareness, awareness of others, genuine relationships, awareness of contextual constraints, and living a critical life. Authenticity develops over time and with experience; a developmental continuum for authenticity is discussed. Drawing on a three-year research project on authenticity in teaching in higher education, this chapter suggests ways in which faculty developers can help foster authentic practice.
Chantal S. Levesque, G. Roger Sell, James A. Zimmerman
A Theory-Based Integrative Model for Learning and Motivation in Higher Education
The shared mission of higher education institutions is to develop educated persons who are able to make connections and build on knowledge acquired across disciplines and fields and through various life experiences. This chapter offers a theory-based model that can be used by researchers and practitioners to enhance academic learning and motivation. Educators can create learning environments that move students from external regulation to self-determined forms of motivation. This model is used to describe conditions that enhance/restrict learning. It also has the potential to be used to interpret research on teaching and learning in higher education.
Phyllis Worthy Dawkins, Andrea L. Beach, Stephen L. Rozman
Perceptions of Faculty Developers About the Present and Future of Faculty Development at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
The development of faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has been a challenge and commitment since their inception before and after the civil war. Historically, faculty have assumed many roles, but they primarily sought to address the needs of black students. The HBCU Faculty Development Network, founded in 1994, has been instrumental in providing a platform to showcase accomplishments and challenges in education at this unique group of colleges and universities. To address future needs, we surveyed the membership to explore current program goals and influences, practices, and new directions. The results are compared with data for the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, with some significant differences discovered.
Linda C. Hodges
Preparing Faculty for Pedagogical Change: Helping Faculty Deal With Fear
How receptive faculty are to changing their pedagogical approach is a complex issue, but one factor that impedes change is the fear of taking a risk. Underlying this fear may be the fear of loss, fear of embarrassment, or the fear of failure. Addressing these issues can empower faculty to be more innovative in their teaching. Drawing on research literature, personal teaching narratives, and my own work in faculty development, I discuss some of these underlying fears. I then offer concrete strategies for working with faculty to enable them to overcome these emotional barriers and embrace change.
Section II: Innovations and Outcomes
Peter Seldin
Tailoring Faculty Development Programs to Faculty Career Stages
College faculty progress through a series of sequential career stages. Each is characterized by different motivations and professional development needs. Yet, too often, faculty developers rely on hunches rather than empirical data to guide programming decisions. This chapter describes the important research findings of a just completed national study to determine the different programming interests and needs of more than 500 beginning, mid-career, and senior-level faculty in the United States.
Kevin J. Kecskes, Sherrill B. Gelmon, Amy Spring
Creating Engaged Departments: A Program for Organizational and Faculty Development
Portland State University encourages faculty participation in service-learning by providing faculty with individual incentives to support and reward them. Now, in recognition of this central role of the department in higher education, administrators interested in creating sustained civic engagement initiatives on campus are looking to the department as a strategic leverage point for change. This chapter investigates a yearlong engaged department initiative and finds that a collective approach can (re)connect individual faculty to their initial motivations for engaging in the profession, to a community of scholars, to their students, and also to their surrounding community.
Dorothy J. Bach, Marva A. Barnett, Jose D. Fuentes, Sherwood C. Frey
Promoting Intellectual Community and Professional Growth for a Diverse Faculty
Minority faculty retention is key to increasing faculty diversity at most colleges and universities. Because retention depends on individual faculty choice and administrative tenure decisions, institutions need to help junior faculty develop a tenurable profile and enhance their desire to remain at their institution. This chapter examines a fellows program that supports beginning faculty in developing successful long-term careers, taking into account research on helping diverse faculty members thrive. It also presents strategies for establishing viable peer support networks and partnerships with senior consultants and for creating programming that ensures new faculty successfully transition into teaching, research, and the university community.
Bonnie B. Mullinix
Building It for Them: Faculty-Centered Program Development and eManagement
This chapter documents the effectiveness of a responsive, multilevel, web-based system for identifying and responding to faculty interest and needs for training and development. A case-based description illustrates the advantages of using a web-facilitated approach to schedule sessions according to faculty interest and availability. From needs assessment survey, to session design and scheduling, to registration, communication, and monitoring of participation, to evaluation and feedback, this integrated system has proven effective in engaging faculty. Data collected over two years of program implementation is shared and implications for the design, facilitation, and evaluation of such approaches are considered.
Donna M. Qualters, Thomas C. Sheahan, Jacqueline A. Isaacs
An Electronic Advice Column to Foster Teaching Culture Change
First year engineering students receive most of their teaching from instructors outside of engineering. As a result, these instructors are typically not a teaching community with a shared commitment to engineering student learning. Retention of engineering students is strongly tied to the quality of teaching, thus addressing collective teaching quality is important. This chapter describes the development of a carefully crafted, electronically distributed advice column on teaching developed by an interdisciplinary editorial team, written under the pseudonym Jonas Chalk. Surveys of Chalk Talk readers indicate that this is an effective means to promote teaching culture change.
Barbara J. Millis
Helping Faculty Learn to Teach Better and “Smarter” Through Sequenced Activities
Faculty developers can help faculty learn to intentionally sequence assignments and activities to promote greater learning when they understand the convergent research-with its practical implications for teaching-on how people learn, on deep learning, and on cooperative learning. Such a sequence includes a motivating out-of-class assignment (homework), in-class “processing” that includes active learning and student interactions, and feedback and assessment, often given in multiple ways. This approach is modeled through two examples using graphic organizers.
Patricia Armstrong, Peter Felten, Jeffrey Johnston, Allison Pingree
Practicing What We Preach: Transforming the TA Orientation
Brookfield (1995), Schon (1983), and others articulate the necessity and complexity of being critically reflective in our work. Indeed, the value of critical reflection is inherent to educational development as a field in that we frequently encourage such thinking in our consultations with instructors. But practicing what we preach can be difficult. This chapter reflects on an experiment in the transformation of a teaching assistant orientation, a central event of our teaching center. We not only describe and assess the process of revising this orientation, but we also reflect on the implications of this case for broader programming issues in faculty and teaching assistant development.
Laurel Willingham-McLain, Deborah L. Pollack
Exploring the Application of Best Practices to TA Awards: One University’s Approach
This chapter explores how to adapt best practices from the general literature on teaching awards in higher education to graduate student teaching assistant (TA) awards. Although most criteria apply, they must be fitted to the career stage and aspirations of TAs. The Duquesne University Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching serves as a case study demonstrating how these practices can be modified to both recognize excellent teaching and promote the professional development of graduate student instructors.
Chris Carlson-Dakes, Alice Pawley
Expeditionary Learning: A Low-Risk, Low-Cost, High-Impact Professional Development Model
We describe a low-risk, low-cost, high-impact professional development program to help faculty, instructional staff, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students create space in their lives to explore the diversity of their campus community and reflect on beliefs about teaching and learning in higher education. Along with small group discussions, participants have “expeditions” onto campus to explore learning situations and academic life in ways that they have never before experienced. We describe our theoretical model, programmatic and evaluation structure, and some participants’ insights into why they participated and what they learned from our first implementation.
Harriet Fayne, Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens
Learning Communities for First-Year Faculty: Transition, Acculturation, and Transformation
To enhance new faculty members’ chances for teaching and career success, Otterbein College piloted a yearlong learning community program and encouraged first-year faculty to participate. Four new faculty members took part in opportunities designed to enhance their teaching, to orient them more fully to a new institution and student body, to foster collegial community, to encourage reflective practice, and to introduce them to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This qualitative case study tracks their developmental trajectory, which led them from an initial concern with self and survival to an eventual focus on student learning.
Helen M. Clarke, Philip E. Bishop
Faculty Competency by Design: Model for Institutional Transformation
For a decade, Valencia Community College has striven for a faculty development program with direct impact on student learning. The college succeeded by designing faculty learning with the same logic we apply to student learning. Valencia’s program for new tenure-track faculty focuses on significant faculty learning outcomes, a learning-centered pedagogy, high standards of scholarship, and continuous program assessment. The college’s Teaching/Learning Academy and a coordinated tenure process have cultivated new learning leaders and created a fresh partnership among deans and faculty members. This developing process of new-hire faculty development has been pivotal to Valencia’s learning-centered transformation.
Vol. 25, 2007
Section I: Educational Development and the Sociological Imagination
Chapter 1. It All Started in the Sixties: Movements for Change Across the Decades-A Personal Journey (Pgs. 3-17)
R. Eugene Rice
Association of American Colleges and Universities
A combination of memoir and social commentary, this chapter explores changes in higher education throughout five decades-1960s: utopian quest for learning communities; 1970s: faculty development movement; 1980s: focus on the academic workplace; 1990s: broadening the understanding of scholarship; and 2000s: new pathways and the engaged campus. This chapter provides a context for the careers and work of faculty, academic administrators, and faculty development specialists (both new and experienced) as well as for POD.
Chapter 2. Living Engagement (Pgs. 18-38)
bell hooks
Berea College
Douglas Reimondo Robertson
Northern Kentucky University
In this “talking chapter” bell hooks reveals, through dialogue about her thoughts and experiences related to college teaching and learning, a profound and robust perspective on what could be called “deep” faculty development. Topics include engaged pedagogy, therapeutic conversations, spiritual practice, difference, conflict, and love.
Chapter 3. Surviving to Tenure (Pgs. 39-51)
James M. Lang
Assumption College
For most new faculty, anxiousness about the tenure application begins from the first day on the job. Surviving the six intervening years on the tenure track requires a range of time- and career-management skills that new faculty may only learn piecemeal along the way. New faculty need help in five specific areas in order to survive their path down the tenure track: 1) developing teaching strategies that will fit their personalities and reach as many students as possible, 2) managing their time to allow for research and publication, 3) determining what and how many service commitments to make, 4) existing peacefully and productively with their colleagues, and 5) preparing documentation for their tenure cases from the start of their careers.
Section II: Paradigms
Chapter 4. A Critical Theory Perspective on Faculty Development (Pgs. 55-69)
Stephen D. Brookfield
University of St. Thomas
This chapter argues that critical theory implies a number of conceptions and practices of teaching, and it applies a critical theory perspective to conducting faculty development. It speculates on how faculty development might be organized according to some insights drawn from critical theory, and it reviews the chief reasons why teachers resist engaging with this perspective.
Chapter 5. The ABCs of Fractal Thinking in Higher Education (Pgs. 70-89)
Edward Nuhfer
Idaho State University
All learning establishes and often stabilizes neural networks in the brain. These carry both cognitive and affective attributes and have fractal form. Fractal networks produce many actions and products that exhibit fractal qualities. Awareness of such qualities provides a unifying key to understanding and applying educational knowledge. It represents a marked shift in perception that differs from thinking customarily employed in considering information as a specialist. This alternate perspective helps professionals in higher education draw on diverse information from specialty research and apply it more effectively.
Section III: Educational Development and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Chapter 6. Toward a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Educational Development(Pgs. 93-108)
Peter Felten
Elon University
Alan Kalish
The Ohio State University
Allison Pingree
Vanderbilt University
Kathryn M. Plank
The Ohio State University
Educational development traditionally has been a practice-based field. We propose that as a profession we adopt the methods of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), so often shared with our clients, in order to look through a scholarly lens at the outcomes of our own practice. Using SoTL approaches in our work would deepen the research literature in our field and improve the effectiveness of decisions we make about where to spend limited time and resources. In this chapter, we explore what it might mean for individual developers, and for our professional community, to apply SoTL methods to our practice.
Chapter 7. Faculty Development Through Student Learning Initiatives: Lessons Learned(Pgs. 109-122)
Nancy Simpson, Jean Layne, Adalet Baris Gunersel, Blake Godkin, Jeff Froyd
Texas A&M University
A project aimed at improving student learning while facilitating the professional development of faculty participants in the area of teaching has yielded a rich collection of data. In addition to providing critical information about how faculty members think, the project has broadened our thinking regarding the link between student learning initiatives and faculty development. The project has also increased our understanding of the interests of faculty members who are not typically clients of faculty development centers and motivated thinking on how to serve the professional development goals of this group.
Chapter 8. Action Research for Instructional Improvement: Using Data to Enhance Student Learning at Your Institution (Pgs. 123-138)
Constance E. Cook, Mary Wright, Christopher O’Neal
University of Michigan
Action research is a powerful tool that can be used by teaching centers to improve teaching and learning. This chapter describes an action research project conducted at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. The project concerns retention and attrition in science gateway courses, with particular attention given to the role of the teaching assistant. This chapter concludes with a discussion of six principles for teaching center staff who wish to conduct their own action research projects.
Chapter 9. Moving From the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to Educational Research: An Example From Engineering (Pgs. 139-149)
Ruth A. Streveler
Purdue University
Maura Borrego
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Karl A. Smith
University of Minnesota
In The Advancement of Learning, Haber and Hutchings (2005) state that the “scholarship of teaching and learning… is about producing knowledge that is available for others to use and build on” (p. 27). Can viewing the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) as an educational research activity help make SoTL findings more available and easier to build on? This chapter describes a program that prepared engineering faculty to conduct rigorous research in engineering education. Project evaluation revealed that engineering faculty had difficulty making some of the paradigm shifts that were presented in the project.
Section IV: Instructional and Curricular Development
Chapter 10. Structuring Complex Cooperative Learning Activities in 5O-Minute Classes (Pgs. 153-171)
Barbara J. Millis
University of Nevada-Reno
Given the power of learning-centered teaching, faculty can be coached to structure cooperative activities wisely and well, even within 50-minute class periods where there is a perception that complex group work is difficult. In addition to giving some basic advice on team formation and classroom management, this chapter provides examples of five complex cooperative learning structures-Jigsaw, Send-a-Problem, Cooperative Debates, Guided Reciprocal Peer Questioning, and Bingo-that can be conducted within 50-minute classes. The specific literature-based examples are complemented by examples in a variety of other disciplines, making them seem doable to more faculty.
Chapter 11. “Heritage Rocks”: Principles and Best Practices of Effective Intercultural Teaching and Learning (Pgs. 172-188)
Peter Frederick, Mary James
Heritage University
This portrayal of the intercultural teaching/learning culture and classroom stories at one fully multicultural institution, Heritage University, itself reflecting many diverse “heritages,” provides a glimpse into the faces of the future of higher education in America. We offer several examples and a synthesis of the principles and best practices of effective intercultural teaching and learning, with the intention of helping other institutions move intercultural education from the margins to the “center,” thereby preparing both teachers and learners for effective intercultural learning and living in the 21st century.
Chapter 12. How Do You Handle This Situation? Responses by Faculty in Great Britain and the United States to Workshops on the Ethics of Teaching (Pgs. 189-206)
Miriam Rosalyn Diamond
Northwestern University
Faculty in the United States and Great Britain took part in workshops exploring educational ethics. Participants articulated concerns about balancing approachability with fairness, cross-cultural communication, conveying standards to students, and academic integrity. Responses to the session were positive, and both groups indicated an interest in continuing discourse on the topic. The groups differed on specific issues of interest, as well as feedback on the session. Some of these appear to be culturally influenced. Overall, this workshop presents a model for providing faculty with the opportunity to examine and formulate direction when dealing with ethical issues related to teaching.
Chapter 13. In the Eye of the Storm: Students’ Perceptions of Helpful Faculty Actions Following a Collective Tragedy (Pgs. 207-224)
Therese A. Huston
Seattle University
Michele DiPietro
Carnegie Mellon University
On occasion, our campus communities are shaken by national tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, or by local tragedies such as the murder of a faculty member or student. Because these are unusual circumstances, faculty are often initially confused about how to respond, and later have little or no sense of how effective their actions have been (DiPietro, 2003). This chapter investigates the most common instructor responses following a tragedy and which of those responses students find most helpful. Implications for faculty and faculty developers are discussed.
Chapter 14. Sustaining the Undergraduate Seminar: On the Importance of Modeling and Giving Guidelines (Pgs. 225-237)
Shelley Z. Reuter
Concordia University
Student-led discussion is a valuable means of involving students in the collaborative creation of knowledge. This activity becomes especially important in the seminar course where, either individually or in small groups, students lead their peers through a set of readings. Unfortunately, student-led discussions often focus more on summary than critical analysis, largely because seminar leaders, left to their own devices, do not know what a seminar should look like or how to lead one effectively. This chapter demonstrates that undergraduates can learn seminar leadership when provided with guidelines and opportunities to see the skill modeled.
Chapter 15. Teaching Business by Doing Business: An Interdisciplinary Faculty-Friendly Approach (Pgs. 238-253)
Larry K. Michaelsen, Mary McCord
Central Missouri State University
This chapter describes the implementation of an interdisciplinary undergraduate curricular innovation in two different university settings. The Integrative Business Experience (IBE) requires students to enroll concurrently in three required core business courses and a practicum course in which they develop and operate a startup business (based on a real-money loan of up to $5,000) and carry out a hands-on community service project. This chapter also reports outcomes for students (including data from an assessment), examines the variables that minimize the difficulty of achieving cross-disciplinary integration in IBE, and suggests keys to enabling faculty-friendly integrative course designs in other settings.
Section V: Faculty Careers
Chapter 16. The Scholarship of Civic Engagement: Defining, Documenting, and Evaluating Faculty Work (Pgs. 257-279)
Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Patti H. Clayton
North Carolina State University
Civic engagement, which is presented as teaching, research, and service in and with the community, presents new challenges for evaluating faculty work as part of the reappointment, promotion, and tenure process. The nature of service-learning, professional service, and participatory action research are examined as faculty work that can be scholarly (i.e., well informed) and the basis of scholarship (i.e., contributing to a knowledge base). As such, examples of evidence for documenting the work and issues associated with evaluating dossiers are presented.
Chapter 17. How Post-Tenure Review Can Support the Teaching Development of Senior Faculty (Pgs. 280-297)
Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Mei-Yau Shih, Mathew C. Ouellett, Marjory Stewart
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
A key question that campuses face as they develop and implement post-tenure review policies is how to blend the concepts of accountability and renewal. This chapter examines a faculty development initiative linked to a post-tenure review policy at a research-intensive university. It describes the goals, processes, and outcomes of a five-year study of the program, extending research on post-tenure review and its potential for positive faculty development.
Chapter 18. Faculty Development in Student Learning Communities: Exploring the Vitality of Mid-Career Faculty Participants (Pgs. 298-314)
Shari Ellertson
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
John H. Schuh
Iowa State University
Student learning communities result in numerous benefits for students and institutions, but less is known about the influence of learning community participation on faculty renewal and development. This qualitative study examines mid-career faculty members’ involvement in student learning communities to explore the degree to which the construct of vitality appropriately describes and illuminates their experiences. Findings suggest that learning communities foster vitality by serving as a boundary-spanning activity where faculty can merge various work interests, allowing them to engage in purposeful production and providing them with experiences that help generate feelings of energy, excitement, and engagement with their work.
Chapter 19. Making Meaning of a Life in Teaching: A Memoir-Writing Project for Seasoned Faculty (Pgs. 315-326)
Kathleen F. O’Donovan, Steve R. Simmons
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota’s faculty development project, “Making Meaning of a Life in Teaching,” promotes collegiality and enhances self-reflection for those who are experienced classroom instructors. Started in October 2003, this project provides a forum that invites participants to examine specific memories from their teaching lives and to transform those recollections into a written memoir. This chapter explores the use of memoir as an effective tool for faculty development, describes the project’s structure and components, and presents both co-facilitator and participant perspectives on the process and the memoir product.
Chapter 20. Transforming a Teaching Culture Through Peer Mentoring: Connecticut College’s Johnson Teaching Seminar for Incoming Faculty (Pgs. 327-344)
Michael Reder, Eugene V. Gallagher
Connecticut College
This chapter describes a yearlong seminar focused on teaching that is offered to all incoming tenure-track faculty at Connecticut College, a small residential liberal arts college. This seminar is distinctive because it is facilitated by second- and third-year faculty. We argue that this peer-mentoring model has three distinct benefits. First, it avoids many of the pitfalls identified with traditional one-on-one mentoring. Second, it addresses the distinctive challenges that faculty face at small colleges. Third, it provides a strong base for faculty to pursue the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). We believe that our peer-mentoring model may well be adaptable to different types of institutions. As evidence of our faculty’s newfound engagement in SoTL, where previously little or no critical attention was paid to teaching, program participants have made presentations and run workshops on our own campus and at regional and national conferences, have begun to serve on teaching committees within their disciplinary organizations, and have gone on to publish their pedagogical work in a variety of national publications, both disciplinary and teaching focused.
Chapter 21. Preparing Future Faculty for Careers in Academic Librarianship: A Paradigm Shift for Collaboration in Higher Education (Pgs. 345-358)
Sean Patrick Knowlton, Laura L. B. Border
University of Colorado at Boulder
Nationwide, the number of available faculty positions represents only a fraction of the master’s and doctoral degrees granted each year. Fortunately, faculty positions are available in academic librarianship, which is experiencing a decline in qualified applicants. A pioneering collaboration between a graduate student professional development program and an academic library has created a fellowship program that allows master’s and doctoral students to consider careers in academic librarianship through mentored fellowships. Initial results show that participants intend to pursue librarianship as an academic career in which to use and expand their advanced subject and/or language expertise.
Vol. 26, 2008
Section I: Evaluating Teaching
This section includes two chapters that examine issues related to the thorny problem of evaluating teaching, a challenge that has vital importance because of its connection to faculty reward systems and thereby to motivating faculty to give time, energy, and passion to improving their teaching.
Chapter 1. Evaluating Teaching: A New Approach to an Old Problem (Pgs. 3-21)
L. Dee Fink
Instructional Consultant in Higher Education
The approach to evaluating the quality of teaching described in this chapter starts by developing a Model of Good Teaching. This model is then used to create a set of evaluation procedures based on four key dimensions of teaching: design of learning experiences, quality of teacher/student interactions, extent and quality of student learning, and teacher’s effort to improve over time. The challenges and benefits of using these procedures are discussed.
Chapter 2. Investigating Indicators of the Scholarship of Teaching: Teaching Awards in Research Universities (Pgs. 22-36)
Stacie Badran
Embry-Riddle University
Results from a nationwide study of teaching awards programs in mathematics departments of U.S. research universities show that only a small percentage even offers such awards. Those that do either use ad hoc procedures and criteria for making awards or prioritize curricular contributions over instructional and pedagogical knowledge in selecting award winners. In addition, mathematics faculty reserve the term scholarship for research in the discipline rather than research on teaching of the discipline.
Section II: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
This section has three chapters that explore different aspects of the important endeavor of continuing to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Chapter 3. Points Without Limits: Individual Inquiry, Collaborative Investigation, and Collective Scholarship (Pgs. 39-52)
Richard A. Gale
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
This chapter proposes that a scholarship of teaching and learning focused on collaborative and collective inquiry can be more effective and have greater impact on student learning and the advancement of knowledge than investigations accomplished by individual faculty and students working in isolation. This conclusion is arrived at as a result of examining the work of Carnegie Scholars and the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Campus Program participants since 1998.
Chapter 4. Easing Entry into the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Through Focused Assessments: The “Decoding the Disciplines” Approach (Pgs. 53-67)
Joan Middendorf, David Pace
Indiana University
Students’ difficulty in mastering material can motivate faculty toward the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) if instructors’ frustration can be framed as a researchable question, and they have practical models for assessing learning outcomes. The “decoding the disciplines” approach supports this shift from reflective teaching to SoTL. By focusing on narrowly defined bottlenecks to learning, faculty define researchable questions convincing to their disciplines. The specificity of these inquiries makes the assessment of learning much easier through the application of existing tools, such as those provided in Angelo and Cross’s Classroom Assessment Techniques (1993). Examples of specific assessments are provided.
Chapter 5. Supporting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Liberal Arts Colleges(Pgs. 68-85)
Dolores Peters, David Schodt, Mary Walczak
St. Olaf College
Although the liberal arts college, with its traditional focus on teaching, may seem like a natural environment for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), few such institutions participate in national SoTL initiatives. Our associates’ experience since 2001 suggests a model for supporting SoTL in teaching-intensive contexts based on faculty ownership, a focus on general education, and some emerging rules of engagement. Because faculty reward systems must validate SoTL if it is to become part of the institutional culture, we also describe one department’s efforts to reform its review criteria in order to define scholarly activity broadly.
Section III: Scholarship of Educational Development
This section contains two chapters that extend the emerging scholarship of educational development, a growing area of work in which educational developers conduct research on a variety of issues, especially the outcomes of their practices and programs.
Chapter 6. Grounded Theory Research in Faculty Development: The Basics, a Live Example, and Practical Tips for Faculty Developers (Pgs.89-105)
Michael Sweet, Rochelle Roberts, Joshua Walker, Stephen Walls, John Kucsera, Shana Shaw, Janet Riekenberg, Marilla Svinicki
University of Texas at Austin
While autobiographical narratives and case study reflections remain vital to faculty development research, we must also make substantive efforts to build theory in our field. Researchers making claims about collective meanings of observed behaviors and the mechanisms that underlie them (i.e., theoretical claims about social behavior) must be disciplined in how they identify and organize the evidence they use to support those claims. Such systematic, inductive theory-building in the social sciences is called “grounded theory” research. This chapter presents the basics of grounded theory research, describes a grounded theory research program currently being executed by faculty developers, and offers practical tips especially for faculty developers.
Chapter 7. Assessment of a Faculty Learning Community Program: Do Faculty Members Really Change? (Pgs. 106-118)
Susan Polich
Virginia Commonwealth University
In this study, participants in a faculty learning community (FLC) program were followed to see if they had really changed their epistemological beliefs and teaching methods. Of the 39 FLC participants, 87% reported a change in their epistemological beliefs and 79% reported a change in their teaching methods. Seven participants were followed in-depth to determine if their reported changes actually occurred. Observations suggest that none of the seven appeared to have changed epistemological beliefs although all changed teaching methods. More importantly, the participants adopted their new pedagogy only when the pedagogy was aligned with their beliefs.
Section IV: Educational Development and Diversity
This section presents two highly complementary chapters that investigate different ways in which educational developers can contribute to a culture of inclusiveness in colleges and universities.
Chapter 8. Stereotype Threat and Ten Things We Can Do to Remove the Threat in the Air(Pgs. 121-132)
Franklin A. Tuitt University of Denver, Lois Reddick New York University
The purpose of this chapter is to present an overview of the literature related to stereotype threat in an effort to provide faculty members and instructional developers with a better understanding of what the phenomenon is and what can be done about it in college classroom settings. To this end, we reviewed several of the major studies published on the subject between 1995 and 2005 and compiled a list of strategies that reflected both the major empirical findings on stereotype threat and our own research and experiences with faculty and students in college settings. Given the enormity of the subject, we focused heavily on the features of stereotype threat that relate specifically to race but acknowledged that the complexity of the subject required attention to other aspects of identity that may function to lessen, or in some cases increase, the intensity of stereotype threat. The overall findings suggested that there are several ways in which faculty and instructional developers can help to create learning environments that serve to mitigate the impact of stereotype threat, and that more work needs to be done to examine the ways in which faculty and instructional developers can strive to create environments that improve the quality of students’ perceptions and academic performances.
Chapter 9. Thawing the Chilly Climate: Inclusive Teaching Resources for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (Pgs. 133-141)
Katherine A. Friedrich, Sherrill L. Sellers, Judith N. Burstyn
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Although universities are aware of the need to promote diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), this awareness has not translated into significant changes in classroom environments. Many STEM instructors would like to offer equal opportunities for success to all of their students, but they are not sure where to begin.We describe an effective group of teaching tools that can empower STEM faculty and graduate students to modify their courses to address diversity at their own pace. These resources extend from awareness exercises to recommendations for action and have been useful tools for course design, teaching assistant training, and faculty development.
Section V: Educational Development Centers and Professionals
This section consists of three chapters that deal with the work of educational developers in various institutional contexts.
Chapter 10. Marketing Plans for Faculty Development: Student and Faculty Development Center Collaboration for Mutual Benefit (Pgs. 145-157)
Victoria Mundy Bhavsar, Steven J. Skinner
University of Kentucky
Our faculty development center engaged senior-level business students as consultants to help us inform instructors about our resources. The students argued that organizational and marketing tasks are critical to our pedagogical work as they create opportunities for the pedagogical work to occur. This chapter describes the collaboration, the students’ recommendations, and the center’s response. Engaging students, our ultimate clients, in setting priorities for our center was a powerful learning experience for both us and them. Other centers may wish to use our experiences as impetus to collaborate with students on their campuses.
Chapter 11. Faculty Development at Small and Liberal Arts Colleges (Pgs. 158-172)
Kim M. Mooney St. Lawrence University, Michael Reder Connecticut College
The notable growth of faculty development programs and centers at small institutions warrants attention before their next stages of growth.We aim to capture and convey the central issues coalescing around the professionalization of teaching and learning activities and the work of faculty developers at small colleges. While this descriptive review draws direct comparisons to other types of institutions, particularly large research and comprehensive universities that serve as the norm for our profession’s faculty development practices, its main purpose is to address the distinctive characteristics of professional development at small colleges in general and liberal arts colleges in particular. Toward this end, we identify and explore four key issues: the characteristics and traditions related to teaching and learning in these institutional settings; the models and structures for teaching and learning programs at such colleges; the distinctive components of successful faculty development work at such institutions; and the broad applications that small college programs have for other institutional types and the future of our profession.
Chapter 12. Credibility and Effectiveness in Context: An Exploration of the Importance of Faculty Status for Faculty Developers (Pgs. 173-195)
Bonnie Mullinix
Furman University
This study documents an emerging profile of the faculty status of faculty developers as solicited, compiled, and interactively interpreted with faculty developer practitioners. It used integrated (mixed) methodology and participatory research strategies to gather data and it shares descriptive statistical information on the various positions held by faculty developer respondents; qualitatively analyzed impressions of the importance of faculty status to their credibility and effectiveness as faculty developers; and information regarding respondents’ institutional contexts. Findings are further disaggregated across institutional contexts and sex to explore trends, differential perceptions, and other emergent issues as identified by participant researchers.
Section VI: Faculty and Instructional Development
This section comprises eight chapters that present a range of fascinating approaches and tools for facilitating the development of faculty and their teaching. Noteworthy is the promising number of authors who include the scholarship of educational development as part of their practice of faculty and instructional development.
Chapter 13. Co-Teaching as a Faculty Development Model (Pgs. 199-216)
Andrea L. Beach, Charles Henderson, Michael Famiano
Western Michigan University
Co-teaching is a promising and cost-effective approach to promoting fundamental research-based instructional change. In this chapter, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of co-teaching and describe our initial experience with it. A new instructor (MF) co-taught with an instructor experienced in physics education research-based reforms (CH). An outsider (AB) conducted separate interviews with each instructor and observed several class sessions. Results include immediate use of research-based instructional practices by the new instructor and a significant change in teaching beliefs over time. Recommendations are made for implementing co-teaching as part of a faculty development program.
Chapter 14. Promoting Learning-Focused Teaching Through a Project-Based Faculty Development Program (Pgs. 217-229)
Susanna Calkins, Greg Light
Northwestern University
This chapter describes how we incorporated project-based learning into a yearlong faculty development program at a research-intensive private university located in the Midwest. This inquiry-based approach fosters critical reflection on teaching and promotes learner-focused teaching in a manner that encourages deeper student approaches to learning.We use case studies, drawn from critical accounts of faculty projects, to illustrate a model that depicts how faculty understand improvement in their teaching and to identify key program elements that facilitated the adoption of learning-focused teaching practices by our participants.
Chapter 15. Team Mentoring: An Alternative Way to Mentor New Faculty (Pgs. 230-241)
Tara Gray New Mexico State University, A. Jane Birch Brigham Young University
Traditional mentoring programs usually have no mechanism for protégés to learn from each other, and they often match protégés with mentors sight unseen. Team mentoring is a less hierarchical program in which protégés mentor each other in a group while searching for more permanent and personal mentors. In this program, protégés and mentors are arguably better matched because mentors are chosen by the protégé. In addition, protégés benefit by tapping into the wisdom of their peers. As a result, team mentoring is a viable alternative to traditional mentoring programs.
Chapter 16. A Research-Based Rubric for Developing Statements of Teaching Philosophy(Pgs. 242-262)
Matthew Kaplan, Deborah S. Meizlish, Christopher O’Neal, Mary C. Wright
University of Michigan
Despite its ubiquity as the way that instructors represent their views on teaching and learning, the statement of teaching philosophy can be a frustrating document to write and the results are often uneven. This chapter describes a rubric created at the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching to help faculty and graduate students craft teaching statements.We describe the research that informed the creation of the rubric, talk about how we use the rubric in our consultations and workshops, and present an assessment that validates the use of the rubric to improve instructors’ teaching statements.
Chapter 17. Meeting the Challenges of Integrative Learning: The Nexia Concept (Pgs. 263-274)
Jane Love
Furman University
Integrative learning challenges faculty developers to facilitate integrative and connective experiences not only for students, but for faculty as well. For many faculty, curricular requirements impede connective teaching, and the widespread assumption that connectivity must be taught on the course level also limits their ability to enrich students’ learning through diverse perspectives and interactions. Nexia is an approach to this problem based on the concept of ad hoc connectivity, or small-scale, focused, short-term connections that allow students from two or more courses to interact around points of interest to both classes. By releasing connective teaching from expensive curricular constraints, the Nexia approach enables faculty and students to share interdisciplinary, integrative learning experiences within existing curricula.
Chapter 18. The Teaching Resource Portfolio: A Tool Kit for Future Professoriate and a Resource Guide for Current Teachers (Pgs. 275-289)
Dieter J. Schönwetter
University of Manitoba
Extensive annotated bibliographies have guided academic researchers over several years and in various disciplines, providing key resources to assist in the development of new ideas. However, less common are published annotated bibliographies on effective teaching resources, both general to teaching across various disciplines as well as specific to each discipline, that guide the academic in the teaching enterprise. This chapter focuses on a tool, the teaching resource portfolio, that helps the graduate student preparing for an academic career including teaching, the new faculty member desiring additional teaching resources, the academic wishing to have resources that support discipline-specific scholarship of teaching and learning initiatives, and the educational developer needing references to support his or her clients in teaching.
Chapter 19. Reflecting and Writing About Our Teaching (Pgs. 290-304)
Mark Weisberg
Queen’s University
Reflecting on what we are doing can help us become better teachers and better people; yet in our increasingly busy and stressful lives, how can we find the space and time? This chapter describes and exemplifies two strategies that can help us and our colleagues become more reflective about our teaching and about our vocation: the Teachers’ Reading Circle, meeting for regular discussions of provocative texts about teaching and learning, and the Teachers’Writing Circle, using prompts and examples of colleagues’ writing to set participants on an extended course of writing about their own teaching.
Chapter 20. Breaking Down Barriers to the Use of Technology for Teaching in Higher Education (Pgs. 305-318)
Erping Zhu
University of Michigan
This chapter examines the most common technologies used for teaching on college campuses and the most common barriers to advanced uses of technology tools. Survey results consistently show that the major barriers to incorporating technology into higher education are lack of faculty time, faculty doubts about the relevancy of technology to disciplinary learning, and inadequate technical support for faculty projects and technology uses. This chapter, then, proposes several approaches developed and assessed by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan for removing those barriers to technology uses in higher education. Although providing flexible technology training schedules and formats helps address the problem of time, offering training that combines pedagogy and technology skills clarifies the link between technology and disciplinary knowledge acquisition. Finally, the collaborative approach to technology support enables faculty to enjoy continuous and coordinated technology support for their projects and technology uses in the classroom. This chapter also provides recommendations for supporting faculty in using technology to improve their teaching and student learning.
Vol. 27, 2009
Section I: For and About Educational Developers
Chapter 1. Editor’s Introduction: The Educational Developer as Magician (Pgs. 3-13)
Linda B. Nilson
Clemson University
After so many changes in the academy, faculty and educational developers face challenges that require magic to meet. Faculty members are supposed to perform the magic, and we educational developers are expected to teach them how. The trick is to teach more in the same amount of time to disinterested and unprepared students, under the conditions of larger classes, less authority, and lower rewards. College and university faculty are under attack for falling short, and educational developers are next in line to feel the heat. Perhaps we should start defending our faculties, explaining our challenges, and publicizing our efforts and inroads.
Chapter 2. Experiential Lessons in the Practice of Faculty Development (Pgs. 14-31)
Ed Neal, Iola Peed-Neal
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The practice of faculty development, as distinct from its theoretical and empirical principles, must largely be learned experientially, through an often painful process of trial and error. In this chapter, we offer some of the lessons we have learned in our combined total of sixty-four years as faculty developers, in hopes that others might benefit from our experience.
Chapter 3. Maturation of Organizational Development in Higher Education: Using Cultural Analysis to Facilitate Change (Pgs. 32-71)
Gail F. Latta
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Organizational development (OD) is fundamentally about increasing institutional capacity for change. Organizational culture is a pivotal variable mediating the success of institutional change initiatives. Faculty and OD professionals are poised to address the need for increased understanding of organizational culture and change in higher education institutions. This chapter presents a conceptual guide to theories of change and cultural analysis that inform OD practice. Distinctions between content and process theories of change, as well as normative and idiomatic approaches to cultural analysis, are reviewed with respect to their utility for facilitating change in the academy. Implications for the maturation of OD in higher education are discussed.
Chapter 4. Ten Ways to Use a Relational Database at a Faculty Development Center (Pgs. 72-87)
A. Jane Birch, Brigham Young University; Tara Gray, New Mexico State University
Providing quality support to faculty requires attention to administrative details and event logistics. As professionals, we must also assess the impact of our work and be prepared to report to those who will judge its worth and allocate resources. To do this we need current, accurate data that are easy to access and easy to use. We also need a simple way to manage faculty development activities and evaluate the outcomes. The best technology for achieving these goals is a relational database. This chapter describes ten ways a relational database can be used to support faculty developers in their various roles and activities.
Chapter 5. Magicians of the Golden State: The CSU Center Director Disappearing Acts (Pgs. 88-107)
Cynthia Desrochers
The California State University
The California State University (CSU) Teaching and Learning Center directors perform daily feats of magic, often culminating in one particularly dramatic trick at the end of the academic year-their own disappearing acts. This chapter traces the history of the center director position in the CSU system, reports where directors go when they leave the position after only a few years, and proposes how frequent turnover might be reversed through organizational factors aimed at promoting retention of these Magicians of the Golden State.
Section II: Helping Faculty Thrive
Chapter 6. Practical Tools to Help Faculty Use Learner-Centered Approaches (Pgs. 111-134)
Phyllis Blumberg
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Instructors often resist dramatic changes in their teaching, and learner-centered approaches are not intuitive for most instructors. They need tools to help them adopt these approaches. This chapter describes four tools-1) a list of components of Weimer’s five practices of learner-centered teaching, 2) reflection questions to prepare instructors to determine the learner-centered status of their courses, 3) self-assessment rubrics, and 4) a Planning for Transformation form-to help instructors change their teaching. Taken together, these tools form a comprehensive system with which to plan for change. This system encourages and assists instructors to make incremental changes toward using learner-centered approaches in their teaching.
Chapter 7. Romancing the Muse: Faculty Writing Institutes as Professional Development(Pgs.135-149)
Elizabeth Ambos, Mark Wiley, Terre H. Allen
California State University, Long Beach
A faculty professional writing program called the Scholarly Writing Institute (SWI) at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) presents a replicable model to accelerate and support faculty writing. Based on Boice’s (1990, 1994, 2000) work in faculty research productivity, the program combines individual writing time with editing and statistical consultation, panel discussions by prolific faculty, and reflective reporting of writing outcomes. Held over a three- to four-day period during semester breaks, the Institute is particularly accessible to faculty with family responsibilities. Evaluations indicate participant satisfaction with the experience and attitudinal change about successful writing strategies.
Chapter 8. Leadership for Learning: A New Faculty Development Model (Pgs.150-165)
Jane V. Nelson, Audrey M. Kleinsasser
University of Wyoming
The authors provide examples of a model that develops faculty leaders for learning in all institutions that prize research. The examples come from seven university-wide initiatives, which were sponsored by the institution’s faculty development center. The initiatives spanned a nearly ten-year period. Based on four conceptual groundings-scholarship of teaching and learning principles, educational renewal, the production of social capital through soft projects, and horizontal structures-the model has the power to transform faculty into leaders. Elements of the model include a call to participate, a diverse cohort of participants, commitment to providing resources, conference center planners, and peer review and assessment. In contrast to leadership models borrowed from business and industry, the model prizes what the academy values most-collegiality, intellectual curiosity, and the generation of knowledge.
Chapter 9. Searching for Meaning on College Campuses: Creating Programs to Nurture the Spirit (Pgs.166-180)
Donna M. Qualters, Suffolk University; Beverly Dolinsky, Endicott College; Michael Woodnick, Northeastern University
Discussing spirituality on a secular college campus can be risky. Yet faculty and students have expressed a need to explore meaning in their lives and work. This chapter describes one university’s year-long efforts to develop a social web of activities around spirituality and meaning in community members’ lives. We describe the process of determining needs and the resulting programs. But more important, we share lessons learned, including advice on creating the climate for spiritually oriented programming to gain acceptance and be viewed as an enhancement to campus life.
Section III: One-on-One with Faculty
Chapter 10. Defeating the Developer’s Dilemma: An Online Tool for Individual Consultations(Pgs. 183-198)
Michele DiPietro, Susan A. Ambrose, Michael Bridges, Anne Fay, Marsha C. Lovett, Marie Kamala Norman
Carnegie Mellon University
This chapter introduces an online consultation tool that helps resolve the tension that developers often experience in consultations between offering quick fixes and providing in-depth but time-consuming conceptual understanding. The tool that the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence has developed provides instructors with concrete teaching strategies to address common teaching problems, while also educating them about the pedagogical principles informing those strategies. The tool can be used to enhance traditional face-to-face consultations or, by itself, to reach a wider faculty audience, including adjunct and off-site faculty.
Chapter 11. Lessons Learned from Developing a Learning-Focused Classroom Observation Form (Pgs. 199-222)
Steven K. Jones, Kenneth S. Sagendorf, D. Brent Morris, David Stockburger, Evelyn T. Patterson
United States Air Force Academy
At the United States Air Force Academy, we are attempting to go through a cultural transformation, making an overt shift toward a more learning-focused paradigm. In this chapter, we describe the nature of this transformation, as well as why we have chosen to move in this direction. We also describe one specific initiative we have undertaken: the development of a new learning-focused classroom observation form. We conclude by sharing a baker’s dozen lessons we have learned about classroom observation, effective teaching, and faculty development in general as a result of having developed this form.
Chapter 12. Reported Long-Term Value and Effects of Teaching Center Consultations (Pgs. 223-246)
Wayne Jacobson, Donald H. Wulff, Stacy Grooters, Phillip M. Edwards, Karen Freisem
University of Washington
We regularly ask clients for feedback on their most recent consultations with Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) staff, but in the past we have not systematically assessed our longer-term contributions to the teaching of our clients. We recently surveyed faculty and teaching assistants who consulted with CIDR one to five years ago and found that many former clients highly valued CIDR’s contribution to the development of their teaching. However, some of the most highly valued benefits they identified were not limited to what they did each day in class. This chapter identifies benefits of consulting with a teaching center that clients reported valuing one to five years after the consultation.
Section IV: Educational Development by Institutional Type
Chapter 13. Promoting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Community Colleges: Insights from Two Learning Communities (Pgs. 249-266)
Stanford T. Goto, Andrei Cerqueira Davis
Western Washington University
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a powerful vehicle for professional development. Faculty make their teaching public as they investigate phenomena in their classes. This process encourages sustained discussions of teaching. In conducting SoTL, community college faculty face substantial hurdles: heavy workloads, few institutional supports, no employment rewards, perceived irrelevance, and weak peer networks. Can these challenges be overcome within existing institutional structures? This chapter explores this question by examining how SoTL is pursued in two learning communities. Evidence from these institutional case studies suggests that SoTL programs are viable in community colleges, despite major challenges.
Chapter 14. Starting and Sustaining Successful Faculty Development Programs at Small Colleges (Pgs. 267-286)
Michael Reder, Connecticut College; Kim M. Mooney, St. Lawrence University; Richard A. Holmgren, Allegheny College; Paul J. Kuerbis, Colorado College
This chapter complements a recent chapter in To Improve the Academy by Mooney and Reder (2008) that discusses the distinctive features and challenges of faculty development at small and liberal arts colleges. As a continuation and expansion of that more conceptual discussion, we aim to convey practical strategies for relatively new faculty developers at small institutions with incipient programs. The suggestions offered in this chapter are grounded in our experiences as faculty developers at liberal arts colleges and developed through numerous national conference presentations and conversations with colleagues in the field over the past decade. Although our recommendations are particularly salient for faculty developers working in a small college setting, our ideas should be applicable across institutional types.
Chapter 15. Essential Faculty Development Programs for Teaching and Learning Centers in Research-Extensive Universities (Pgs. 287-308)
Larissa Pchenitchnaia, Bryan R. Cole
Texas A&M University
This research highlights the imperative nature of designing programs to address the full range of faculty development needs. It presents a framework for essential faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers in research-extensive universities for introducing, enhancing, and improving faculty development offerings. The nationwide Delphi study of faculty development programs identified eighteen currently essential and twenty-eight future essential faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers in research-extensive universities. This list of programs may serve as a baseline for evaluating existing faculty development programming and guiding the expansion of established programs and the planning of new ones.
Section V: Faculty Evaluation
Chapter 16. Establishing External, Blind Peer Review of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Within the Disciplines (Pgs. 311-331)
Cheryl A. Stevens, East Carolina University; Erik Rosegard, San Francisco State University
Colleges and universities face growing pressure to reward multiple forms of scholarship in order to align their missions with faculty roles and rewards. This chapter proposes that disciplinary societies develop templates, processes, and criteria for external, blind peer review of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in order to provide a reliable and valid way to judge the quality of faculty SoTL work. Although SoTL requires support from faculty development programs and other interdisciplinary SoTL forums, it will continue to be viewed as evidence of teaching excellence rather than scholarship until discipline-based external, blind peer-review processes are established.
Chapter 17. Learning-Centered Evaluation of Teaching (Pgs. 332-348)
Trav D. Johnson
Brigham Young University
Over the past decade, institutions of higher education have placed increased emphasis on promoting student learning. This emphasis has influenced thinking about teaching, course design, and faculty development, but it has had little effect on the evaluation of teaching. In other words, the evaluation of teaching remains focused on instruction (that is, teacher performance and course characteristics) rather than on student learning. Learning-centered evaluation of teaching provides a viable way to emphasize student learning in the evaluation process. This approach uses principles of program evaluation and emphasizes learning goals, learning activities, learning assessments, and learning outcomes in the evaluation of teaching.
SectionVI: For the Next Generation
Chapter 18. Meeting New Faculty at the Intersection: Personal and Professional Support Points the Way (Pgs. 351-364)
Ann Riley
University of Oklahoma
Faculty developers can play a significant role in increasing the retention of new faculty. This chapter presents a study conducted at a public research university that reveals that first-year faculty need personal, relational, and professional support. However, the importance of each type of support shifts during this first year, suggesting that faculty development efforts aimed toward new faculty should adjust accordingly. This study uses a sequential mixed-method design and is grounded in adult development theory, which views new faculty as adult learners in a career-life transition and faculty developers as adult educators.
Chapter 19. When Mentoring Is the Medium: Lessons Learned from a Faculty Development Initiative (Pgs. 365-384)
Jung H. Yun, Mary Deane Sorcinelli
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Campuses across the country are investing considerable time, effort, and expense to replenish their faculty ranks with a new generation of scholars. How can mentoring help these new faculty juggle the many demands of surviving and thriving in academia? And how can institutions frame mentoring as a broader faculty development initiative in which faculty at all stages of the academic career can teach and learn from each other? This chapter addresses these questions by sharing the goals, design, and lessons learned from the Mutual Mentoring Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Chapter 20. Preparing Advocates for Faculty Development: Expanding the Meaning of “Growing Our Own” (Pgs. 385-400)
Deborah S. Meizlish, Mary C. Wright
University of Michigan
Discussions about preparing newcomers for faculty development focus almost exclusively on the staffing needs of teaching centers. Unfortunately, this emphasis significantly narrows what it means to prepare people for the field. Instead, we suggest that successful preparation has two elements: preparation of talented individuals for formal positions in the field and preparation of knowledgeable advocates or allies. As evidence, we present results from a survey of our center’s graduate teaching consultants, documenting how their work shaped their future connections to faculty development. Our results challenge centers to consider how their programming can “grow” both professionals in and advocates for faculty development.
Chapter 21. Teaching Learning Processes-to Students and Teachers (Pgs. 401-424)
Pamela E. Barnett, Linda C. Hodges
Princeton University
Our teaching and learning center serves faculty and graduate students as teachers and undergraduates as learners. Here we share the experiences of graduate student facilitators whom we trained to lead problem-solving skills workshops for undergraduates. Our aim was to help these graduate students see themselves as teachers of disciplinary thinking as much as of disciplinary content. However, they also began to reexamine their teaching beliefs and practices, recognize and respond to the needs of novice learners, and become more conscious of the demands of learning their disciplines. We offer this program as a model for developing future faculty.
Vol. 28, 2010
Section I: Improving Our Performance
Chapter 1. Developing Competency Models of Faculty Developers: Using World Café to Foster Dialogue (Pgs. 3-24)
Debra Dawson, The University of Western Ontario; Judy Britnell, Ryerson University; Alicia Hitchcock, The University of Western Ontario
Recent research by Chism (2007); Sorcinelli, Austin, Eddy, and Beach (2006); and Taylor (2005) speaks to the critical roles that faculty developers play in ensuring institutional success. Yet we have not as a profession identified the specific competencies necessary for success at different career stages. Our research generated these competencies for three faculty developer positions-entry-level, senior-level, and director-within a teaching and learning center. We used World Café, a collaborative discussion-based technique, to engage developers in building a matrix of competencies for each position and in determining how these competencies could be demonstrated.
Chapter 2. A Conceptual Framework for the Center: Going Beyond Setting Priorities (Pgs. 25-36)
Sally Kuhlenschmidt, Western Kentucky University; Susan Weaver, University of the Cumberlands; Susanne Morgan, Ithaca College
Management of faculty development centers can be made more effective and efficient by following a clearly articulated conceptual framework. This chapter examines three centers organized around distinct approaches. At one center, a single theme guides the choice of activities. At a second, primary faculty roles and organizational level of impact determine programming choices. At a third, a curriculum of teaching skills shapes planning and assessment. In each case, working from an explicit conceptual framework enables the center staff to more effectively prioritize competing demands and retain perspective in a changing higher education environment.
Chapter 3. A Conceptual Framework for Higher Education Faculty Mentoring (Pgs. 37-62)
Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Towson University; Steve Fifield, University of Delaware
There is a considerable variability in conceptions of faculty mentoring in higher education. Rather than view this diversity as a problem, we see it as a potential resource that can inform design, implementation, and evaluation of faculty mentoring. To learn from this diversity, we review the literature on faculty mentoring in higher education to create a conceptual framework of mentoring. The conceptual framework is a tool that program administrators, participants, and evaluators can use to adapt mentoring to the unique needs of particular faculty and institutions.
Chapter 4. Strategic Committee Involvement: A Guide for Faculty Developers (Pgs. 63-81)
Phyllis Blumberg
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Faculty developers should seek purposeful involvement in committee service because committees are essential to the functioning of higher education institutions. The unique expertise and perspectives that faculty developers bring to the table help committees execute their tasks and benefit faculty development efforts. Given the number of possible institutional committees and limitations on time, developers should decide carefully about their service. Offered here is a framework for making strategic decisions about committee membership on five criteria: committee characteristics, individual’s impact on the committee, personal characteristics, conditions that should discourage service, and pitfalls to consider before deciding to serve.
Chapter 5. A Model for Putting a Teaching Center in Context: An Informal Comparison of Teaching Centers at Larger State Universities (Pgs. 82-97)
Wesley H. Dotson, Daniel J. Bernstein
University of Kansas
An informal comparative analysis of teaching centers at larger state universities around the United States was conducted as part of a self-initiated ten-year review of our center. We compared centers along several dimensions, among them programs, resources, and size. This chapter offers our methods, results, and general impressions of the process as an example for others who might decide to conduct a similar analysis.
Chapter 6. The Value of the Narrative Teaching Observation to Document Teaching Behaviors (Pgs. 98-111)
Niki Young
Western Oregon University
A central mission of teaching and learning centers is to help faculty members improve their teaching. The teaching observation is an established tool to support this effort. Although educational developers have created general guides and forms for conducting teaching observations, the literature contains few examples of observation narratives. This chapter offers detailed examples of these narratives, deconstructing the process and demonstrating the value of narrative to document teaching behaviors. This chapter extends and develops the literature, showing how-and making explicit why-we do what we do, in the interest of making our work transparent and replicable.
Section II: Understanding Faculty
Chapter 7. Promoting Dialogue and Action on Meta-Professional Skills, Roles, and Responsibilities (Pgs. 115-138)
Michael Theall, Youngstown State University; Bonnie Mullinix, Teaching and Learning Technology Group; Raoul A. Arreola, University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Collecting and using information about faculty skills can serve as an organizational development activity to guide faculty evaluation and professional development policy and practice with the goal of leading to improved teaching and learning. This chapter presents findings from a study with international, local, quantitative, and qualitative components. Readers are encouraged to explore data patterns and consider courses of action that these imply, and to reflect on the potential usefulness of the Meta-Profession model for furthering reflection, dialogue, and action on development and evaluation processes on their own campus.
Chapter 8. MacGyvers, Medeas, and Bionic Women: Patterns of Instructor Response to Negative Feedback (Pgs. 139-156)
Allison P. Boye, Suzanne Tapp
Texas Technological University
Few studies have examined instructor responses to negative feedback and their interplay with gender, but faculty developers must be cognizant of and sensitive to the needs of the instructors with whom they work. This chapter identifies six general patterns of response among male and female instructors to negative feedback from students and consultants, based on survey results, interviews, and observations. A combination of empathy, resources, and time is the key to understanding and responding to those patterns and meeting the needs of individual instructors. Further, comparisons across gender reveal interesting differences related to language use, internalization versus externalization of feedback, and holistic versus specific approaches to reflective teaching.
Chapter 9. Conversations about Assessment and Learning: Educational Development Scholarship that Makes a Difference (Pgs. 157-173)
Sue Fostaty Young, Susan Wilcox
Queen’s University
To facilitate deeper understanding of teachers’ assessment practices, we undertook an educational development inquiry with college and university faculty. Our conversations with instructors about their assessment practices highlighted the complex relationship between teachers’ beliefs about teaching, their institutional contexts, and their experiences of teaching. The project gave us valuable opportunities to examine our interactions with faculty and enabled us to identify approaches to educational development that help postsecondary faculty understand and improve their practice.
Section III: Understanding Students and Their Learning
Chapter 10. Dysfunctional Illusions of Rigor: Lessons from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Pgs. 177-192)
Craig E. Nelson
Indiana University
My initial teaching practices were based on nine “dysfunctional illusions of rigor.” Overcoming them required revision of my ideas on the value of “hard” courses, the effectiveness of traditional methods, grade inflation, what students should be able to do initially, the fairness of traditional approaches, the importance of fixed deadlines, the importance of content coverage, the accessibility of critical thinking, and the appropriate bases for revising courses and curricula. I present the initial illusions and some more realistic views. These more realistic views are framed in terms of key research findings and some readily accessible models for improved practices.
Chapter 11. Class Size: Is Less More for Significant Learning? (Pgs. 193-207)
John Zubizarreta
Columbia College
Mixed as it might be, educational research suggests that engaged students are more effectively stimulated and fulfilled in a small class. Of course, students can thrive in large classes if discipline, course level, teacher characteristics, goals, methods, assessment strategies, and outcomes work together to inspire and produce significant learning. The small class environment does not by itself necessarily ensure higher level learning, but studies indicate that if faculty and institutions want to promote and support the active learning pedagogies, mentoring, reflection, feedback, and personal relationships that result in deep and lasting learning, then less is more.
Chapter 12. Weaving Promising Practices for Inclusive Excellence into the Higher Education Classroom (Pgs. 208-226)
MarÃa del Carmen Salazar, University of Denver; Amanda Stone Norton, Texas Woman’s University; Franklin A. Tuitt, University of Denver
Higher education is faced with an increasingly diverse student body and historic opportunities to foster inclusive excellence, meaning a purposeful embodiment of inclusive practices toward multiple student identity groups. Although the benefits of inclusive excellence are well established, college faculty often cite barriers to promoting it in classrooms, and this creates an opening for faculty developers to support them in weaving promising practices for inclusive excellence into their teaching. This chapter highlights the practices of inclusive faculty and the methods faculty developers can use to promote inclusive excellence along five dimensions: (1) intrapersonal awareness, (2) interpersonal awareness, (3) curricular transformation, (4) inclusive pedagogy, and (5) inclusive learning environments.
Chapter 13. Communication, Climate, Comfort, and Cold Calling: An Analysis of Discussion-Based Courses at Multiple Universities (Pgs. 227-249)
Tasha J. Souza, Humboldt State University; Elise J. Dallimore, Northeastern University; Eric Aoki, Colorado State University; Brian C. Pilling, South Jordan, Utah
One of the challenges in discussion facilitation is creating a climate that allows multiple voices to be heard. Although the practice of calling on students whose hands are not raised has been used to engage the entire class in discussions, many believe that cold calling sabotages the communication climate and makes students extremely uncomfortable. This study examines the impact of cold calling on student comfort and communication climate. The results suggest that when instructors choose to cold-call, they must create a supportive communication climate to ensure student comfort. This study challenges the assumption that cold calling makes students uncomfortable.
Chapter 14. Theoretical Frameworks for Academic Dishonesty: A Comparative Review (Pgs. 250-262)
Michele DiPietro
Carnegie Mellon University
Academic dishonesty has so far been understood using theoretical frameworks derived from criminology literature. These frameworks contribute pieces of the puzzle and even enjoy some empirical support, but conceptualizing students as delinquents is problematic and ultimately ineffective. This chapter reviews the current frameworks, including their theoretical underpinnings, empirical support, and strategies they suggest, and goes on to analyze their limitations and suggest alternative frameworks.
Section IV: Enhancing our Programming
Chapter 15. Engaging Faculty in Conversations about Teaching Through a Research Proposal Workshop (Pgs. 265-277)
Susanna Calkins, Denise Drane
Northwestern University
Faculty who consider themselves primarily researchers can be difficult to engage in faculty development activities. However, as agencies such as the National Science Foundation now require educational activities in research grants, proposal writing may represent a new avenue for engaging research faculty in their teaching. In this chapter, we outline an innovative workshop on writing the pedagogical component of a grant proposal that was developed for faculty at Northwestern University. During the workshop, while learning how to structure an education plan for their grant, faculty engaged in a lively discussion about formulating learning objectives and aligning them with pedagogical methods and activities, assessments, and evaluation strategies.
Chapter 16. Developing and Renewing Department Chair Leadership: The Role of a Teaching Center in Administrative Training (Pgs. 278-291)
Mary C. Wright, Constance E. Cook, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Chris O’Neal, University of California, Irvine
Most faculty development centers offer limited resources for leadership development, and most existing programs focus on training the new chair. The key questions we address are: What role do teaching centers play in administrative professional development? How can we develop programs that assist new chairs with their immediate questions, while also promoting continued growth in institutional leadership? We present one model at the University of Michigan, initiated by the provost and organized by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, which involves an extensive needs assessment process, a developmentally oriented leadership training program, and an evaluation.
Chapter 17. Rx for Academic Medicine: Building a Comprehensive Faculty Development Program (Pgs. 292-309)
Megan M. Palmer, Mary E. Dankoski, Randy R. Brutkiewicz, Lia S. Logio, Stephen P. Bogdewic Indiana University School of Medicine
Faculty in academic medical centers are under tremendous stress and report low satisfaction. The need for faculty development in medical schools is great, yet it remains largely unmet across the United States. To ensure ongoing success in academic medicine, medical schools must institute comprehensive faculty development programs. In this chapter, we describe the development of an office for faculty affairs and professional development at the Indiana University School of Medicine, including key collaborations, budget trends and infrastructure development, strategic planning, ongoing assessment planning, goal setting, and early patterns of participation.
Chapter 18. The Case for Excellence in Diversity: Lessons from an Assessment of an Early Career Faculty Program (Pgs. 310-326)
Dorothe J. Bach, University of Virginia; Mary Deane Sorcinelli, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Many colleges and universities have come to understand the added educational value of having a more diverse faculty, and some have created specific programs to enhance recruitment, development, and retention of underrepresented faculty. How do these programs help underrepresented faculty start a successful career? How can they help a diverse faculty build thriving, long-term careers in academia? This chapter addresses these questions by sharing the findings and lessons learned from an internal and external assessment of the Excellence in Diversity Fellows Program at the University of Virginia.
Chapter 19. Access to Success: A New Mentoring Model for Women in Academia (Pgs. 327-340)
Amber Dailey-Hebert, Emily Donnelli, B. Jean Mandernach
Park University
The scarcity of women leaders in academia influences policies, procedures, and expectations and in turn perpetuates a climate that deters development of future women leaders. Despite research supporting the need for institutional change to create leadership avenues for women faculty, little evidence of such change exists. The Presidential Leadership Program for University Women was developed as a proactive, integrative mentoring model to link female academics. Crucial to the program’s success are networking opportunities, peer mentoring in a group setting, and a culminating “legacy project” designed to improve the campus climate and services for women.
Chapter 20. Survivor Academe: Assessing Reflective Practice (Pgs. 341-358)
Laurel Johnson Black, Terry Ray, Judith Villa
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Reflective practice is a goal for many academic professional development programs. What do faculty participants gain from a reflective practice program, and how much reflection do they actually practice? Using interviews and grounded theory, we identified three crucial needs being met by such a program at our university. In addition, we compared participants’ comments to the elements of reflection established by Dewey and Rodgers to determine the extent of their reflection. The results call for more assessment to better align the structures of reflective practice programs with participant needs as well as further research on the effects of reflective practice on the participants, their teaching, and their students.
Chapter 21. Transforming Teaching Cultures: Departmental Teaching Fellows as Agents of Change (Pgs. 359-378)
Cassandra Volpe Horii
Curry College
The Departmental Teaching Fellows (DTF) program of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University employs doctoral students as peer teaching mentors. Four years of program assessment data include quantitative work inventories, surveys and self-reports interviews of faculty and administrators, and a survey of all graduate students recently teaching in arts and sciences. Observed program outcomes include (1) better informal support for teaching, (2) higher quality and quantity of interactions between graduate students and faculty on teaching, and (3) more systematic opportunities for teaching-related professional development. Qualitative assessment data suggest that the DTFs occupy several liminal positions that may uniquely position them to facilitate changes in departmental teaching cultures, in some cases overcoming barriers faced by faculty and administrators.
Vol. 29, 2011
SECTION ONE
Enriching Our Colleagues
Chapter 1. Taking Stock: Contemplating North American Graduate Student Professional Development Programs and Developers (Pgs. 3-17)
Dieter J. Schönwetter University of Manitoba, Donna Ellis University of Waterloo
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.
Chapter 2. Growing a New Generation: Promoting Self-Reflection Through Peer Observation(Pgs. 18-31)
Allison Boye, Micah Meixner
Texas Tech University
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.
Chapter 3. Support Needs of University Adjunct Lecturers (Pgs. 32-45)
Sarah M. Ginsberg
Eastern Michigan University
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.
Chapter 4. Understanding and Supporting Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty: A Needed Change (Pgs. 46-59)
Genevieve G. Shaker, Megan M. Palmer, Nancy Van Note Chism
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
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.
Chapter 5. Using Multimedia Case Stories of Exemplary Teaching for Faculty Development(Pgs. 60-73)
Tasha J. Souza Humboldt State University, Tom Carey Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, Flora McMartin Broad-based Knowledge, LLC, Roberta Ambrosino UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, Joe Grimes California Polytechnic State University
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.
Chapter 6. There Was Something Missing: A Case Study of a Faculty Member’s Social Intelligence Development (Pgs. 74-88)
Tamara Rosier
Grand Valley State University
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.
Chapter 7. Cross-Domain Collaborative Learning and the Transformation of Faculty Identity(Pgs. 89-101)
James B. Young
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 to learning community participation.
Chapter 8. A Coaching-Based Framework for Individual Consultations (Pgs. 102-115)
Deandra Little, Michael S. Palmer
University of Virginia
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.
Chapter 9. Professional Conversations: A Reflective Framework for Collaborative Development (Pgs. 116-131)
Peter Shaw, Bob Cole
Monterey Institute of International Studies
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.
Chapter 10. Intersecting Identities and the Work of Faculty Development (Pgs. 132-144)
Cerri A. Banks, Jonathan Iuzzini, Susan M. Pliner
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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.
SECTION TWO
Enriching Our Campus Contexts
Chapter 11. The First Day of Class: How Should Instructors Use Class Time? (Pgs. 147-159)
Sal Meyers Simpson College, Brian C. Smith Graceland University
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.
Chapter 12. Student and Faculty Perceptions of Effects of Midcourse Evaluation (Pgs. 160-172)
Whitney Ransom McGowan, Russell T. Osguthorpe
Brigham Young University
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 debriefi ng 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.
Chapter 13. Evolution of a Peer Review and Evaluation Program for Online Course Development (Pgs. 173-186)
Cynthia L. Adams, Dianna Z. Rust, Thomas M. Brinthaupt
Middle Tennessee State University
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.
Chapter 14. Completing the Faculty Development Cycle: Using Data from Syllabi Review to Inform Action (Pgs. 187-200)
Phyllis Blumberg
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
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.
Chapter 15. Social Capital and the Campus Community (Pgs. 201-215)
Andrew N. Carpenter Ellis University, Linda Coughlin St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Susanne Morgan Ithaca College, Christopher Price The College at Brockport, State University of New York
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.
SECTION THREE
Enriching Our Craft
Chapter 16. Teaching and Learning Together: College Faculty and Undergraduates Cocreate a Professional Development Model (Pgs. 219-232)
Alison Cook-Sather
Bryn Mawr College
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.
Chapter 17. Using Students to Support Faculty Development (Pgs. 233-245)
Teresa M. Redd, Carl E. Brown Jr.
Howard University
Howard University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CETLA) provides faculty development for more than fifteen hundred faculty. 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 confirm that working with students at CETLA is a win – win opportunity for the university, faculty, students, and CETLA.
Chapter 18. The TA Consultant Program: Improving Undergraduate Instruction and Graduate Student Professional Development (Pgs. 246-259)
Mikaela Huntzinger University of Californa, Davis; Paul McPherron, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Madhumitha Rajagopal, Stanford University
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.
Chapter 19. Ready or Not? An International Study of the Preparation of Educational Developers (Pgs. 260-273)
Nancy Van Note Chism
Indiana University School of Education, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
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.
Chapter 20. Distribution and Penetration of Teaching-Learning Development Units in Higher Education: Implications for Strategic Planning and Research (Pgs. 274-287)
Sally Kuhlenschmidt
Western Kentucky University
This chapter presents descriptive information about 1,267 U.S. teaching – learning 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.
Chapter 21. Toward a Scholarship of Faculty Development (Pgs. 288-301)
Mark Potter
Metropolitan State College of Denver
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.
Chapter 22. Reflections on International Engagement as Educational Developers in the United States (Pgs. 302-314)
Virginia S. Lee
Virginia S. Lee & Associates
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.