Browsing by Subject "Faculty development"

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After the workshop : a study of engineering instructors’ post-workshop implementation of active learning in the classroom
(2016-05) Shekhar, Prateek; Borrego, Maura; Petrosino, Anthony; Seepersad, Carolyn C; Kovar, Desiderio; Crawford, Richard H
Existing engineering education research has empirically validated the effectiveness of active learning over traditional instructional methods. Faculty development workshops have been initiated to promote adoption of active learning to engineering classrooms. Although researchers have examined the effectiveness of engineering faculty development workshops, most of the research has relied on faculty self-report. Self-report often limits the examination of various features that influence teaching such as faculty conceptions, student response to instruction and faculty development experiences. In this study, using classroom observations, instructor interview, student focus groups and surveys, I examined two engineering instructors’ post-workshop implementation of active learning in the classroom. The findings demonstrate the influence of faculty conceptions of teaching in selection and design of activities and subsequent impact of these design choices on student engagement. I report the instructors’ and students’ responses to the active learning exercises and present recommendations for engineering faculty development.
Examining STEM faculty development to promote student belonging through inclusive teaching
(2024-05) Hughes, Kimberly K.; Kameen, Marilyn C.; Nava, Michael E., 1972-; Patterson, Kristin; Justiz, Manuel
This study explored the ways that STEM faculty learn about, design, and implement inclusive STEM teaching practices to improve student belonging. An interpretive phenomenological approach was employed to understand the personal experiences and thought processes of faculty as they worked to further develop their understanding of issues of equity and inclusion and transform their teaching conceptions and practices. STEM disciplines suffer from poor participation rates for women and students from historically marginalized racial and ethnic backgrounds and could address long-standing problems of persistence, in part, by attending to issues of student belonging. Faculty represent a linchpin for fostering student academic belonging in STEM through the instructional decisions they make. Faculty development structures and approaches that led to shifts toward inclusive teaching conceptions and practices are discussed. Successfully scaling inclusive teaching practices across STEM departments and colleges will require investments in comprehensive, multi-faceted approaches to faculty development.
Factors affecting faculty use of technology-enhanced instruction at research universities
(2011-05) Thomas, Carolyn Dianna; Reyes, Pedro, 1954-; Ashcroft, Judy C.; Ovando, Martha N.; Rice-Lively, Mary Lynn; Sharpe, Jr., Edwin R.
In traditional models of university education, students gather in classrooms, listen to instructors lecture on specific topics, and take notes with limited time for interaction. Students are then expected to spend additional time outside of the classroom reading textbooks, completing assignments, and preparing for tests. Instructors are viewed as experts providing information to students in much the same manner that they learned the content as students in college. The advent of the World Wide Web in 1991 allowed a dramatic change in the way students and faculty gather information, conduct research, and publish ideas. Internet-based technologies can transform traditional classroom experiences. Student participation can be increased by promoting group and collaborative learning online, and by the use of tools such as e-mail, discussion boards, and synchronous chat sessions. The objectives of this study were to 1) determine which factors affected faculty members’ use of technology integration in their instruction, and 2) determine what effect the integration of technology had on the role and teaching styles of faculty members. The study employed a mixed-methods research methodology. A survey instrument was developed and sent to faculty members at the five largest, public research institutions. The level of technology integration was calculated on a scale ranging from nonuse to full integration. The scale included practices such as providing online discussion areas, allowing/requiring students to use the Internet for assignments, and using anonymous online surveys to gather student feedback. Faculty members were then asked to elaborate on their answers. After the quantitative and qualitative survey results were analyzed, a select group of faculty members at one campus were interviewed to verify or dispute the findings. The survey results revealed the factors that significantly contributed to the overall level of technology integration were: instructional resources, professional and personal computer use, level of class, gender, title, and type of online teaching experience. One of the most significant factors was the level of instructional resources. Instructors with a facilitative teaching style were most likely to integrate technology into their instruction. This information can inform institutions when creating faculty development programs and budgeting limited resources.
The role of collaborative reflection in a faculty community
(2013-05) Cestone, Christina Marie; Svinicki, Marilla D., 1946-
A faculty community is a type of learning community where faculty learning and development is the focus. Previous research suggests that formally structured faculty communities promoted faculty engagement, improved teaching, thwarted career burnout, increased retention of experienced faculty, and fostered organizational change. Researchers have not examined faculty communities embedded in the workplace and the longitudinal effects these communities have on mid-career and senior faculty learning. In this study, I examined how an experienced interprofessional faculty community of medical and biomedical professionals managed the implementation of a novel graduate curriculum in translational sciences. Translational sciences education aims to enhance the collaborations between scientists and clinicians for the advancement of patient treatment and care. I focused on how faculty advanced their individual and collective understanding of the curriculum implementation using collaborative reflection during weekly community interactions. The study began at the start of the curriculum implementation and lasted fifteen months. It was a qualitative, ethnographic case study including three sources of data: naturalistic observation of teaching and faculty meetings, faculty interviews, and community artifacts. Two theoretical frameworks undergirded the design of the study: community of practice and distributed cognition. The results of the study suggest that collaborative reflection in the faculty community promoted faculty learning over time in several areas: teaching and instruction, assessment and evaluation, individual knowledge, student learning, and organizational and leadership skills. Collaborative reflection occurred in response to multiple episodes that occurred during curriculum implementation, but was focused primarily on facets of instruction, which was the dominant work of the community. Collaborative reflection enabled decision-making on instructional content and process, pedagogical content and process, and curricular content. A cyclical process of instructional development emerged in the community including: session planning, implementation, collective teaching observation, and collective instructional evaluation. Attributes of the community that emerged to support collaborative reflection included: shared goals, domain knowledge, and mutual trust. The community provided a shared social context for systematic collaborative reflection and scaffolding in instructional development. The study findings represent a specific set of experiences that may inform a model of instructional development for use with interprofessional faculty communities in academic health centers.
Staying online : a design for a sustainable community of practice for online instructors
(2012-08) Anderson, Michael William; Liu, Min, Ed. D; Resta, Paul
The increasing demand for online and hybrid courses necessitates a corresponding increase in the number of higher education faculty members who offer instruction in these alternative delivery environments. Faculty members may resist course redesign due to concerns about increased workload and technology and require extrinsic motivation in the form of financial compensation and pedagogical and technological support as well as intrinsic motivation in the form of informal peer recognition, and intellectual satisfaction. Online courses offer temporal flexibility and multiple transactional axes but may superficially appear to devalue interaction. The apparent deindividuation of computer-mediated communication may be overcome by group socialization in collaborative communities which are focused on authentic problems. This report proposes a design-based research approach to determine the impact from an online collaborative community on the number of online course offerings and whether or not a professional development workshop that models interaction for participants will have a corresponding impact on the degree of interactivity incorporated in the respective courses of those faculty members. The proposal outlines the creation of a workshop offered in a hybrid delivery mode which through iterative instructional design interventions may lead to the development of a community of passionate instructors who collaborate to solve the technical and pedagogical challenges of their respective content disciplines and thereby meet the demand for online course offerings.
Understanding the faculty experience in teaching social justice through service learning instruction
(2011-08) Baumgart, Glen E.; Schallert, Diane L.; Svinicki, Marilla D.; Emmer, Edmund T.; Reddick, Richard J.; Chen, Ge
This study explored the motivations of college faculty who teach social justice lessons through their service learning courses. In recent decades, universities have begun to respond to calls for a renewal in their civic missions, and educating students on civic responsibility and social justice issues (Boyer, 1994; Boyte & Hollander, 1999; Ehrlich, 2000). Faculty have been shown to be the critical facilitators in brining social justice topics to the curriculum through the use of service learning instruction (Buchanan, 1998; Ward, 2003). Given the emphasis in higher education today on social justice learning outcomes and the importance of the role of faculty, there is surprisingly no previous research on faculty motivation to teach social justice lessons through service learning. For this study, there were two guiding research questions: (1) what aspects of the faculty’s individual backgrounds influence their teaching of social justice topics? (2) What are faculty’s perceptions of the impact that service learning has on student learning? The setting of the study was a large research university in the southwest. Data were collected from 11 faculty through individual interviews and supplemented by course-related artifacts. Data were analyzed using coding procedures suggested by Strauss and Corbin (2008) from a grounded theory qualitative approach. Results indicated that faculty motivation to use service learning to teach social justice lessons was based on several core themes. These themes included: 1) the faculty’s personal background; 2) individual identity and role as faculty; 3) faculty’s perceived desired student outcomes; and 4) faculty reflection of observed student outcomes. In addition to the key themes, results showed that faculty did enjoy their teaching approach, an enjoyment that reinforced their motivation to continue to teach. Faculty in lecturer positions indicated that they believed they were adding special student experiences through social justice lessons that were void in other aspects of their education. Faculty with tenure indicated that although they were providing social experiences for students, they also tended to combine their social justice instruction with their research work. A model of faculty motivation for teaching social justice topics was presented. Implications for research and practice are discussed.