The first decade of the 21st century brought major challenges to higher education, all of which have implications for and impact the future of faculty professional development. This volume provides ...the field with an important snapshot of faculty development structures, priorities and practices in a period of change, and uses the collective wisdom of those engaged with teaching, learning, and faculty development centers and programs to identify important new directions for practice. Building on their previous study of a decade ago, published under the title of Creating the Future of Faculty Development, the authors explore questions of professional preparation and pathways, programmatic priorities, collaboration, and assessment. Since the publication of this earlier study, the pressures on faculty development have only escalated-demands for greater accountability from regional and disciplinary accreditors, fiscal constraints, increasing diversity in types of faculty appointments, and expansion of new technologies for research and teaching. Centers have been asked to address a wider range of institutional issues and priorities based on these challenges. How have they responded and what strategies should centers be considering? These are the questions this book addresses.For this new study the authors re-surveyed faculty developers on perceived priorities for the field as well as practices and services offered. They also examined more deeply than the earlier study the organization of faculty development, including characteristics of directors; operating budgets and staffing levels of centers; and patterns of collaboration, re-organization and consolidation. In doing so they elicited information on centers' "signature programs," and the ways that they assess the impact of their programs on teaching and learning and other key outcomes. What emerges from the findings are what the authors term a new Age of Evidence, influenced by heightened stakeholder interest in the o
Due to the "wicked problem" of the Academy's resistance to innovation, new teaching and learning programs struggle to become integrated into the fabric of the Academy, which slows the uptake of ...evidence-based practices. This wicked problem is rooted in the lack of slow, intentional mechanisms for cultural change in the Academy. In this article, we analyze the institutionalization journey of the Departmental Action Team (DAT) project, which is a model for slow, intentional change. Over the last four years, partnering with two campus centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) allowed the DAT project to make institutionalization progress. This analysis is focused on the institutionalization activities of the DAT project team and their co-creation of value with diverse stakeholders across two institutions. Results of the analysis include the definition of seven areas of effort (Team Development, Program Design, Awareness Communication, Program Implementation, Program Assessment, Outcomes Communication, and Financial Stability) that are valuable for the institutionalization of innovative educational programs. Within each area of effort, we describe specific strategies for institutionalization progress. We also analyze the timing of different areas of effort and present a model describing the cycling between areas of effort over time. Throughout the analysis, we provide recommendations for CTL staff working to institutionalize innovations.
Researchers have clearly linked higher-education attainment to increased civic engagement, but aspects of higher education that contribute to this phenomenon have not been fully explored. This study ...examines the relationship between the emphasis that faculty members and institutions place on civic engagement and students’ actual civic engagement and civic outcomes. Analyses are based on data from the National Survey of Student Engagement and the Faculty Study of Student Engagement. The findings show that both faculty emphasis on civic engagement and institutional emphasis on civic engagement are positively associated with students' civic engagement and civic outcomes. Institutions and faculty members need to be aware of their potential influence on students’ civic engagement and civic outcomes, and take steps to leverage that potential to support the civic mission of higher education.
Services We Focus On Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
This chapter presents the issues and areas currently being addressed by centers through their services and programming. It looks at the most prominent issues undergirding current services offered by ...centers and, whenever possible, compares the results with the findings of the 2006 study, to highlight continuity and change over the last decade. The chapter explores more deeply the programs that are most valued by developers, that is, their signature services. These are the services that centers are recognized for, that garner the greatest participation, that address key needs developers see in their institutions. The participants were asked to choose up to three services they considered their center's signature offerings. Respondents also provided contact information on a separate online form if they were willing to participate in a follow-up telephone interview that would allow people to gather details about their signature programs.
Who are We? Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
This chapter offers a portrait of current faculty developers, including a detailed demographic profile of faculty developers as an overall group and of faculty development directors specifically. To ...gain a deeper perspective on the pathways into faculty development positions, it explores developers' educational backgrounds and immediate prior positions. Efforts to diversify the student bodies of higher education institutions have led to dramatic gains for women among undergraduate students and increases in the percentage of women faculty as well. However, in analyzing the race and ethnicity of faculty developers by age ranges and years in the field, people do not see an increase in diversity among newer and younger colleagues. Participants were asked to indicate the title they consider to be their primary title and all the other titles they hold at their institution to better understand the scope of work that faculty developers undertake.
Where are We Going? Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
This chapter explores what faculty developers believe the future holds in store for them, their centers, and the field and what core assumptions they might need to rethink. Predicting the future is ...difficult in the best of times and the stablest of circumstances, the field of faculty development is in a dynamic era. The chapter looks back on what developers saw as future directions in 2006, examines how those predictions were borne out in 2016, and explores what developers see as the likely and hopeful scenarios for the field as it moves through the next decade to 2026 and beyond. Two issues appear overwhelmingly in responses regarding where faculty development as a field will move and where it should move: assessment of student learning and online, distance, and blended learning. The comments of developers revealed their interest in assessment of both student learning outcomes and the faculty development programs they offer.
How Does Assessment Fit in Our Work? Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
Assessment, in multiple forms and for multiple purposes, has been a topic of growing importance in higher education research and faculty development for many years. This chapter focuses on the case ...for the emergence of the Age of Evidence by considering the ways faculty developers think about and engage with assessment in their work. It presents new findings on the methods faculty developers use to assess the impact of their programs. The chapter provides an analysis of the qualitative open-ended data and discusses findings regarding developers' views of three kinds of assessment: assessment of teaching and learning processes and outcomes, assessment of faculty work as instructors, and assessment of academic program outcomes connected with institutional improvement and accreditation. Throughout the discussion, it interweaves a selection of developers' open-ended comments and reflections on this often-mentioned. The traditional approach to faculty development has been formative, voluntary, faculty driven, and based on faculty needs.
Our Approaches to Faculty Development Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
This chapter examines more deeply the approaches faculty developers use to offer services to their campuses; that is, the mix of workshops, consultations, institutes, courses, learning communities, ...and other vehicles they use to address faculty development topics. Faculty development directors identified a range of approaches they consider to be signature approaches for delivering services. Interestingly, very few directors offered details about the two approaches they used most frequently and identified most as signature approaches: short, onetime workshops and individual consultations. The chapter illustrates approaches (other than hands-on workshops and individual consultations, which are rather ubiquitous) that directors identified among their institution's signature approaches. Conversely, the approaches that directors are interested in expanding (e.g., faculty learning communities, institutes, and peer observation) are ones in which their centers are currently less engaged, and they require new forms and levels of faculty time and involvement.
What have We Learned? Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
This chapter offers a working agenda that build on the Ages of the Scholar, Teacher, Developer, and Learner, and could provide useful guidance to faculty developers in planning for the future. As a ...result of the 2006 study, it recommends that the field devote additional attention to and consideration of the role of faculty development professionals, including their preparation and career paths. The chapter shows that historically faculty developers have used and contributed to the literature describing theory and scholarship on faculty careers and faculty work. Assessment of student learning outcomes was among the top issues that developers indicated the field should address in the next five years and was among the top directions in which developers thought faculty development should and will move in the next decade. The chapter discusses the need for faculty development efforts to link individual and institutional needs.
What Guides Our Work? Beach, Andrea L.; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane; Austin, Ann E. ...
Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence,
2016
Book Chapter
This chapter presents the goals and purposes that directors report guide their programming. When analyzing the goals and purposes that guided teaching centers in the 2006 study, it looks at responses ...from directors, assuming that the people in that position would have the most direct knowledge about the goals guiding faculty development in their programs. The chapter recommends that faculty development should be situated strategically within an institution's structure with active connections to and collaborations with other relevant units. It discusses other campus entities that offer various kinds of faculty development and the nature of the collaborations between faculty development programs and other campus bodies. Research is generally the coin of the realm, and administrators of teaching centers must find ways to advocate for good teaching in a culture in which faculty members gain more recognition and rewards from research productivity than effectiveness.
