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An Iterative Improvement Process: Lessons Learned From Professional Development at an Online University
Get PDFThis article describes the program evaluation and iterative improvement process used to support increased effectiveness of one component of our institution’s professional development program for online faculty. The Center for Faculty Excellence conducted ongoing observations across four sessions of face-to-face faculty meetings, with implementation of improvements made at each session. The goals were to identify needed changes to the faculty meeting via faculty member input and respond to faculty input through implementation of relevant improvements. Both the program evaluation approach used and the outcomes may provide helpful insight for other institutions in approaching faculty development planning
New Instructor Teaching Experience in a Research-Intensive University: Implications for Professional Development
Get PDFThis study explores the adjustment of new chemical and biological sciences faculty members at a research university. Eleven faculty members were interviewed twice, first in 2007, shortly after they came to the university, and again three years later. The study documented their participation in professional development activities, with special attention to their participation in activities that were organized by the disciplinary Teaching and Learning Center. Changes in teaching philosophy were evident, including modification of teaching goals and greater use of appropriate terminology. Based on these findings, the authors suggest resources that universities can offer to facilitate new faculty members’ adjustment to their new positions and, moreover, help prepare them to be change agents within their new institution by taking leadership roles in departmental cultural change
Facilitating Mentoring Across Three Models of Faculty Work: Mentoring Within a Community of Practice for Faculty Development
Get PDFUsing a recently developed framework for mentoring within a community of practice (Smith, Calderwood, Dohm, & Gill Lopez, 2013) as an organizing schema, the authors examine how a Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) facilitates mentoring. The CTL explicitly and implicitly locates its work at the intersections of three models of faculty work (traditional, porous, and integrated) and three modes of mentoring (dyadic, network, and co-mentoring)
Workaholism in Academe: Strategies for Centers for Teaching and Learning
Get PDFCenter for Teaching and Learning (CTL) staff are wisely concerned about the health and well-being of faculty members. We know that over-working, anxious, exhausted professors do not create the optimum environment to nurture healthy students and healthy institutions. Well-balanced, well-grounded faculty members provide better role models and are also in a position to make more substantial contributions to the university and to their disciplines. Thus, CTL staff have reason to be concerned about work-life balance and workaholism. First, we owe it to our faculty to be aware of the serious issues involved with workaholism and to help them prevent or moderate its affects. Second, as CTL staff we sometimes face problems with workaholism ourselves. The authors explain why academics are prone to workaholism, expose myths about work addiction, help identify the extent to which faculty—or faculty developers—may show signs of workaholism, provide 12 steps to restore balance, and offer several suggestions for how centers for teaching and learning can help the situation in academe
Broadening the Role of the Teaching and Learning Center: From Transforming Faculty to Transforming Institutions
Get PDFTeaching and learning centers (TLCs) first emerged to support faculty dealing with underprepared students, focusing on methods for effectively engaging students and assessing student learning. But a broader role for TLCs is emerging: as facilitators of the transformation of institutional culture. At Quinnipiac University, the faculty development center has played a leadership role in the implementation of the New Synthesis for Undergraduate Education, a university-wide initiative to integrate the essential learning proficiencies into the entire undergraduate experience. Outcomes suggest that the center has been effective by complementing the top-down institutional initiative with a forum for bottom-up faculty, staff, and student empowerment and participation
CTLs as Genre: A Message From the Editor-in-Chief
Get PDFI attended my first Association of University Regional Campus of Ohio (AURCO) Conference a few months after I’d begun my first semester as co-coordinator of our campus’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Our CTL itself was, relatively speaking, still in its infancy. Over its two-year existence, the Center had established a core set of functions: deciding on faculty awards and grant proposals, overseeing small-group instructional diagnoses, supporting regular faculty/student lunches, publishing a newsletter, and—in what has become our signature activity—organizing a series of “Conversations,” sessions devoted each year to a particular theme, such as “Access and Empowerment” or “Why U?: The Relevance of the University Today.” This period was (and still remains) an exciting time for our CTL, as we were (and remain) tasked with the work of constructing our identity, discovering what we can accomplish given our resources and our situation on a two-year, open-enrollment campus of a public ivy university. During this same time, however, members of what we call our CTL’s “leadership collaborative” and I often felt some anxiety about what we ought to be accomplishing. What, for instance, were we supposed to be doing during our staff hours? Was there more we should be doing in terms of outreach? Were we at any point stepping onto others’ territories? Were we really having any effective impact
What “Is” Is: CTLs as Verbs — A Message From the Coeditor-in-Chief
Get PDFLike most journal editors, I attend to submissions at the sentence-level as well as at levels of argument and significance. Part of my attention to sentences, as one might guess, involves scrutiny of verb choice, particularly in those cases where an author employs a be-verb (“am,” “are,” “is,” “was,” “were”) rather than something active (“negotiate,” “assess,” “fought,” “created,” “flee”). Probably more than any type of manuscripts I have edited, Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning (JCTL) submissions draw me into new relationships with forms of the verb “to be.
Developing the Next Generation of Faculty: Taking a Learning Community Approach
Get PDFThe traditional goal of new faculty orientation has been to acculturate incoming instructors by providing them information regarding institutional expectations, the student body, and funding opportunities. The author advocates a new model that focuses instead on the development of a learning community approach. This model recognizes the particular characteristics, strengths, and interests of the next generation of new faculty, and intentionally aligns them with the needs of the institution. The outcomes of the learning community are a stronger, more resilient faculty and an institution capable of adapting to the rapidly changing landscape in higher education
The Stranger Vs. Your CTL: A Message from the Editor-in-Chief
Get PDFThis second installment in what will represent a series of essays on the practicalities of CTL work comes at a good time in light of this issue’s featured articles, which I see as a collective doubling down, or, better yet, deepening down on functions that CTLs frequently comprise. At the assured risk of evoking far more associations than might actually benefit my attempts to provide context for the works collected here, I have to admit that I often found myself, in the course of preparing them for publication, thinking about a passage in Albert Camus’ The Stranger. In the scene, the narrator/title character, Meursault, is imprisoned for murder (Did I mention the association would be problematic?). While in his cell, Camus’ infamously indifferent character devotes huge portions of his time to close scrutiny of his living space
An Innovative Award Catches Faculty in the Act of Great Teaching
Get PDFThis paper examines a novel approach to honoring faculty through a low-stakes, low-cost teaching award. It describes the development and implementation of the award at Augusta University, considers the advantages of the award as a means to promote teach-ing excellence, and reports on data assessing the award’s impact on recipients and nominees