Leading the horse to the water: Teacher training for all teachers in a faculty of Health Sciences

Abstract

This paper describes a project, which aimed to develop a programme for the entire teaching staff of a faculty of health sciences, who had received initial teacher training earlier in their career. The programme was developed according to sound educational principles and was supported by the faculty board. Departments also received financial compensation for participation in the workshops. During the first two years of this programme almost 60% of the tenured teachers participated in at least one workshop. Reasons for participation and non‐participation are discussed.     

Collaborating with colleagues for the sake of academic and professional development in higher education

Abstract

This research examines how faculty members in higher education collaborate with colleagues, their collaborative professional work, the nature of these collaborations, and the benefits they get from it. Research findings show that collaborations are perceived as one of the important components of academic and professional development. The findings indicate issues about the characteristics and nature of collaborations as well as about colleagues with whom faculty members prefer to collaborate, the ways in which they collaborate, the advantages of collaborations, and the important role that academic leaders and institutions play in encouraging collaborations.     

An analysis of ethical considerations in programme design practice

Abstract

Ethical considerations are inherent to programme design decision-making, but not normally explicit. Nonetheless, they influence whose interests are served in a programme and who benefits from it. This paper presents an analysis of ethical considerations made by programme design practitioners in the context of a polytechnic in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It explores the nature of these considerations and explains how they draw on a complex interplay of utilitarian and communitarian discourses. Through this complexity the discourses not only reinforce each other, but also hide the necessity of debate about ethical considerations. The findings from this study offer educators a framework to analyse and become explicit about their own ethical considerations in programme design and the discourses they draw on. This knowledge can help them to improve their practices, as it offers them clarity about what is ‘the right thing to do’ as well as a language with which to engage in debates with others.     

Pastoral Care for Senior Students: An Analysis of a Voluntary Staff Counselling Scheme in a Sixth-form College

This article is written for new and experienced tutors to review the ways in which they are supporting their students’ learning. It considers the purposes of tutoring, drawing on the voices of students themselves. The article then considers the ways in which the tutor can support the learning of young people, including academic tutoring. It concludes with some guidance for the tutor to develop their own learning about tutoring.     

Leading from the Inside Out: Learned Respect for Academic Culture through Shared Governance

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, faculty members who expected to become presidents ascended through the typical labor chain to that position. However, questions are prevalent about whether these individuals gain the managerial experience needed to succeed in a presidency. Unlike the private business management model that has been successful in developing leaders in that arena, community colleges have not provided such formal training to former faculty members who are well-versed in their field and academic-related issues, but lack formal managerial skills development. One area where such training may be achieved is through the development of the leaders of faculty senate bodies. Faculty senate bodies provide their leaders with an opportunity to provide a voice in the campus decision-making process and, potentially, may present an opportunity for more formal training for those interested in the presidency. Further analysis of the perceived skills of these leaders is an important step in addressing this need. The purpose of this study was to identify areas of common thinking among community college presidents and faculty senate leaders about the importance of certain experiences and beliefs needed by effective community college presidents, and the extent that they can be learned by service on the faculty senate.     

Lessons we still need to learn on creating more inclusive and responsive classrooms: recommendations from one student–faculty partnership programme

ABSTRACT

This article presents recommendations regarding how to create welcoming and productively challenging classrooms for a diversity of students. These recommendations emerged during the pilot phase of a student–faculty pedagogical partnership programme in 2007 and remain relevant in 2017. To situate the recommendations, we evoke definitions of Whiteness, racism, and culture and briefly review key ideas from literature centred on inclusive and responsive classroom practices. We describe the genesis of the partnership programme at a college in the Mid-Atlantic United States and the methods used to document conversations with students from underrepresented groups on campus and with the faculty and students who piloted the programme, all of whom participated in a research project approved by the College’s ethics board. The majority of the article focuses on the set of eight interrelated recommendations for developing inclusive and responsive classrooms generated by the faculty and student participants in the partnership programme.     

Two Related Crises

Abstract

We describe the organization and outcomes of faculty communities of practice over four semesters in which participants learned about research-based instructional strategies. In each semester, a community of 10 to 22 participants met for six to eight one-hour sessions, read a common book on teaching and learning, observed each other's class sessions, and prepared a final report on what they had learned. We found that the peer observations inspired the participants to adopt new instructional strategies. This paper includes recommendations for designing faculty professional development experiences with an intentional focus on creating value for the participants.     

Can Technology Offer a Means of Mentoring Pre-service Teachers about Diversity?

This article discusses a project which has the goal of raising the awareness of pre-service teachers about the needs and potentials of low-income minority students through using technology to develop a comentoring community composed of teacher educators, teachers, pre-service students and elementary students. Using the interactive capabilities of video conferencing over the Internet, pre-service teachers engage in a 'virtual' field experience with a bilingual grade three classroom in a distant inner-city school. Pre-service teachers involved in the programme have the opportunity to be involved with students they would not experience in the local area, to be mentored by a teacher with knowledge of diversity, and to use technology in meaningful, productive ways. Benefits for participants—faculty, pre-service teachers, teachers in the school, and students in host classrooms—implications for pre-service teachers' understanding of diversity and limitations of the technology are discussed. 1     

Attaining competencies in Programme Outcomes through Open-Ended Experiments

Abstract

Laboratory exercises have created benefits in student learning. Making laboratories open ended pushes students to have an independent perspective and to think harder. An openended experiment is where students are given the flexibility to develop their own experiments. Outcome-based education is an educational theory that bases each part of an educational system around objectives. Measuring programme outcomes (POs) in engineering education is a challenge for teaching faculty in general, and doing so for a laboratory programme and through an open-ended experiment, is even more challenging. This article explains the planning and execution of conducting an open-ended experiment in a metal cutting laboratory to enhance active learning. If also focuses on the evaluation process, rubrics developed, and attainment of POs in the Industrial and Production Engineering (IPE) programme.     

Setting Targets: developing perspectives during a staff‐development programme

Abstract

This paper provides a report of a continuing staff development programme within a faculty of initial teacher education in a college of higher education, funded by the DTI sponsored Enterprise Awareness in Teacher Education (EATE) initiative. It describes the context for the programme, explores its objectives, considers the programme format and reflects upon its outcomes from the viewpoint of its participants and the effects within the institution.     

A comparative study on student perceptions of their learning outcomes in undergraduate science degree programmes with differing curriculum models

ABSTRACT

This study investigated students’ perceptions of their graduate learning outcomes including content knowledge, communication, writing, teamwork, quantitative skills, and ethical thinking in two Australian universities. One university has a traditional discipline-orientated curriculum and the other, an interdisciplinary curriculum in the entry semester of first year. The Science Students Skills Inventory asked students (n?=?613) in first and final years to rate their perceptions of the importance of developing graduate learning outcomes within the programme; how much they improved their graduate learning outcomes throughout their undergraduate science programme; how much they saw learning outcomes included in the programme; and how confident they were about their learning outcomes. A framework of progressive curriculum development was adopted to interpret results. Students in the discipline-oriented degree programme reported higher perceptions of scientific content knowledge and ethical thinking while students from the interdisciplinary curriculum indicated higher perceptions of oral communication and teamwork. Implications for curriculum development include ensuring progressive development from first to third years, a need for enhanced focus on scientific ethics, and career opportunities from first year onwards.     

Comparison of Quebec and British teachers' beliefs about,training in and experience with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Abstract

This study compares belief patterns of teachers from Quebec and Britain about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It also compares teacher training in ADHD in both countries, as well as their experience with students who have this disorder. The results indicate that: (1) teacher belief patterns about ADHD in Quebec and Britain are different, although teachers from both countries have predominant beliefs about ADHD that are of an allopathic medical nature; (2) British teachers have received less information on ADHD in their initial training than Quebec teachers; and (3) British teachers are contacted more often than Quebec teachers by doctors when they have a youngster using medication to treat ADHD in their classroom. Results are discussed from a sociological and an educational perspective.     

How school leaders search for and use evidence

Background: Often, a principal’s responsibilities include making decisions about the appropriateness of educational programmes to adopt in their school. Recommendations about programmes can be conflicting; so, a principal may need to search for evidence to inform their decision.

Purpose: The purpose of this small-scale study was to clarify how school leaders search for, and use, evidence to inform programme adoption. We sought to answer three research questions: (1) how do principals search for evidence, (2) how do they use common sources and (3) what sources do they consider most useful?

Sample: Twelve elementary school principals or vice-principals in Ontario, Canada participated in the study.

Design and methods: In telephone interviews, the participants described how they would respond to a fictional decision-making scenario and rated different sources of evidence. Responses were analysed in depth, using a mixed-method approach, which involved coding principals’ interview responses for themes and conducting a dual scaling analysis of their ratings of the usefulness of possible sources.

Results: Principals report valuing formal sources of evidence such as reports and articles. However, in practise, findings indicated that they would turn to people first.

Conclusions: School leaders prefer curated evidence from local educators to inform their decisions about the appropriateness of educational programmes for potential adoption.     

ACADEMIC ADMINISTRATORS AND FACULTY RETIREMENT IN A NEW ERA

ABSTRACT

More than a decade ago, as the end of mandatory retirement for faculty approached, many academic administrators were concerned about its negative impact on their institutions. With the assistance of a variety of incentives put in place to encourage voluntary retirement, a significant number of senior faculty retired during the 1990s. Now, the looming loss of millions of “baby boomer” faculty requires rethinking faculty retirement. Administrators have two urgent issues to address: defining and maintaining a balance of junior and senior faculty, and designing and implementing effective retirement programs for this new generation of aging faculty. Important differences between previous and future generations of faculty suggest that retirement programs that worked in the past may no longer be effective for the institution—and may not appeal to the faculty. Federal and state governments, businesses, and organizations are preparing to respond to the forthcoming biggest wave of retirement in our country's history. Academic administrators, who pioneered phased-retirement programs, will want to stay on top of this wave too.     

Mentoring to facilitate socialization: The case of the new faculty member

How easily a new faculty members adjusts and adapts to life in the professoriate is often dependent on the types of relationships that the newcomer establishes with colleagues and on the willingness of veteran faculty members to assist newcomers as they learn the ins and outs of the academy. One avenue for facilitating interaction between newcomers and academic veterans is to establish formal mentoring programs. In this case study, the formal mentoring relationship is examined as a means for understanding the socialization processes of new faculty members. Results suggest that mentoring relationships may facilitate socialization because they allow newcomers to establish interpersonal bonds and receive support and advice from experienced colleagues. Results also indicate, however, that the most important feature of mentoring may be accessibility. This finding leads to questions concerning the feasibility of assigning mentors rather than encouraging informal mentoring from multiple faculty members.     

English Schools and Pastoral Care as Perceived by French Teachers on a One Year Exchange Visit

This paper presents two case studies from a small-scale qualitative study which the writers have undertaken. In each case, a participant from a number of years ago reflects on their memories of and feelings about the small group training component of an MA in Human Relations programme in which they had been involved. They go on to consider how they feel these experiences affected their subsequent professional practices. The writers conclude by discussing the implications of what these former students say.     

Going beyond Kirkpatrick's Training Evaluation Model: The role of workplace factors in distance learning transfer

Abstract

This article emanates from a longitudinal study of the impact of a distance education programme for teacher training on graduates' job performance, in which the authors built on the findings of a previous pilot study. After using Kirkpatrick's Training Evaluation Model in a previous study, one of the authors found there to be a strong relationship between graduates' completion of the programme and their performance at school. However, the model does not probe factors that impede on transfer of learning. Quite a number of the graduate participants indicated that they were faced with this problem. In order to further probe this phenomenon, the authors fused Baldwin's Transfer of Training Model with the second level of Kirkpatrick's model by using a mixed-methods enquiry. It became clear that the organizational climate of schools has a strong influence on the transfer of learning in the workplace. Suggestions are presented on how educators and school managers can work together effectively.     

Faculty Mentors in Teacher Induction: Developing a Cross-institutional Identity

ABSTRACT

Though the knowledge base on mentoring new teachers has grown exponentially in the past 30 years, researchers know less about university involvement in induction, and even less about the role that faculty mentors may play in induction. Drawing on interview, e-mail, and observational data from a yearlong mentoring relationship between a faculty mentor and 7 new teachers, the author examined a faculty mentor's role in supporting beginning teachers. Findings highlight the importance of identity development in assuming a cross-institutional role as a faculty mentor. The transition from teacher educator to teacher mentor requires the development of a mentor identity that is recognized and valued in the community of practice inhabited by classroom teachers.     

Disciplinary Differences and the Integration of Technology into Teaching

ABSTRACT

The preparation of teachers involves academics from across the disciplinary spectrum but research on the differences between academic disciplines has revealed that a faculty member's discipline is a major factor in shaping the several aspects of course planning and teaching. The purpose of this paper is to present a model for investigating disciplinary differences as they may relate to teaching with technology, thereby enabling more effective integration of technology into the curriculum. Components of the model include: the structure and ethos of the discipline; preparation for, and experience as, a teacher; faculty assumptions about students; faculty beliefs and perceptions about technology; and the environmental context.     

The Relationship between General Job Satisfaction and Specific Work-Activity Satisfaction of Community College Faculty

Abstract

Data on job satisfaction of community college faculty, as obtained from five state and national surveys, are analyzed in this study. Results of this analysis indicate that many instructors are generally satisfied with their jobs but somewhat dissatisfied with their working conditions. Examination of the methods used in those studies to measure job satisfaction suggests that the measures may be tapping different dimensions of satisfaction, and that they may not be related to one another or to the criteria measures they are designed to predict. Data from a survey of two-year college humanities faculty (N = 1,493) and nonhumanities chairpersons (N =505) revealed that a measure of general job satisfaction was relatively independent of a measure of specific work-activity satisfaction, and that the former measure of satisfaction was a much better predictor of several indicators of faculty desire to remain at their college than the latter. These findings indicate that different methods of measuring job satisfaction may yield highly discrepant reports, which in turn can pose serious problems of interpretation.