Faculty perceptions of teaching support and teaching efficacy in Taiwan

The purpose of this study was to investigate university faculty’s perceptions of teaching support and their teaching efficacy in Taiwan. In addition, the relationship of perceived teaching support to faculty’ teaching efficacy was examined. Questionnaires measuring three dimensions of teaching support and six dimensions of teaching efficacy were distributed to 1,700 university faculty members, yielding 505 complete sets of responses. The public faculty show higher perceptions of teaching support and teaching efficacy than do their counterparts. The correlation coefficients between perceived teaching support and teaching efficacy among the public faculty are lower than those among the private ones. Peer support, teaching resources, and university type have some impact on faculty teaching efficacy. Administrative support, however, does not make a significant additional contribution to the variance in teaching efficacy.     

Perceptions of effectiveness and the actual use of technology-based methods of instruction: A study of California criminal justice and crime-related faculty

The field of criminal justice/criminology has few studies that examine faculty opinions regarding the use of technology as a replacement and supplement to traditional classroom instruction. Using a sample of criminal justice and crime-related higher education faculty members in the state of California, this study examines perceptions of effectiveness and the actual use of various classroom-based technologies. The results reveal that while most faculty members hold positive views toward the use of technology, far fewer are actually integrating technology-based methods of instruction into their courses. Meanwhile, most faculty members do not perceive the presence of adequate administrative supports or incentives at their institutions for the development of distance learning courses. Overall, support for the integration of technology into criminal justice education appears to be greatest when it is used as a supplement rather than a replacement for face-to-face classroom instruction.     

Support for teaching the liberal arts: An institutional dilemma

Using data from a random sample of chief liberal arts academic officers in American colleges and universities, the authors examine the support of teaching in the liberal arts (defined as the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities). Information is presented on 15 categories of faculty support for teaching and research, basic teaching conditions, tenure decisions, and merit salary increases. Differences in support are examined among institutions that vary in size, location, sponsorship, and degree level. These findings suggest that liberal arts teaching is in less than excellent health on most American campuses. In addition, the researchers note numerous inconsistencies among resources, standards, and rewards in American institutions of higher learning and urge liberal arts administrators to reduce these inconsistencies where possible.     

Hybrid structures: Faculty use and perception of web-based courseware as a supplement to face-to-face instruction

The researchers examined responses from 862 faculty members at 38 institutions nationwide using the blackboard Learning Management System (LMS) to supplement their face-to-face instruction. The four research questions addressed the primary uses that faculty make of blackboard, perceptions that faculty have of how certain blackboard features enhance or elevate (or might enhance or elevate) their assessment of student work and instructional capabilities, and how faculty use of blackboard might positively affect the psychosocial climate within the face-to-face classroom setting. Additional analysis sought to identify the factors that predict use and positive perception of blackboard as a supplement to face-to-face teaching activities. The results indicate that faculty primarily used blackboard as a course management/administration tool to make course documents available to students and manage course grades. Few faculty used blackboard for instructional or assessment purposes, and even fewer utilized blackboard to foster a more positive sense of community within their face-to-face classes. Faculty attitudes, on the whole, were positive when it came to the classroom management functions of blackboard, but neutral or otherwise undecided in terms of its instructional or psychosocial benefits. The main factor in determining blackboard usage—whether for course administration or instructional purposes—was experience with the tool. In addition, women had more positive attitudes than men did in terms of blackboard's potential to enhance classroom management and foster a positive relational climate. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed before concluding.     

Evaluation of a Faculty Development Model for Technology Use in Higher Education for Late Adopters

Abstract

The design, implementation, and evaluation of the second phase in a two-year faculty development initiative by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium on Higher Education (SEPCHE) is presented. The initiative addressed instruction of SEPCHE faculty in the use of technology in college teaching. Six workshops were conducted for faculty in specific disciplines to create working relationships among SEPCHE faculty, establish faculty as mutually supportive resources, to decrease attitudinal and behavioral barriers toward adoption of new technology by “late adopters,” and to improve teaching effectiveness through the application of new technology. Faculty from SEPCHE, rather than outside consultants, served as expert presenters. Workshops included mastery of software and adaptation for specific disciplines, Internet search strategies and usable sites, Web site design, and electronically mediated course delivery. Faculty indicated satisfaction with the workshops in exit interviews, and attitudinal and usage changes are documented by evaluation four months later.     

音乐教学法课程中微格教学运用初探

微格教学是在现代教育技术基础上细化课堂教学能力,系统培养教学技能的方法,日益被各高等院校推广和普及。从微格教学的训练模式入手,分析音乐教学法课程中运用微格教学的优势体现,细化课堂教学技能,分类说明阐述探讨发挥的重要作用,对音乐教学法课程中开展微格教学应把握的几点问题提出一点思考。     

Want to Improve Undergraduate Thesis Writing? Engage Students and Their Faculty Readers in Scientific Peer Review

One of the best opportunities that undergraduates have to learn to write like a scientist is to write a thesis after participating in faculty-mentored undergraduate research. But developing writing skills doesn't happen automatically, and there are significant challenges associated with offering writing courses and with individualized mentoring. We present a hybrid model in which students have the structural support of a course plus the personalized benefits of working one-on-one with faculty. To optimize these one-on-one interactions, the course uses BioTAP, the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol, to structure engagement in scientific peer review. By assessing theses written by students who took this course and comparable students who did not, we found that our approach not only improved student writing but also helped faculty members across the department--not only those teaching the course--to work more effectively and efficiently with student writers. Students who enrolled in this course were more likely to earn highest honors than students who only worked one-on-one with faculty. Further, students in the course scored significantly better on all higher-order writing and critical-thinking skills assessed.     

Evaluation of university teaching as sound performance appraisal

As research on student evaluations of teaching (SET) has dominated our understanding of teaching evaluation, debate over SET implementation has turned attention away from basic principles for appraising employee performance as established in human resources literature. Considering SET research and its practical significance in isolation from relevant human resources literature not only risks unlawful remedies for issues such as bias in SET but also risks replacing one form of bias with another. Meanwhile, the full potential of human resources tools to support consistent evaluation of teaching remains unrealized. To address this gap, this article clarifies how teaching evaluation can be conducted as sound performance appraisal by deploying SET and peer review of teaching within a larger framework of established human resources techniques. A review of recent literature articulates prominent themes in research on SET and peer review of teaching and outlines key principles for performance appraisal and performance management. Those principles are used to analyze representative faculty evaluation policies and procedures and clarify the weaknesses of both traditional and recently revised approaches to teaching evaluation. The final section elaborates performance appraisal techniques relevant to teaching evaluation. These include planful use of results and/or behavior approaches to performance appraisal, robust rating instruments for behavioral performance appraisal, targeted collection of information from multiple stakeholders, and job analysis. Efforts to de-emphasize quantitative SET data to address issues such as bias can be strengthened through the incorporation of performance appraisal tools that clearly articulate performance criteria and standards and that gather both qualitative and quantitative data on employee performance.     

Teaching-as-research internships: a model for the development of future chemistry faculty and the improvement of teaching in science,technology, engineering,and math

Over the past decade, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) and Madison Area Technical College (Madison College) partnered to create an internship pathway for graduate students pursuing careers as future science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) faculty members. Since 2003, 10 doctoral students from the university completed teaching internship appointments with the technical college chemistry department. Interns benefited from a variety of teaching and educational experiences that helped lay the foundations for their future teaching careers. Following completion of their internships, many students secured employment in higher education as new instructors and enthusiastic members of the teaching profession. Intern projects also benefited veteran faculty mentors at Madison College, and the experience provided a rich forum for collaboration that generated curricular and instructional innovations in the classroom. Centered on the three pillars of teaching-as-research, learning community, and learning through diversity, the internship program created at UW-Madison and implemented at Madison College provides a model pathway for preparing future STEM faculty. This approach provides clear benefits not only for the future faculty who are trained, but also for veteran faculty mentors, for the host institution, and for the undergraduate students impacted by the educational innovations. This paper examines the key attributes of this program, with the hope that our experience may be disseminated and replicated to benefit others.     

DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION OF A FACULTY TIME ANALYSIS SYSTEM ‐AN AID TO ACCOUNTABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

This article describes the development and utility of a time analysis system for higher education faculty members interested in self‐evaluation. Although many higher education institutions employ various student, peer, and administrative evaluations, an analysis of the types of services performed by faculty staff and the amounts of time allotted to these services can provide very useful information to a faculty person interested in self‐evaluation. A model is described herein and an example is provided.     

Student evaluations of teaching: the impact of faculty procedures on response rates

In the last 10–15 years, many institutions of higher education have switched from paper-and-pencil methods to online methods of administering student evaluations of teaching (SETs). One consequence has been a significant reduction in the response rates to such instruments. The current study was conducted to identify whether offering in-class time to students to complete online SETs would increase response rates. A quasi-experiment (nonequivalent group design) was conducted in which one group of tenured faculty instructed students to bring electronic devices with internet capabilities on a specified day and offered in-class time to students to complete online SETs. A communication protocol for faculty members’ use was developed and implemented. A comparison group of tenured faculty who did not offer in-class time for SET completion was identified and the difference-in-differences method was used to compare the previous year’s response rates for the same instructor teaching the same course across the two groups. Response rates were substantially higher when faculty provided in-class time to students to complete SETs. These results indicate that high response rates can be obtained for online SETs submitted by students in face-to-face classes if faculty communicate the importance of SETs in both their words and actions.     

Formative Peer Review of Teaching: Attitudes of Faculty at Liberal Arts Colleges Toward Colleague Assessment

Nearly all students of faculty evaluation agree that peer review should be part of a comprehensive program of faculty assessment. Faculty are particularly well qualified to critique their colleagues teaching when the objective is to improve quality of instruction because they are in a position to assess several aspects of teaching better than students, academic administrators, and other constituencies of the academic community. Large proportions of faculty in this study indicated they would take part in four methods of formative peer review—classroom observation, videotaping of classes, evaluation of course materials, and assessment of their evaluation of the academic work of students—and they provide important information on factors that might detract from their participation, on conditions that might enhance the process, and on the benefits they and their students, colleagues, and institutions might receive as a result of their participation.     

Reflections on Teaching and Learning Online: Quality program design,delivery and support issues from a cross‐global perspective

This reflective paper began with a discussion of the online program design and delivery experiences of three senior faculty members at the University of Calgary (Canada) and Deakin University (Australia), which was recorded at Deakin University. After drawing on this recording in their research and practice, one faculty member from each institution decided to review and expanded upon their intervening experiences in terms of issues of quality program design, delivery, and support issues when teaching, and learning in different cultural contexts. The authors discovered that these issues are as important today as they were when they met to record the interview, and have concluded their discussion here with thoughts about the teaching, student, and administrative supports that institutions engaged in online program delivery cross‐culturally must address in order to successfully deliver quality online programs worldwide.     

The Adult Student and Course Satisfaction: What Matters Most?

Student satisfaction with a course is important because it can contribute to student retention, and it can also be used as one way to assess faculty effectiveness. This investigative work suggests that course satisfaction among non-traditional, adult students seeking business degrees is positively influenced by giving attention to four specific service-based factors. Based on feedback from 1,725 such students and 214 instructors at five institutions of higher education, a service-based model of course satisfaction is proposed. This model focuses on four manageable variables that are observed as influencing adult students’ satisfaction with a business course: relevancy of subject-matter, faculty subject-matter competency, faculty classroom management, and student workload.     

Beliefs about learning and enacted instructional practices: An investigation in postsecondary chemistry education

While research on and development of evidence‐based instructional practices (EBIPs) in STEM education has flourished, implementation of these practices classrooms has not been as prolific. Using the teacher‐centered systemic reform model as a framework, we explore the connection between chemistry instructors’ beliefs about teaching and learning and self‐efficacy beliefs, and their enacted classroom practices. Postsecondary chemistry faculty present a unique population for the study because of their role in teaching prerequisite courses, such as general and organic chemistry, which are key to many science major fields. A measure of teacher beliefs and self‐efficacy was administered to a national survey of postsecondary chemistry faculty members. Instructional practices used in a chemistry course were also collected via self‐report. While instructional practices were not directly observed, a cluster analysis of our data mirrors patterns of instructional practices found in observation‐based studies of chemistry faculty. Significant differences are found on teacher thinking and self‐efficacy measures based on enacted instructional practices. Results support the hypothesized connection between beliefs and instructional practice on a larger scale than in previous studies of this relationship, bolstering the evidence for the importance of this relationship over previously criticized results. These results present a call for reform efforts on fostering change from its core, that is, the beliefs of those who ultimately adopt EBIPs. Dissemination and design should incorporate training and materials that highlight the process by which faculty members interpret reformed practices within their belief system, and explore belief change in the complex context of education reform.     

Multiplying perspectives and improving practice: what can happen when undergraduate students collaborate with college faculty to explore teaching and learning

Traditional structures in higher education support a separation between faculty members’ and students’ perspectives on classroom practice. This is in part because student-faculty interactions are typically defined by a focus on content coverage and by a clear delineation between faculty and student roles in engaging that content. This paper focuses on key findings from an ongoing action research study that aims to address these basic questions: (1) What happens when faculty and students engage in structured dialogue with one another about teaching and learning outside of the regular spaces within which they interact? and (2) How can such dialogic engagement become a part of both students’ and teachers’ practice? The study takes place within the context of a program that supports undergraduate students and college faculty members in semester-long partnerships through which they explore teaching and learning. The goal of these explorations is to examine, affirm, and, where appropriate, revise pedagogical practice. Constant comparison/grounded theory was used to analyze discussions among and feedback from participants. It was found that partnership facilitates both faculty and students multiplying their perspectives in ways that have the potential to improve teaching and learning. Participants consistently describe gaining new insights produced at and by the intersections of their experiences and angles of vision. Furthermore, they discuss how these insights deepen their own self-awareness and their understanding of others’ experiences and perspectives. Finally, they indicate that, as a result of gaining these insights and deepening their awareness, they are inclined to embrace more engaged and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning.     

Faculty members’ perceptions of online program community and their efforts to sustain it

This study investigated faculty members’ perceptions of program community and what they do to support it in online graduate programs. Researchers developed and administered an online survey to ascertain perceptions of program community among education and engineering faculty members at United States, land-grant, research-extensive universities. Three hundred forty-four faculty members responded. Most participants thought that fostering community beyond courses was important. Faculty members used a variety of strategies to accomplish this task, including social media, synchronous communication and advising, face-to-face socials and orientations, and cohort models. Yet, many also relied on classroom strategies. Several participants indicated that they and their students lacked the time, resources or interest to pursue program community and that geographical distance and university reward policies complicated its establishment. Differences via discipline, gender and years of online teaching experience were also reported.     

Formative and summative evaluation in the faculty peer review of teaching

If the process of the faculty peer review of teaching is to overcome institutional marginalization, then its formative and summative components must employ rules, criteria, and standards for the identification of effective teaching that have been agreed to within a peer conversation among the faculty members of a scholarly unit. This conversation serves to collectively clarify the unit's expectations for its curriculum, teaching, and student learning. Only such a process can produce the credibility necessary to regularly effect the faculty development and personnel decisions of a unit.Dr. Ronald R. Cavanagh holds a doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, a Master of Divinity from Moravian College and the Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in English. Since coming to Syracuse University in 1967, Dr. Cavanagh has served as a faculty member in and chairperson of the Department of Religion, Associate Dean, and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and he is presently the University's Vice President for Undergraduate Studies. In 1995, he was a participant in the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard Univesity, Boston, Massachusetts.     

Facilitating learning in large lecture classes: testing the "teaching team" approach to peer learning

We tested the effect of voluntary peer-facilitated study groups on student learning in large introductory biology lecture classes. The peer facilitators (preceptors) were trained as part of a Teaching Team (faculty, graduate assistants, and preceptors) by faculty and Learning Center staff. Each preceptor offered one weekly study group to all students in the class. All individual study groups were similar in that they applied active-learning strategies to the class material, but they differed in the actual topics or questions discussed, which were chosen by the individual study groups. Study group participation was correlated with reduced failing grades and course dropout rates in both semesters, and participants scored better on the final exam and earned higher course grades than nonparticipants. In the spring semester the higher scores were clearly due to a significant study group effect beyond ability (grade point average). In contrast, the fall study groups had a small but nonsignificant effect after accounting for student ability. We discuss the differences between the two semesters and offer suggestions on how to implement teaching teams to optimize learning outcomes, including student feedback on study groups.