faculty research skills development

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School of Medicine Office of Faculty Affairs

Faculty Development

Research skills.

Strengthening research skills, including grant and scholarly writing, is pivotal for faculty. These abilities not only secure funding but also drive transformative advancements in research and practice.

Grant Development Resources

• UConn’s Office for the Vice President for Research (OVPR) The OVPR Research Development Program aims to enhance UConn’s research climate by promoting faculty research by helping faculty be better positioned to generate external funding for their scholarly activities. The OVPR Research Development provides a grant writing seminars and workshops, proposal development services, and technical assistance.
• The UConn Health Center Research Advisory Council (HCRAC) advises the Vice President for Research and the Research Deans on the development, management, and disposition of the Health Center’s central research resources and intramural grants programs. HCARC provides a number of grant development resources.
• UConn School of Medicine provides links to funding opportunities as well as grant development support including Mock Study Section and Scientific Writing, Editing, and Grant Support
• UConn’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP) brings together individuals with diverse scientific, clinical, and methodological expertise and supports their evolution into collaborative investigators who conduct innovative interdisciplinary research that impacts public health and well-being. InCHIP provides assistance with Research Training & Development including training, mentorship, research team development, grant proposal writing and internal funding opportunities.

Scholarship

• UConn School of Medicine Seminars. The following seminars from the UConn School of Medicine Faculty offer advice and tips for publishing.
• Forming Writing Groups: One Person’s Experience.  Anne Kenny, M.D. September 26, 2013. (55:52)
• A Writing Accountability Group or WAG is an active writing group that meets once a week over a 10-week block and follows a strict agenda. WAGs are focused on the process not the content of writing. For more information in starting or joining a WAG at UConn Health, please contact Jenn Cavallari, ScD, Director of Faculty Development ([email protected]) .
• Getting started with scholarship. Coming soon

Predatory Publishing

• Predatory Journals – How to Identify and Avoid Them . Peter Setlow, Ph.D., and Anne Kenny, M.D., January 2019. (16:17)
• Think, Check, Submit . Follow this checklist to make sure you choose trusted journals for your research.

External Career Development Resources for Research

• The National Institutes of Health Research Training and Career Development programs provide information and training opportunities to support a broad range of training and career goals.
• The Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Development Guides provide guidance for scientists and researchers at all levels covering topics including communicating science, managing career transitions and intellectual property.
• The Burroughs Wellcome Fund Lab Management Guide . Making the Right Moves is a collection of practical advice and experiences from seasoned biomedical investigators and includes chapters on laboratory leadership, getting funded, project management, and teaching and course design.
• Science Careers provides articles and other careers information, tips and advice relevant to a broad range of disciplines.
• The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity provides programs and resources to support faculty success across all-levels and disciplines. UConn Health Center faculty are eligible for a no-cost sub-account through UConn’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Institutional Membership. Additional information on creating your account is provided by CETL.

Faculty Development for Research Capacity Building

• First Online: 17 December 2013

Cite this chapter

• Brian Hodges MD, Ph.D., FRCPC 3 , 4 , 5  

Part of the book series: Innovation and Change in Professional Education ((ICPE,volume 11))

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Faculty development has a central, if perhaps underappreciated, role to play in research capacity building . While many faculty members and students develop research skills through formal graduate degrees, including Masters and PhD programs, faculty development programs can help to extend the research skills of those who have already undertaken graduate studies and develop these skills in individuals for whom a formal graduate program is not an option. This chapter reviews evidence from the literature about effective approaches to research capacity building through faculty development, with a focus on innovative approaches and case studies of successful programs.

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Understanding the capacity development of faculty development programs: a sequential explanatory mixed methods study

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Acknowledgements

 The author would like to acknowledge Elisa Hollenberg for support in the literature search and formatting of the manuscript and references. Thanks also to Yvonne Steinert, David Irby and Pat O’Sullivan for very helpful comments and suggestions.

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Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Brian Hodges MD, Ph.D., FRCPC

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Correspondence to Brian Hodges MD, Ph.D., FRCPC .

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Yvonne Steinert

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Hodges, B. (2014). Faculty Development for Research Capacity Building. In: Steinert, Y. (eds) Faculty Development in the Health Professions. Innovation and Change in Professional Education, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7612-8_4

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Faculty Development: A Potential Game Changer

• The development center focuses on improving faculty skills in technical, managerial, behavioral, and research areas.
• Instructors at the center are sourced from institutions in India and abroad.
• Center leaders are looking at ways to track the training needs of professors and institutionalize the learning each faculty member requires.

  Seven years ago, I proposed the idea of setting up a faculty development center at my school, the Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) in Greater Noida, India. I had been heading BIMTECH’s marketing area for six years, and during the last two years I also had been leading its business communications area. I now wanted to be involved in something new that would leave a lasting impression on the institute.

At that time, faculty were participating in development programs on an ad hoc basis, but there was no formal plan for what they should attend and there was no structure in place for how they could be assessed by their department heads. I wanted to create a way for the school to ascertain and fulfill the individual developmental needs of all its faculty. I also wanted to align the center with BIMTECH’s mission of creating and disseminating knowledge in a global context and developing faculty as global thought leaders.

Our director was extremely receptive to the idea, and the BIMTECH Center for Faculty Development commenced in December 2015 under my leadership. A few months ago, I felt that the time was right to hand over the leadership of the center to a fresh incumbent. Since then, I have reflected on what we have achieved so far—and what remains to be done.

Plans and Objectives

When the center opened, it had five stated objectives:

• Identify the training and development needs of faculty to build their skills in technical, managerial, behavioral, and research areas.
• Help faculty develop skills and competencies through in-house and external training programs.
• Source competent faculty to teach in-house programs.
• Expand the cadre of faculty able to deliver both general and discipline-specific programs to corporate partners.
• In a phased manner, open the BIMTECH Center to external faculty.

We determined that the center’s key performance indicators (KPIs) would be the number of participants we had, the number of programs they attended, and the number of hours they spent participating.

The center’s first activity was to send out questionnaires asking the approximately 60 faculty at the institute what they considered to be their training needs in the five areas outlined above. While some responses were focused and others were generic, the answers enabled us to establish a useful baseline and consider possible directions for the future.

We also finetuned our operating structure. We first recruited a manager to handle record keeping and day-to-day activities and then formed an operating committee comprising the center head, the manager, and three faculty members. We decided to rotate the faculty every year to ensure an influx of new ideas and points of view.

Instructors and Subjects

To line up what became a truly eclectic slate of programming, we sourced instructors from eminent institutions in India and abroad. These included directors and thought leaders from the Indian Institutes of Management, as well as MICA, an Indian business school specializing in communication. Other instructors were experts from U.S. institutions, such as New York University, the University of South Florida, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Maryland.

Programming covered institution building and the development of skills in technical, managerial, behavioral, and research areas.

While some sessions were aimed at large groups of participants, others were small, specialized, and invitation-only. Programming generally fell into five broad categories:

Institution building. Sessions included the brand development process for institutions, the next horizon in Indian management education, and the impact of new education policies.

Technical skill development. Among the offerings were those on Blue Ocean strategy, blended learning and the flipped classroom, case writing, design thinking for banks and financial services, and exponential innovation.

Managerial skill development. Programs covered readying faculty for the future, empowering educators, improving teaching and learning effectiveness, developing storytelling skills, and developing advanced leadership competencies.

Behavioral skill development. In these sessions, participants’ learning included the fundamentals of cross-cultural communication, psychometric assessment, organization strength analysis, and advanced communication approaches.

Research skill development. Programs covered managing funded research projects; learning mixed method approaches to management research; identifying a phenomenon of interest; using the software language R to conduct text mining; and developing skills in data analysis, Python programming, and digital marketing.

Owing to popular demand, we ran encores of several programs, including those focused on case writing and development, research methods, and institution building.

Stats and Outcomes

Since the Center for Faculty Development was inaugurated seven years ago, it has organized 54 in-house programs and sent faculty to 91 external ones. All programs were attended in-person except those held between March 2020 and January 2022, due to COVID restrictions.

While programs varied in length from half a day to three days, the average BIMTECH faculty member has spent five days a year attending sessions. In total, the center has provided 1,935 days of in-person training to faculty. Faculty also have been encouraged to attend long-duration development programs online, an addition that takes the total training hours to more than 2,000.

As I see it, the center’s programs have had three primary positive outcomes:

First, all 60 BIMTECH faculty have been involved in general programs. Many also have undertaken programs specific to their interests. Department heads and members of the center committee have nominated faculty to attend programs both at the center and externally.

Today, the center is well on its way to becoming a facilitator rather than a driver of faculty development.

Second, faculty have realized that professional development is their own responsibility and in their best interests. Today, the number of faculty asking to be sent to particular programs has increased dramatically, and the center is well on its way to becoming a facilitator rather than a driver of faculty development.

Third, we have extended our offerings beyond the borders of our campus. Not only are faculty from other institutions attending paid open programs at our center, but faculty from our school also are delivering management development programs to corporate partners. Popular topics for these corporate offerings are leadership, decision making, design thinking, and function-specific skills.

Room for Improvement

Despite our successes, I see plenty of opportunities for growth. I believe the center could have a greater impact if leadership would take these five steps:

Re-examine the KPIs and their underlying assumptions. Tracking the number of days each faculty member participates in training does not reveal whether there were relevant programs available for that professor in a particular year. Additionally, the numbers do not indicate whether an individual faculty member has actually learned something during the training sessions, or applied this learning in various spheres of work. New KPIs might uncover some of these data.

Constantly scour the types of programs offered by other institutions. This would generate ideas about new programs that could be developed by the center at BIMTECH.

Develop a robust system for tracking the training needs of individual professors. If the center monitors which programs faculty have already attended, it should be able to proactively suggest other programs professors should consider attending. Needless to say, the center needs an adequate budget to be able to carry out this task. To that end, training needs to be viewed as a long-term investment rather than a cost center.

Institutionalize the learning that faculty have acquired. One option is to require faculty returning from training programs to give presentations to their peers so they can share the knowledge they have gained in particular programs. While this has happened sporadically at BIMTECH in the past seven years, such presentations should be made mandatory.

Measure whether faculty are utilizing their new training in their ongoing work. This kind of performance appraisal lies outside the scope of the center, but it is a productive idea for school leadership to consider. Such an appraisal would require the school to conduct a wide-angle assessment of each faculty member’s development over a time span of perhaps three years. It also would require the school to invest significant time and extensive coordination in performance appraisals.

With these possibilities in mind, my successor and I have formulated a road map for the center’s future, which includes these four steps:

• Structure a medium-term approach to faculty development.
• Ensure the continuing alignment of faculty development needs with BIMTECH’s vision, mission, values, and strategic plan.
• Engage in a 360-degree process to identify faculty development needs. Have conversations with individual professors, BIMTECH leaders, and chairpersons of the various areas and programs.
• Develop and implement an integrated four-year faculty development plan.

From Good to Great

My hope is that any business school setting up a similar faculty development center can profit from our learnings and shorten the time it takes to establish relevant KPIs and learning metrics. I would stress that, if these other schools want to create truly effective centers, they must secure the proactive involvement of many stakeholders to support and assess the contributions their centers make to faculty development.

Ultimately, every business school will determine its own direction, based on its vision, mission, and strategic plan. But developing its faculty is a task much too important to leave to chance. If a center for faculty development is given the right attention and adequate resources, it can prove to be a game changer. It can turn a business school from a good one into a great one.

• administration
• faculty engagement
• professional development

Fundamentals of Faculty Development

Overview of material.

Introduction Fundamentals of Faculty Development provides an evidence-based foundation in the field of faculty development, focusing on essential knowledge, core principles, and practical skills to apply to your own setting. You will learn about the evolution of faculty development in higher education, the core goals, structures, and services of teaching centers, and exemplars of evidence-based approaches to the delivery of teaching improvement programs and resources. 

The course was designed for prospective and current practitioners who were interested in the improvement of teaching and student learning in higher education.  It was created and co-taught by established faculty developers, Mei Yau Shih and Mary Deane Sorcinelli in our Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL). We acknowledge the generous contributions to the design process from Dr. Claire Hamilton, Dr. Beth Lisi, Dr. Gabriela Weaver, Dr. Brad Wheeler, Sarah Razani Marmon, Maria McSorley, and Michele Vanasse. 

While this content was originally developed as a course, the materials can now be completed asynchronously either individually or in a group setting with fellow faculty developers at Centers for Teaching and Learning.

Learning Goals: This course has several broad goals to help you build a foundation in faculty development as well as explore approaches for delivering faculty development programs and services. Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Apply knowledge of the history and theoretical foundations of faculty development to contexts within your own experience, professional studies, or careers. 
• Describe the range of types of faculty development centers/programs in colleges and universities, including goals, structures, services, and collaborations with other units.
• Assess the professional development needs of your faculty and institution. 
• Identify evidence-based approaches faculty developers use to deliver services.
• Design successful learning communities, institutes, and workshops. 
• Develop your instructional consultation skills in group and individual settings. 

Course Content:

• Module 1 - Defining the field and its current landscape 
• Module 2 - Exploring program types, goals, structures, and collaborations 

Module 3 - Assessing the professional development needs of your faculty and institution

Module 4 - using evidence-based approaches to deliver services and programs and evaluate ctl outcomes and impact.

• Module 5 - Planning successful learning communities, institutes, and workshops 
• Module 6 - Developing your instructional consultation skills 

The material for this course draws from many sources, but several selected chapters will come from two books that exemplify research and practice in the field:  A Guide to Faculty Development and Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence.   

• Beach, A., Sorcinelli, M.D., Austin, A.E. & Rivard, J. (2016). Faculty development in the age of evidence. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Gillespie, K. J., & Robertson, D. L. (2010). A guide to faculty development. (2nd Ed). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 

Module 1: Defining the field and its current landscape

Learning Objectives:  At the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Define faculty development
• Explain the evolution and "Ages" of faculty development
• Describe the current landscape of faculty development

Video Module 1

• Beach, A., Sorcinelli, M.D., Austin, A. &; Rivard, J. (2016). Introduction. Faculty development in the age of evidence (pp. 1-15). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Lee, V. (2010). Program types and prototypes. In Gillespie, K. J., &; Robertson, D. L. (Eds.). A guide to faculty development, 2nd ed. (pp 21-35). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
• Check, T., et al. (Spring 2020).  Report of the Dean's Task Force on Teaching and Learning .  This excellent report also contains an extensive bibliography on creating and sustaining a CTL.

Reflection Recognizing the evolving definition and “ages” of faculty development: 

• What are one or two interesting/provocative ideas that you take away from the Module 1 video mini-lecture and readings?
• What is one specific way that the lecture and/or readings connect with your position or professional context? 

Activity/Assignment

• How is faculty development defined in your CTL? Does the CTL support the development of faculty members in a range of professional roles or is the CTL more focused on the faculty member as teacher and facilitator of student learning?  Other definitions?  Explain your response.
• What can you infer about the history of your CTL? In what “Age” do you think it was created? Describe what “Age” (or combination of “Ages”) you believe it now inhabits and explain your reasoning.

Key takeaways:

• The term "faculty development" describes: 1) the total development of faulty members in all of their professional roles, and 2) a more focused definition of the faculty members as teacher and facilitator of student learning. The field is more recently described by the term "educational development" to encompass the expanding roles of faculty developers.
• Faculty professional development needs, interests and opportunities can range across areas (e.g., teaching, student learning, scholarly writing, career advancement, academic leadership) and career stages (e.g. graduate student, early career faculty, mid-career faculty, senior faculty, academic leaders).
• In a 2006 study of the field, Creating the Future of Faculty Development, the authors (Sorcinelli, Austin, Beach & Eddy) divided the field into five ages that include: Age of the Scholar (pre-1960s), Age of the Teacher (1970s), Age of the Developer (1980s), Age of the Learner (1990s), Age of the Network (2000s). In a 2016 follow up study of the field, Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence, the authors (Beach, Sorcinelli, Austin & Rivard) identify the Age of Evidence as a new era age that has emerged. The Age of Evidence is influenced by heightened interest in demonstrating student learning outcomes and student success, measuring the impact of teaching on student learning, and assessing the impact of faculty development. 

Additional Readings Click here for supplemental readings about this topic.

Module 2 - Exploring program types, goals, structures, and collaborations

Learning Objectives: At the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Identify the key goals of faculty development centers
• Distinguish among the variety of faculty development structures
• Discuss the priority issues for which centers offer services
• Determine the collaborations centers have with other units on campus

Video Module 2

• Beach, A., Sorcinelli, M.D., Austin, A. & Rivard, J. (2016). Ch. 2. What guides our work?  Faculty development in the age of evidence  ( pp.28-38 ). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Beach, A.,  Sorcinelli , M.D., Austin, A. &  Rivard , J. (2016).  Ch. 3. Where and with whom do we work?  Faculty development in the age of evidence ( pp. 39-51 ) .  Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Beach, A., Sorcinelli, M.D., Austin, A. & Rivard, J. (2016). Ch. 4. Services we focus on.  Faculty development in the age of evidence  ( pp. 52-74 ). Sterling, VA: Stylus. 

Reflect and answer the following three questions, considering the emphases of CTLs in 2016: 

• What are the guiding principles and key goals that guide the work of your CTL? Have any of them changed in emphasis or degree over the last few years?  If so, how, and why? 
• List up to five issues that your CTL addresses with services. How do those issues/services compare with the top issues identified in the studies—similar or different? Are there key issues that your CTL is not addressing or that you believe will be important to address in the next few years? Why?
• What can you infer about the strength of your CTL’s collaborations with other units? Identify the units that your CTL most collaborates with and why. What do you see as the benefits and challenges of cross-unit collaboration? (If your CTL does not collaborate with other units, why not?  What partnerships would you most like to see and why? What benefits and challenges do you foresee in such collaborations?)  
• Research indicates that the three primary goals that guide faculty development programs are: creating or sustaining a culture of teaching excellence; advancing new initiatives in teaching and learning; and supporting individual faculty members’ goals for professional development.
• The structure for faculty development programs has become more centralized and formalized in the past decade.
• The organizational context and reporting lines of faculty development centers differ across institutional types.
• Top issues addressed through faculty development services include new faculty development, integrating technology into traditional teaching and learning settings, learner-centered teaching, and assessment of student learning outcomes. 
• Faculty development centers primarily collaborate with technology units, but they also moderately collaborate with academic deans, libraries, and assessment offices.
• Describe the purpose of a needs assessment and essential questions it can answer.
• Develop an assessment strategy for examining an institution’s culture, context, and infrastructure
• Identify data collection methods and keys to a successful assessment.

Video Module 3

The following readings provide you with an overview of needs assessments for program development and evaluation:

• Brown, E. Haras, C., Hurney, C., Iuzzini, J., Magruder, E., Sorcinelli, M.D., Taylor, S.C., Wright, M. (2018).  A center for teaching and learning matrix. Washington, D.C.:  American Council on Education and POD Network.  https://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Center-For-Teaching-Learning-Matrix.pdf
• Cohen, M.W. (2010). Listen, learn, lead. In Gillespie, K. J., & Robertson, D. L. (Eds.)  A guide to faculty development,  2 nd  ed. ( pp. 67-81 ). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
• Overall, of the guiding principles, leading goals, collaborations, and CTL services this module discussed, which one or two of the 2016 study finding(s) resonate most with you, or align most with your aspirations as a faculty developer?
• Do you see or imagine the finding(s) you identified as changing, especially considering the continued post-pandemic impact on teaching and learning in higher education?
• Taking the pulse of the faculty is important for any faculty development program. What are one or two key ideas you now have regarding how to gather useful information on the interests and concerns of faculty and/or other stakeholders through a needs assessment? Did any concerns about the process arise?
• What have been the one or two “signature”/most successful approach(es) for facilitating faculty professional learning in your CTL and why? Is there an approach that your CTL might consider adding or subtracting given evidence of effectiveness, one that would add greater value to your CTL?

Considering your identified CTL, respond to the following two questions

• What evidence can you find that your CTL’s programming is based on an assessment of the needs of faculty and/or other stakeholders? If you cannot find evidence, where would you recommend your CTL get started in terms of assessing needs? 
• What benefits and challenges do you foresee (or have you experienced) in developing, conducting, and analyzing needs assessment data for your CTL?
• Before considering which services to offer and approaches to take, it's important to first discover what is already in place and what the professional needs and interests of the target audience are. 
• There are a variety of different methods you can use to ask important questions for your needs assessment. These might include existing reports, interviews, focus groups, surveys, questionnaires, etc.
• A needs assessment should be treated as a faculty development initiative that can raise your center's visibility and credibility.
• A needs assessment encourages your target audience's involvement and sense of ownership in the shaping of a program.

Learning Objectives:  At the end of this module, you will be able to: 

• Identify the range of approaches that faculty developers use to deliver professional development services
• Identify examples of approaches that are evidence-based 
• Discuss additional services and approaches faculty developers would like to add or expand in their center's portfolios

Video Module 4

• Beach, A., Sorcinelli, M.D., Austin, A. & Rivard, J. (2016). Our approaches to faculty development. Faculty development in the age of evidence (pp. 75-88). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Chism, N., Holly, M. & Harris, C. (2012). Researching the impact of educational development: Basis for informed practice. To Improve the Academy , 31: 129-145.
• Sorcinelli, M.D. The evaluation of faculty development programs in the United States. A fifty-year retrospective (1970s-2020).  Excellence and Innovation in Learning and Teaching (ISSNe 2499-507X), 2020, 2
• Wright, M., Horii, C., Felten, P. Sorcinelli, M.D., Kaplan, M. (2018, January). Faculty development improves teaching and learning. Retrieved from https://podnetwork.org/content/uploads/POD-Speaks-Issue-2_Jan2018-1.pdf
• Given the current disruptions in our colleges and universities, have your CTL’s signature approaches been altered and if so, how? What might this mean for evidence-based faculty development practices going forward?
• Reflect on the readings in terms of how your CTL currently evaluates programs and services.  How might your CTL enhance its assessment of outcomes and impact?    
• Faculty development approaches can vary based on the number and expertise of center staff, faculty time for professional development, and the resources of the center. 
• The approaches centers use most often to deliver services are short workshops, individual consults, and web-based resources.
• Research on evidence-based approaches gives guidance on the impact of workshops/intensive institutes, individual consultation, faculty learning communities, working with departments, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).
• When asked what approaches they would add to their portfolios if they had the resources and opportunities, developers identify the following: faculty learning communities, intensive institutes and workshops, observation of teaching (by a consultant or a peer), and asynchronous online programs.

Module 5 - Planning successful learning communities, institutes, and workshops

Learning Objectives:  At the end of this module , you will be able to: 

• Identify different approaches to deliver faculty teaching development services
• Understand how to develop and deliver intensive Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs)
• Develop and deliver meaningful and practical faculty workshops
• Design department/discipline specific workshops (on demand)
• Understand how to design and moderate a theme-based community of practice

Module 5 Video Lecture - Part 1: Faculty Learning Community

Module 5 Video Lecture - Part 2: Faculty Learning Community

The following links/readings provide a good overview of different group approaches faculty developers or teaching centers have adopted to deliver their services and programs:

• FLCs:  The Lilly Endowment created a Teaching Fellows Program in the 1980s, we think the first FLC design and many campuses have adapted that model. University of Miami of Ohio has studied FLCs extensively. We are including a link to their FLC site, which has an abundance of resources. Cox, Milton D.  Developing Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs): Communities of Practice in Higher Education .
• FLCs : The CTL at UMass Amherst began a Lilly Teaching Fellowship in 1986, which has been continually assessed and refined over the last three decades. It has been the cornerstone of many of the FLC offered by CTL  https://www.umass.edu/ctl/lilly-teaching-fellowship
• FLCs : Another helpful site is at the University of Arizona, which facilitates an  all faculty-led  FLC program. They have a “how to” guide at  https://academicaffairs.arizona.edu/flc-background
• CDI:  There have been many face-to-face Course Design Institutes; the first-- and an award-winning CDI-- is at the CTL, University of Virginia. For summer 2020, they have created a  C3 Design , all online for UVA faculty. They have allowed in external participants to their in-person events in the past  https://cte.virginia.edu/programs-grants/course-design-institute

Reflect on the scholarship and practice of faculty learning communities (FLCs), institutes/workshops, and web-based resources found in this week’s video and readings. In what ways are these services being offered (or not) in your CTL? Which of these approaches do you think carries the most potential for supporting faculty professional learning on your campus going forward? Why?

We’ve addressed the benefits and challenges in designing and implementing FLCs, workshop/institutes, and web-based resources. Imagine that your CTL has asked you to develop an FLC, institute/workshop, or develop/curate web-based resources:

• Which of the three approaches most interests you and why?
• What teaching/learning/faculty development need or issue do you see as important to address with this approach and why?
• What might be some of the challenges in designing, implementing, and assessing the value to your faculty of this approach/issue and why? How might you ameliorate the challenges?

Key Takeaways:

• Effective Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) connect faculty who are eager to collaborate and learn, but also hold members accountable to a common agenda and outcomes. 
• Faculty Learning Communities are usually either cohort‐based or topic‐based.
• Having a designated faculty developer or faculty member to coordinate the learning community
• Having a kick-off to a Faculty Learning Community with a half- or full-day retreat 
• Having a syllabus or list of topics for the seminars
• Tapping campus partners 
• Meeting frequently
• Requiring an end-of-program product
• Conducting an end-of-program assessment to document the teaching center's impact on campus
• Workshops allow everyone at the session some personal attention and a chance to be heard. They can also serve as an opportunity to demonstrate and encourage participants to practice innovative methods.
• Workshops that are concentrated within a 2-to-5-day block are often framed as intensive institutes rather than workshops. An Institute usually provides participants an opportunity to deeply experience the process or topic they’re focused on, such as technology tools for teaching.
• An effective workshop requires careful planning before, during, and after the event. 
• Web-based resources provide just-in-time resources to faculty but is very labor intensive to maintain them. 

Module 6 - Developing your instructional consultation skills

• Understand how to conduct class observations by consultant or peer observation and provide faculty feedback
• Identify key elements for successful individual consultations
• Conduct mid-semester assessments for improved teaching and learning

Module 6 Video Lecture - Part 1

Module 6 Video Lecture - Part 2

Module 6 Video Lecture - Part 3

The following readings provide you a good introduction to the various individual approaches to faculty development services and programs:

• Kaplan, M.A (1997).  A Typology of Consulting Styles .  From  CRLT, University of Michigan . The interactions of teaching improvement.( In K. T. Brinko & R. J. Menges (eds.). Practically speaking: A sourcebook for instructional consultants in higher education , pp. 3-8). Stillwater, OK: New Forums.
• Sorcinelli, M. D., and LaSere Erickson, B. (2012).  Data Review and Follow Up Consultation .  (In Brinko, K. (eds) (2012). 2nd Ed., In Practically Speaking: A sourcebook for Instructional Consultants in Higher Education , pp. 81-85). Stillwater, OK: New Forums.
• Instructional consultations consist of in-depth analyses designed to provide the faculty with new insight into their pedagogy. The goal is to help them re-tool their classrooms, so that the focus is on learning rather than teaching.
• The consultation should be based on strategies that foster a faculty member's reflection on their own practices, rather than simply getting “teaching tips” from consultants.
• Instructional consultations challenge faculty to adapt their teaching approaches from a comprehensive re-examination of their own teaching practices, such as syllabi design, learning activities implementation, learning assessments, etc.
• Instructional consultation must remain confidential, voluntary and reflection based.
• Formative assessment on teaching and learning are designed for forward assessment, it is developmental, not judgmental, of teaching and learning.
• Classroom observation can take the “ethnographic eyes” to develop lenses for seeing the patterns and practices of teaching and learning within classrooms.
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Tactics to cultivate research leaders and sustain research activity

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To retain faculty talent and produce quality research, university research leaders must provide professional development opportunities to faculty members throughout their careers. While early-career faculty often work under clear expectations, are protected from service obligations, and have multiple supports, faculty later on in their careers face many potential stall points.

After being awarded tenure, faculty may experience a post-tenure slump due to new teaching and service duties, a lack of clear expectations, and the time needed to ramp up new research programs. Faculty who never recover from this slump become perennial associate professors who may shift their interests due to frustration and the lack of promotion. And after age 55-60, many faculty members risk becoming disengaged, waiting for a better retirement package and worrying about life after retirement.

More on this topic

This resource is part of the Build a Comprehensive Faculty Research Development Program Roadmap. Access the Roadmap for stepwise guidance with additional tools and research.

Furthermore, there is little evidence that post-tenure reviews improve faculty productivity. Post-tenure reviews might happen years after a problem first occurs, and they assume the problem lies entirely with the faculty member rather than the larger organization. Administrators also have few levers to punish under-productive faculty and are rarely willing to use them—and even when they do, punitive measure usually don’t make faculty more productive.

To combat these challenges, chief research officers (CROs) should offer training and professional development to mid- to late-career faculty, train faculty on achieving promotion after tenure to ensure research productivity, and assist faculty in developing leadership skills. We’ve outlined four tactics below to help research leaders achieve these goals and transform post-tenure support.

Encourage post-tenure professional development

Related study.

Discover the 10 components of successful research mentoring programs.

The University of Denver recognized the necessity of post-tenure review to respond to public concerns and address poor performance. The board of trustees knew the effort of creating a post-tenure review system needed to be faculty-driven, so the provost worked behind the scenes to serve as liaison between the faculty senate and board. As a result of this collaborative process, the senate created a professional development program that was coupled with an annual review.

The professional development program at the University of Denver allows faculty to request financial resources to pursue external professional development annually (and funds cannot be used for conference attendance). Professional development in research, teaching, or service can also be mandated by unit heads if faculty are reviewed poorly 3 out of 5 years.

When it comes to internal professional development, tenured faculty can request formal changes in their job to represent changes in their careers. With approval, they can modify the amount of teaching, research, and service they perform. To troubleshoot issues in their job, faculty are also encouraged to engage in formal peer conversations (peers can be any other faculty member), which can count toward the conversation partner’s service load.

There are four key elements to implementing a post-tenure policy:

Faculty-led

• Faculty committee should lead the process, with input from relevant stakeholders
• Policy should be voted on by entire faculty senate
• Include easy low cost ‘wins’ such as giving service credit for conducting reviews

Supportive of growth

• Policy should encourage professional development
• Allow for changes in job role allocation

Annual specific feedback

• Policy should provide faculty with annual feedback on job performance
• Review criteria should be clear, and determined individually by each department or college

Faculty agency

• Faculty should have option to change job role allocations within certain guidelines
• There should be mechanism for faculty to rebound from poor reviews with appropriate support

Create a pathway to becoming a full professor

Many faculty members lack guidance and motivation post-tenure, as there are many barriers to attaining full professorship. Unlike achieving tenure, the path the becoming a full professor is not clear, and the process and timeline are opaque. Faculty also typically don’t have the resources and guidance to grow their careers they had pre-tenure, and growing responsiblities limit their capacity for research time.

To help faculty members avoid the post-tenure slump, CROs should help faculty plan their future careers, see full professorship as a real possibility, and understand full professor requirements.

For example, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) wanted more of their associate professors to be involved in the research necessary to achieve the rank of full professor. To achieve this goal, the office of research and the provost’s office collaborated to create an annual semester-long program to teach faculty how to become a full professor.

UNH’s program includes the workshops “Forging Your Pathway to Professorship,” “Strategies for Balancing Your Research, Teaching, and Service,” and “Looking Forward: Refining Next Steps.” The sessions are interactive, featuring reviews of successful CVs and discussions with peers, guest speakers, and successful faculty. Workshop series have 15-20 attendees per semester and are open to any associate professor. Facilitators are successful faculty as well as faculty that are on promotion and tenure committees. Ultimately, the sessions help faculty develop personal plans to attain full professor, understand what to do more and less of, and gain contacts and potential mentors in their home departments.

Benefits of UNH’s workshops for associate professors

Importance of full professor

The program has developed a sense of importance among faculty about attaining the rank of full professor, creating a tangible goal for faculty to work towards post tenure.

Service to faculty

This programming has given the CRO and provost a new way to serve faculty needs, particularly those of long serving staff members.

More faculty going up for promotion

Anecdotal evidence suggests that more faculty are going up for full promotion. However, official numbers have not been released.

Provide leadership development and training

New challenges and research efforts make it necessary for faculty researchers to receive leadership training. Research leadership roles, from principal investigators to multi-institutional or international research program directors, require basic leadership skills like budgeting, team management, conflict and resolution, and diversity and inclusion.

However, current leadership trainings are largely inadequate:

• New faculty trainings cover many diverse topics, from teaching and service to research and campus logistics, but they’re primarily focused on creating new faculty citizens rather than research leaders
• New department chair trainings for mid-career faculty are focused on resource and people management and teach the “business” of departments (assigning duties, budget development, hiring, university policies, etc.), but they don’t teach these skills in the context of a lab.
• Finally, while generic leadership style trainings are geared toward all faculty and focus on leadership approaches, conflict management, and personality types, they don’t cover lab management or research development.

The University of Oklahoma approached this problem by creating a faculty leadership academy that focuses on general leadership skills for many contexts. Faculty apply to program by responding to three prompts with 300 words or less, and fellows are chosen to reflect diversity on campus. Selected faculty applicants participate in five day-long Saturday sessions across one semester. In each session, fellows are broken up into teams, with a mentor from the previous year’s class on each team, and they role play and engage in team-oriented problem solving to develop leadership skills.

Five day-long sessions held throughout a semester

1. Leadership Defined Explores leadership theories through small group discussion and large group debrief

2. Personality and Leadership Learn about personality traits through individual assessments and facilitated large group discussion

3. The Power of Emotions in Leadership Develop understanding about how emotions can impact behavior by reviewing emotional intelligence model

4. The Leadership Dynamic and Leadership Agility Take individual leadership agility assessment and learn about stages of adult development

5. Inspiring and Motivating Others Within the Leadership Dynamic Individually assess one’s ability to motivate and inspire others through self assessment and discussion

Assess faculty research development on campus

It’s important for university research to help early-career faculty lay the foundation for an active research career, as well as support the growth of experienced researchers beyond their early years. But how does your professional development programming for faculty measure up? We’ve created diagnostics to help research leaders assess their offerings for new researchers as well as mid- to late-career faculty.

Focusing on new researchers on campus

Advancing experienced researchers

6 steps to launch research-specific leadership initiatives

Our white paper helps chief research officers launch research faculty leadership development programs., more resources, here’s why faculty are concerned about measuring research activity, 10 strategies to strengthen faculty research mentorship opportunities, minimizing the administrative burden on faculty toolkit, it appears you already have an account registered with us. please login below or reset your password..

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Faculty research skills development

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• 1 Department of Nursing, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
• PMID: 2318721

This article presents a plan for faculty research skills development. Three categories of faculty research roles are described: researcher, researcher/teacher, teacher/research team member. A faculty member elects to be placed in one of the categories based on academic credentials, research expertise, and professional goals. At the departmental level, faculty share research ideas and receive mutual support through regularly scheduled biweekly faculty research meetings. Faculty research skills are cultivated via monthly seminars. Administrative support is furnished through a research management system designed to facilitate the process of initiating research projects and responding to external funding research opportunities in a timely manner. The research management component offers: seed money for pilot studies and small projects; funds for research assistants and consultants; focused information dissemination concerning funding sources; and clerical support systems for completing and submitting grant applications.

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Role of faculty development programs in improving teaching and learning

Kamel, Ashraf M. F.

Department of Preparatory Health Sciences, Riyadh Colleges of Dentistry and Pharmacy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Address for correspondence: Prof. Ashraf M. F. Kamel, Riyadh Colleges of Dentistry and Pharmacy, P. O. Box 84891, Riyadh 11681, Saudi Arabia. E-mail: [email protected]

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Faculty development programs (FDPs) have proven to be successful for improving teaching skills in higher education. This review article summarizes literature reviews and resource books on faculty development. It tackled why FDP is important, history of FDP in the past years, and questioned whether FDP produced any positive effect on students' academic achievement as well as the different methods to assess FDPs effectiveness. The review also discussed how to establish FDP, presented its ideal structure, features that make FDP effective, and outlined the barriers to its successful implementation as well as the future vision. This report also highlighted the situation of FDP in Saudi Arabia. Finally, the review concluded that professional FDPs produce promising outcomes in the learning and teaching practices and recommended that teachers in higher education should attend FDP training activities on regular basis and that the scope of planned FDPs should extend beyond the health professions discipline, to include social skills necessary for collaboration, professional growth as well as management, and leadership abilities.

Introduction

It has been long believed that the most important resource that any institution of higher education has is its faculty members who teach knowledge and skills to students.[ 1 ] However, during the first half of the last century, it was assumed that a competent basic scientist or clinical professional would naturally be an effective teacher.[ 2 ] Even most medical schools recruited faculty members more for their content knowledge and clinical skills rather than for their educational skills, then after that we find faculty members sometimes being criticized for shortcomings in their teaching performances.[ 3 ]

Medical school faculty members are currently faced with increasing demands to be creative and effective teachers, successful investigators, and productive clinicians. These pressures have been derived from contemporary curriculum development, competition in the health care institutions, and from the limited resources for research.[ 4 ] One study [ 5 ] emphasized that such changes entailed faculty members to attain new knowledge, diverse skills, and abilities in many aspects including:[ 5 ]

• Managing multiple roles and new responsibilities: Like clinic instruction, micro-group teaching, problem-based tutorials, case-based discussions, become mentors, and develop and evaluate new curricula
• Integrating technology into teaching, learning, and research and master new computer-based educational programs
• Leadership and management proficiency.

Faculty members need to be prepared enough by some sort of a faculty development program (FDP) in order to deal with the rapid changes and shifting paradigms in medical education, health care delivery systems, and clinical practice.[ 6 ] Without such training, teaching is often reduced to instructors presenting their understanding of the subject by one-way lecturing.[ 7 ]

Over the past five decades, faculty development activities evolved in focus and expanded progressively.[ 8 ] There have been sporadic efforts in the first half of the 20 th century to provide such training,[ 9 , 10 ] but true FDPs began in 1975 and have grown steadily over the past 25 years.[ 11 , 12 ]

In 1975, Gaff [ 13 ] conceptualized the faculty development in higher education as those activities that help teachers improve their teaching skills, design improved curricula, and enhance the organizational climate for education. Furthermore, Stritter [ 14 ] described setting up individual consultations on teaching skills, curriculum design, and collaborative educational research.

Faculty development has been defined as that wide range of activities that institutions apply to support faculty members' roles.[ 15 ] This included programs designed to improve the performance of faculty members in education, research and administration [ 16 ] as well as augmenting organizational capacities and culture.[ 17 ] A study by Riegle [ 18 ] found that a number of descriptions for the term “faculty development were used. Among these are:

• Instructional development which emphasized the development of faculty skills involving instructional technology, small group teaching, media, courses, and curriculum design
• Professional development which emphasized the development of individual faculty members in their professional responsibilities as educators, researchers, and administrators
• Organizational development which emphasized the requirements, and main concerns of the institution
• Career development which emphasized faculty preparation for career advancement
• Personal development which stressed on life planning, interpersonal and communication skills of faculty members.

At present, faculty development has become an increasingly important constituent of medical education offering a wide array of programs.[ 2 ] This surge in growth had been brought about by recognizing the value of faculty support in their roles as educators, researchers, and administrators aiming for an energetic academic life and culture.[ 2 ] In 2011, Blaich and Wise [ 19 ] regarded the steady international growth in FDPs as one of the most valuable changes that took place in higher education in the last few decades.

Why are faculty development programs important?

In recent times, there has been accumulating evidence about the ineffectiveness of the traditional way of teaching.[ 7 , 19 ] In 2000, Steinert [ 20 ] highlighted the importance of faculty development to respond to advances in medical education and healthcare delivery, to continue to adapt to the growing responsibilities of faculty members, and to carry out more rigorous program evaluations. She also stressed that FDPs needed to expand their focus, consider different training methods and formats, and encourage new partnerships and collaborations.

In 2007, Gappa et al .[ 21 ] discussed the evolving factors that have important implications on faculty members that should be considered through faculty development:

• Fiscal constraints and calls for accountability - that necessitate that faculty members demonstrate greater accountability in the face of the increasing expenses of public and private investment in education, and concerns from parents, students, legislatures, and the general public
• Increasing diversity of students - with varying age, aspirations, cultural, and academic backgrounds. Effective faculty must support the learning of those students with diverse learning needs, and develop curricula and teaching strategies appropriate for a wide range of learning environments
• The opportunities and challenges of technology: Technologies offer many opportunities to enhance learning processes with information, simulations, and engaging learning activities, and faculty members must have the knowledge and skills to take advantage of these advances in their teaching and curriculum planning
• Changes in faculty characteristics and shifts in appointment patterns: That requires finding ways to integrate the new faculty members into the institution's community and culture, and at the same time, ensuring the quality of their skills and abilities.

Moreover, in 2015, Al-Eraky et al .[ 22 ] recommended the incorporation of learning and teaching professionalism into the FDP, in order to transform the clinical experiences of teachers into an academic institutional reform.

History of faculty development programs

Over the past four years, a variety of FDPs have been developed to enhance instructional skills. In 1983, Sullivan [ 23 ] advised that newly-designed FDPs should initiate, infuse, and sustain change in targeted faculty. In 1992, Hitchcock et al .[ 24 ] reviewed earlier studies of the faculty development [ 14 , 16 , 25 ] and concluded that the concept of faculty development was evolving and expanding. Furthermore, Hubbard and Atkins [ 26 ] considered faculty development strategies as valuable means to enhance the faculty and institution capabilities to create an enriched environment that expanded faculty awareness of new emerging information and is directed at understanding the growing nature of higher education.

Currently, contemporary approaches of faculty development crucially address expanding faculty awareness about vitality and renewal of teaching skills,[ 26 ] strengthening relationships between colleagues,[ 27 ] supporting stated institutional missions,[ 28 ] and dealing with both the faculty member's and institution's capacity to survive.[ 29 ]

Do faculty development programs activities have a positive effect on student academic achievement in higher education?

In 2005, Bligh [ 17 ] reported that implementing FDP was expected to result in enhanced teaching performance by instructors and improved learning outcomes for students. Such improvements included the development of new teaching skills or assessment techniques, improved ways of designing or implementing curricula, newer ways of viewing the student–teacher relationship, and increased commitment to the educational perspectives. Steinert et al .[ 2 ] collection of student and resident data, especially indices of learner behavior and student evaluations of teaching competencies. They emphasized that all these data needed to be augmented by careful assessment of changes in students' and residents' own knowledge, attitudes, and skills. The authors summarized the expected outcomes from FDPs:

• High satisfaction with FDPs
• Changes in attitudes toward teaching and faculty development
• Gains in knowledge and skills
• Changes in teaching behavior
• Changes in organizational practice and student learning.

Three general areas have been assessed: (1) Satisfaction measured by participation data or surveys; (2) impact on teaching assessed through student evaluations, syllabus analysis, follow-up observation, and focus groups, and (3) impact on learning such as student retention, grade point averages and products of student learning.[ 30 ] More recently, Elliott and Oliver [ 31 ] found that FDPs yielded positive outcomes in teacher practices and student learning—both vital to the institutional mission and goals. However, in general, the expected change would be slow and also influenced by other factors, i.e., not all change would be a consequence to the effect of faculty development alone.[ 32 ]

How to assess the effectiveness of faculty development programs?

So far, several publications reviewed the value of faculty development activities. Different measures of performance should be used in evaluation of FDP such as questionnaires, videotape recordings; student assessments and faculty reports.[ 2 ] Student ratings focused on the perceived increase in active learning, delivery of prompt feedback, clarity of lecture materials while faculty reported increases in their perception of competence and confidence related to lecture-based teaching.[ 30 ] In general, there was a strong belief that FDPs were beneficial as measured through surveys and student evaluations.

Some studies [ 33 , 34 ] used multiple measures to assess the outcome such as self-ratings, video-taped observations, and student ratings. Several studies found a strong correlation between videotape ratings and knowledge tests.[ 35 , 36 ] These findings, suggested the likelihood of conducting reliable evaluations without the need for direct observation which could be costly and time-consuming.[ 2 ]

In 1997, Reid et al .[ 37 ] reviewed several studies published between 1980 and 1996 and concluded that faculty development fellowships, workshops, and seminars yielded positive outcomes.

However, reliable and valid measures are required to accurately measure the effectiveness of FDPs.[ 2 ] Most studies used questionnaires for psychometric properties. Faculty developers and researchers concerned in assessing change should consider using valid and reliable questionnaires, or work seriously to establish these measures. For example, a number of scores and measures of teacher performance have been developed in education.[ 38 ] Whenever possible, different assessment tools should be used and collaborated in order to obtain more consistent results.[ 2 ]

In one review, Glowacki-Dudka and Brown [ 39 ] elucidated the beneficial effects of medical FDP by participants' self-evaluation of teaching skill, awareness of effective teaching methods, and student evaluations. Focused instructional consultations were used by Finelli et al .[ 30 ] and demonstrated improvements in student ratings and changes in teaching practice.

In 2014, Lancaster et al .[ 40 ] recommended that the impact of a FDP should be measured by a thorough and focused assessment plan that should include but were not limited to the number of individual consultations, how many courses changed, how many activities initiated, changes in course evaluations, changes in peer evaluations of teaching, number of scholarly articles and presentations focusing on one or more aspects of faculty effectiveness, and number of promotions based on teaching. The authors stressed that ideally such assessment should be multifaceted and its elements needed to be agreed upon early in the process of developing a program.

Figure 1 shows a conceptual plan for the potential scope of faculty development activities and their evaluation.[ 41 ]

Finally, a number of recommendations were cited in the Ontario report after a workshop by Plank and Khalish from Ohio State.[ 42 ] These were: assess what matters; connect with institutional and center goals; develop a cohesive system to collect data; embed assessment into regular practice; collaborate strategically; and plan for and use the results.

How to establish faculty development program

Different approaches to improve teaching have emerged, generally in association with changing theories of learning.

FDP could successfully start with modest resources, if combined with strong institutional eagerness for its success. For example, one of the simplest ways to begin a program is to simply call for interested faculty and staff to discuss issues related to teaching, career development, or leadership.[ 43 ]

FDP vary in structure and function and in fact, there is no one ideal model and all programs have advantages and disadvantages. Any preference will depend on key situational factors: Financial support, human resources (e.g., staff support, faculty time), campus resources (e.g., other FDPs within the institution, internal grants), and local expertise such as faculty or staff members with interest or relevant background.[ 40 ]

In the literature, it was reported [ 40 ] that faculty development could be established through:

• Faculty development centers concerned with designing and implementing programs of faculty development activities that supported the academic goals of the institution. Often the center is managed by dedicated, full-time administrative staff members, as well as other faculty selected on the basis of their expertise, leadership abilities, or personal interests [ 30 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]
• Faculty development committees that might exist separate or in conjunction with a center to serve an advisory role to maintain contact with the faculty at large. These committees included several faculty members and operated at departmental/division level, college or school level, or encompassed larger bodies (e.g., multiple colleges or schools within a health science campus)[ 30 , 44 , 45 , 48 , 49 ]
• Programs to advance teaching and learning that ranged from a one-time activity to regularly scheduled workshops or seminars, to highly competitive, application-driven, multi-month fellowship, or scholar programs. A variety of topics that FDP could address were selected. [ Table 1 ] identifies potential topics [ 40 ]
• A 1 year training program in teaching: Which demonstrated successful outcomes in the form of increased interest for teaching; increased research and publication in education.[ 50 ]

In 2002, Gillespie et al. [ 51 ] recommended 10 steps to be considered when building a FDP [ Table 2 ].

Structure of faculty development programs

The prototype of FDP was a short, focused series of training workshops providing exposure to sound teaching principles, educational techniques, or chosen topics, ideally with some opportunity to practice newly acquired skills.[ 3 ] Several research studies demonstrated that such programs had a variety of purposes, including improving attitudes, self-efficacy, and teaching activities;[ 52 , 53 ] providing feedback in clinical teaching;[ 54 ] augmenting self-assessed and actual use of specified teaching concepts;[ 55 ] facilitating faculty's ability to recognize teaching deficiencies;[ 56 ] and increasing knowledge of teaching principles and teaching ability.[ 57 ] These short-term programs typically addressed very limited content and teaching objectives, such as clinical educational skills, curriculum design, and providing feedback.[ 36 ]

FDPs were categorized in various ways. Bergquist and Phillips [ 58 ] described three components of faculty development; (1) instructional development, (2) personal development, and (3) organizational development. The first category included practices such as curriculum, development teaching diagnosis, and training. Personal development generally involved activities to encourage faculty growth, for example interpersonal skills training and career counseling. Organizational development aimed to advance the institutional environment for teaching and decision making and included activities for both faculty members and administrative staff. Developing managerial skills and team work attitudes would be important components of organizational development.

Ullian and Stritter [ 59 ] described another classification that included organizational strategies, fellowships, comprehensive programs, seminars, workshops, and personal activities. Wilkerson and Irby [ 4 ] also presented a different classification, starting with orientation for new faculty members, and then moving to instructional, leadership, and organizational developmental programs. Perhaps, the critical point regarding workshops and seminar programs is that they should be planned, in response to the needs of faculty members, with participants being aware about what to expect.[ 60 ]

Faculty development programs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

In 1999, Al-Shehri and Al-Ghamdi [ 61 ] reported certain negative issues related to undergraduate medical education in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA):

• Overload of curriculum with content material having little relevance to the clinical practice
• Lack of student support in their learning (e.g., ethical and communication skills) in medical schools concerned with people's health
• Passive teaching methods through lecturing with little student interaction and participation
• Teachers-centered approach and assessment methods focused on students recall of information
• Education system creating dependent rather than self-directed learners.

Facing such increasing challenges, there was evidence of a major commitment toward staff development in KSA. This was supported in a study conducted in Al-Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University [ 62 ] which described the faculty development in the Arabian Gulf countries. Later, three research works [ 63 , 64 , 65 ] recommended the establishment of a well-structured plan for faculty staff development in order to deal with the new issues arising from the teaching-learning process and its outcomes.

Moreover, in 2013, Al-Hattami et al .[ 66 ] recommended conducting a consistent training program throughout the year where faculty members must attend. The program should be designed by a group of qualified educationists rather than by a single teacher. Furthermore, such program should cover the educational areas needing improvement in Saudi Arabia's universities in the five domains set out by the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment;[ 67 ] which are:

• Knowledge: Regarding specific facts, concepts, procedures, theories, and principles
• Cognitive skills: The ability to apply theoretical understanding of concepts, principles, and theories and apply procedures by problem solving and critical thinking
• Interpersonal skills and responsibility: The ability to become self-directed learner, work effectively in groups and practice leadership, act consistently and ethically with high moral standards
• Communication, information technology and numerical skills: The ability to communicate effectively (spoken and written), use information and communication technologies, as well as basic mathematical and statistical methods
• Psychomotor skills: Required in some fields such as medicine, music, and fine art.

In 2014, AlRweithy and Alsaleem [ 68 ] confirmed the positive impact of “University Teaching and Learning training program” in enhancing the staff members' teaching skills of at Imam University in Saudi Arabia and recommended its application in Saudi Universities.

Features of faculty development program that make it effective

As indicated by Hynes,[ 69 ] faculty development is a continuous process and not only just providing some workshops and lectures not expected to change faculty members' way of teaching overnight.

According to Kirkpatrick,[ 70 ] four conditions were considered necessary for a change to occur: (1) The person must have the desire to change, (2) knowledge of what to do and how to do it, (3) a supportive work environment, and (4) reward for changing. Fortunately, the first two conditions of change can potentially be achieved through faculty development activities.

Few reports in the literature described features of faculty development that make it effective.[ 71 , 72 ] These features included the following:

• The role of experiential learning: Several authors highlighted that faculty members needed to apply what had been learned during the program, practice skills, and receive feedback on the learned skills [ 73 , 74 , 75 ]
• The value of feedback: Several studies [ 33 , 76 ] specifically examined the utilization of feedback as a strategy and found that systematic and constructive feedback resulted in improved teaching performance
• The importance of peers: A number of reports [ 77 , 78 ] stressed on the value of peers as role models, exchanging information and ideas, and the significance of collegial support to promote and maintain change
• Adherence to principles of teaching and learning: Many authors [ 79 , 80 ] cited principles of adult and experiential learning as an organizing structure for FDPs
• The use of multiple instructional methods to achieve the learning objectives.

Faculty participation and the success of faculty development programs

The most commonly encountered impediment to participation in FDPs is teachers' beliefs that clinical skills and expertise were sufficient for excellent teaching. Research showed that many faculty members underestimated both their potential for improvement as well as the potential value of FDPs. Research findings also indicated that some faculty members might not be aware of their teaching problems and might overrate their teaching skills before enrolling in a FDP.[ 81 , 82 ] At least three logical and understandable reasons diminished teachers participation: (1) Underestimation of the potential benefits from a FDP, (2) lack of belief in the utility of teaching skills as opposed to clinical skills, and (3) a belief that teacher training was not related to teaching excellence.[ 83 ]

Future vision

Initial efforts of faculty development were chiefly concerned with advancing the specific disciplinary skills of individual faculty members.[ 26 ] Then, over the past couple of decades, it was found that this conventional and narrow perspective of professional development – no longer adequately benefited the needs of faculty and institutions in relation to the fast-paced technological, globally-connected society.[ 84 ]

It is time to shift the philosophy about faculty development and to embrace a broader view from one-time training to ongoing professional development, and from classroom to workplace activities.[ 85 ]

Ongoing continuous professional learning rather than one-time development training was proposed by a number of educators in higher education.[ 86 , 87 ] It was noted that professionals learn from a variety of training activities including formal programs, interactions with colleagues, and learning on the job.[ 88 ]

One vision for the profession of faculty development in the future focused around three key themes.[ 5 , 8 ] First, a call for more emphasis in the field of organizational development to build up leadership abilities in the faculty, and to work with academic leaders, especially chairs and deans to create supporting environments for good teaching and scholarship [ 5 , 44 , 89 , 90 ] Enhancing skills and aptitudes for organizational development will become increasingly important for the profession. There seems to be a widely held assumption that the long-term effects of most faculty development activities will bring in some degree of organizational development. Second, Faculty development will be linked to the capacity of the field to engage in more research about best practices that enhance student learning, and to work systematically on a research base in learning and teaching. Finally, enhancing the future of the profession will require new thinking about ideal structures for faculty development and less centralized ways of operating organizationally.[ 8 ]

High-quality professional training programs for faculty members have become essential to higher education institutions in order to be able to compete in this ever-changing world. It is clear that faculty development has become well established and has grown into a recognized activity within higher education.

Professional training programs produce promising outcomes in the learning and teaching practices and many FDPs have proven effective in developing faculty skills and educational leadership. Indeed, today, faculty development constitutes a strategic lever for institutional excellence and quality, and essentially important means for advancing forward institutional readiness to bring in the desired change in response to the ever growing complex demands facing universities and colleges.

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Faculty development programs; higher medical education; improving teaching skills; Saudi Arabia; training

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Empowering faculty collaboration and engagement: Tools and techniques for success

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Collaboration is vital in higher education. Across departments and institutions, faculty members must be able to communicate with instructors, administrators, and decision-makers to foster an environment of continuous improvement. From teaching courses to facilitating research with other authors to working on accreditation projects, teams must work together and recognize the importance of a shared vision, unique experiences, and different knowledge sets to find unique solutions that improve student outcomes and aid in reaching institutional initiatives.

However, it can be easy to overlook this skill because many people assume it will develop over time or that team members will become more engaged as they learn on the job. When teams neglect the importance of collaboration, projects can suffer, departments can fail, and student outcomes can decline. Fostering faculty engagement and collaboration can be simple. Here, you can find eight strategies for enhancing collaboration at your institution. 

The importance of faculty collaboration and engagement

Faculty engagement and collaboration have immense benefits for higher education institutions. These elements  contribute to student success  and empower more efficient teams. Additionally, increased collaboration across levels can  boost employee satisfaction , encouraging faculty members to remain at your institutions for longer. With higher levels of satisfaction, your team can become more committed to growth at your institution and fuel future projects and discussions to drive institutional success and become more involved in student success. 

Fulfilling faculty experiences on your campus can encourage instructors to work together to design cohesive programs, prompt faculty to know students more personally, and foster an environment where team members share knowledge, experiences, and ideas to further drive change. 

Your faculty may also take the initiative to share findings with stakeholders and decision-makers as they become more comfortable in a collaborative environment. Instructors and other on-campus faculty members have direct relationships with your students and can often depict unique challenges students face and present solutions. With increased discussions, you can more quickly identify potential solutions to the problems you see on campus, further enhancing the student experience and fostering success. 

Factors impacting academic collaboration

Several elements impact faculty collaboration and engagement. Understanding and identifying these elements is the first step toward breaking down any barriers:

• Compensation:  Fair compensation can reduce excessive workplace stress  and raise satisfaction levels. Faculty members who earn enough to support themselves are more likely to have improved emotional well-being and less financial stress that impacts their work. Additionally, a fair and reliable compensation process can promote a healthier work-life balance, encouraging faculty to develop healthier and happier habits to reduce stress. 
• Development:  A lack of developmental opportunities could contribute to a culture of monotony and leave your faculty feeling like their work has less meaning. Providing development opportunities such as learning and training sessions can empower your team to interact with new technology, modern strategies, and enhanced methods for completing various types of work.
• Physical office distance:  Research has found a relationship between physical co-locations and scholarly collaboration . Findings highlight that placing faculty of the same discipline or related fields fosters more collaboration. The same study also found that moving two researchers into the same building increased their collaboration over time. While ensuring faculty members have adequate space for work, creating common areas and placing offices close to each other could prompt more discussions among colleagues. 
• Task variety:  Tasks that do not require specific skills or carry minor importance can make faculty feel less engaged. These types of tasks can  increase the chances of faculty burnout  and leave team members feeling dissatisfied. Balancing simple and complex tasks is vital for engagement and increasing interest while reducing anxiety and stress related to burnout. Assigning different types of tasks can also help your faculty view their work as more meaningful, creating a higher sense of purpose and satisfaction. 
• Campus cultures:  Students and faculty create unique campus cultures. Although these cultures can contribute to a positive environment, it is essential to ensure each group feels safe and secure on your campus and that different groups have opportunities to interact with each other. Collaboration between departments could help identify pain points and offer a foundation for addressing program needs. 
• A lack of communication:  Many times, faculty members do not engage in collaboration because they do not perceive the institution as having this supportive environment. Although you may verbally encourage your faculty and staff to collaborate, if they do not have this experience at your institution, they may be resistant to changing the culture. Taking an active role to encourage collaboration, such as hosting events, asking for feedback, and similar opportunities, can show your team that you value their engagement and want to see collaboration. 

Tips for improving collaboration and engagement

After recognizing the importance of academic collaboration for higher education, you must identify areas where you and your team can improve. Taking simple steps can go a long way toward creating a more collaborative environment. Below, you can find eight tips for enhancing communication across your campus:

1. Practice transparent and clear communication

As a leader of your institution, it is essential to model the skills and expectations you want others to emulate and meet. Fostering collaboration starts with practicing it. Communicating with each team member and seeking opportunities to open the floor for discussion can spark a deeper sense of community and show your team how to meet collaboration expectations. 

Celebrating the contributions of your faculty and contributing to a safe and inclusive environment can highlight your commitment to engagement and prompt team members to take further initiatives. You can also build a sense of community by assigning tasks to groups rather than individuals. Asking department members to work together throughout the curriculum mapping process, identify areas for program growth, and complete similar tasks is an excellent way to spark engaging faculty conversation while improving student outcomes.

2. Collect and use data

Data is power. Insights drive decision-making and allow you to see strengths and pain points at your institution. Sharing data with your team can help them see where their efforts make the most impact. Anytime you form a new objective or initiative, it's important to express your thoughts and expectations and share team accomplishments as you get closer to completing your goals. 

Evaluating data is also a great way to determine faculty growth opportunities, and these discussions can prompt team members to become more engaged as they navigate new methods to advance in their careers and refine their strategies. When performing faculty reviews, your team can be sure you recognize their accomplishments, and you can use your insights to make decisions about tenure, compensation, and similar elements. 

3. Use faculty collaboration tools

Using tools to improve faculty collaboration is one of the best ways to engage your team while empowering them to leverage technology and advanced solutions to streamline workloads. The right collaboration tools can align your team with institutional projects and initiatives while providing helpful features like a shared calendar, chat boxes, and document uploading, editing, and sharing. These features make it easy for faculty members to interact on campus and after operational hours. 

You can find solutions that enable group and individual project tracking, delegate tasks to the appropriate team members, and empower faculty to leverage resources and insights. Using these features can help you create a more fair and balanced workload across departments to prevent burnout and provide career-advancing opportunities to each faculty member seeking them. Additional features, such as faculty profiles, allow team members to share their accomplishments, showcase their work, and provide you with actionable insights to leverage during review processes.

4. Make projects meaningful

Meaningful projects will be much more exciting for your faculty than tedious or repetitive work. There are many opportunities to expand on your current operations while reinforcing meaning and highlighting your expectations to faculty. For example, curriculum mapping is most successful when teams thoroughly collaborate. Evaluate opportunities within your process to identify where you can enhance collaboration. Perhaps you host monthly meetings, create a central hub for program data and discussions, or ask faculty members to compare course materials to find overlaps in content. 

You can also make work more meaningful with several strategies. For example, a project may feel more meaningful to your faculty if you assign a task to a group rather than an individual. You can also try implementing rewards or incentives for challenging work. Offering paid time off, one-time bonuses, and similar rewards can push faculty to put their best foot forward and find more meaning in their tasks. Additionally, receiving rewards and recognition for work can help faculty feel your appreciation for everything they do to improve your institution. 

5. Design innovative activities

Designing unique activities and projects can create the necessary foundation for collaboration and engagement. Whether you choose to design simple or complex activities in formal or informal settings, you can craft meaningful experiences for team members while encouraging them to connect with each other. These activities or events are also great opportunities for implementing other strategies, such as career development opportunities. For example, a social event for a a specific department can include workshops and speaker sessions with free time for engagement with others in their field. 

6. Improve training and career development

Many faculty members aim to grow in their careers through developmental opportunities and self-studies or projects. Along with empowering your team to access the latest technologies and interact with relevant field changes, these opportunities allow you to show your team your commitment to their growth. 

This strategy can also impact student outcomes, as bringing these experiences and knowledge to campus can expand to students. For example, instructors can discuss new research methods or industry trends students will need to know for future careers. As your faculty navigates industry changes, they may engage in more discussion with colleagues and discuss opportunities for collaboration on upcoming projects or studies.

7. Provide feedback and reflection opportunities

Obtaining feedback is one of the best ways to identify strengths and areas for growth. Feedback should be a give-and-take process. Giving faculty feedback about their teaching methods, productivity, and accuracy can help them become a stronger team member. 

By outlining your expectations and using data to support your feedback, you can provide actionable insights to engage faculty with their work and teams. Additionally, it is important to ask your faculty for feedback. Your staff members have unique experiences on campus and with students, empowering them to see problems and identify solutions you may not often interact with. Asking for faculty feedback can aid in decision-making and allow faculty to see that you care about their opinions and that their voices can make an impact. 

8. Offer incentives and rewards

The possibility of monetary incentives or other worthwhile rewards can significantly increase collaboration and engagement. This strategy can help make tasks feel more meaningful and encourage faculty to go the extra mile to ensure accuracy and efficiency. Vacation days, travel stipends, paid time off, and similar rewards can be excellent incentives to complete a lofty goal. However, you can also implement smaller incentives to boost engagement for projects of all sizes. Praise and recognition can go a long way towards showing your team that you appreciate their efforts. 

How Watermark can help you foster team collaboration

Collaboration is essential in higher education. When you need a comprehensive solution to gather deeper insights and foster a collaborative environment, you need a comprehensive solution that empowers your faculty and adapts as your institution grows. 

Watermark Faculty Success provides a central hub for colleges and universities to store faculty activity data. This solution empowers teams to access deep insights into faculty contributions and allows you to support your team as they grow in their careers. You can use Faculty Success to: 

• Share, upload, and edit documents
• Start conversations
• Schedule meetings
• Monitor project progress
• Evaluate workloads
• Highlight achievements
• And so much more

Faculty can streamline and lighten their workloads while prioritizing meaningful tasks and collaborating with teams to drive student and institutional success. 

Support collaborative teams with Watermark Faculty Success

Watermark is your one-stop shop for driving institutional and student success. We build our solutions to suit the needs of higher education institutions, just like yours. By simplifying data collection and automating mundane tasks, we save time and empower faculty to engage in meaningful work that drives change. 

Many institutions have already  leveraged our solutions to drive campus changes  and shape more collaborative and data-driven cultures. Are you ready to empower your team and enhance your collaborative processes?  Request a demo of our Faculty Success solution to see how we can transform your institution. 

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Teaching Research Skills That Transfer to Future Projects

Exploratory research teaches skills that have lifelong use..

Posted July 22, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

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This post is the fourth in a series.

When helping students become researchers, the goal is not only to equip students to tackle a current research project but also to ensure the learned skills will stay with them for future endeavors. Students must understand which research staples must be applied under any circumstances (like critically evaluating sources or following ethical guidelines) while maintaining the flexibility to try different approaches and make new connections. Students at Laguna Beach High School (LBHS) are learning to do just that.

In Part I of this series I spoke to Jun Shen, the passionate teacher and ed-tech coordinator who runs LBHS’s Authentic Exploratory Research (AER) program . AER is an independent research course inspired by Palo Alto Unified School District’s Advanced Authentic Research program . The program pairs students with adult mentors (such as LBUSD staff, industry experts, and academics) who assist the teens in researching their big questions in fields of their choice.

Former LBHS student Carter Ghere was the third teenager to give us an account of his experience in AER and the findings that his AER research produced. A benefit to meeting with Ghere was that he has since moved on to projects outside the AER program, such as promoting physical and mental health . The research skills Ghere honed in AER, combined with his passion for his new endeavors, show us how students can learn research skills in a way that has lasting benefits.

Jenny Grant Rankin: What can teachers do to help students research effectively, not only for current projects but also for future research endeavors?

Carter Ghere: Teachers can encourage students to think about minor aspects of the project that greatly influence the thesis rather than just the thesis question itself. When I researched car design and why it varies, I had to consider each factor that could help me build a strong argument. What started as research on cars very quickly turned into research into socioeconomics, societal upbringing, and government involvement in diplomatic events and conflict. Automotive design changed because manufacturers were competing against each other to sell more cars or improve efficiency, but mass appeal is the biggest driving aspect of change, so I had to research what changes mass appeal and where interests originate from. Laterally, researching aspects of influence opens up much research to apply to your projects, instead of searching for the answer most people already know. Teachers can teach their students how to see the hidden influences, draw conclusions themselves to strengthen their arguments, and accelerate the research process. Knowing how to do research effectively carries over a lifetime, making every new learning endeavor exciting for students instead of monotonous.

JGR: What was the most significant thing you learned about conducting research?

CG: Relevance and impact. The biggest thing I learned while I was conducting research was keeping in mind how your study affects the current information already available. It’s easy to research and quote what most people know, but genuinely effective research isn’t commonly known or even thought of; the research is supposed to question the current knowledge to create new knowledge.

JGR: What was the most significant thing you learned about communicating research or other work?

CG: Knowing your audience is the biggest thing I learned about communicating my work. Putting myself in the shoes of someone reading my work helped me curate my research to better explain my findings to someone who may need to learn about my topic or why this is important. The last thing you want your audience to feel is confusion; a clear, simple explanation of your findings helps the reader draw their connections and relate them to what they already know.

JGR: What lessons learned in AER do you find yourself applying in your current efforts to promote mental health?

CG: The research experience I have from AER accelerated the work I’ve done beyond high school. In terms of research and the actual information I give out, I know that what I’m discovering isn’t new, but the personal opinion that I have is, and that’s what AER taught me. The thoughts that I have on the subject matter of lifestyle and self-development have more relevance than just plain information.

Learning through apprenticeship and embracing the guidance of a mentor profoundly expanded my understanding. This experience made me realize the vast opportunities I still have to learn and grow. At AER, I had the chance to engage in research, connect with experts in the field, develop personal convictions that I am passionate about, ensure these ideas resonate with others, and communicate them effectively.

Ghere demonstrates what we want students to be able to do with the knowledge and skills we teach: to remember, apply, and develop them perpetually. Ideally, as in Ghere’s case, students also use their research skills to help others and improve our world.

Jenny Grant Rankin, Ph.D., is a Fulbright Specialist for the U.S. Department of State.

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April 2024 YCSC Faculty Development Fund awardees announced

The results of the April 2024 round of awards for the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) Clinical and Research Faculty Development Fund were announced on June 1 via the department’s internal announcements. The annual fund supports clinical and research faculty with a primary appointment at the YCSC. The purpose is to provide start-up funds to develop research, educational, and clinical efforts that will contribute to faculty growth and development. The awardees for this round are as follows.

Training/Conference Awards

• Jessica Mayo: Reflective Supervision Learning Collaborative participation
• Roshani Treadwell and Taylor Collins: Attendance at EMDR summer training
• Maggie Stoeckel: North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) annual meeting in November 2024, for which she is an invited speaker

Pilot Research Award

Karim Ibrahim: Pilot study of epigenetic markers and longitudinal stability of cognitive control networks in youths with disruptive behavior using a multi-omics approach

Review Committee & Application Process

Following the receipt of applications for this round, committee members George Anderson, Declan Barry, Tara Davila, Ellen Hoffman, Michele Goyette-Ewing, Andrés Martin, and Helena Rutherford reviewed and discussed all submitted applications. Scores from members were averaged to rank-order each application. Committee members recused themselves from reviewing any grant in which they are associated with the applicant.

Research and clinical faculty (assistant professors, associate research scientists, associate professors in their first term, research scientists in their first term, and clinicians with the title of Instructor, Clinical Instructor, or Assistant Clinical Professor of Social Work) are eligible to apply. This fund is not available to fellows or community faculty members.The next submission deadline is October 15, 2024. Additional information and application instructions are available on the center’s intranet.

Featured in this article

• Jessica Mayo Assistant Professor of Child Psychology
• Nadeeka Treadwell Assistant Clinical Professor of Social Work in the Child Study Center
• Taylor Collins, LCSW Clinical Lecturer in the Child Study Center
• Maggie Stoeckel, PhD Assistant Professor; Director, GI Psychology Service, Pediatric Gastroenterology & Hepatology; Associate Clinical Director, Pediatric Psychology Program, Child Study Center
• Karim Ibrahim Assistant Professor in the Child Study Center
• George Anderson, PhD Senior Research Scientist in the Child Study Center and in Laboratory Medicine; Director, Core Resource Laboratory of the Yale Interdisciplinary Research Consortium on Stress, Self-Control and Addiction; Director, Laboratory of Developmental Neurochemistry (Child Study Center)
• Declan Barry, PhD Professor of Psychiatry and in the Child Study Center; Director of Pain Treatment Services, APT Foundation; Director of Research, APT Foundation
• Tara Davila, LCSW Assistant Clinical Professor of Social Work; Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Child Study Center; Associate Director of Youth Services, Child Study Center
• Ellen J. Hoffman, MD, PhD Associate Professor in the Child Study Center
• Michele Goyette-Ewing, PhD Associate Professor of Child Psychology in the Child Study Center; Vice Chair for Ambulatory Services; Clinical Faculty Affairs, Child Study Center; Director, Psychology Training; Clinical Director of Outpatient Services, Child Study Center
• Andrés S Martin, MD, PhD Riva Ariella Ritvo Professor in the Child Study Center and Professor of Psychiatry; Medical Director, Children's Psychiatric Inpatient Service at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital; Director, Standardized Patient Program, Teaching and Learning Center; Director of Medical Studies, Yale Child Study Center, Child Study Center
• Helena Rutherford, PhD Associate Professor in the Child Study Center

Related Links

• January 2024 Awardees
• October 2023 Awardees
• April 2023 Awardees

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• v.78(5); 2014 Jun 17

Faculty Development Program Models to Advance Teaching and Learning Within Health Science Programs

Jason w. lancaster.

a School of Pharmacy, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts

Susan M. Stein

b School of Pharmacy, Pacific University, Hillsboro, Oregon

Linda Garrelts MacLean

c College of Pharmacy, Washington State University, Spokane, Washington

Jenny Van Amburgh

Adam m. persky.

d Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Within health science programs there has been a call for more faculty development, particularly for teaching and learning. The primary objectives of this review were to describe the current landscape for faculty development programs for teaching and learning and make recommendations for the implementation of new faculty development programs. A thorough search of the pertinent health science databases was conducted, including the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), MEDLINE, and EMBASE, and faculty development books and relevant information found were reviewed in order to provide recommendations for best practices. Faculty development for teaching and learning comes in a variety of forms, from individuals charged to initiate activities to committees and centers. Faculty development has been effective in improving faculty perceptions on the value of teaching, increasing motivation and enthusiasm for teaching, increasing knowledge and behaviors, and disseminating skills. Several models exist that can be implemented to support faculty teaching development. Institutions need to make informed decisions about which plan could be most successfully implemented in their college or school.

INTRODUCTION

Leaders in higher education have issued a call to increase and improve faculty development across all levels of faculty experience, especially in the area of teaching and learning. 1 In light of the growth in academic pharmacy over the past 15 years, there are increasing numbers of pharmacy faculty members who must be prepared to train students in skills such as critical thinking and problem solving; working in teams and collaborating; communicating with others; and finding and analyzing information. 2 Working with students to develop these skills requires a different teaching approach and is a paradigm shift for many faculty members. Faculty teaching development programs coach faculty members through this learning process and can be part of a comprehensive professional development plan.

Boyce describes a framework for a faculty development program that includes support for faculty improvement in and assessment of teaching. 3 Guglielo and colleagues recommended that faculty members and administrators within colleges and schools of pharmacy share responsibility for creating a comprehensive faculty development plan that would include development of teaching skills. 4 They found that little has been published on comprehensive faculty development plans that are outcome-oriented, and that there is a lack of teaching development for faculty members. These findings provided additional foundational support for our premise that faculty development programs are needed to support faculty success in teaching.

The potential outcomes for ineffective or minimally effective teaching include: poor student learning, high faculty turnover, and ineffective graduates. As such, it is important to identify effective strategies that support the development of excellent teachers. 5-9 The objectives of this review were to describe the current landscape for faculty development related to teaching effectiveness and to make recommendations for the creation of, or enhancement to, faculty teaching development programs in health sciences education.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Pertinent English-language articles indexed in ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), EMBASE, and MEDLINE databases from 1998 through September 2013 were searched. In addition, the reference lists of identified publications and published textbooks were reviewed. Search terms included: effective teaching programs, health sciences education, faculty development, faculty orientation, faculty retention, mentorship, and models. Inclusion criteria for research articles were any published work that: (1) evaluated 1 or more structured faculty development methodology; (2) quantitatively reported their findings; and (3) was undertaken within an academic setting.

The initial search identified 32 published articles. Of these, 9 met all inclusion criteria and are summarized in Appendix 1 . The reasons for excluding the remaining 23 articles were: a lack of quantitative findings (15); a lack of structured faculty development programming (6); and completion outside of an academic setting (2). Six published books on faculty development also were identified; however, these were only used to aid in providing descriptions of the various methods for faculty development. From the included publications, 3 primary models of faculty development were identified: centers, committees, and communities.

Faculty development centers are traditionally larger and more centralized entities that are maintained with oversight from a chief academic officer. They are charged with designing and implementing developmental program activities that support the academic goals of the institution. 1-5 Often the leadership for the center is made up of dedicated, full-time administrative faculty and/or staff members, but may also consist of local faculty members selected on the basis of their expertise, leadership skills, or personal interests. 1-5 Faculty development centers typically have an advisory committee to help maintain contact with the faculty at large.

Faculty development committees may exist in conjunction with a center to serve in an advisory role but more often exist as a standalone committee. 1-3,6,7 These committees include multiple faculty members and can operate at departmental/division level, college or school level, or encompass larger bodies (eg, multiple colleges or schools within a health science campus). 1-3,6,7

Faculty learning communities have been described as groups of 8 to 12 faculty, trainees and professional staff members engaging in an active, collaborative program. 1-3,8-10 These programs involve scheduled meetings (eg, once a month for 2 to 3 hours) centered on enhancing teaching and learning, with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, and community building. 1-3,8-10

Programs to advance teaching and learning range from a one-time enterprise (eg, a retreat) to regularly scheduled workshops or seminars, to highly competitive, application-driven, multi-month fellowship or scholar programs. This broad range of program types makes determining whether faculty development is effective complicated. In one review, medical faculty teaching development programs appeared to have beneficial effects as measured by participants’ self-evaluation of teaching ability, knowledge of effective teaching methods, and teaching evaluations. 9 Finelli and colleagues used focused instructional consultations and demonstrated improvements in student ratings and changes in teaching practice. 2 Student ratings focused on perceived increases in active learning, delivery of prompt feedback, clarity of lecture materials. Also, faculty reported increases in their perception of competence and confidence related to lecture-based teaching. In addition to providing high-quality instruction, standardized, objective teaching awards were found to be powerful in establishing formal recognition of the scholarship of teaching.

One study examined the long-term effectiveness of a 1-year teaching training program on 20 faculty members with less than 5 years of experience. The results indicated lasting benefits 2 years after completion of the sessions. 10 Research on teaching scholars programs in medical education showed corresponding successful outcomes: increased enthusiasm for teaching; increased educational research; and increased publication and presentation of educational scholarship. 11

BEST PRACTICES FOR FACULTY TEACHING DEVELOPMENT

Faculty teaching development programs vary in structure and function and there are several options to consider. The most appropriate option will depend on key situational factors: financial support, human resources (eg, staff support, faculty time), campus resources (eg, other faculty development programs within the institution, internal grants), and local expertise (eg, faculty or staff members with interest or relevant background). Because faculty teaching development efforts are contextual, there is no best, one-size-fits-all model: all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Based on the available literature, there are several principles that lead to successful faculty development. 14 The first questions to consider include identifying the area(s) for faculty development (eg, teaching and learning, educational leadership, scholarship of teaching and learning) and identifying the target audience(s) (eg, junior faculty members, all faculty levels, preceptors). The next step is determining how success will be measured. The impact of a faculty development program should be measured by a thorough and focused assessment plan. Some of the measures used to assess faculty development in terms of teaching and learning include but are not limited to: number of individual consultations, number of courses changed, number of activities initiated, changes in course evaluations, changes in peer evaluations of teaching, number of scholarly articles and presentations focused on one or more aspects of faculty effectiveness, and number of promotions based on teaching. Ideally, assessment is multifaceted and these elements need to be agreed upon early in the process of developing a program. In a review of teaching and learning centers, 3 general areas were assessed: satisfaction (eg, participation data, surveys); impact on teaching (eg, student evaluations, syllabus analysis, follow-up observation, focus groups), and impact on learning (eg, student retention, grade point averages, products of student learning). 15

The next key point is identifying the individuals who will lead or take part in the faculty teaching development. Decisions need to be made regarding staff, faculty, and administrative contributions including time, effort, and scope of responsibility. Without sufficient effort, a faculty teaching development program is not likely to be effective or sustainable.

The last key principle is identifying the institution’s biggest assets and challenges. The faculty teaching development program should lead with its strengths and these strengths need to be identified a priori . For example, is there a university or campus center that can offer services and support and are there interested faculty members with the expertise to facilitate the process. These issues are congruent with the biggest challenges to creating effective faculty teaching development. Lastly, questions need to be addressed regarding faculty and administrative support, finances, physical space, recognition systems for faculty participation, and timeframe for changes. Based on some of these sustaining principles, Gillespie and colleagues recommend 10 steps to be considered when building a faculty development program ( Table 1 ). 12

Ten Steps for Building a Successful Faculty Development Program

Once a format has been agreed upon and developed, there are a variety of topics that faculty teaching development can address. Table 2 identifies potential topics. The format for delivering these topics also can vary in format. The Professional and Organizational Development Network for Higher Education ( http://podnetwork.org/ ), is one resource to facilitate the development of topics, formats, and faculty developers.

Topics to Be Addressed in a Faculty Development Effort That Emphasizes Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

CENTERS BEST PRACTICE

Most centers are found on the university level and provide opportunities for interprofessional interaction; there are few institution- or health science-based faculty development centers and even fewer centers are based in a college or school of pharmacy. 3,4 Most centers are supported financially by having a dedicated budget, however, some are grant-supplemented. For example, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities’ Center for Teaching and Learning was established in 1999 after receipt of a $1.6 million grant, and maintained by annual contributions totaling $200,000 from the Office of the Chancellor. 5 However, external grants have shrunk, increasing the need to identify sustainable areas of funding to ensure continuance of such centers.

University-based centers can offer a variety of programs, engaging large numbers of faculty members from varied backgrounds, and foster a cohesive sense of learning across an institution, or multiple institutions; this may or may not be the case for more localized centers housed within a college or school of pharmacy. Centers may offer grants (eg, for travel, scholarship, innovative educational initiatives); skill-building workshops, retreats, communication tools (eg, blogs, flyers, newsletters), books and articles; assistance in collaborative reviews of teaching; recognizing effective instructors (ie, teaching awards); and individual consultation. This last element, individual consultation, has been recognized as one of the most effective faculty development practices. 1

There are several advantages of an institution establishing a center as its approach to faculty development. Centers can, potentially, provide a wide range of services, opportunities, and resources. While most university centers are interprofessional, and can be sustained through grants, dedicated funding lines, or even revenue-generating enterprises, college- or school-based centers may have more limited funding sources or options. Centers are not without their limitations, as they can be too broad or far-reaching, thus losing individual applicability for faculty members in various settings. This can even be true if the center is located within a college or school.

Faculty Development Committees

As previously mentioned, FDCs may exist in conjunction with a center in an advisory role, or as is more often the case, as a standalone entity. 6 These committees may operate at departmental/division level, college or school level, or within larger bodies (eg, health science centers). The committee is typically charged by the administration to promote a positive change for teaching and learning. Davis and colleagues recommend that these committees be a permanent source of development and be incorporated within the institutional structure. 7 These committees may allocate funds and steer faculty development activities, requiring administrative support and faculty ownership to ensure the highest chance of success. In addition, committees should be comprised of interested faculty members who must be proactive and committed to the enhancement and success of faculty development programs. 7 Committees require clear goals and objectives with focused agendas, operate with an established length of membership for consistency, and use subcommittees to investigate and report on activities.

FDCs, at least during their outset, may have a limited number of individuals who oversee the entire faculty development program for a college or school. 6 These individuals may be administrators responsible for faculty matters or faculty members responsible for development activities. As with the other structures, these individuals must rely on the cooperation of peers to do the actual work.

A committee approach can be advantageous as committees may be more responsive and attend to faculty members’ needs. Committees promote active participation from faculty members in the design and development phases and in the delivery of programming. Finally, FDCs typically have a significant level of support because the committee is initiated by administration.

The primary disadvantages of FDCs are similar to those of any faculty development program: lack of resources, structure, or oversight. Like centers, committees also can be threatened by sustainability. The impact, quality, and quantity of programmatic offerings are influenced by the committee’s inertia and focus and faculty members’ interest and perceived benefit.

Faculty Learning Community

The faculty learning community serves as a place for faculty members to share new pedagogical approaches and discuss logistics (eg, managing courses with large student enrollment). Additionally, FLCs usually have a scholarly component, which contributes to the institution (eg, guidelines, white paper, programmatic assessment). 8-10 A participant in an FLC may select a course or project to try out innovations, assess resulting student learning, and prepare a report to show the results. FLCs increase faculty member interest in teaching and learning and provide a safe, positive environment for faculty members to investigate, attempt, assess, and adopt new methods.

There are generally 2 types of FLCs reported in the literature: cohort-based or topic-based. Cohort-based learning communities address the teaching, learning, and developmental needs of faculty and staff members who have been particularly affected by isolation or stress within the academy. 8-10 Topic-based communities design a curriculum to address a special teaching and learning need or opportunity, and focus on a specific theme. In general, FLCs are more structured, intensive, and longitudinal than other approaches in which faculty members meet and work on teaching and learning issues (eg, teaching circles, journal clubs, seminars, committees).

The advantages of FLCs can be numerous. FLCs often result in scholarly work that can help individuals or the institution. These communities can build lasting relationships and broad community support. Finally, topics of the FLCS can address a diversity of interests (eg, scholarship of teaching, teaching large classes).

The disadvantages of an FLC can be the time commitment (eg, 2 to 3 hours once a month for a year) and costs associated with this model; this latter factor is typically associated with sharing meals as part of the community-building process. Costs also might be accrued if the FLC’s members present their research locally or nationally. Faculty learning communities require a chair or co-chair for leadership to ensure goals are set and met, such as coordinating logistics to keep team members meeting regularly.

CONCLUSIONS

Faculty teaching development programs are beneficial as has been measured through surveys and student evaluations. Programs increase faculty members’ value of teaching, rekindle their motivation and enthusiasm, and improve their knowledge, behaviors, and dissemination of skills. 16 Faculty development programs that support teaching improvement, effectiveness, and competency are needed for individuals teaching in colleges and schools of pharmacy because excellent teachers are needed in order to prepare future pharmacists to advance the practice and become essential members of the health care team who practice at the top of their license. Several faculty development models can be implemented to support teaching development and there is evidence that faculty development in this arena is effective. After a careful analysis of the benefits and costs associated with the models, faculty members can make informed decisions about which faculty teaching development plan would be most appropriately and successfully implemented at their institution. More research is necessary to maximize the outcomes of faculty development programs.

Appendix 1.

Summary of Studies on Faculty Development With Respect to Advancing Teaching and Learning

Future Faculty Fellows

In the Future Faculty Fellows program, postdocs get matched with a Siebel School of Computing and Data Science faculty mentor to help prepare for an academic career in research and teaching. Join our thriving community of creative, passionate, and innovative scholars for opportunities for career development, networking, and research collaborations.

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Applications are open, apply by feb 15, future faculty fellows: overview.

Future Faculty Fellows is a two-year-long program designed to assist postdoctoral researchers in developing their skills as researchers, mentors, and teachers, and then in using those skills to achieve their professional goals.

The program has three core components that will have activities each semester: research mentoring ,  mentoring in teaching and other professional skills , and  cohort development .

A faculty member will be assigned as a primary research mentor, but may be supplemented by mentoring from other faculty. 

Training may include:

• Responsible conduct for research
• Literature search
• Data management
• Software development and testing
• Collaboration skills and teamwork
• Project leadership
• Selecting a publication venue
• Preparing proposals

Teaching and Professional Skills

Activities organized by the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and the University of Illinois will complement mentoring by an assigned faculty member.

• Developing a new course
• Teaching large classes
• Learning how to be a research mentor 
• Relationships with collaborators
• Oral communications skills
• Writing grants, papers, and email
• Developing a personal website

Cohort Development

Future Faculty Fellows will participate together with all Siebel School of Computing and Data Science postdocs in activities organized by the department to enable them to form community and stimulate and support each other's development.

Cohort activities may include:

• Weekly lunch for informal networking
• Monthly research presentations
• Regular discussions with faculty about professional skills and development, including classroom teaching, paper and grant writing, job search, presentation skills, and reviewing papers and proposals.

Each Future Faculty Fellow will be encouraged to develop and maintain a personalized development plan (PDP) covering their goals for their postdoc appointment. The PDP will be discussed with their assigned faculty mentor, reviewed by the program's directors, and updated as needed. In the second year, the PDP will be reviewed by the postdoc, mentor, and program's directors to ensure that the program is working well. 

Sample Future Faculty Fellows Timeline

A customized program will be developed for each Fellow based on their career goals and interests.  For example:

• Semester 1:  Prepare personal development plan. Teaching training, assisting in an existing course (e.g., giving lectures). Take professional development training. Give research seminars in the department.
• Semester 2: Participation in teaching training and mentoring by teaching mentor. Give research seminar in the school and externally. Host external speaker(s) in Illinois seminar (to assist with connections).
• Semester 1: Participation in teaching training and mentoring by teaching mentor. Intensive job search preparation (integrated with graduating PhDs). Give research seminar in the school and externally. Begin job search activity. Participate in proposal preparation mock panel.
• Semester 2:  Teach a course in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. Give research talks internally and externally. Provide professional development mentoring to graduating PhD students and first year postdocs. Complete job search activity.
• Identify one to five Illinois CS faculty to potentially serve as your mentor.
• Prepare a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, research statement, and identify the names and contact information for three references. In your cover letter, indicate your ultimate career goals, include the names of the Illinois CS faculty with whom you are interested in working, and indicate that you are applying for the Future Faculty Fellows program.
• Create an account in the Illinois CS Postdoctoral Research Associate Application Portal .  Complete the application form and upload your materials.

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