Curriculum analytics: Application of social network analysis for improving strategic curriculum decision-making in a research-intensive university

This paper provides insight into the use of curriculum analytics to enhance learning-centred curricula in diverse higher education contexts. Engagement in evidence-based practice to evaluate and monitor curricula is vital to the success and sustainability of efforts to reform undergraduate and graduate programs. Emerging technology-enabled inquiry methods have enormous potential to inform evidence-based practice in complex curriculum settings. For example, curriculum analytics, including data from student learning outcomes, graduate qualities, course selection and assessment activities, can be mined from various student learning systems and analysed to inform curriculum renewal strategies and demonstrate impact at both the program and course level. Curriculum analytics can serve to foster a culture of inquiry and scholarship regarding program improvements that is characterised by information sharing within and across disciplinary borders. This paper presents an innovative technology that draws on social network methodologies for assessing and visualising the integration and linkages across individual courses that ultimately form a student’s complete program of study. Insights are grounded in the literature and curriculum leadership experiences in a Canadian research-intensive university setting

Enhancing Reflective Teaching Practices: Implications for Faculty Development Programs

Reflecting on one’s teaching practice is often an implicit goal for faculty development programs. Yet very little has been documented how programs for diverse groups of university teachers actually engage faculty in such reflection. This paper examines how theoretical constructs of reflective practice were applied in the context of an 8-month UBC Faculty Certificate Program on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (FCP). The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) was particularly useful for providing faculty cohort members with a means of looking more deeply at the underlying values and assumptions that constituted their philosophical orientations to teaching. Furthermore, a change in faculty members’ TPI scores indicate that participants reflected more comprehensively on their teaching at the end of the program, than they did at the beginning of the program. Barriers to facilitating reflection included inadequate time allocation, unclear expectations and goals for reflection activities, and varying cultural norms for reflective teaching practices within academe.Réfl échir sur sa propre pratique d’enseignement est souvent un objectif implicite des programmes de développement du corps professoral. Il existe cependant à ce jour très peu de recherches documentées sur la manière dont les programmes établis pour divers groupes d’enseignants universitaires engagent véritablement le corps professoral dans une telle réfl exion. Ce document examine la manière dont les concepts théoriques de la pratique réfl ective ont été appliqués dans le contexte d’un UBC Faculty Certifi cate Program on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (FCP - Programme de certifi cat du corps professoral de l’UBC sur l’enseignement et l’apprentissage dans l’enseignement supérieur) de huit mois. L’Inventaire des perspectives de l’enseignement (TPI) a été particulièrement utile pour fournir aux membres de la cohorte du corps professoral les moyens d’étudier plus en profondeur les valeurs et hypothèses sous-jacentes qui ont constitué leurs orientations philosophiques sur l’enseignement. De plus, la modifi cation des scores TPI des membres du corps professoral indique que les participants ont réfl échi de manière plus détaillée sur leur enseignement à la fi n du programme qu’au début du programme. Les barrières qui empêchaient la facilitation de la réfl exion comprenaient une attribution de temps inadéquate, des attentes et objets peu clairs pour les activités de réfl exion ainsi que des normes culturelles variables pour les pratiques d’enseignement réfl ectif au sein du monde universitaire

Strategic Program Development Practices to Enhance Grassroots 55-65+ Small-sided Football in Diverse International Contexts: The Art, Science and Politics of Implementation

A significant growth in grassroots 55-65+ seniors’ small-sided football (e.g., 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, 6v6/futsal and walking football) programs has emerged in diverse settings on a global scale. Given the ad hoc nature of many program offerings to meet the unique needs and circumstances of older players, very little research has examined strategic program development practices to enhance and sustain participation in seniors’ small-sided football. Strategic program development is a complex and multifaceted process that provides a critical foundation for both quality assurance and quality enhancement. Case study research using multiple-case design suggests that no one size fits all, and that strategic program development draws upon a wide range of iterative and responsive program context, program planning, program leadership/coaching, and program impact assessment strategies to enhance and sustain player participation. This paper provides a conceptual framework and practical examples for strategic program development practices in diverse grassroots 55-65+ small-sided football contexts

SoTL inquiry in broader curricular and institutional contexts: Theoretical underpinnings and emerging trends

Universities around the world increasingly recognize the importance of offering high quality, high-engagement student learning experiences in their undergraduate and graduate programs. While the SoTL movement and literature has gained considerable recognition and momentum over the past two decades, much less inquiry has focused on institutional and program-level educational reforms. This paper calls for a more expansive view and strategic use of SoTL inquiry in order to make substantive contributions to curriculum renewal, educational leadership practices, and, most importantly, the quality of undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Theoretical underpinnings, emerging trends, challenges, and strategic supports to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of curricula within and across diverse disciplinary contexts are discussed

Strategic Approaches to Curriculum Integration for Pre-doctoral Dental Education in an Iranian Research-intensive University Context

Drawing on the scholarship of educational leadership (SoEL), this paper examines strategic approaches to curriculum integration in a pre-doctoral dental program at Guilan University of Medical Sciences (GUMS), Iran. Appreciative inquiry methodology was employed to assess broad contextual factors, best practices and strategic institutional supports within a diverse disciplinary setting. Data suggest that strategically aligned promotion, tenure and reappointment criteria, as well as customised professional development initiatives are contributors to facilitate faculty engagement in effective learning-centred curriculum practices in the pre-doctoral dental program. Furthermore, a networked improvement community grounded in curriculum inquiry is to enhancing and sustaining curriculum integration in this research-intensive university context. Key institutional supports, challenges and strategic applications of curriculum integration are discussed

Fostering Scholarly Approaches to Peer Review of Teaching in a Research-Intensive University: Strategic Development of a Departmental SPRoT Protocol

This article draws on a 10-year institutional initiative and examines whether and how a strategic departmental Summative Peer Review of Teaching (SPRoT) Protocol was implemented at a Canadian research-intensive university. A peer review of teaching initiative (2010-12), led by a team of UBC national teaching fellows, was prompted by institutional concerns about the quality of student learning experiences and the effectiveness of teaching in a multi-disciplinary research-intensive university context. Canadian universities have long recognized the importance of attending to the evaluation of teaching practices in their particular contexts; however, the enactment of localized scholarship directed at these practices remains very much in its infancy. Traditional approaches to the evaluation of university teaching have often resulted in the over-reliance on student evaluation of teaching data and/or ad-hoc peer-review of teaching practices with numerous accounts of methodological shortcomings that tend to yield less useful and less authentic data. Using a case study research methodology, this paper examines the strategic development of a departmental SPRoT protocol at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Issues addressed in this article include contemporary approaches to the evaluation of teaching in higher education, faculty “buy-in” for the evaluation of teaching in a research intensive university, scholarly approaches to summative and formative Performance Reviews of Teaching (PRT), faculty-specific engagement in summative and formative (informal to formal) PRT training and implementation, and strategic institutional supports (funding, expertise, mentoring, technological resources)

Strategic Approaches to SoEL Inquiry Within and Across Disciplines: Twenty-year Impact of an International Faculty Development Program in Diverse University Contexts

Educational leaders on university campuses around the world are increasingly required to account for the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of their undergraduate and graduate degree programs. The S Scholarship of Educational Leadership (SoEL) in higher education is a distinctive form of strategic inquiry for educational leaders with an explicit transformational agenda of educational practices within and across the disciplines in diverse university contexts. This paper examines complex institutional challenges and strategic approaches to SoEL inquiry. In an international faculty development context, data suggests that educational leaders from a variety of disciplines face significant challenges when undertaking SoEL inquiry. Strategic institutional supports and customised professional development are key to facilitating SoEL inquiry in higher education. Further, SoEL is inherently situated, socially mediated, and responsive to the professional learning needs and circumstances of educational leaders within and across the disciplines in diverse university contexts

Internationalization of a Faculty SoTL Program: Immersion Experiences of Beijing Professors in a Canadian Research-Intensive University

This essay describes an international exchange program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) for a cohort of faculty from the Bilingual Training Program (BTP) of the Beijing Teachers Training Center for Higher Education (BTTCHE). The Beijing professors’ cohort participated in an adapted version of UBC’s Faculty Certificate Program on Teaching and Learning (FCP), which provided them with an immersion experience designed to improve their English language skills and to enhance their understanding of key concepts pertaining to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) within and across disciplinary contexts. Critical reflections from both participants’ and instructors’ perspectives suggest that the program was successful in developing a strong community of learning and intentions for reforming individual teaching practices through engaging in scholarly approaches to and scholarship of teaching and learning. Based on various feedback data and reflection strategies, future iterations of this program will include better integration of language proficiency within the formal SoTL curriculum, as well as provide succession planning for continuing a blended SoTL community among the participants when returning to Beijing

Walking football as sustainable exercise for older adults – A pilot investigation

The health benefits of playing football and the importance of exercise and social contact for healthy ageing are well established, but few older adults in the UK take enough exercise. Football is popular, flexible in format and draws players into engrossing, effortful and social exercise, but the physical demands of play at full speed may make it unsustainable for some older adults. Restricted to walking pace, will play still be engaging? Will health benefits be retained? Will physical demands remain manageable? This pilot study aims to investigate: (1) the experience of older adults playing walking football every week, is it sustainable and rewarding, (2) the intensity and locomotor pattern of walking football, (3) the scale and nature of walking football health benefits and (4) possible cognitive benefits of playing walking football through measures of processing speed, selective and divided attention and updating and inhibition components of executive function. ‘Walking football’ and ‘waiting list’ groups were compared before and after 12 weeks of one-hour per week football. Walking football was found to be engaging, sustainable for older adults and moderately intensive; however, selective health and cognitive benefits were not found from this brief intervention

The impact of an adult health education program on exercise self-efficacy and participation in leisure-time physical activity

Low participation in and poor adherence to regular exercise presents a major challenge for health promotion programs. A growing body of evidence suggests that health education programs that are developed using the principles of Bandura’s (1986) Self—Efficacy Theory have shown success in maintaining a variety of health related behaviors. Exercise behavior however, is often more time consuming and requires more effort than most other health related behaviors, thus it remains to be seen whether adult health education programs which are intended to develop exercise self—efficacy, will indeed increase participation in, and adherence to regular exercise. After reviewing the available literature, an adult health education program was developed by the researcher that combined the principles from Bandura’s (1986) theoretical model of Self- Efficacy, with concepts and intervention strategies drawn from the literature in adult education, health education and exercise psychology. Green and Kreuter’s (1991) Precede-Proceed framework, an outcome—based health education planning model was used for the planning, implementation and evaluation processes of this adult health education program in a community setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the intervention program on exercise self—efficacy and the participation in leisure-time physical activity at the end of the five week program and at the end of a five week follow-up period. Thirty nine female residents from U.B.C. Acadia Park family housing were recruited for this study. The subjects were matched and paired and then randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Both groups received a five week program of nine, ninety minute sessions. The experimental group received a program that focused on the self-regulation of exercise behavior and the control group received a traditional health education program based on standard health information. It was hypothesized that the experimental group would participate more frequently in exercise, and have higher exercise self—efficacy on completion of the five week program, and at the end of the five week follow-up period. The participation in exercise was measured using the 7—Day Recall Exercise Behavior Questionnaire (Godin and Shephard 1985) and exercise self—efficacy was assessed using the Exercise Self— Efficacy Scale (Marcus et al. 1992). The data were analyzed using a two way analysis of variance, group (two) by time (three) factorial design with repeated measures on the second factor for each dependent variable. In addition, Green and Kreuter’s (1991) Proceed evaluation framework was used to describe how learning was applied following the intervention program. The quantitative analysis indicated that the experimental group participated in a significantly higher frequency of exercise and had significantly higher levels of exercise self— efficacy at the end of the five week program and at the end of the five week follow-up period than the control group (p<0001). The Proceed evaluation revealed that the participants differed in their understanding of the self-regulatory strategies, their adaptation of these strategies, previous experience with exercise motivation, stages and rates of exercise adoption, personal resources and perceived power, social support, and perceived exercise self-efficacy. The hypotheses were supported by the results of this study and suggest that a health education program that is based on Bandura’s (1986) theory of self- efficacy and that focuses on the self—regulation of exercise behavior is effective for increasing and maintaining leisure- time physical activity.Education, Faculty ofKinesiology, School ofGraduat