Playing Well With Others: Academic Development as a Team Sport

An important first step to attacking significant institutional problems is working across the organizational silos that encompass campus units. This chapter draws upon an experience in collaboration through which an academic development center chose to partner with a variety of campus units to address a vexing problem facing many campuses: unacceptable rates of first-year student retention. The chapter then goes beyond the case to identify the kinds of collaborations that can be created to treat other pressing academic issues and highlight characteristics of successful collaborations that academic development centers can initiate or join

Ready or Not? An International Study of the Preparation of Educational Developers

This report of an international survey of educational developers describes their entry-level background knowledge and skills for the work of educational development, how they obtained them, and their recommendations on helping prepare new entrants to the profession. Respondents reported that their experiences rendered them moderately prepared for some tasks and less prepared for others, notably consultation. The results can inform increased professionalization of educational development through more systematic preparation of future educational developers

APA, Meet Google: Graduate students’ approaches to learning citation style

Inspired by Perkins’ Theories of Difficulty concept, this exploratory study examined the learning patterns of graduate students as they grappled with using the style sheet of the American Psychological Association (APA). The researchers employed task performance analysis of three APA formatting tasks, interviews, and observation during a “think aloud” task to gather information on students’ misconceptions and successes. The study was able to document in detail how a group of Internet-savvy students approach the use of a style sheet. Learning APA style was found to be a matter both of overcoming conceptual blocks and personal style preferences. Once understanding of genre and conventions that may be inconsistent with prior experience and with each other are attained, motivation, patience, persistence, and attention to detail are also needed to achieve high levels of performance

Understanding and Supporting Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

As the face of the American faculty profession changes, targeted academic development becomes more important. A phenomenological qualitative study of full-time, non-tenure-track faculty in English portrays an experience characterized by a love of teaching but fraught with professional challenges stemming from low status and poor reward and recognition structures. These data provide the point of departure for recommendations on expanding organizational and faculty development strategies for supporting, integrating, and encouraging full-time, non-tenure-track faculty

Collaborating with Departmental TA Coordinators: The Next Step?

The Disadvantages of Sole Reliance on a TA Orientation Program The Next Step The Problems Making It Work Reference

The Role of Educational Developers in Institutional Change: From the Basement Office to the Front Office

Educational developers can play a crucial role in helping colleges and universities respond to change. Among the roles they can play are researcher, assessment resource, friendly critic, messenger, translator, and coach. To perform these roles, developers need certain characteristics and special knowledge bases as well as enabling conditions within their environment. The current state of higher education may be calling for a paradigm shift in educational development as well

Patterns in Telephone Interviews about Professional Development Activities of Developers

Study Design Major Pattern

Who Uses Faculty Development Services?

Information about who uses faculty development services exists more in the oral tradition than in the literature. This study sought to explore the question systematically, based on a review of the literature and the conducting of a descriptive survey of faculty development programs. The findings of the study show that most programs collect information on their users, that this information is usually not shared publicly, and that aggregate usage is broad-based, rather than concentrated within particular types of faculty. These findings contradict some popular claims and support others. Recommendations suggest that information be collected systematically and that claims about users be based on data

Finding the Right Match: Staffing Faculty Development Centers

The National Context Three Common Staffing Options: Advantages and Disadvantages Finding an Effective Faculty Developer Staffing Faculty Development Centers: Planning for the Future Conclusions References Appendix A: Candidate Application Rating Form Appendix B: Telephone Questions Asked of Candidate\u27s References Appendix C: Sample Candidate Tas