The tasks the online courses assign to faculty, the resources they provide, the ..... graduate education through the professional development of junior faculty in .... concept maps and study guides and resources onto their personal computer.
E–Learning, Volume 3, Number 4, 2006
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.599
An Innovative Junior Faculty Online Development Programme LUIS M. VILLAR University of Seville, Spain OLGA M. ALEGRE University de La Laguna, Spain
ABSTRACT This study examines whether two online courses offering educational support for junior faculty have a positive effect on their attitudes to learning and curriculum and teaching capacities (CTC). The data used in the analysis are from two 2005 online university training courses. The tasks the online courses assign to faculty, the resources they provide, the learning environment they create, and the conversations they provoke proved to be consequential in shaping faculty’s attitudes. The results also indicate that junior faculty who participate in individual and collective online developing activities, such as constructing teaching episodes and communicating with other colleagues, are more likely to gain a better understanding of how to teach their scientific disciplines.
Introduction In recent years, there has been a growth in university curriculum and teaching support programmes – collectively known in Spain as beginning or novel programmes – for junior faculty during the transition into their first university teaching job or their initial years of teaching. This is especially consequential for new faculty who are on the verge of accepting a teaching contract in a college or university. The development programme for new faculty at the University of Jaén (UJA) is designed as an additional on-the-job teacher training. This programme involves online courses with a variety of elements – support systems, face-to-face workshops, and, especially, mentoring as a professional guidance provided by an expert professor. With the growth of junior faculty there has also been a growing interest in formative assessment and empirical research on the impact of this online initiative for understanding what forms of faculty training are successful. Online beginning faculty courses vary according to the needs of the junior faculty they are aimed at. They are primarily developmental and designed to foster teaching growth in young faculty. Furthermore, outcome measures typically fall into two categories: attitude changes (e.g. faculty’s teaching satisfaction, efficacy and commitment enhancement); and learning how to teach and inquiry into the teaching practice. A number of studies seem to provide support for the hypothesis that well-implemented online university staff courses are successful in increasing reflective practice, teaching satisfaction, and classroom efficacy of junior faculty. There are several academic and professional premises underlying this study. First, we assume that junior faculty participation in the two online courses is supported by an adequate university certification. Thus, beginning teachers need to have accredited their course accomplishment. Second, we accept the premise that the two online courses have an important effect on voluntary participants regarding curriculum and teaching capacities (CTC), attitudes, learning and performance. There are different ways of conceptualising professional development programme quality in the context of higher education. Criteria for selection of programme quality attributes are based on personal values and judgements. Consequently, novel faculty programmes are of 599
Luis M. Villar & Olga M. Alegre quality if and when they fulfil a perceived purpose defined by faculty members, and bring about a transformation in their teaching knowledge, beliefs and actions, thus enhancing and empowering them. Third, we assert that quality university staff programmes are tied to e-learning. Online training courses are as robust and rigorous as the more traditional face-to-face delivery training programmes. From a technological perspective this assumption applies to e-learning for student advancement as well as to staff development. Fourth, and finally, we declare that in the development of digital pedagogical content, the transparency of their curriculum and teaching texts and images requires a different form of validation, that is, the quality of faculty learning activities and teaching experiences. Value is also added to an online pedagogical faculty programme by offering learning tasks, practices and strategies that are grounded in classroom innovations. Moreover, an online university staff programme is a process that enhances professional development in that it drives young faculty to assess their assumptions concerning their subject curriculum design and their teaching delivery methods. Conceptual Framework 1. Needs of Junior Faculty, Part-Time Teachers and Assistant Teachers Literature on beginning faculty documents the emotional and mental challenges they face as they embark on professional careers, particularly regarding different degrees of burnout or stress at work (Lackritz, 2004). New assistant teachers struggle with constructing approaches to classroom management, with images of the professorial status, underpaid and short-term contracts, and, if they are women, with particular types of resistance (O’Connor, 2000). Probationary and tenured teachers also have particular beliefs on approaches to teaching specific subject matters to students: formal lecturing, small-group teaching in classes or tutorials, large-group teaching or laboratory work. They struggle with their pedagogical and scientific knowledge of the subjects they teach and their ability to take declarative and semantic knowledge and represent it in ways that is comprehensive to students within the new scenario of the European convergence that assumes changes in credit accumulation, modularisation of study programmes, and semesterisation of the academic year (Milliken & Colohan, 2000). Moreover, beginning faculty and part-time teachers make great efforts while enduring difficulties with the terms and conditions of employment (e.g. many are dissatisfied with pay), the rights they have (e.g. many have excess working hours), and the teaching belief changes the university expects from them (e.g. some perceive workload is too heavy) (Husbands & Davies, 2000; Tytherleigh et al, 2005). In addition to discovering what it means to teach their subject matter, junior faculty face other difficulties as they enter the classroom. They are concerned with issues related to themselves and their own adequacy (i.e. many feel a lack of competence in the teaching methodology) (Hardré, 2005). Most important, new entrants to the academic profession or probationary teachers are still at the beginning stages of learning to teach. Much of what they learn about teaching will depend upon their experiences in classrooms and their opportunities to continue to learn – about subject matter, about students, and about teaching – in a process of learning-by-doing or socialisation into academic life (Knight et al, 2006). New academic appointees have, thus, a different relationship to university policies than do experienced faculty. With regard to junior faculty, the problem for university authorities is not how to change faculty’s practices but rather how to provide the types of support junior faculty may need as they construct their teaching practice; in other words, how induction practices contribute to the process of socialisation of junior faculty so that different social practices, norms, values, predispositions and taken-for-granted knowledge become instantiated at different scientific areas and campuses (Trowler & Knight, 2000). 2. Empowering Professional Development of University Faculty The first educational challenge is to identify the broad trends of faculty empowerment that the university development programmes seek to promote. Our distillation of this literature yielded seven broad quality characteristics of empowering university programmes:
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Junior Faculty Online Development Programme • To increase the learning to teach of junior and experienced faculty. As Romano, Hoesing et al (2004, p. 26) note, ‘the Mid-Career Teaching Program (MCTP) attracted a group of experienced faculty who are quite diverse in age, in the number of years they have worked in higher education, and in the length of time remaining before retirement’. However, faculty participation in Spanish training courses depends upon such variables as the age, status and rank of teachers. • To improve formal personal, professional, career and instructional development (Camblin & Steger, 2000). Many universities are establishing development programmes in order to strengthen pedagogical content knowledge (Major & Palmer, 2006), as well as other forms of professional practice and personal support services. • To develop self-evaluation teaching (Aleamoni, 1997). One form of faculty empowering is typically concerned with the advancement of subject matter competence and the mastery of one’s own discipline as it is related to teaching, thereby building criteria and models as masters of their own learning. • To increase faculty control over their learning. As Caffarella & Zinn (1999, p. 248) have pointed out, an enabling factor that enhances professional development is the following faculty personal characteristic: ‘strong personal beliefs and values about the value of continuous professional development; a sense of obligation to be active teachers, scholars, and learners throughout the career’. Thus, by mapping their own road to professional proficiency, beginning teachers sustain desired learning over time. • To expand faculty’s critical abilities. Scholarly teaching requires a systematic process of inquiry into one’s own teaching practices and into students’ learning (Goldstein & Benassi, 2006). On this point, Koch et al (2002, p. 84) grouped the differing sources used in evaluating one’s effectiveness into four discrete, but interrelated, approaches to quality assessment: ‘reflective critique, student feedback, analysis of student work, and classroom observations’. The infusion of reflective activities into online courses should be thoughtfully considered and carefully buttressed by a strong research base. • To disseminate the idea of effective faculty programme assessments. Another form of programme empowering is to guarantee faculty minimum course standards for recognising faculty work. Many researchers and university leaders have become increasingly concerned with evaluating the effectiveness of professional staff development programmes (Pittas, 2000). The focus now is to ensure that this professional development has the effect of adapting teaching styles to meet the demands and expectations of today’s students, providing enlarged opportunities for collegial networking and promoting institutional aims (Dixon & Scott, 2003). • To help faculty succeed academically, providing new strategies, particularly structuring elearning activities (Middendorf, 2004) for building digital portfolios, which show beginning teachers’ best teaching productions (Woodward & Nanlohy, 2004). 3. Quality Assurance of Online Professional Development Courses The question of whether faculty differ dramatically in their effectiveness to learn using online courses is fundamental in educational research. If differences in faculty members are large, the identification of the more effective online sources, which enable them to be more competent, is important for professional development reform. As Sherer et al (2003, p. 190) highlighted, there are 10 different ways of conceptualising quality in the context of online higher education. Such analyses usually use the following factors: • presentation of truthful, real and important CTC content (King, 2002); • development of self-directed learning experiences and assignments that can be applied to improving university subject design and classroom pedagogical methods (Grant, 2004); • in-depth dialogues among course participants about teaching, and frequent contacts with elearning developers acting as mentors (Boyle & Boice, 1998; Single & Single, 2005); • assessing CTC learning and providing feedback to faculty. The ability for beginning teachers to be able to ask questions and share answers in an environment that can be personalised to support responsiveness (Tallent-Runnels et al, 2006);
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Luis M. Villar & Olga M. Alegre • the capacity of the type of social artefacts or ‘tools’ to facilitate collaborative work among participants using telecommunications technology and to provide the scaffolding in learning to teach. Design and Methods 1. Online Courses of Teaching Initiation at the University of Jaén (OCTIUJA) This OCTIUJA programme provides a collaborative approach to enhancing undergraduate and graduate education through the professional development of junior faculty in their first years of teaching in higher education. In designing OCTIUJA, we make six training assumptions. As in other development programmes (e.g. Romano et al, 2004, p. 26), these assumptions are as follows: • Assumption 1. From the perspective of social constructivism, online collegial interaction (chat, forum debates, email) is imperative for faculty development. • Assumption 2. Facilitated debates centred on critical university issues play an important role in initiating university formative programme reforms. • Assumption 3. Pedagogical knowledge and outcomes require exposure to new and challenging ideas and an opportunity to reflect on the possibilities that these ideas offer towards a greater engagement through multimedia, as well as the encouragement to adapt the ideas of creating narratives to one’s own teaching situation. • Assumption 4. Junior faculty may feel distanced from the newer instructional strategies and classroom technologies (web editors, databases, ‘listservs’, chat groups, etc.) that serve as mediators for learning interactions in university settings. • Assumption 5. Faculty are interested in adapting their teaching style and subject design to meet the expectations of today’s diverse students. • Assumption 6. Positive outcomes occur when enrichment programmes match faculty in their field of knowledge, respectful of their learning experience, and addressing faculty core areas of teaching – content knowledge, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Consequently, three main OCTIUJA goals emerge from these assumptions. We want to assess: (a) participant CTC needs; (b) participant reaction to CTC lesson content and structure, delivery method, time consumption, etc., and (c) participant attention to, and learning of, the 10 CTC lessons, in order to support instruction and learning in university classes, thus making university professional development more relevant. 2. Design The critical design issues behind the rationale of both OCTIUJA courses include online CTC planning, organising, structuring, implementation, tracking, impact reporting, communicating assessments, and many other principles that take time and require orderliness on the part of the online programme advisers, (Nijhuis & Collis, 2003). Following are some other key features of the OCTIUJA online delivery system, located at the following URL: http://dpdu-jaen.cica.es: • Beginning faculty use a CTC handbook (Villar, 2004), which reviews several sources on college teaching and identifies the critical CTC related to class preparation, classroom structure and organisation, with a focus on teaching innovation and student learning. • Beginning faculty learn 10 lesson materials – CTC – which are segmented into weekly modules and released on a weekly basis with ongoing updates (see Table 1). All 156 PDF and HTML documents, 114 web sites, and 10 Microsoft PowerPoint presentations are hyperlinked. • Each CTC includes a four-step approach towards reflection following a particular order: Goals, Uses, Teaching Scenarios and Case Study. • Beginning faculty discuss two topics in asynchronous forums: ‘European convergence issues’, and ‘Student mental effort to cope with the new European credit system’. These are organised and released on a fortnightly basis, but remain accessible throughout the course. The last forum includes postings positing reflective questions (Socratic questions). 602
Junior Faculty Online Development Programme • Beginning faculty access email from the browser for one-on-one interactions with OCTIUJA mentors or other participant instructors. • Beginning faculty browse the material containing URL links to related articles and institutions, notes and grades from any location, at flexible time schedules. • Generally speaking, beginning faculty download Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, key concept maps and study guides and resources onto their personal computer. • Beginning faculty submit online learning activity assignments using web forms interface, or via email; these assignments are authentic activities that have real-university relevance and which present complex teaching–learning tasks to be completed over a sustained period of time. • Assessment-related activity tasks attract beginning faculty’s attention in favour of non-assessed information activities. • Beginning faculty complete 10 online examinations using web forms with answers recorded in the appropriate database on the server. Each CTC examination is programmed (random selection) to be unique and to provide instant feedback to the participant instructors with the results. In other words, there is an authentic assessment, which is seamlessly integrated into the learning activity assignments, and which provides a formative assessment of their understanding of basic concepts, aiding them to gain a sense of progress. • Beginning faculty satisfaction with OCTIUJA courses. They assess the quality of materials and of the training process as a formative evaluation for course revision. • Beginning faculty meet with an experienced professor of the UJA during real time in a chat room to discuss course progress and forum contents. Supporting, motivating and developing are the aims of this mentoring function (Sosik & Godshalk, 2000). Module I. Personal Identity CTC1. Knowledge of student motivation and ability to promote students’ positive attitudes. CTC2. Awareness of students’ diversity in all its forms. Module II. Social Relations CTC3. Capacity to solve students’ problems. Module III. Curriculum CTC4. Capacity to develop metacognitive skills in the trainee. Module IV. Methodology CTC5. Capacity to provide effective and free curriculum time. Module V. Decision Making CTC6. Knowledge of area being supervised (learning tasks, research, assessment, etc.). Module VI. Interaction CTC7. Teaching and didactic skills for large groups. CTC8. Grasp of questioning skills. Module VII. Evaluation CTC9. Knowledge of formative and summative evaluation. CTC10. Capacity to conduct own self-assessment process. Table I. Modules and Curriculum and Teaching Capacities (CTC) Framework
3. Setting and Participants Founded in 1993, the UJA is a new Andalusian institution. It is considered one of the 17 middlesized Spanish public universities, and had, in the academic year 2005-06, around 14,099 students, 899 teachers of various status and ranks, and 43 formative programmes distributed around three campuses. Faculty members from across the departments are invited to participate in this telecommunications university course, specifically through a specially designed course delivery and participation system. Three experienced professors conduct the face-to-face workshop and the distance course. The focus of the workshop is to introduce faculty to the university CTC course training and delivery, and to discuss and interpret contents in two forums and in weekly tutoring sessions. Participant demographic breakdowns of the two OCTIUJA courses are given in Table 2. Sixty-five subjects are the total sample of the two courses: 50.8% (n = 33) in the first course, and 603
Luis M. Villar & Olga M. Alegre 49.2% (n = 32) in the second course. Sixty-one per cent (n = 40) are male and 38.5% (n = 25) female. Forty-one per cent (n = 27) are between the ages of 30 and 34, 27.7% (n = 18) between 25 and 29, 23.1% (n = 15) between 35 and 39, and 7.7% (n = 5) between 40 and 44. Typically, faculty members hold higher education degrees. Fifty-three per cent (n = 35) have a doctorate degree, 44.6% (n = 29) a bachelors’ degree, and only 1.5% (N = 1) a graduate college degree (a three-year college). Faculty members are hired at the lowest rank. Forty-seven per cent (n = 31) are assistant professors, 24.6% (n = 16) lecturers, 12.3% (n = 8) college professors, 7.7% (n = 5) probationary faculty members, 6.2% (n = 4) scholarship holders, and 1.4 (n = 1) is an associate professor. The number of teaching years ranges from 1 to 19. Forty-one per cent of respondents (n = 27) have up to three years of teaching experience; 38.5% (n = 25) between 4 and 6 years; 9.2% of the participant instructors (n = 6) have 7-9 years, and 7.7% (n = 5) have 10-12 years. Finally, 1.5% (n = 1) has 13-15 years’ teaching experience, and also at 1.5% (n = 1), one participant has 16-18 years of experience. When disciplines are broken down into scientific areas, 36% of faculty members (n = 24) teach in the social sciences; 27.7% (n = 18) in technical sciences; 16.9% (n = 11) in experimental sciences; 12.3% (n = 8) in humanities, and 6.2% (n = 4) in health care sciences. Moreover, participants in Course I teach 32 different subject matters, and participants in Course II teach 34 different disciplines. Demographic measures are used as independent variables in analyses. The OCTIUJA courses took place during the year 2005, and lasted 11 weeks each. n Gender Male Female Age 25-29 years 30-34 years 35-39 years 40-44 years Academic degree Graduate College degree Bachelor’s degree Doctorate degree Status and rank Scholarship holder Probationary doctor Assistant professor Lecturer Associate professor Professor Teaching experience Up to 3 years 4-6 years 7-9 years 10-12 years 13-15 years 16-19 years Scientific area Social Sciences Experimental Sciences Healthcare Sciences Humanities Technical Sciences
Course I %
Course II n %
n
%
19 14
57.6 42.4
21 1
65.6 34.4
40 25
61.5 38.5
12 17 4 -
36.4 51.5 12.1 -
6 10 11 5
18.8 31.3 34.4 15.6
18 27 15 5
27.7 41.5 23.1 7.7
15 18
45.5 54.5
1 14 17
3.1 43.8 53.1
1 29 35
1.5 44.6 53.8
1 2 16 8 6
3.0 6.1 48.5 24.2 18.2
3 3 15 8 1 2
9.4 9.4 46.9 25.0 3.1 6.3
4 5 31 16 1 8
6.2 7.7 47.7 24.6 1.5 12.3
15 14 4 -
45.5 42.4 12.1 -
12 11 2 5 1 1
37.5 34.4 6.3 15.6 3.1 3.1
27 25 6 5 1 1
41.5 38.5 9.2 7.7 1.5 1.5
10 6 3 3 10
30.3 18.2 9.1 9.1 30.3
14 5 1 5 14
43.8 15.6 3.1 15.6 43.8
24 11 4 11 24
36.9 16.9 6.2 16.9 36.9
Table II. Distribution of participants by gender, age, degree, status and rank, teaching experience, and scientific area.
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Total
Junior Faculty Online Development Programme 4. Faculty Questionnaires Faculty members complete three types of questionnaires. The first questionnaire assesses their CTC needs; in other words, what faculty know is true (an online three-point scale of 10 declarative statements used as a teaching diagnostic tool). The scale is 1-3, with values of ‘1 = Not So Necessary,’ ‘2 = Moderately Necessary,’ and ‘3 = Very Necessary’. A second questionnaire assesses CTC reactions and attitudes, which are adapted from common themes in the university training literature; that is, what faculty think might be true and say they want regarding OCTIUJA quality, in order to capture potential stances among all participants. Faculty rate 10 online five-point Likert-type scale CTC sheets. Each sheet consists of 10 declarative statements (e.g. ‘This capacity is pertinent to my teaching’) with an additional openended question. A Cronbach alpha coefficient ( = .995 standardised) computed for this instrument indicates a high degree of internal consistency (see Appendix). A third questionnaire assesses their CTC learning. Ten multiple-answer teacher-made CTC tests are used for measuring learning attainment; taking a test is understood as a time on-task learning activity (e.g. ‘A process of group dynamics can be constituted by the following phases’). Once again, Cronbach alpha coefficient ( = .979 standardised) for all tests shows a high degree of internal reliability. Responses require selecting from a range of four-item possibilities, and tests are administered at the end of each CTC lesson. Face validity, stem clarity, correct keying answer, and spelling of distracters are some of the determinants of the quality of capacity tests to be considered. Overall, these scores indicate that respondents are highly likely to answer consistently on items belonging to the same instrument or test. Results We analysed the data results for all faculty members who participated in both courses. 1. Comparisons of Beginning Faculty CTC Needs As Figure 1 indicates, participants of the two courses need professional training in all 10 CTCs of the current OCTIUJA programme. Seventy-five per cent (n = 49) of respondents indicate they are in need of training in the following capacities: knowledge of student motivation and ability to promote students’ positive attitudes; capacity to provide effective and free curriculum time; knowledge of area being supervised (learning tasks, research, assessment, etc.); teaching and didactic skills for large groups; grasp of questioning skills; and knowledge of formative and summative evaluation.
Figure 1. Perceived CTC needs expressed by participants in Course I, Course II, and total.
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Luis M. Villar & Olga M. Alegre Chi-square difference tests are used to compare whether two independent variables have significantly different distributions across the participants’ CTC needs. All faculty members in the 25-29 age group are in much need of CTC 1 – Knowledge of student motivation and ability to promote students’ positive attitudes- ( ² = (3, n = 45) = 6.93, p < .021); CTC 6 – Knowledge of area being supervised (learning tasks, research, assessment, etc.)- ( ² = (3, n = 45) = 6.69, p < .021); CTC 7 – Teaching and didactic skills for large groups – ( ² = (3, n = 45) = 6.69, p < .021); CTC 8 – Grasp of questioning skills – ( ² = (3, n = 45) = 6.69, p < .021), and CTC 9 – Knowledge of formative and summative evaluation – ( ² = (3, n = 45) = 6.69, p < .021). 2. Evaluating OCTIUJA Quality Measures In terms of OCTIUJA quality, means and standard deviations on the 10 rating scale items, which measure participant reactions and attitudes towards CTCs, are shown in Table 3. We compare participants’ ratings on reactions and attitudes separately for each item. This analysis addresses a specific type of question: Did participants of the two courses differ in the 10 CTC reaction and attitude rating scale items? Non-directional Student’s t-tests for independent course means were used to test the significance of the data. Our hypothesis that both course participants would have significantly different OCTIUJA quality reactions and attitudes was not supported.
Relevance Usefulness Appropriateness Adaptation Tips Structure Pertinence Reading Impact Time-Consumption
Course I (n = 33) M SD 1.60 1,36 1.71 0.90 2.11 1.33 2.26 1.40 1.90 1.70 2.42 1.67 2.27 1.67 2.12 1.61 2.45 1.67 1.74 1.30
Course II (n = 32) M SD 1.21 1.15 1.71 0.90 1.1 1.21 1.74 1.27 1.31 1.42 1.68 1.53 1.81 1.53 1.90 1.61 1.78 1.49 1.74 1.30
Total (n = 65) M SD 1.31 0.95 1.48 1.04 1.86 1.29 2.00 1.35 1.72 1.26 2.00 1.40 2.14 1.45 2.27 1.48 2.16 1.45 1.73 1.24
Table III. Means and standard deviations for OCTIUJA quality scale items.
To address the hypothesis for differences across demographic groups, the initial results are presented in Table 4. The results by gender show the following significant findings: CTC 1 – Knowledge of student motivation and ability to promote students’ positive attitudes – (t (63) = 3.12, p < .003); CTC 2 – Awareness of students’ diversity in all its forms – (t (63) = -3.27, p < .002); CTC 3 – Capacity to solve students’ problems – (t (63) = -2.780, p < .007); CTC 4 – Capacity to develop metacognitive skills in the trainee – (t (63) = -3.126, p < .003); CTC 5 – Capacity to provide effective and free curriculum time – (t (63) = -2.779, p < .007); CTC 6 – Knowledge of area being supervised (learning tasks, research, assessment, etc.) – (t (63) = -3.499, p < .001); CTC 7 – Teaching and didactic skills for large groups – (t (63) = -3.037, p < .003); CTC 8 – Grasp of questioning skills – (t (63) = -3.091, p < .003); CTC 9 – Knowledge of formative and summative evaluation – (t (63) = 3.008, p < .004), and CTC 10 – Capacity to conduct own self-assessment process – (t (63) = -3.378, p < .001). On participants’ age range, we found significant differences in the following capacities: CTC 1 – Knowledge of student motivation and ability to promote students’ positive attitudes – (F (2, 56) = 3.50, p < .037); CTC 2 – Awareness of students’ diversity in all its forms – (F (2, 56) = 4.82, p
