Teaching and Learning Innovation Projects: Promoting Teacher Development and Innovation among Teachers and Students Roberto Espejo Leupin* and José Mauricio Gónzalez-‐Suárez, Center for Innovation and Faculty Development, Andrés Bello University, Santiago, Chile
Abstract In this paper presentation we discuss the experience of the teaching and learning innovation projects grants implemented by the Department of Innovation and Teacher Development (DITD) of the Office of the Vice-‐Rector of Academic Affairs of the University Andrés Bello, in Chile. These projects are focused on improving the quality of the teaching and learning processes between teachers and students through the implementation of creative ideas and strategies. However, they are also considered as a part of our faculty development system, being a space of teacher-‐development–in-‐ practice, which brings together creativity, reflection, and research. Keywords: teaching centers, faculty development, pedagogical philosophy * Corresponding author. Email:
[email protected]
Introduction A teacher development system can take many forms depending on the characteristics of its public and the institution where it is implemented. However, given a certain context, many solutions or designs are possible. What determines these different and possible solutions? We believe that a pedagogical philosophy is embodied in every teacher development system. Actually, we can be more or less aware of these ideas, but this philosophy conditions the way in which we conceive faculty development. An important aspect of working with faculty is making this philosophy clear. For example, the Educational Institutional Project is—to a certain extent, at least—a way of expressing a pedagogical philosophy at an institutional level. However, this will be developed, influenced (and sometimes even modified) by the views of the different social actors who work in the different areas of the institution. Our experience at the Andrés Bello University has to do with the implementation of this philosophy through our teacher development system. A lot has been written regarding the characteristics of good university/college teachers. For example, ten years ago, Bain focused on the results that a good teacher should have regarding his/her students. They “had achieved remarkable success in helping their students learn in ways that made a sustained, substantial, and positive influence on how those students think, act, and feel” (Bain, 2004, p.5). Our pedagogical philosophy tells us that in order to accomplish this, teachers should: a) have room to experiment with different pedagogical approaches; b) reflect on the way they are teaching; and c) consider their pedagogical practice as a possible field of research. In this context, we believe that grants that are given to teachers in order to implement a teaching and learning innovation project are potentially spaces for teacher development. That is the core idea of this paper. Our Faculty Development System The Educational Institutional Project (EIP) of our university is the first expression of our pedagogical philosophy. It posits that teachers should develop a certain set of characteristics: high expectations for the students; up-‐to-‐date knowledge of his/her discipline; assessment and continuous feedback of students; design, selection, planning 2
and implementation of meaningful and challenging pedagogical strategies that are adjusted to definite learning outcomes and that consider the characteristics of the students. The utilization of active-‐learning strategies and the reflection on practice are emphasized as well. As we can see, these points define, at an institutional level, the outcomes of a desirable teacher development program. However, in order to implement these ideas, we need to translate them into working tools. The “translation” of the Department of Innovation and Teacher Development (DITD) of Andrés Bello University emphasizes two main ideas: creativity and experimentation. The word “innovation” has been utilized and manipulated in many ways, suffering a sort of conceptual inflation, to the point that—in some of its uses—it has lost its real meaning. That is why we prefer to return to a more classical term: creativity. There is an old question in the philosophy of education: is teaching an art or a science? Our answer is: both! This conviction stems from the observation that a good scientist is, in fact, a good artist, or—at least—a person who has to deploy an important amount of creativity in his/her work. In the same way, a pedagogue is in essence a creator: observation of his/her students, creation/adaptation of new methodologies, trial and error, reflection. All these are (to mention only some of them) important characteristics of both a scientist and an artist. So it is that creation and experimentation are the central elements of our “translation.” We believe that teachers should consider their courses as innovation/creation opportunities and—at the same time—learn from those experiences. As we will discuss later, this second element is fundamental but not always present in teachers. Accordingly, we have conceived a teacher development system that is composed of three elements: (1) a Diploma in University Teaching (DUT, begun in 2014); (2) a set of workshops that teachers can take according to their interests (began in 2013); and (3) a system of grants for funding teaching and learning innovation projects (begun in 2014). These three elements are independent but complementary. Thus, a teacher who has pursued the DUT might deepen some aspects of a certain theme in a workshop, or – in the opposite way – be attracted to the Diploma after having attended a specific workshop. On the other hand, being part of an innovation project can also be an exciting learning experience on its own. We shall discuss this in the next section.
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The Diploma in University Teaching is non-‐compulsory, free, and open to all the teachers of the university (full-‐ and part-‐time, adjunct faculty included). Its main purpose is to promote the ideas of the Educational Institutional Project. It consists of 8 courses equivalent to 178 hours which are to be pursued in one or two years according to the schedule of each teacher. Most of the teachers that participate in this program are part-‐time/adjunct faculty. Thus, in 2014 we had 144 enrolled teachers, 69% of whom belonged to the part-‐time/adjunct faculty. In 2015, 99 teachers enrolled, 88% belonging to part-‐time/adjunct faculty. Another important aspect is the faculty of origin of teachers, as shown in table 1. 2014
2015
N
N
Faculty of rehabilitation science
21
16
Faculty of medicine
22
15
Faculty of law
6
4
Faculty of business and administration
7
3
Faculty of ecology and natural resources
4
2
Faculty of engineering
15
8
Faculty of humanities and education*
10
-
Faculty of social sciences*
1
-
Faculty of architecture and design
1
5
Faculty of biological sciences
7
9
Faculty of exact sciences
27
3
Faculty of nursing
5
14
Faculty of odontology
5
5
Department of the vice-rector of academics affairs
13
0
Faculty
Faculty of humanities and social sciences*
-
5
Faculty of education*
-
10
144
99
Total Table 1. Participants in the Diploma in University Teaching * Structual change of these faculties in 2015
As we can see, most of the teachers interested in the program come from faculties related to science, in particular medicine and rehabilitation science. Teaching and Learning Innovation Projects We started implementing these projects in 2014. Before that date they existed but were managed by another unit in the Department of the Vice-‐Rector of Academic Affairs of the university. The main reason for transferring these funds to the Department of Innovation and Teacher Development was the idea that this kind of project should be 4
linked to the efforts in faculty development that were already being carried out in the university.
The duration of each project is one year. They focus on improving the quality of
teaching and learning processes between teachers and students through the implementation of creative ideas and strategies. When the DITD was put in charge of these funds, the question arose as to how we could transform this opportunity into a coherent part of our faculty development system. From this question we came to consider these grants as a “field of application” of the elements discussed during the Diploma in University Teaching, at least for the teachers who had finished or were pursuing this program. This includes the possibility of using the project’s setting as a field of research for a particular topic of university teaching. As a matter of fact—and considering the idea of creativity and experimentation—teachers are asked to regard these projects as a double opportunity: creation/innovation and research. However, this does not mean that having completed or nearly completing this diploma is a condition for having access to these funds. Application for funding is possible for all teachers of our university, no matter whether they have pursued the aforementioned program or not.
The evaluation of the proposals is done through an anonymous peer review
system centralized by the DITD and considers elements such as clarity, well written and coherent objectives, creativity, multidisciplinary work and the impact on the students. Special importance is given to the active role of students in the development of the projects. Projects are presented by a team that is led by a Project Director, who is responsible of its development and of the communication with the DITD. Members of the adjunct faculty who present a proposal need to have a sponsor (an associate or full professor) in order to apply for the grant. All teachers need the support of the dean of their faculty in order to participate. Once the proposals are selected, a member of the DITD is assigned to accompany the development of the project. Teachers are asked to present a progress report in middle of the time span of the project and a final report at the end of it. In table 2 we show the number of project proposals received in the years 2014 and 2015 divided by disciplinary field. We note, as in the case of the participants in the DUT, that the scientific disciplines seem to be more attracted to this kind of activities. Table 3 shows the number of projects selected for funding by disciplinary field. 5
Field
2014
2015
Odontology
1
1
Biology
2
1
Engineering
3
-
Law
1
Physics
3
3
Education
2
1
Social sciences
2
Chemistry
-
Business and administration
2 1
Physical therapy
-
1
Table 2. Number of proposals presented by field
Field
2014
2015
Odontology
-
1
Biology
1
-
Engineering
2
-
Law
-
-
Physics
1
2
Education
-
-
Social sciences
1
-
Chemistry
-
1
Business and administration
-
1
Physical therapy
-
-
Table 3. Number of selected proposals by field
Most of the projects consist of applications of different teaching and learning methodologies in the context of our University. Thus, for example, four of the five projects selected in 2014 had to do with active learning strategies (the following titles are free translations from Spanish): (a) “Programming and Robotics”; (b) “Physics for Biochemistry”; (c) “Active Learning in Biology Teaching”; and (d) “Collaborative Learning and Critical Thinking in Computer Science”. The other project was focused on accompanying literature student in their final seminar. In 2015 all the selected projects were implementations of active learning strategies: (a) “Flipped Classroom in Physics Teaching”; (b) “Using Games to Teach Chemistry”; (c) “Teaching Physics to Architecture Students”; (d) “Service Learning for Improving Teaching”; and (e) “Using Biomaterials in Odontology Teaching”. 6
Discussion In order to consider this kind of grant as a space for faculty development, a paradigm shift in teachers in needed. An innovation project can be conceived from many different points of view. On one hand we have an attitude that could be called “pragmatic.” In this case, what matters most are the results of the project, in this case its impact on the teaching and learning process. On the other hand we can also speak of a learning-‐ developmental attitude, where the teacher recognizes the relevance of the learning experience associated with the project itself. We believe that in the field of university teaching both approaches should be kept in mind if we want teachers to derive maximum benefit from the experience regarding their own development.
In general, teachers tend to focus on the first, “pragmatic” attitude. Some of them
do reflect on what the experience has given to them in the field of pedagogical development, but in a rather unstructured and informal way. Many times they even use their classroom experience as the basis for extracting rules of thumb in the form of pedagogical recipes that are not valid in all contexts. In order to promote this second, metacognitive component, the focus of these grants had to be changed. When we initially implemented them in 2014, we followed the same guidelines that had been applied before the Center for Innovation and Faculty Development was in charge of them. But we then introduced some modifications for the grants of 2015. For example, until this moment only contract teachers with at least 22 hours a week of work at the university could apply. We changed this policy opening the possibility to all the teachers of the adjunct faculty.
In order to relate the projects to our whole system of faculty development,
specifically to the Diploma in University Teaching, we included in 2014 an elective seminar on “Innovation and Research in Higher Education,” in which the participants were asked to create and present a project proposal, which was evaluated by their colleagues. Our idea was that good proposals could eventually apply for the funds next year. One important aspect of this seminar was to realize that -‐ in general -‐ teachers are not aware of the relevance and importance of research in the pedagogy of their own disciplines. Socializing and showing them this possibility has proven to be an important motivational trigger to deepen their ideas and to look for the necessary spaces in order to implement them. 7
The result of this strategy was interesting: in 2014 we received 14 proposals, none of which was related to the rest of our faculty development activities. On the other hand, in 2015 we received 10 proposals, 5 of which were presented by teachers who were pursuing our Diploma in University Teaching. However, we do not want to focus only on those teachers already pursuing our Diploma. On the contrary, keeping project funding open to all teachers also allows us to use the application process as a sort of entrance door to our faculty development system. This year we are planning a follow-‐up that includes an important modification of the progress and final reports, in order to emphasize reflection on the experience (Brookfield, 1995) and the learning component discussed above.
One important limitation of this faculty development strategy is the relatively
scarce resources currently available for implementing project proposals. Thus, if we consider that approximately 40 teachers complete our Diploma every year, we could assume forming teams of three teachers, and further suppose that all proposals fulfill the quality conditions required by the grant. In that case the number of projects— granted, in an ideal world—that merit funding could reach 13. This is of course an extreme situation, but also a desirable one.
Conclusions John Dewey’s idea of a learning experience as one that allows learning to continue is relevant here. In words of Dewey: “the central problem of an education based on experience is to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences” (Dewey, 1998, p.16). Following the pedagogical philosophy that we have already discussed, the grants for teachers described in this paper can be transformed into important learning experiences in the field of faculty development— both as an application of an initial set of pedagogical ideas (in our case the DUT) and a point of departure regarding pedagogical experimentation and research.
However, in order to transform a project into a pedagogical learning experience
for teachers, several prior conditions are needed. First, institutional support is essential. This means not only having the resources for funding teachers’ ideas, but also the possibility of being flexible regarding a result-‐based vision of projects. In other words, teachers should have the space to create and to experience new things and this means
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that sometimes objectives and indicators will not be very clear beforehand. The institution should take this into account in awarding support.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, teachers approach projects thinking
about the impact that they will have on student learning and not necessarily on the faculty development process itself. It is important then to emphasize the rewards of this second aspect to faculty undertaking these projects. To facilitate this, reflection on the pedagogical aspects of the developed project should be required as a condition for the grant. In the same way, the relationship between the grant-‐supported projects and the rest of the faculty development activities of the university should be made clearly explicit. An important point to consider in the future is the certification of the competences that teachers are able to develop during the implementation of a project. This could be done using portfolios in order to assess the process, which might indicate the teacher’s changing attitude regarding certain predefined criteria.
References Bain, K. (2004). What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-‐Bass. Dewey, J. (1998). Experience and education. Indianapolis: Kappa Delta Pi.
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