Faculty Development Centers for Digital Teaching and Learning

This chapter identifies and assesses the role of faculty professional development centers in the future higher education institutions. Faculty professional development centers facilitate transition to digital teaching and learning; this can be affected only through implementing strategies and commensurate infrastructure. They thus provide desired digital knowledge, skill sets, and related competencies for the “next generation of learners.” Implementations in Turkey are surveyed and compared to the international scene. Conclusions are drawn on essential features that may be further enhanced for bettering faculty development facilities primarily in the context of universities in Turkey, and extensions to the international scene.

Measuring digital professional development: analytics for the use of web and social media

Purpose – As faculty professional development increasingly occurs online and through social media, it becomes challenging to assess the quality of learning and effectiveness of programs and resources, yet it is important to evaluate such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how one faculty development center experimented with using analytics to answer questions about the use and effectiveness of its web and social media resources. Design/methodology/approach – The case study was based on direct observation of the center’s practice and review of selected data generated by the analytic tools. Findings – Unfortunately, while some analytics are available from a variety of sources, they are often distributed across tools and services. The center developed an analytics strategy to use data from Google Analytics and social media reporting tools to assess the use of online and social professional development resources. Initial results show that the center’s online and social professional development resources are widely used, both within and outside the university. However, more work is necessary to improve the strength and scope of the available analytics. Practical implications – As a result of the analysis, the center has streamlined online resources, targeted social media use, and has begun developing methods to allow faculty to report online resource use as professional development for academic personnel purposes. Originality/value – Many faculty development centers have not explored methods of evaluating online and social media resources. This paper outlines a strategic evaluation plan to measure the usage of online resources as well as engagement and interaction through social media.

The MORE Model for Faculty Development

For many faculty the integration of technology and learner-centered teaching strategies or the adoption of instructional “best practices” represents innovation and change. The author visited fifteen research intensive university faculty development centers, looking at what they considered best practices with regard to improving instruction. The practices and programs described had one or more of the following components: Motivation, Opportunity, Resources and Evaluation, what I am calling here the MORE model. This paper discusses these four factors important to instructional change agents. The paper ends with a list of implications, based on the model, for that would enable faculty development centers to have more control over the factors that are important to faculty success and systemic change.