Summary of the Project.
A statement of the purpose of the Project
The purpose of the project is to develop knowledge about faculty development in higher education, focusing on the faculty member as a teacher/mentor. As such this will be a personal opportunity to develop my own professional interests in faculty development, an undertaking that I anticipate will also contribute further institutional knowledge on faculty development to the Empire State College. In a college where adult learning is key to the mission of the institution, an exploration of faculty development opportunities is complementary to this mission. Depending on the size of the field, it maybe appropriate to narrow down research on faculty development to concentrate on those institutions that are focused on adult learners.
Activities and the intended outcomes.
I would like to be able to identify the teaching development outcomes achieved by other institutions, and what activities are undertaken by various institutions to support those outcomes. It is of academic interest to find out how faculty development programs are set up world wide, why a particular approach is used, and what is the content of those programs. Both desk and face to face research can be undertaken to gain this information on how other colleges develop their faculty. Institutions of higher education have a presence on the world wide web, thus data can be sought initially through internet searches. I plan to move from there to contact some institutions to discuss their programs, in order to gain a deeper understanding of their faculty development mission, and thus the context of the faculty development activities that they offer. Research will reveal information on how a faculty member can be developed as a teacher/mentor, including the development of the skills of a learner from interaction between student and faculty member. My goal is to gather research that will offer up a picture of development opportunities that can stimulate our thinking about models of teacher/mentor training in the orientation of new faculty, through to the development of tenured faculty.
In exploring faculty development programs, I will be able to offer insights into faculty development that are of particular interest to the future of Empire State College. Some examples could be on how other institutions develop faculty to teach in blended (face to face and online) modes of delivery, the approaches to peer to peer mentoring, the online delivery of faculty development to those at a distance, the development of faculty in integrating technology for student learning and the development opportunities for part-time/adjunct faculty. I anticipate that the research will provide information on conferences, training, seminars, on-line services, and workshops that are available to develop faculty.