Pathways to the Profession of Educational Development: New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 122 (J-B TL Single Issue Teaching and Learning)

136 Pages·2010·0.54 MB·English

by  Denise Stockley

New Directions for
Teaching and Learning
Marilla D. Svinicki
Catherine M. Wehlburg
CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Pathways to the
Profession of
Educational
Development
Jeanette McDonald
Denise Stockley
EDITORS
Number 122 • Summer 2010
Jossey-Bass
San Francisco
PATHWAYS TO THE PROFESSION OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Jeanette McDonald, Denise Stockley (eds.)
New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 122
Marilla D. Svinicki, Catherine M. Wehlburg, Co-Editors-in-Chief
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CONTENTS
FOREWORD 1
Christopher Knapper
EDITORS’ NOTES 7
Jeanette McDonald, Denise Stockley
SECTION ONE: CONTEXT
1. Pathways Toward Improving Teaching and Learning in 13
Higher Education: International Context and Background
Karron G. Lewis
This chapter provides an overview of educational development from a
cross-cultural perspective, offering a framework to situate subsequent
chapters.
2. Educational Developers: The Multiple Structures and 25
Infl uences That Support Our Work
Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Ann E. Austin
Based on a survey of Canadian and American educational developers,
this chapter highlights aspects of developer career paths and shapers of
their development work, practices, and priorities.
3. Charting Pathways into the Field of Educational 37
Development
Jeanette McDonald
This chapter traces the interrelated trajectories of Canadian developers
embedded within the fi eld, highlighting critical factors, chance events,
and defi ning moments that facilitated their entry into and identifi ca-
tion with the profession of educational development.
SECTION TWO: PRACTICE
4. Conceptualizing Evolving Models of Educational 49
Development
Kym Fraser, David Gosling, Mary Deane Sorcinelli
This chapter presents a framework for understanding the multitude of
models and approaches that characterize and direct development activ-
ities at the individual, institutional, and sector levels.
5. Understanding the Disciplines Within the Context of 59
Educational Development
K. Lynn Taylor
Building capacity to work collaboratively with disciplinary colleagues
requires educational development specialists to move from “knowing
about” to “knowing in” the disciplines. This chapter constitutes a basis
for refl ecting on how to operate effectively in the disciplines while at
the same time honoring their own.
6. Moving from the Periphery to the Center of the Academy: 69
Faculty Developers as Leaders of Change
Debra Dawson, Joy Mighty, Judy Britnell
A model of change management is presented, with examples illustrat-
ing the steps associated with the model and the leadership role educa-
tional developers serve in effecting change in higher education
settings.
SECTION THREE: REFLECTIONS
7. Assessing the Impact of Educational Development Through 81
the Lens of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Carolyn Hoessler, Judy Britnell, Denise Stockley
Taking a scholarly approach, assessment and impact of educational
development work on a continuum is presented with descriptive
examples and practical suggestions.
8. Value Commitments and Ambivalence in Educational 91
Development
David Gosling
Educational development is a value-laden endeavor. This chapter
explores the intersection of individual, institutional, and community
values, and the sometimes ch allenging position in which it places
developers in their professional lives.
9. Unheard Voices Among Faculty Developers 103
Joy Mighty, Mathew L. Ouellett, Christine A. Stanley
This fi nal chapter asks us to consider whose voices in faculty develop-
ment circles and beyond are unheard and the consequences of this
silence for the profession and higher education more broadly if action
is not taken.
INDEX 113
FROM THE SERIES EDITORS
About This Publication
Since 1980, New Directions for Teaching and Learning (NDTL) has brought
a unique blend of theory, research, and practice to leaders in postsecond-
ary education. NDTL sourcebooks strive not only for solid substance but
also for timeliness, compactness, and accessibility.
The series has four goals: to inform readers about current and future
directions in teaching and learning in postsecondary education, to illumi-
nate the context that shapes these new directions, to illustrate these new
directions through examples from real settings, and to propose ways in
which these new directions can be incorporated into still other settings.
This publication refl ects the view that teaching deserves respect as a
high form of scholarship. We believe that signifi cant scholarship is con-
ducted both by researchers who report results of empirical investigations
and by practitioners who share disciplinary refl ections about teaching.
Contributors to NDTL approach questions of teaching and learning as
seriously as they approach substantive questions in their own disciplines,
and they deal with pedagogical issues as well as the intellectual and social
context in which these issues arise. Authors deal on the one hand with
theory and research and on the other with practice, and they translate
from research and theory to practice and back again.
About This Volume
Educational development is an important area of research, study, and
practice in higher education. Over the last several decades, this area has
moved from a relatively individualistic approach to being a collaborative
and scholarly fi eld that has broad impact on teaching and learning. This
volume, specifi cally, provides insight on how individuals enter and oper-
ate within the fi eld of educational development.
Marilla D. Svinicki
Catherine M. Wehlburg
Co-Editors-in-Chief
MARILLA D. SVINICKI is the director of the Center for Teaching Effectiveness at
the University of Texas at Austin.
CATHERINE M. WEHLBURG is the assistant provost for Institutional Effective-
ness at Texas Christian University.

FOREWORD
Plus Ça Change . . . Educational
Development Past and Future
Christopher Knapper
T
he chapters in this volume focus on the origins and evolution of educa-
tional development over the past fi fty years, examining the movement’s
growth and impact, and suggesting likely future directions. As the editors
point out in their introduction, educational development as we know it
today began in the early 1960s—coincidentally, just as I was starting my
own academic career. The Canadian Association of University Teachers
(CAUT) was one of a number of national organizations concerned with the
lack of professional preparation of faculty for their different roles, espe-
cially teaching, and I became chair of a CAUT committee charged with
making recommendations on such matters. (Out of this committee, among
other things, came the concept of the teaching portfolio for documenting
and refl ecting on teaching achievements.)
In 1973, I spent a sabbatical leave making a more systematic study of
various initiatives in several parts of the world to enhance the quality of
university teaching and train faculty for their teaching responsibilities. I
visited several dozen institutions in Britain and Europe, North America,
Australia, New Zealand, and a few places in between. Readers may be sur-
prised to know (as I was) that there was already a small teaching and learn-
ing center at the University of the South Pacifi c in tiny Fiji. In the course of
the trip, I met many remarkable individuals, among them the indomitable
Barbara Falk from the University of Melbourne, identifi ed in Jeanette
McDonald and Denise Stockley’s introductory notes as the fi rst profes-
sional educational developer.
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING, no. 122, Summer 2010 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) (cid:129) DOI: 10.1002/tl.392
2 FOREWORD
As this volume makes clear, the impetus for better preparation of fac-
ulty and enhancement of teaching was almost certainly the rapid expansion
of universities, beginning in the 1960s, and the exponential rise in the
number of students attending college, many from nontraditional back-
grounds. This in turn required more postsecondary teachers and recruit-
ment of many (myself included) who would probably never have found a
position in the traditional university.
And what of the educational developers? (The term was not even used
at that time.) What was their background and motivation? How did they
go about their work? How did they judge the effectiveness of their pro-
grams? A few were psychologists with a research interest in teaching and
learning. A few others had a background in education, and the rest came
from a range of disciplines. In rank, they were likely to be more senior than
junior, and often appointed to an additional position to set up a teaching
and learning center on a trial basis. A few of the units were established on
a permanent footing with a senior tenured professor as director (for exam-
ple, the University Teaching and Research Centre at Victoria University,
Wellington, New Zealand). Others were supported by “soft money” (from
foundations), sometimes very generously, but disappeared once the grants
had been exhausted. (A famous example is the Clinic to Improve University
Teaching at the University of Massachusetts.)
What has changed in educational development? What seems still the
same? I have worked in the fi eld now for thirty-fi ve years, and the most
obvious change is the growth of educational development worldwide, in
both developed and developing countries—though there are some puz-
zling gaps, such as the general indifference to improving teaching in
Southern and Eastern Europe. The units I visited in 1973–74 all had the
common goal of improving teaching (and, implicitly, enriching student
learning), but their approaches often differed substantially. Some, like the
Clinic to Improve University Teaching, as the name suggests, had a reme-
dial philosophy based on individual consultation and counseling. Others,
especially in Britain, placed great emphasis on induction courses for fac-
ulty (especially new appointees) that focused on basic principles and prac-
tices of effective teaching. A number of centers in North America were
heavily involved in student evaluation of teaching, and others made great
use of mentoring and peer consultation.
Chapters in the present volume show that, if anything, contemporary
educational development is perhaps more homogeneous than it was forty
years ago, probably because of greatly increased communication among
developers internationally and sharing of good practice. Hence almost
all centers offer a program of workshops and short courses, and many
run more comprehensive certifi cate programs on teaching and learning
in higher education for faculty and graduate students. Almost all centers
have extensive Web sites to make available information about university
teaching. Most offer a specialized resource library, coordinate teaching
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING (cid:129) DOI: 10.1002/tl