Empowering University Staff: Strategies for Change and New Skills in Faculty Development

1. Change strategies

2. New skills and competencies updating -life long learning searching for new knowledge interdisciplinary and creative problemsolving co-operation Profile for the university Decrease drop out rates Motivation for the single teacher Why change?

3. Phases in change • Motivation phase • Creating ideas, concrete, inspiration, change agents • Decision • Bottom up and top down • Planning • General overview of all elements (objectives, content, methods, assessment, organisation, etc.) • Specific details • Implementation • Supervision • Process skills – PBL-skills • Evaluation and improvement

4. Difficulties • Reluctant staff • First group the enthusiastic staff – the third group of teachers are the opposition of the reform • Understanding of differentiated objectives • Collaboration among staff • Insecurity among staff (office, position) • Loss of authority, change in the role of being an expert • Support from the middle level of leaders

5. Institutional change • Bottom up as well as a top down process • a need for change agents • create motivation among staff • credit - and status of teaching activities • physical facilities must be considered • institutional support - time, ressources, recognition

6. strategies • Faculty development strategy • Curriculum development strategy – single courses • System change

7. Faculty development – improvement? • UK-research: without training staff getting more teacher centred – with training staff getting more student oriented • Australian research: students will copy teachers approach to the content (deep – surface) • Scandinavian research: more activity

8. Training • UK: voluntary. Each institution its own programme – however it is accreditated • DK: compulsory. Each institution its own programme • Sweden: compulsory. Each institution its own programme. 6 weeks. • Norway: compulsory. Each institution its own programme. 64 hours. • Baden Württemberg: voluntary. Ministery (top-down) program with establishment of fac. Development centres

9. Single coursesBottom up strategies teachers Faculty development unit • In realtion to PBL, the Bottom up strategy supports the “small steps”. Half models – loose the overall objectives, especially • Change of top management • Satisfaction with the small steps

10. Lund University, Sweden • Breakthrough project – large scale faculty development • The Pedagogical Academy, Titel: ETP (Excellent Teaching Practice) + raise in salary • 200 hours

11. Outcome • ¼ - 1/3 of the teachers have participated • Heads of departments are involved • Increased interdisciplinarity and curriculum development projects • Participants: development of language • Lund university is getting a leading role in future development

12. Aalborg University, Denmark General: Requirement that the assistant professor receive supervision and coaching • Compulsory training for assistant professors (175 hours - 1½ year) • 4 modules – practice-theory-practice- • Portfolio method • Supervisor from department and from faculty development centre

13. Outcome of training • 300 assistant professors • Evaluation of the form: • Satisfaction with the form/methods of the course • Basically a difficult model to run, because it is based so much on decentralised strategy

14. Learning outcomes • Reflection on learning outcomes • Mental Model for analysing new situation • Language • Tools • Diverse competencies • Breaking the tacit knowledge: Don’t do as I do – do as I say…..

15. IPN Pedagogical network for Engineering • 3 universities and 6 engineering colleges • Courses, seminars, etc • No formal requirement at college level, but.. • Each institution has a position • After 7 years, pedagogic is on the agenda and nearly all institutions have formulated pedagogical models

17. Top down strategies Faculty development unit • Systemic changes create resistance and top-down strategies are needed: • basic change • management task together with change agents, fac. Development units and the teachers

18. System change • Twente, Rijkswiik, Maastricht, the Netherlands, • UCL, Belgium • University of Aveiro, Portugal • Queens university, Canada • NTNU, Norway

19. Premises for change to PBL • Use both top-down og bottom up • Faculty development units involved • Action research integrated • Motivation for development and experiments • Subject based pedagocial knowledge is needed

20. A case • total institutional change • unique change • from an independent small institution to become a part of a much bigger institution • change of both new pedagogic and organisation • physical distance • establishing research • condition: support from the leaders

21. Main activities in the change process • 3 teachers from Esbjerg following the system in Aalborg before the actual change • training courses for all staff • consultants with teachers from Aalborg going to Esbjerg during the actual change

22. The Esbjerg Model 85% lecturing Classroom teaching with no project work and individuel assessment Classroom teaching Individual assessment 15% project Project

23. The Aalborg Model Study courses and lectures 50% lecturing Examination - oral or written: passed/ failed Project courses lectures seminar 50% project Examination - marked by the scale of 0 - 13 Project supervision

24. Results • Physical conditions, group space • teamwork among colleague- experiencing each other in new roles • from a fixed schedule that dictates a teaching schedule to calendar planning • secretarial group needed to create new organisational framework for channelling information through the system.

25. Teachers approach

26. Teachers approach