In this session we will share one large online university’s approach to transform doctoral faculty expectations, support, and practices through internal research studies, community conversation, and planning. The transformation process, research findings, progress, and recommendations will be shared. Participants will be engaged in planning their own transformation process in support of enhanced faculty support.
Given the scale of online doctoral education, it is essential to find ways to train and support a large body of faculty to ensure a consistent student experience. Institutions need to gather qualitative and quantitative evidence and utilize the evidence and outcomes to inform actionable strategy. In this session, we will share our engaged transformation process for enhanced doctoral mentoring using an action model framework. Specifically we will share information on our cross university mentoring summit along with the data and internal studies that helped set priorities and recommendations. The unique nature of the summit to support learning and evidence-based innovation is described.
Interaction in this session will come through a guided questionnaire and small group discussions to help participants look at how they are considering and communicating expectations and resources for doctoral capstone mentors in their institutions. It will also include a checklist to see if the action model approach will fit with each participants institutional needs. Group leads will share highlights of small group discussions and share which aspects might be applicable or challenging within different university settings.
Attendees will learn:
- How an action model approach can be applied to university problem-solving
- Effective summit practices for data informed planning and engagement
- Findings from internal research studies on faculty and the capstone experience
- Resulting priorities, plans and outcomes from the mentoring summit
- Resulting capstone mentor expectations and support resources