Join the University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning instructional designers as they share taskforce results addressing stakeholder needs to create an updated faculty development program. Taskforce mission, goals, surveys, and recommendations will be presented. Participants will reflect on processes and a group summary will be completed.
Session Overview:
The University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) provides faculty development (FD) to instructors and faculty teaching online. Having had thousands of faculties complete UCF’s FD programs, the task of a redesign was considered high profile and high impact with various campus stakeholders. This context led to the creation of a team/taskforce to address stakeholder needs and create a plan for future FD. A plan that would streamline all FD and reduce the administrative load for all stakeholders involved.
The Faculty Development Ecosystem Taskforce (FDET) was tasked to create a plan that would maximize the effectiveness and reduce the administrative burden of CDL FD offerings. The committee met and came up with a plan of action. To accomplish this task, we would solicit stakeholder feedback on CDL FD offerings and processes, analyze and summarize stakeholder responses, analyze the current CDL FD offerings and processes, and make recommendations for revisions.
The first action item was to identify our stakeholders. We broke our stakeholders down into three groups; internal to CDL/DDL, external to CDL/DDL but internal to UCF, and external to UCF. Since the ultimate objective of the university is student learning and success, students were one of the largest group of stakeholders that we solicited feedback. We also included faculty and staff from all colleges and departments in the university in order to get a broad spectrum of responses that covered the entire university and all course modalities of online teaching at UCF.
Once our stakeholders were identified we created survey questions to elicit feedback and then submitted our proposal for IRB approval. Once we received IRB approval, we sent out the survey to our stakeholders. The first dispatch of surveys came with low submissions rates. Another campaign was administered to promote more survey completion. At the conclusion of distribution, feedback from over 700 participants across the three stakeholder groups was acquired.
Once survey results were collected, the team began to break down the responses into the two main focus areas; maximizing effectiveness of professional development offerings and reducing the administrative burden of the CDL faculty. From there, the results were analyzed, compiled and the recommendations drafted. A final report and presentation were complete and presented to the executive team at CDL.
Session Goals:
Attendees will learn about the applied project management strategies, the research methods, and the data collected to assess the current FD offerings at UCF’s CDL and the recommendations for future offerings.
They will learn about how we tried to include all possible stakeholders to create partnerships with all involved and affected by our professional development offerings. Participants will be able to see how we took a growth mindset approach to the feedback and took steps to minimize the perceived failures of the programs by faculty members involved in the professional development programs.
After hearing about our process and our recommendations, attendees will have some time for individual reflection before participating in a group Q&A session. Once presentation is complete, attendees will reflect on their current PD offerings, assess their stakeholders, and draft project plans or survey questions to implement back at their institutions to assess effectiveness and administrative needs for their FD.
After attending, attendees should have a better understanding of our research and about how they may take elements of our process back to their own institutions to better serve their faculty and students.