Faculty teaching online may benefit from peer coaching to develop more effective feedback approaches. This presentation shares a successful case study when faculty members collaborate to deliver a peer-driven community of practice created to enhance the quality of assessment feedback and improve learner outcomes within a competency-based education model.
Successful communities of practice are designed to connect individuals with shared interests to collaborate with the express goal of increasing knowledge and expertise for participants. It is important for organizations of higher learning to develop communities of practice to ensure tacit knowledge around best teaching practices is shared, particularly for faculty members teaching exclusively within the still emerging online delivery model. Opportunities to learn from and share knowledge with peers may be particularly critical to the faculty member teaching in the competency based education (CBE) model because the faculty role remains central to the teaching and learning experience, both from the perspective of regulatory agencies who are tasked to ensure regular and substantive faculty interaction with learners, and from the point of view of the learners themselves, whose relationship with faculty members is often cited as the most impactful of their college experience. Yet, faculty members may need additional support and professional development to adjust to a different teaching approach because there is no standard approach to the CBE faculty role as most CBE programs are newer to the field and continue to refine their model. This may be particularly important for online CBE programs.
Sometimes perceived as isolating, early indicators of the faculty experience within the online delivery model instead point to an opportunity for the University to ensure faculty are connected to their peers as there may be fewer opportunities for such communities to occur organically. However, such communities must be relevant, adaptable, and accessible to online faculty members who are geographically dispersed. And, such communities may benefit from increased training and support from the University to provide faculty with professional development opportunities in mentoring and coaching peers. Further, faculty with primary experience in traditional teaching formats may find benefits to how one thinks about and approaches feedback and “grading” in a competency-based model; for those faculty, more experienced peers often have a wealth of knowledge to share.
In an effort to provide continuous improvement for faculty, Capella University launched a professional development community of practice using a peer coaching and mentoring model. Capella University utilizes a competency-based teaching approach based on direct assessment by faculty members within a wholly online environment. Capella University’s direct assessment CBE learning model, FlexPath, provides learners with three attempts to demonstrate acceptable levels of proficiency. In this way, the learning model is designed with both “assessment FOR learning” and “assessment AS learning,” placing rich, high quality faculty feedback at the center of the learning experience. All feedback is expected to be formative, criterion-based, personalized, and encourage a growth mindset to enable the learner to extend their learning. As Capella’s FlexPath model has continued to scale, new methods to ensure faculty members are providing high quality feedback have evolved over time. In 2016, a Community of Practice was designed to hone in on defining and increasing high quality feedback through a peer coaching model.
This case study is designed to share initial insights gained for the following questions:
- What elements are most important to engage a faculty-driven community of practice within a CBE model?
- Can a structured community of practice engage faculty and continue to evolve in new directions?
- Do faculty need additional preparation to serve as successful coaches to other faculty colleagues?
- What value does a community of practice focused on competency-based feedback have for faculty members?
Early findings indicate the faculty changed their approach to providing assessment feedback, and learners achieved competence more quickly in many cases. All groups indicated increased satisfaction with the experience.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion participants to will be able to:
- Recognize the value of a structured community of practice in a CBE faculty development initiative
- Describe the purpose of the FlexPath Community of Practice
- Describe the results of the FlexPath Community of Practice
- Consider applications for a community of practice on their home campus