This panel discussion will address the comprehensive and collaborative approach used at Ashford University and the College of Health Human Services and Science to promote faculty engagement, support classroom instruction, and encourage faculty development. These efforts include access to institutional training opportunities and faculty development workshops, college level coaching and mentoring, and programs to inspire creative research and scholarship.
Building and maintaining an engaged faculty community that values teaching and learning is central to unity of purpose, quality, sustainability and student success anywhere, but is especially challenging in the online environment. At Ashford University, the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning encourages faculty to participate broadly in academic communities related to the programs and courses they teach and offers opportunities for faculty to explore other ways to get engaged at the university level. In this presentation, we will briefly review the support and development aspects of our engaged faculty model, how it was developed, and how we made it a success through greater collaboration with full time faculty at the college level. Among other topics, we will address a collaborative approach to classroom support, developing common standards for instructional quality, and faculty development and scholarship.
A Collaborative Approach to Classroom Support
The need for a support role for online faculty is a common topic of conversation among higher education professionals. According to a study in the journal, Mentoring & Tutoring: A Partnership in Learning, successful faculty support systems, "focus on specific behaviors such as the open sharing of information, establishment of good rapport, development of trust, use of effective interpersonal skills, and clarification of expectations," (Barczyk et al., 20). Waltman, Bergom, and Hollingshead echo these behaviors in their discussion of the role of welcoming, sincere, and respectful communication in job satisfaction among adjunct faculty (425).
At Ashford University, a large, proprietary institution, a team of Faculty Support and Development Associates (FSDA) partners with full-time faculty members in the college who serve as Lead Faculty (or Course Leads) to fulfill the faculty support role. FSDA regularly observe instructors' online classrooms to compare their activity against the university's common instructional standards. We use this information to identify areas in which faculty need support and development regarding the learning management system, educational technology, institutional policies, and general instructional best practices.
The faculty-to-FSDA ratio is large; FSDA support up to 200 faculty at once. Consequently, the process of thoroughly observing each online classroom is time-consuming. Therefore, at the college level, full time faculty members serve as course leads and offer a second level of support by welcoming each instructor to a new course, offering best practices and shared resources, and hosting quarterly webinars to promote academic communities focused on improving instructional presence in the classroom to ensure student success. The development and implementation of tools to support these processes for the FSDA role and the full-time faculty have contributed to the success of Ashford’s support and development model. With consistently high faculty retention rates, that model is demonstrating a convincing level of return on the time invested in its development.
Instructional Quality
Ashford’s current faculty model provides the structure for oversight of teaching activity in the classroom, with an emphasis on monitoring associate faculty. As a result, instructional quality in the Ashford classroom is steadily improving, according to three significant measures. Instructional Quality Review (IQR) results, Faculty Support and Development scores, and End-of-Course Survey results. All three measures indicate the greatest improvement is occurring in Ashford’s primary focus area, providing students with high-quality instructive feedback.
The college uses various methods for evaluating and supporting both our full-time and adjunct faculty which include peer mentoring, first and second course support, and an Instructional Quality Review (IQR). These methods are more formal and are required in most cases. We also use less formalized, but equally impactful methods for creating opportunities for our faculty to develop. These include Webinars, book studies, faculty highlights, faculty awards, and academic program meetings. Our focus in is on providing opportunities that fill both engagement and development needs. We believe that these provide ways for our online faculty to communicate and become involved more meaningfully with one another.
Professional Development
This presentation will describe the infrastructure built to support faculty support and development for an institution’s online College of Health, Human Services, and Science faculty. Discussion of intentional faculty development on best practices related to instructor presence and student retention will be discussed including faculty communication, instructional feedback, and classroom management.
Ashford had committed to increasing faculty engagement through the creation of a first-rate faculty development program. The chart of Ashford’s professional development efforts is to ensure our faculty pool, which is largely adjunct, have the critical skills necessary to support our diverse student population. Through the process of building a professional development program Ashford has focused on attracting top rate faculty, developing faculty on high impact teaching practices, improving faculty engagement and satisfaction, and increasing student satisfaction and learning. This panel will discuss how this has been accomplished through increasing professional development offerings in a centralized system, creating a development framework that provides high quality development courses, recognizing and highlighting faculty completion of development, and measuring the impact of development through classroom practices.
Works Cited
Barczyk, Casimir, et al. "Assessment of a University-Based Distance Education Mentoring Program from a Quality Management Perspective" Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning. 19.1 (2011): 5-24. Web. 13 Jul. 2012.
Waltman, Jean, et al. "Factors Contributing to Job Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction among Non-Tenure-Track Faculty." Journal of Higher Education. 83.3 (2012): 411-434. Academic Search Premier. 13 July 2012.