Are you responsible for faculty development on teaching with technology? Are you seeing the same “cast of characters” and doubting the effectiveness of your outreach strategies? Come discuss these issues and more with a focus on the impact of peer-to-peer interaction on promoting teaching innovation.
Faculty Fellows is a competitive grant program run by DELTA (Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications) at NC State University. The aim of the program, which began in the 2014-2015 academic year, was to identify faculty leaders in the innovative use of instructional technology and provide opportunities for them to connect with their peers and further best practices in blended and online instruction.
Our cohort of DELTA Faculty Fellows has grown to six instructors, each of whom received an award and in return, devotes 40 hours of their time over the year to various faculty training and outreach activities. By teaching workshops, meeting one-on-one with faculty and creating training content, our DELTA Faculty Fellows are able to share their teaching with technology expertise with the campus at large and provide a strong faculty voice that was much needed.
Within DELTA, we have a team of excellent instructional technologists with deep experience in supporting faculty using technology -- professionals skilled at helping faculty use technology, guided by research-based strategies. To complement our current service model, we started Faculty Fellows to harness the power of peer-to-peer learning and attract a broader swath of NC State faculty to our professional development events where they can hear about challenges and successes first-hand from faculty in the trenches.
Diffusion of innovation models note that respected change agents, individuals that are already trusted members of a group and who are successful at innovative practices, can serve as catalysts for others to try new things - and this is our goal with the DELTA Faculty Fellows. On our campus, we observe a good deal of superficial learning technology use and we are interested inspiring faculty to try more innovative approaches that impact student learning and retention (e.g. flipped teaching, instructional video, gamification.) By putting NC State instructors in direct contact with the Faculty Fellows, we hope to better engage those faculty who lag behind due to reluctance, skepticism, fear or other factors.
From the faculty member’s perspective, a Faculty Fellows grant can be a growth and development opportunity that can be directly aligned with their scholarship of teaching and learning with technology objectives. Successful grant recipients have a proven track record of using technology in their courses, and are interested in sharing their expertise with others. The program facilitates campus-wide opportunities for collaboration with other faculty, as well as providing a sharing platform through seminars, round table discussions and blog posts.
In this session we will discuss the outcomes and challenges from the first year cycle of the Faculty Fellows program, from the perspective of the program director as well as from one of the grant recipients. We will share how both parties have experienced growth and change and how the lessons from the first cycle have informed the second offering of the grant program.