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Report on the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Faculty Survey on Professional Development, Winter 2010

Prepared by Dan DeStephen, Ph.D. Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, and Carrie-Lynne Umbach, Student Intern, Organizational Communication.

Executive Summary

The Center for Teaching and Learning’s survey found faculty are satisfied with the type of professional development opportunities provided by the Center but have a hard time attending those activities because of their busy schedules. Faculty continue to report a high interest in workshops on instructional technology and in particular workshops on WebCT, universal design, and 2.0 technologies. Other topics of high interest are improving student critical thinking skills, professional writing, and on how to use tools such as SMART Boards and podcasting. The preferred format for Center workshops remains the two hour format with an interest in having those workshops spread more across the day. There is also a high interest in having more professional development opportunities provided online.

The complete results of the survey can be found on the Faculty Development Needs Survey Responses page.

Introduction

During Winter quarter 2010 the Center for Teaching and Learning conducted an online survey of Wright State seeking feedback on the type of professional development opportunities the faculty would like to find at the Center. The Center received 197 total responses. The respondents reflected the broad spectrum of faculty ranks found on campus from adjuncts to full professors. Females completed the survey in greater numbers than male (60% to 40%). While faculty from all of the university’s colleges participated in the study, the College of Liberal Arts had the highest percentage of respondents with 27.18%; followed by College of Education and Human Services with 19.49%. The College of Science and Math came in third with 12.82% and the Lake campus tied with the Raj Soin College of Business had 8.21%.

Major Findings

A total of 116 respondents (61.79%) would like Instructional technology workshops such as WebCT and podcasting to help them switch to semesters. Other top ranking choices included obtaining information from other universities on how they redesigned their courses, pedagogical workshops, and networking opportunities to share ideas with other WSU faculty and faculty from other educators in their field outside of WSU.

The biggest obstacle for faculty participation in Center workshops is time (49%). The next highest cited obstacle was the lack of interest in the topics of the workshops (21%) followed by 14% of the people reporting that there were no incentives to participate. Other obstacles that ranked about 12% of the respondents included: no availability of evening or weekend hours, distance, working another job, too much time away from class, not aware of the activities, and no online instruction options available.

Over a third of the faculty (35%) include their participation in Center workshop when they submit their annual reviews An additional 19% report that they sometimes include this information as part of their self-report. Only 9% of the faculty report that they never or rarely report their participation in Center workshops on their annual reviews.

The vast majority of faculty (90%) are satisfied with the professional development opportunities offered by Center. Of the remaining 10%, less than 2% are dissatisfied with the remained being somewhat dissatisfied.

More than half of the respondents learn about Center programs and services by e-mail from the Center and 13% from e-mails from their department leaders. Some people visit the website (27%) others read the newsletter (21%) and word of mouth reaches approximately 16% of the faculty.

The respondents vary considerable in their advice on how to increase participation. The highest number (87%) suggest offering workshops at different times. Other ideas include:

  • Have online material—76% either strongly agree or agree
  • Offer a wider variety of topics—75% either strongly agree or agree
  • Make webinars—71% either strongly agree or agree
  • Have one-on-one help—71% either strongly agree or agree
  • Have individualized instruction—67% either strongly agree or agree
  • Have a lab for training—62% either strongly agree or agree
  • Have better publicity—48% either strongly agree or agree
  • Have an ongoing availability of resources—46% either strongly agree or agree

The most preferred format for a professional development activity is a two hour workshop offered at different times during the day (85%) followed by online workshops (52 %). Most disliked the idea of any activities being on Fridays, Saturdays or more than two hours long. In fact many suggest getting to the details and having follow-up or individualized work following the workshop because even the two hour workshops are too long or waste the participant’s time. A third of the respondents (38%) thought a mixture idea of meetings and online work would increase faculty participation.

The majority of faculty would like some kind of recognition for completion of Center activities. A fourth, however, did report that recognition wasn’t important to them. Of the ones who would like recognition the highest percent value (44%) would like a certificate of completion. There was little interest in receiving college credit for completing Center programs.

Faculty interest in particular topics evidenced no clear preferences. On diversity, there was medium interest in racial, religious, and cultural diversity, a medium interest in students with disability, a low interest of lesbian/gay/bi/or transgender, and a high interest in university design. On topics related to higher education, there was medium interest in student retention/achievement, a low interest in institutional and student safety issues, a medium interest in legal issues, a low interest in student internships/practical experience and a medium interest in academic integrity. On topics related to General Education, there was a medium interest in Multicultural Competence, Interdisciplinary Courses, Vertical Integration, Service Learning, Independent Learning Experiences, and Integrated Writing Courses. Themed Tracks and First Year Programs had a low-to-no-interest rating and Themed Clusters had a medium-to-low interest.

Faculty did evidence high interest on learning strategies for improving student critical thinking/problem solving skills and on how to motivate and engage students in learning.

Faculty also indicated high interest in topics related to writing proposals/managing grants and writing for publication and a medium level of interest in learning communities. There is little interest in workshops on preparing for tenure and promotion preparation or on topics relating to teaching portfolio.

Faculty have some interest in learning more about course redesign. There is interest in learning more about active teaching strategies such as the Socratic Method, facilitating discussion, and gaming. There is a medium to high interest in innovation program curriculum and development. There is a medium interest level of preparing instructional materials such as syllabus, course lesson outline and handouts. There is also a medium to high interest in collaborative teaching methods. Overall faculty are most interested in learning more about formative assessment and least interested in learning how to use E-Portfolio’s as a way of assessing student learning.

On the whole, there is at least a medium to high interest by faculty interest in learning more about classroom technology whether it is technical or pedagogical. Overall the highest interest fell under the category for technical knowledge of how to use tools such as SMART Boards Symposiums or electronic whiteboards with 46% of the respondents choosing high interest as their selection. The majority of faculty also had an interest in online teaching including learning more about podcasting and other 2.0 technologies such as wikis and blogs. Faculty also continue to express high interest in learning how to use the university’s learning management system (WebCT).

Conclusion

The majority of the faculty and staff here at WSU are satisfied with the Center for Teaching and Learning and look to the Center for workshops that help them redesign their courses with the switch to semesters. In particular faculty are interested in attending workshops on the use of digital instructional technologies. Several topics that stood out from survey results include a high interest in university design, technological awareness, critical thinking for students, technical knowledge of how to use tools such as SMART Boards Symposiums or electronic whiteboards and the how to of podcasting.

In meeting this need, the Center needs to accommodate the faculty’s other work demands by keeping face-to-face workshops within a two hour time period and spreading them across the week. The faculty would like to see more hybrid workshops—some instruction face-to-face and some online—and more completely online workshops. There is no interest in evening or weekend workshops. For completing workshops most continue to prefer a certificate of completion for each workshop they attend.