Mary Deane Sorcinelli

A toolkit of strategies for postsecondary instructors to use to cultivate safe, inclusive learning spaces and improve teaching. Based on work conducted through the Instructional Moves project at Harvard University, Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education outlines the many ways in which good college and graduate school teaching is rooted in deliberate pedagogical choices that support active learning. Jeremy T. Murphy and Meira Levinson distill good instruction to its essential components, analyzing the careful steps successful instructors take to create learning spaces that encourage all students to do ambitious work. Profiling professors in a range of contexts and disciplines, Murphy and Levinson take readers on deep dives into individual instructors’ teaching methods in actual classrooms. Each real-world example is accompanied by a set of practical action points that can be adopted by both new and experienced instructors, communities of practice, and educational developers and coaches. Collectively, the examples underscore how students with differing abilities, diverse identities, and disparate worldviews can all benefit from student-centered learning environments, in which collaboration is valued and students are afforded opportunities to apply what they have learned. Murphy and Levinson spotlight inclusive instructional moves such as community-building exercises, interactive lectures, and discussion facilitation that nurture a sense of belonging and encourage student engagement in both in-person and online settings. They also explore the benefits of innovative teaching formats such as flipped classrooms, simulations, and virtual learning. Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education illustrates how pedagogical shifts small and large can improve college teaching powerfully.

The first decade of the 21st century brought major challenges to higher education, all of which have implications for and impact the future of faculty professional development. This volume provides the field with an important snapshot of faculty development structures, priorities and practices in a period of change, and uses the collective wisdom of those engaged with teaching, learning, and faculty development centers and programs to identify important new directions for practice. Building on their previous study of a decade ago, published under the title of Creating the Future of Faculty Development, the authors explore questions of professional preparation and pathways, programmatic priorities, collaboration, and assessment. Since the publication of this earlier study, the pressures on faculty development have only escalated—demands for greater accountability from regional and disciplinary accreditors, fiscal constraints, increasing diversity in types of faculty appointments, and expansion of new technologies for research and teaching. Centers have been asked to address a wider range of institutional issues and priorities based on these challenges. How have they responded and what strategies should centers be considering? These are the questions this book addresses. For this new study the authors re-surveyed faculty developers on perceived priorities for the field as well as practices and services offered. They also examined more deeply than the earlier study the organization of faculty development, including characteristics of directors; operating budgets and staffing levels of centers; and patterns of collaboration, re-organization and consolidation. In doing so they elicited information on centers’ “signature programs,” and the ways that they assess the impact of their programs on teaching and learning and other key outcomes. What emerges from the findings are what the authors term a new Age of Evidence, influenced by heightened stakeholder interest in the outcomes of undergraduate education and characterized by a focus on assessing the impact of instruction on student learning, of academic programs on student success, and of faculty development in institutional mission priorities. Faculty developers are responding to institutional needs for assessment, at the same time as they are being asked to address a wider range of institutional priorities in areas such as blended and online teaching, diversity, and the scale-up of evidence-based practices. They face the need to broaden their audiences, and address the needs of part-time, non-tenure-track, and graduate student instructors as well as of pre-tenure and post-tenure faculty. They are also feeling increased pressure to demonstrate the “return on investment” of their programs. This book describes how these faculty development and institutional needs and priorities are being addressed through linkages, collaborations, and networks across institutional units; and highlights the increasing role of faculty development professionals as organizational “change agents” at the department and institutional levels, serving as experts on the needs of faculty in larger organizational discussions.

The first decade of the 21st century brought major challenges to higher education, all of which have implications for and impact the future of faculty professional development. This volume provides the field with an important snapshot of faculty development structures, priorities and practices in a period of change, and uses the collective wisdom of those engaged with teaching, learning, and faculty development centers and programs to identify important new directions for practice. Building on their previous study of a decade ago, published under the title of Creating the Future of Faculty Development, the authors explore questions of professional preparation and pathways, programmatic priorities, collaboration, and assessment. Since the publication of this earlier study, the pressures on faculty development have only escalated—demands for greater accountability from regional and disciplinary accreditors, fiscal constraints, increasing diversity in types of faculty appointments, and expansion of new technologies for research and teaching. Centers have been asked to address a wider range of institutional issues and priorities based on these challenges. How have they responded and what strategies should centers be considering? These are the questions this book addresses. For this new study the authors re-surveyed faculty developers on perceived priorities for the field as well as practices and services offered. They also examined more deeply than the earlier study the organization of faculty development, including characteristics of directors; operating budgets and staffing levels of centers; and patterns of collaboration, re-organization and consolidation. In doing so they elicited information on centers’ “signature programs,” and the ways that they assess the impact of their programs on teaching and learning and other key outcomes. What emerges from the findings are what the authors term a new Age of Evidence, influenced by heightened stakeholder interest in the outcomes of undergraduate education and characterized by a focus on assessing the impact of instruction on student learning, of academic programs on student success, and of faculty development in institutional mission priorities. Faculty developers are responding to institutional needs for assessment, at the same time as they are being asked to address a wider range of institutional priorities in areas such as blended and online teaching, diversity, and the scale-up of evidence-based practices. They face the need to broaden their audiences, and address the needs of part-time, non-tenure-track, and graduate student instructors as well as of pre-tenure and post-tenure faculty. They are also feeling increased pressure to demonstrate the “return on investment” of their programs. This book describes how these faculty development and institutional needs and priorities are being addressed through linkages, collaborations, and networks across institutional units; and highlights the increasing role of faculty development professionals as organizational “change agents” at the department and institutional levels, serving as experts on the needs of faculty in larger organizational discussions.

In recent years, new expectations of higher education from parents, employers, trustees, and government leaders have contributed to broad institutional changes. Recognizing that the quality of a university or college is closely related to that of its faculty members, many institutions have increased their efforts to support and enrich faculty work. Creating the Future of Faculty Development addresses this growing need for faculty development by exploring how faculty development has evolved and envisioning its future. Based on a study of nearly 500 faculty developers from all institution types, the book examines core issues such as the structural variations among faculty development programs; the goals, purposes, and models that guide and influence faculty program developments; and the top challenges facing faculty members, institutions, and their programs. Several key questions are addressed, including What are the structural variations among faculty development programs? What goals, purposes, and models guide and influence program development? What are the top challenges facing faculty members, institutions, and faculty development programs? What are potential new directions and visions for the field of faculty development? Creating the Future of Faculty Development summarizes the challenges and pressures now facing developers and higher education as a whole. In this book, readers will find reason to rethink how they approach, organize, and support faculty development as they engage in institutional planning for the future.