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The American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) has defined faculty development as the theory/practice of facilitating improved faculty performance in a variety of domains including institutional, intellectual, personal, social, and pedagogical.
Any organisation, public or private, and certainly also facultes and Universities depend on the knowledge, skills, expertise and motivation of its human resources. Development needs of teachers in these areas should therefore be amongst an organisation's major and long-term goals. These developmental goals can be achieved by:
Development and training is a continuous and systematic process. The process of training should necessarily be directed to give every teacher a sense of professionalism, excellence, motivation and customer satisfaction.
In perspective of actually consisting opinion of faculty development it is possible to find four major areas of faculty development. Four major areas of faculty development according to Professional and Organizational development Network in Higher Education are:
Staff development in general refers to those programs which focus on the individual member. The most common focus for programs of this type is the University or faculty member as a teacher. Faculty development specialists provide consultation on teaching, including class organization, evaluation of students, in class presentation skills, questioning and all aspects of design and presentation. They also advise faculty on their aspects of teacher/student interaction, such as advising, tutoring, discipline policies and administration and give some instructions and information about Curriculum development.
A second frequent focus of such program is the faculty member as scholar and professional. These programs offer assistance in career planning, professional development in scholarly skills such as grant writing, publishing, committee work, administrative work, supervisory skills, and wide range of other activities expected of faculty.
A third area on which faculty development programs focuses is the faculty member as person. This includes wellness management, interpersonal skills, and a host of other programs address the individual’s well-being.1
A forth area is development of skills for successful research careers
getting funded, conducting innovative research, getting published and giving scientific presentations are all crucial to building a successful career in academic medicine.
Special area for improvement in Medical teaching and treating patients is development interpersonal communication skills (e.g. history taking).
Developing of Faculty Leadership Skills are important criteria for promotion in academic medicine. Different courses are organized for leadership and management skills and business of medicine.
While not all faculty development programs include all these areas, most of them focus on the faculty member as the driving force behind the institution; therefore, assisting that person to be as productive as possible will make the entire institution more productive and efficient
According to the National Staff Development Council (NSDC), guideline for staff development programs-National staff development council, staff development is the term educators use to describe continuing education of teachers, administrators, and others. Although some school systems make distinctions among teacher training, staff development, professional development, and human resource development, NSDC states that these terms are often used interchangeably. When we think about professional development we mean basically about individual development. Professional or staff development programs and activities should be based on identified needs of an individual and established interventions specific to that individual. For example, if teachers show a need for improvement in introducing new teaching methodologies than staff development team or body should organize such course for group of teachers.
Staff development is a continuous learning process beginning during an educator's first year of employment and extending to retirement. Staff development should increase teacher knowledge and skills at particular 2.
course or subject. Professional development (and staff development) activities should have a strong basis in research and be an integral part of reforming the whole school. 3
Staff development has three aspects or characteristics: enhancing knowledge, developing skills, and improving understanding. 4
Each of these characteristics requires a different approach to staff development activities. Activities focusing on enhancing knowledge are those that help the teacher to increase his/her understanding and knowledge in his field of interest and in the field identified as weak point in the evaluation report. Concerning improving of skills (delivery methods), activities are performed in order to improve teacher's proficiency or ability to implement or apply what he or she learned. Also sometimes it is important to work on improving of interpersonal skills and communication abilities in which a teacher observes another teacher. All three aspects usually are combine together.
So, teacher should be aware that knowledge is not enough. Just being knowledgeable about something without applying this knowledge to the classroom is not sufficient to derive benefits.
Quality staff development has the power to increase teacher’ knowledge and skills, while changing what educators believe about student learning and how they interact with students.
For good staff development following things are necessary:5
Standards for staff development are really important and can be classified into three categories: context, which addresses in which way the new learning will be implemented; content, which refers to the skills and knowledge, and process, which describes the means for the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.
Concerning ways of implementing new learning following steps are important:
Concerning knowledge and skills (content) following facts are important:
Finally methods for acquring knowledge and skills are crucial things. It is necessary to find right approach for teaching students and to adopt them as much as possible to individual needs of every student (c.f. Learning Styles).
Regular evaluation procedures on the faculty are very important for staff development program. Results of faculty assessment will provide institutions with areas where improvement in needed. If for example average drop rate on one course is high that is a signal that something should be changed in teaching and examining system on particular course or department. As in any profession, all educators can improve in some area. It is very important to formulate staff development plan in accordance with evaluation results of institution. Evaluation results can also provide insights into the types of activities you may want to conduct to accomplish the educational objectives. Thus, when formulating objectives and activities, it is important to review the results of evaluation to identify weak areas and areas for improvement.
If assessment showed lower scores in the area of teaching students, reasons for these scores may have been that large groups of students did not understand and could not remember crucial data from your teachings. The comments from evaluation report and notes also indicated that the teaching methodology was not quite appropriate and that students were not interested to go in for this method. In this case the focus of staff development program should be only on this area and will not cover teaching process more globally. It is important that staff development objectives and activities in this case focus specifically on enhancing of quality of teaching. Available courses or seminars in classroom management may address some of need areas, but typically they are too much broad to address specific identified needs.
However, the evaluation does play a role, as staff development plans are one of the places where school accountability, school improvement, and teacher performance evaluation come together. If students of physiology showed low results on final exam and on that way passing rate is very unsatisfied then according to evaluation report, new professional development activities are undertake both internal and external to our students. For example, some of activities may be related to classroom instruction (e.g., readings on teaching strategies in problem solving, meeting weekly with other teachers to discuss problem solving strategies), and some may address actions more external to the classroom such as developing materials for students and giving them instructions and consultations more often. Finaly next evaluation of the teaching process will give information is passing rate of students now better then before.
Although the evaluation will not necessarily focus on the activity related to problem solving strategies, the evaluator will be collecting data on how well you deliver instruction, including the use of a variety of teaching strategies.
Apart from this it is very important to work on staff development of teachers, some of them, in area of management , interpersonal relations and etc.based on personal interests and needs related to job responsibilities. The accomplishment of objectives in this area of staff development should make teachers more creativity and productivity in their current positions or prepare them for new professional roles and responsibilities. Teachers who decide to go in for this direction should incorporate these activities with their teaching obligations and responsibilities.
So, we are coming to the point to emphasize that it is crucial to choose correct outcomes of staff learning. The objective describes the outcome desired from teacher professional development. On this way by selecting staff development activities based upon teacher objectives as well as measuring the degree of their accomplishment, his or her objectives must be clear and measurable.
Objectives must describe what students will learn, what knowledge and skills students will aquired. Objective must be clearly defined, or accomplishment of the objective will be difficult. If you do not know where you are headed, it is difficult to select an appropriate means for getting there.
Objectives must be measurable in the sense that evaluator can tell whether or not you have accomplished what you had planned to do or what you had gained as a result of your professional development. When an objective is not clearly stated, determining whether the objective has been accomplished, and to what degree, will be difficult.
Staff development programme can be delivered in a variety of methods. Staff development can mean participation in workshops and conferences, journaling and sharing experiences with colleagues, reading professional publications, collegial discussions at staff meetings, and a variety of other activities related to the ongoing work of the school.
Dr. Dennis Sparks, Executive Director of the National Staff Development Council, identifies five professional development models:
(1) individually guided; (2) observation/assessment; (3) involvement in a curriculum development (4) training; and (5) inquiry alone
Probably the best way for training staff, among above mentioned training strategies, is training through different workshops and seminars.
Continual re-education of teachers can be organized internally and externally as central training and department training.
A good way to organize regular re-training of staff is forming of Center (office of faculty development) for continual education and life long learning. In this center teaching staff can get knowledge about different things like teaching and examining methodologies, lidership and menagement skills and etc. Concerning situation in BH forming of a national educational centre can be crucial for organization of future re-education of our teachers in all fields. According to our oppinion Centre should be led by experts educated abroad and in our country and should be in close cooperation with Ministry of Civil Affairs of BH. Expert teams should be equiped with good mobile equipment and Centre should move from one place to another inside BH . Every one or two years teachers should get information and passed regular re-education in new teaching, examining methodologies and should get information about innovations in teaching process.
Involving’ participants in a training seminars in an active way that incorporates their own experience is essential. That learning gives the trainees an opportunity to begin developing their skills and to receive immediate feedback.
It also gives them the opportunity to participate in many of the training exercises and techniques.
During seminars participants learn some new lessons, apply learned lesson during small pilot projects and give and get reflections on what they performed during seminars.
Different interactive techniques (c.f. teaching methodologies) are used for education of teaching staff like brainstorming, small-group discussions, case studies, role play and etc. Very important is that all training techniques should be adopted to the individual knowledge and skills of individual participants as much as possible.
Trainings should include the following key components:
Structure of train the trainer program should be following:
Seminar should start with welcome speech form the host institution. In this section it should be briefly explained the purpose of the seminar and all technical information.
After that trainers and participants should introduce themselves. Trainers should briefly tell the participants about their background and training, emphasizing their enthusiasm for the opportunity to work with this group.
Before starting of the seminar sometimes is useful to test participants and to obtain a baseline level of knowledge, attitudes, and skills regarding the issues to be covered in the training.
In the beginning the trainer explains very briefly the training that will be used during the seminar.
Participants are given an opportunity to speak about their expectations for the
training session and also to state any concerns regarding training. Responses are recorded on a flip chart.
In the end of the each day of training different participants from different groups are chosen to give feedback about what they learned and about that day of training.
Before starting with the working day and the first session it is also necessary to introduct icebreakers, warm-ups, and energizers and to set ground rules. Icebreakers are activities that are undertaken at the beginning of each sessioni in order to help participants feel more confortable. Warming up with different energizers stimulate and motivate participants during training sessions.
Also in the begining of the seminar is very important to establish ground rules. The trainer and participants first decide upon the ground rules for this training
workshop. This activity is followed by a group discussion on the importance of
setting ground rules in any training activity. Some ground rules are: respecting each other even when you disagree, agreeing to participate actively in the seminar, coming on time, turning off mobile phones and etc.
After all preparation teaching program is introduced by using different approaches and methodologies. During teachings different kinds of stimulations are very welcomed.
In the end of the training all participants should meet expectations from the begining and should give their feedback on training. It is very important to measure satisfaction and acuired knowledge of participants from the begining to the end of the seminar.
The overall objective of the training of trainers seminar is to build
the capacity of educated trainers to design and deliver a training programme.
The specific objectives of the workshop are to enable participants to:
from central training, training organized inside faculties and on different departments are also crucial for improving of teacher knowledge and skills.
Faculty development office and departments are responsible for ensuring that staff have a clear understanding of all the functions and activities of the department where they are working. It should be organized as systematic and regular training programmes directly related to the needs of the department and the individual teacher.
Faculty development office and department are particularly responsible for training function which includes:
For starting and mainting of staff development plan it is necessary to establish staff development office.
The Staff Development office (people) is in charge of creating a plan for addressing the ongoing staff development needs of the employees of Universities.
It is essential for the growth and development of the teaching staff as well as the entire University. Good staff development program bring both knowledge and skills to teachers and to the University they serve. As we mentioned, staff development is critical for the future of the University because without regular updating of knowledge existence of University is questionable. Unless University and staff have the opportunity to grow professionally, excellence remains only a hope.
Basic focus of Staff development office is the University staff, who is the main strength of the Faculty and University. To preserve and enhance that strength, the Staff Development Plan seeks to provide staff development activities for all groups of the University. All faculty members should be included in the Plan. The Staff Development Plan is designed to build on the existing strength of the staff by encouraging individual initiative, creativity, and University management of appropriate financial and human resources.
Staff development is nicely described in Mountain Empire Community College definition as:
...professional development denotes the renewed professional vitality that is the desired outcome of participation in activities undertaken for the purpose of acquiring or maintaining professional competence, for the purpose of addressing personal needs, or for the purpose of responding to institutional change.
Main goals of staff development should be:
During preparation of staff development plan is very important to bring into accordance individual wishes and talents with available funds and interest of the institution.
It is very important also to internaly evaluate staff development plan and to bring external experts to check quality of existing staff plan.
For realization of staff development plan following steps are necessary:
After identifying staff wishes it is very important to find opportunities for staff development
Actively and regularly engage in staff development activities that promote professional and personal vitality and productivity.
Providing funding from a variety of sources, including grants and scholarships.
Awards
incentives
Members of staff development office are: Head of the office, Staff development officers and human resource officer.
Head of team provides financial and personal support utilizing assigned resources to allow the conduct of approved programs and events to achieve approved objectives
Staff development officer is in charge of support for individuals undergoing training, encouragement to those who are hesitant to expand their growth and development, and resource allocation.
Human Resources Officer take care of:
In conclusion the functions of the Staff Development office is to take care of:
The focus of these programs is the organizational structure of the University and its sub-components. The philosophy is that without good organizational structure, which will be efficient and effective in supporting the students, and without the teachers, who drive the teaching/learning process, it will be impossible to have good education.
Those programs offer administrative development for department chairs, Deans and other decision makers. The reasoning is that these are the individuals who will be making the policies which affect how courses are taught, how faculty are hired and promoted, how students are admitted and graduated. If those policies allow for growth and flexibility while maintaining standards, the amount of learning which occurs will increase. Other activities include helping sub units understand how curricular decision are made how courses are staffed, and other organizational matters.
Still other programs deal with personnel issues involving faculty. How are faculty evaluated and rewarded? How are they prepared for changes the institution, including their own retirement? Where does faculty fit into the overall governance structure of the institution?
Thus, it can be seen that these programs look at interaction within the institution and how they affect the functioning of the individual as well as the institution. Then they seek ways of making those interactions more human and more affective.
Usually it takes a different approach for the improvement of the institution. These programs have as their focus the course, the curriculum and student learning. In this approach, instructors become members of design or redesign team, working with instructional design specialists to identify appropriate course structures and teaching strategies to achieve the goals of instruction. Instructional development programs can also examine how a course fits into the overall departmental and University curriculum; they help define instructional goals and methods which will maximize learning; they evaluate course effectiveness in terms of goal achievement; they produce or evaluate learning materials for use in the course. Many instructional development programs include a media design component.
Some programs have expanded this focus a bit to include training faculty members and teaching assistants to perform these functions themselves. This involves the presentation of workshops on course design, alternative instructional methods, materials production, and so on. This expansion also frequently includes a research component which either studies a variety of questions about instructional effectiveness or assists faculty member in conducting their own studies of course methods.
The philosophy behind these programs is that members of the institution should work as teams to design the best possible courses within the restrictions of the resource available.
As a result of the above mentioned understanding it can be stated that many programs in reality offer activities in all these areas. Each program must define for itself what is appropriate for the institutional needs and philosophy. There is no magic formula for what makes a perfect program.