By Design:Grassroots Development

for Strategic GainsAnne H. Moore, John F. Moore,

and Shelli B. Fowler

WINNER: 2005 EDUCAUSE Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching & Learning

Virginia Tech Faculty Development

Institute

www.fdi.vt.eduwww.fdi.vt.edu

Faculty Development Overview

• Faculty are scheduled to attend FDI summer workshops every four years

• Link professional development with computer & software replacement

• Supports curriculum initiatives

• Approximately 400 faculty attend each summer (25% of Teaching Faculty)

• Year-round programming

FDI Aims for All Faculty• Motivate faculty to rethink teaching and

learning– Explore specific instructional technology

applications– Investigate, create, and use alternative

instructional strategies– Hear from faculty who have transformed their

teaching practice

• Recurring voluntary participation to update knowledge, skills, and technology

FDI Workshop Design• Faculty centered• Structured for immediate

practice• Project oriented• Faculty presenters• Lab TAs• Frequent evaluations• Follow-up sessions all year

Recent FDI Innovations• Peer mentor initiative• FDI/NMC production support initiative• FDI internships• Independent project track• Spring track option:

– Currently a subset of summer tracks

– Participants take online or two-hour workshops (usually seven) with a thematic focus

– Fulfills the summer requirement

– Participants receive computers early

Challenges (1)

• Balance workshop topics against Increasing diversity of interests and needs

• Keep the focus on teaching and learning, not technology

• Build and reinforce top-level endorsement, advocacy and commitment

Challenges (2)

• Link course development resources to strategic goals

• Retain scalability and accessibility in all programming

• Leverage the unleashing of enthusiasm for teaching

• Respond to late adopters’ special concerns and needs

GEDI

The Graduate Education Development Institute

www.gedi.vt.edu

Expanding Professional Development

• Part of a new nine-credit “Future Professoriate” graduate certificate

• For-credit, 16-week graduate course

• Combining theory and practice with discussion-based seminar and hands-on technology workshops

• Transforming the traditional teaching and learning paradigm

• Engaging our current graduate student teachers and future faculty in rethinking traditional pedagogy

GRAD 5114“Pedagogical Practices

in Contemporary Contexts”

• Discover how Problem- /Inquiry-based Learning engages 21st-century learners and achieves course objectives

• Creating a syllabus, a teaching philosophy statement, and developing a PBL case study for a current or future course

• Building an electronic teaching portfolio with VTeP

GEDI Participants:

• Have the opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary setting with peer colleagues

• Are encouraged to think beyond their disciplinary boundaries and explore learner-centered pedagogy

• Critically examine traditional power dynamics in the classroom and redefine how to work with contemporary learners

• Discover their own teaching style and gain confidence in their pedagogical choices in various teaching sites – on-campus classrooms, labs, and hybrid courses

• Have access to and instruction in the critically engaged and creative use of innovative technologies for teaching in the 21st-century University