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Fostering Teaching Skills and Collaboration in an Online Graduate Teaching Fellowship
Abstract
Fellowships represent an important mechanism for graduate students to develop their teaching skills and reflect on their career goals, given the inconsistent nature of graduate instructor training in higher education. We developed an online fellowship program focused on digital teaching and learning that offered workshops, mentored cohort experiences, and collaborative development of participant deliverables on a teaching and learning topic. In the 2022 year of this fellowship, we used participant reflections and survey responses (n=17) to evaluate the impact of our fellowship on students' teaching skills and the impacts of the digital collaborative components of the fellowship on their professional development. We found that students reported improvement in their teaching self-efficacy and pedagogical skills. Regular interactions with interdisciplinary cohorts and teaching mentors through the Microsoft Teams platform were reported as helpful experiences by most participants. However, additional structure in their cohort meetings and guidance for use of the digital tools in the fellowship are needed for some participants. We report on changes we will make to the fellowship moving forward to impact students' teaching skills and collaborative experiences.
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Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have emerged as a viable platform to engage large numbers of students in real-world scientific practices. Historically, CUREs have been offered throughout science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula at both the introductory and advanced levels and have been facilitated by a variety of individuals, including faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). This latter population, in particular, has increasingly been tasked with facilitating CUREs, yet they often receive little meaningful professional development to improve pedagogical skills vital to this type of instruction. To address this disparity, we designed and evaluated a semester-long intervention to support GTAs (N = 7) responsible for leading CUREs at our institution during the Fall 2020 semester. Intervention activities included synchronous interactive discussions, reflective journaling, and asynchronous practical exercises. Analysis of retrospective postintervention survey responses and focus group interview data revealed that participants exhibited gains in their understanding of the dimensions of CUREs, strategies for mentoring undergraduates, and use of various pedagogical techniques as well as confidence in addressing and adopting those dimensions and strategies in their courses. Furthermore, participants reported finding value in the sense of community created through the intervention, which served as a means to share ideas and struggles throughout the term.
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play an important instructional role in teaching undergrad- and graduate-level courses, yet they receive very little training. The most common form of teaching professional development to GTAs is a pre-semester workshop held at the course, department, or college level. In this study, we describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of GTA training programs using the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation). We used observation and interviews for data collection. ADDIE is generally used in instructional design. The results show the value of utilizing ADDIE in developing and evaluating a training program. It is intended to analyze the multi-dimensional connection of designing a training program: meeting expectations of trainees seeking to acquire skills sets as well as understanding the nuances and navigating the complex system that is needed to be successful on the job.
The recent global pandemic revealed just how unprepared faculty and doctoral students at many U.S. colleges and universities were to teach online. In this study, we investigate the extent to which current and recently graduated doctoral students are prepared to teach online, whether they are valued or rewarded for those online teaching skills, and how they could be more effectively prepared. To answer these questions, we surveyed doctoral students and recently graduated faculty regarding online teaching preparedness and compared the results with the current thinking of faculty, department chairs, and deans, using a sample from a Midwestern private university and a Southeastern state university. We also used data from a summer teaching pilot program to explore best practices for improving doctoral students’ preparation to teach online. Findings suggest that educating doctoral students to teach in a virtual world can increase students’ confidence and ability to teach in this mode, and can be cost effective if offered across disciplines. However, while doctoral students believe that online competency is important in hiring and tenure decisions, deans and department chairs do not agree, and few schools are providing meaningful preparation for online teaching to their doctoral students.
Designers of professional development activities and programs within higher education generally believe workshop learning outcomes and learner-created materials are what graduate students and postdoctoral scholars value from participating in these activities. We created a new structure for online synchronous workshops that integrates active learning, participant reflection, and skill development. Our design was informed by the hypothesis that participants value the work that they do and the materials they create during our online workshops. In our evaluations we examined students’ self-reported behavioral and attitudinal changes and perspectives on professional development. We learned that participants considered their sense of community and opportunities for reflection to be valued elements of the workshops. We found that these workshops added to students’ self-reflective practices and skill-building processes. Participants suggested that workshops should integrate active learning and skills application with deliberate reflection and community building to increase the potential for long-term change.
The authors introduce readers to three design features of the University of Rhode Island's Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, a 42‐hour, weeklong professional learning experience in digital literacy for educators, librarians, college faculty, and other adult learners. The program is explicitly designed to promote reflection on one's motivations for advancing digital literacy, deepen appreciation for collaborative inquiry, and focus on how educators and learners (not machines) personalize learning. Evidence of how these themes are developed through practice illustrates the design philosophy that is embedded in the program. Digital media platforms, texts, and technologies enable pedagogical practices that put learners and teachers at the center of an increasingly networked social world, but these approaches also require respect for diverse perspectives, deliberative dialogue, and collaborative inquiry to bring them into the mainstream educational practice of schools, libraries, universities, and communities.
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has a history of providing a wide range of faculty development opportunities. Recently, ASM developed the Science Teaching Fellows Program (STF) for early career biologists and postdoctoral students to explore student-centered teaching and develop the skills needed to succeed in positions that have a significant teaching component. Participants were selected to STF through a competitive application process. The STF program consisted of a series of six webinars. In preparation for each webinar, participants completed a pre-webinar assignment. After each webinar, fellows practiced what they learned by completing a post-webinar assignment. In a survey used to assess the impact of STF, participants reported greater knowledge of the webinar-based instructional topics and a sense of being part of an educational community and were more confident about varied teaching methods.
Higher education environments need further evidence of the impact of faculty technology mentoring (FTM) models on graduate students to promote and sustain these programs as well as develop policies related to their support. To address this need, the current study investigated the impact of a university-wide FTM program on participating graduate students' professional development. As part of the program, 12 graduate students mentored 12 faculty members on the application of educational technologies in their classrooms. Graduate students completed a survey at the end of the mentoring program to measure its benefits. The results reveal both how graduate students are rewarded by participating in such activities and valuable mentoring methods to develop graduate students' technical, academic, pedagogical, and professional skills.
Research indicates that modifying teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching (i.e. teaching orientation) may be a prerequisite to changing their teaching practices. This mixed methods study quantitized data from interviews with 65 graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to assess the relationship of participants' teaching experiences and available teaching support systems with changes in their teaching orientation over time. These individuals represent an important but understudied link in the STEM pipeline, because they serve as primary instructors in large, introductory science laboratory classes for undergraduates at large research universities. Mentor involvement in teaching and departmental/university training and support for teaching were significantly related to change in teaching orientation toward more student-centered beliefs. Consideration of why other factors failed to evidence a relationship with teaching orientations and recommendations for how study findings can influence policy and practice are offered.
Faculty learning communities (FLC) provide opportunities for professional development and personal growth within university settings. Some FLC are structured; others are unstructured. Faculty at a mid-sized Midwestern state university were asked a series of close- and open-ended questions that examined the reasons for and benefits from their participation in both structured and unstructured FLC. This exploratory study compared survey responses related to participation in structured and unstructured FLC. The reasons why faculty participated in learning communities were consistent in both structured and unstructured formats. However, while the benefits from participating in structured FLC were strongly related to professional goals with immediate application, the benefits from unstructured FLC participation were more related to personal goals with long-term application.
Since its publication in The Internet and Higher Education, Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's [Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2–3), 87–105.] community of inquiry (CoI) framework has generated substantial interest among online learning researchers. This literature review examines recent research pertaining to the overall framework as well as to specific studies on social, teaching, and cognitive presence. We then use the findings from this literature to identify potential future directions for research. Some of these research directions include the need for more quantitatively-oriented studies, the need for more cross-disciplinary studies, and the opportunities for identifying factors that moderate and/or extend the relationship between the framework's components and online course outcomes.
Teacher efficacy has proved to be powerfully related to many meaningful educational outcomes such as teachers’ persistence, enthusiasm, commitment and instructional behavior, as well as student outcomes such as achievement, motivation, and self-efficacy beliefs. However, persistent measurement problems have plagued those who have sought to study teacher efficacy. We review many of the major measures that have been used to capture the construct, noting problems that have arisen with each. We then propose a promising new measure of teacher efficacy along with validity and reliability data from three separate studies. Finally, new directions for research made possible by this instrument are explored.
The purpose of this study is to provide conceptual order and a tool for the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and computer conferencing in supporting an educational experience. Central to the study introduced here is a model of community inquiry that constitutes three elements essential to an educational transaction—cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Indicators (key words/phrases) for each of the three elements emerged from the analysis of computer-conferencing transcripts. The indicators described represent a template or tool for researchers to analyze written transcripts, as well as a guide to educators for the optimal use of computer conferencing as a medium to facilitate an educational transaction. This research would suggest that computer conferencing has considerable potential to create a community of inquiry for educational purposes.
This article provides a personal perspective about the development of the seminal papers associated with the Community of Inquiry Framework. The framework and its construction are described. The main part of the paper explores the evolution of the framework and its associated methodology. Finally, research associated with the validation of the framework and new research directions are reviewed.
Even at large, state research universities, teaching is the institution’s core mission. Accordingly, we designed, publicized, and offered a professional development series to enhance the teaching skills and excellence of our faculty and graduate students at our large, state research university. Our professional development series consisted of 18 voluntary events, seminars, and workshops over the course of the academic year. Participants who completed a specified number of event surveys and an overall reflection earned a professional development certificate in teaching. Data indicated that our series was personally valuable to our participants, and they believed it promoted teaching at our university.
While promoting professional development among library workers is a priority for many academic libraries, library administrators often discuss the challenges involved in designing flexible, sustainable professional development programs that meet the diverse needs and interests of library workers. With investment in professional development around online teaching and learning becoming an institutional priority upon the onset of the COVID-19, we set out to create a flexible and sustainable professional development program that could facilitate conversations around teaching and learning in our libraries and that could be inclusive of all library workers throughout our distributed, multi-branch university library system. In this paper, we share our approach to developing virtual, miniature Communities of Practice (Mini CoPs), describing in detail the process of designing these groups and the formation of two distinct leadership roles within this program, the Community Coordinator and the Community Facilitator. We then describe our program evaluation strategies and findings from the first cohort of Mini CoPs. Based on our findings, we suggest that this program design presents a model for developing inclusive and sustainable professional development programming for librarians and library staff that has applicability even beyond the current constraints facing higher education. We close with a reflection on some of the potential limitations of our model, along with proposed next steps to consider.
The growth in online professional development opportunities for teachers, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompts us to question what the most effective practices of facilitating professional development online are and what design elements of online professional development (OPD) programs improve teachers’ content and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). These questions are critical to the successful design and delivery of OPD for teachers. To date, there is no systematic review that provides answers to these questions. Hence, this review presents a synthesis of 11 studies that systematically examine experimental and observational studies that tested or evaluated formal OPD programs for teachers. Eight studies were quantitative and three were mixed methods detailing evidence of teachers’ OPD program effectiveness, including design elements, that lead to teachers’ improved: content knowledge; PCK; beliefs about teaching; self-efficacy; and instructional practices. Design elements identified included a focus on learner supports, further acquisition or development of PCK, engagement, flexibility, individual difference in learners and learning styles, practical learning activities, reflection, relevance and application of knowledge and skills. The analysis uncovers a primary issue that few available publications of teachers’ OPD are strong methodologically. This systematic review’s findings report on design elements that lead to effective OPD learning experiences for teachers.
To deal with the current need for flexible learning trajectories giving access to a more diverse group of learners, synchronous hybrid virtual classrooms have been designed to connect both on-site students and remote students during synchronous teaching. Given synchronous blended learning is relatively new, there are only few studies that have investigated its use and effectiveness. Furthermore, the existing literature is mostly exploratory and qualitative in nature. This present study meets the need for empirical, theory-driven research. More specific, this study has set up an experiment to investigate how different learning settings can affect students' relatedness, intrinsic motivation and learning achievement in the context of a synchronous learning space. The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) namely stresses that relatedness is a contributing factor for intrinsic motivation and indirectly also predicts learning achievement. Although there are numerous studies using SDT in various contexts, only limited studies used this theory to examine learning in the hybrid virtual classroom comparing different learning settings and its effects on relatedness, intrinsic motivation and learning achievement. The educational setting depends on whether students are physically present and thus attend the lecture face-to-face (F2F) or remotely (virtual), and on whether the setting is the same for all students (pure) or mixed (hybrid). This study presents the results of an experimental within-subjects design study comparing the students' learning experiences as F2F versus virtual student in the pure or hybrid setting. A mixed-methods approach is used including real-time measurements of intrinsic motivation next to retrospective self-report surveys and interviews. Also the effect of quizzes has been consistently investigated. The results show that although the hybrid virtual classroom is promising regarding flexibility in education as it gives students the choice where to attend the course, it is also the most challenging one to teach in and to learn in as a remote participant. It has been found that both the relatedness to peers and the intrinsic motivation is the lowest in the hybrid-virtual setting. Yet, our results show that launching quizzes is positively related to all students’ motivation. Further research that implements different kinds of quizzes and at different time intervals is necessary to validate this finding in the context of the hybrid virtual classroom. Future research should also investigate how relatedness between the remote students and their on-campus counterparts can be improved by means of instructional interventions.
Teaching motivation is an important predictor of high-quality teaching. Because U.S. graduate student instructors (GSIs) teach many undergraduate courses, understanding motivational beliefs of GSIs is essential for undergraduate success. GSIs often lack confidence and adequate preparation for teaching. Our study explored antecedents of teaching self-efficacy for 98 GSIs from various disciplines. The number of semesters completed in graduate school and being in a non-STEM field were positively associated with teaching self-efficacy for instructional approaches and teaching self-efficacy for learning environment, respectively. Teaching self-efficacy along with autonomy-supportive instruction was positively related to undergraduates’ classroom engagement. Relations between teaching self-efficacy and classroom engagement were moderated by student-perceived autonomy-support; this was more pronounced for STEM contexts. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Social presence, the ability to perceive others in an online environment, has been shown to impact student motivation and participation, actual and perceived learning, course and instructor satisfaction, and retention in online courses; yet very few researchers have attempted to look across contexts, disciplinary areas, or measures of social presence. This meta-analysis allowed us to look across these variables of the primary studies and identify the pattern of student outcomes (e.g., perceived learning and satisfaction) in relation to social presence through scrutiny of differences between the studies. The results showed a moderately large positive average correlation between social presence and satisfaction (r = 0.56, k = 26) and social presence and perceived learning (r = 0.51, k = 26). Large variation among correlations (86.7% for satisfaction and 92.8% for perceived learning, respectively) also indicated systematic differences among these correlations due to online course settings. We found that (a) the strength of the relationship between social presence and satisfaction was moderated by the course length, discipline area, and scale used to measure social presence; and (b) the relationship between social presence and perceived learning was moderated by the course length, discipline area, and target audience of the course. Implications and future research are discussed.
Considerable research has been conducted based on the assumption that teachers’ psychological characteristics are associated with teaching effectiveness. However, the evidence for this assumption is limited: most research on the topic has been limited to investigations of the links between teachers’ self-reported characteristics and other within-teacher, self-reported outcomes. The purpose of this study was to systematically analyze the research exploring two psychological characteristics (self-efficacy and personality) and measures of teaching effectiveness (evaluated teaching performance and student achievement). Analysis of 43 studies representing 9, 216 participants reveals a significant but small effect size of r¯=.10 between overall psychological characteristics and teaching effectiveness. The strongest effect found was for self-efficacy on evaluated teaching performance (r¯=.28). Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
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