Moving forward: The evolving landscape of faculty development at Dawson

What’s happening this winter with Dawson’s Communities of Practice?

In Fall 2023, a team uniting Community of Practice (COP) leads and Office of Academic Development (OAD) pedagogical counsellors received a mandate from Academic Dean Leanne Bennett to examine options for the evolution of faculty development at Dawson.

Coined the “Moving Forward” project by the Academic Dean, this initiative aligns with the actions under Goal 1 of Dawson’s 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. The team was challenged specifically to develop a new model for professional development that would be less resource intensive and more accessible to the full spectrum of teachers than was the case with the COP model.

This winter, the team is analyzing exemplar programs at other colleges and universities. Notable is the Faculty Learning Community (FLC) program at Miami University, a program of long duration which has both similarities and significant differences in comparison with Dawson‘s COPs.  In particular, the Miami University approach appears to boast advantages in both the number of faculty it reaches and in its comparably modest resource footprint. OAD and COP leads are currently exploring how the advantages of the Faculty Learning Communities model might be adapted to the Dawson context, in ways that remain consistent with the Dawson tradition of faculty-driven innovation in teaching and learning.

The foundations of the Moving Foward project were laid in several steps over Fall 2023. First, we conducted a wide review of the literature on effective approaches to faculty development in higher education. This process yielded numerous insights:

• Faculty is not a homogeneous group (e.g. different levels of pedagogical knowledge; career vs pre-university programs; continuing education vs day teachers; general education vs specific education contexts) and will only be engaged by a variety of entry-points to authentic professional development activities. Prescriptive activities are ineffective, indeed counterproductive (Haras 2018).
• Faculty development should provide opportunities for development of disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge, both of which are essential to professional practice (Favre 2021).
• Faculty development should be accessible to teachers at all points in their careers – but should prioritize early to mid-career teachers whose professional mindsets and habits are in formation (Favre 2021, Tagg 2012).
• Effective forms of faculty development address key issues in teaching and learning; contribute to the well-being of faculty by fostering professional and social connections; and involve faculty in the design of innovations that advance real institutional change (Cox 2001, Lemelin 2023).

We then advanced to analyzing the teaching and learning landscape at Dawson. Mapping out both strengths and weakness of Dawson’s COP model, we identified features that could be leveraged advantageously for future offerings:

• Retain the faculty-driven, faculty-focused character of COPs with an increased emphasis on outcomes of professional satisfaction and well-being that are consistent with the goals of Dawson’s 2024-2029 Strategic Plan.
• Sharpen focus on outputs directly linked to program/department improvement and enhanced student learning outcomes.
• Widen participation while acknowledging that faculty have heterogeneous natures and needs.

Once options for FLC program design and pilot projects have started to gel as we approach the end of term, the Moving Forward team will hold one or several consultations with the Dawson Community to share ideas and invite feedback. Stay tuned for more news on this front.

Find out more about how Dawson’s Communities of Practice are moving forward.

We want to hear your input in our first community “Open House”!

• Anytime between 2 and 4 PM on Wednesday, April 3
• In the CoLab (3F.43)

Photo: Einat Idan (OAD), Selma Hamdani (Psychology/DALC), Julia Lijerón (OAD), Cathy Roy (Physiotherapy Technologies/UDL), Ian MacKenzie English/LCs), Jeff Gandell (English/WID), Chantale Giguère (French/E-Learning), Robert Stephens (Humanities/AI) Photo credit: Caroline Harvey (Civil Engineering)