At research-intensive universities, high-quality teaching is often considered less prestigious compared to research contributions. Also, the pressures of promotion and tenure make higher education faculty devalue teaching/instructional excellence. The situation becomes more complicated because meaningful measurement of excellent teaching can be difficult and is affected by differing perceptions of quality by stakeholders. There are several models that describe the traits and skills relevant to teaching excellence; but they are not widely accepted because of questions about their validity, reliability, and practical application. In the university where this study was conducted, the Provost initiated a project to create a framework of teaching excellence such that a campus-cultural shift is produced and excellent teaching is understood, supported, and valued. In this exploratory embedded single case study data was collected from across campus that was analyzed using qualitative content analysis methods.
A Framework for Teaching Excellence was developed that encompasses elements and descriptors of excellent teaching at the case university. Future work includes strategic outreach and training, with department heads, new faculty hires, and graduate students at the case university. Furthermore, support resources are being developed, incorporating incentive models, professional development opportunities, and documentation for hiring processes, in addition to developing an online repository of effective practices. This Framework for Teaching Excellence can serve as a template, and the research design can be applied in similar higher-education settings to create context-specific cultural shifts towards teaching excellence on their campuses. These efforts will hopefully promote equitable valuation of teaching excellence at higher-education institutions to benefit students.

Authors:
Shamila Janakiraman, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, United States
Lindsey Payne, Purdue University, United States
Rachel Kenney, Purdue University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Shamila Janakiraman is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, United States. Her research interests are in emerging technologies, attitude change instruction, online teaching and learning, and competency-based education.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamila-janakiraman-ph-d-35635a107/

Additional website of interest
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wdHuXCAAAAAJ&hl=en

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

Bookmark