Portrait of Engagement  

Campus participation

The Faculty Professional Development Program organizes and conducts offerings aimed at engaging faculty in focused conversations about designing teaching/learning experiences to contribute to a "teaching commons" at the Northern Arizona University.

The office also provides consultations to departments and colleges, committees, and to individual faculty. The figures below relate to the open resource sessions (workshops, roundtable discussions, book discussions, and guest speakers).

Number of sessions: 32
Total session attendance: 832
Unduplicated number of attendees: 323
Number of departments/programs represented: 105 

Selected 2011-2012 highlights

Eighty-six different faculty from 57 different departments/programs led sessions. Ten students were also invited to present their perspectives at sessions.

Faculty Professional Development Program sessions were coordinated with 14 different co-sponsoring groups (excluding departmental and committee work sessions).

An optional, day-long work session on teaching called Productive Beginnings was offered to faculty before the start of the fall semester.

Three Communities of Practice were also initiated, involving over 24 faculty members in sustained conversations around these topics:

  • 21st Century Instructional Contexts
  • Inclusive Design/Inclusive Pedagogy: Enhancing Instructional Practices 

Representative topics

Topics included:

  • Alternatives to Traditional Exams
  • Opportunities for Pursuing International Research and Teaching
  • Supporting Undergraduate Research
  • Framing Small Group Work
  • Initiating and Sustaining Class Discussions
  • Global Learning in Liberal Education
  • Disciplinary Habits of Mind
  • Helping International Students Succeed in Your Classes
  • Developing a Teaching Portfolio

Impact

There are six Likert-scale questions and three open-ended questions on the electronic survey sent out immediately following sessions. The first two items address the goals of each session:

  1. 99.5 percent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the session and materials met the stated goal
  2. 93 percent agreed or strongly agreed that topics were clearly addressed, useful, and provided valuable interactions between resource presenters and participants

Office Relocation

In June 2012, FPDP moved to Cline Library, Room 169. A Faculty Teaching Commons opened as a resource center, work and meeting place for faculty.

 

For a printable PDF version, download the complete Portrait of Engagement.