The impact of teaching development programs: Assessing different dimensions of progress

Abstract

University teaching development programs for academic staff typically have a range of different educational goals, ranging from gaining basic proficiency in teaching to the more fundamental goal of changing teachers’ conception of teaching towards student focused conceptions. In the current paper we shall explore the development of four dimensions of teacher development in a teaching development program (~10ECTS) at the University of Copenhagen. The two most important dimensions considered are the teachers’ conceptual change student focus (as measured by the Approaches to Teaching Inventory), and the development of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs with respect to teaching (as measured by a modified version of the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument). We find significant improvements with respect to both of these dimensions in several recent courses. No significant changes are found with respect to the Information Transfer Teacher Focus of the ATI or the outcome expectancy beliefs of STEBI. The paper discusses which elements of our course design we think are conducive for the development of teacher self-efficacy beliefs and conceptual change student focus respectively, and presents a model for relating the dimensions of progress to each other.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2013
Number of pages3
Publication statusPublished - 2013
EventEARLI 15th Biennial Conference EARLI 2013: Responsible Teaching and Sustainable Learning - TUM Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
Duration: 27 Aug 201331 Aug 2013
Conference number: 15

Conference

ConferenceEARLI 15th Biennial Conference EARLI 2013
Number15
LocationTUM Technische Universität München
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityMunich
Period27/08/201331/08/2013

Keywords

  • Faculty of Science

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