Understanding and improving faculty professional development in teaching

Various entities within and related to higher education offer activities designed to promote professional development of faculty in the area of teaching. A critical challenge to these efforts is the lack of understanding of the actual process of faculty development in teaching. Insight into what faculty members believe about learning, assessment, and teaching, and how those views change, would assist efforts to improve faculty development opportunities. This paper describes the current status of assessment of faculty professional development activities related to teaching. Working from this foundation, it suggests how to improve assessment strategies and begin the process of measuring the impact of specific program activities on faculty beliefs and practices. In addition, it describes ways of investigating and drawing conclusions about professional development process paths in the area of teaching, variables that influence and enhance development trajectory, and roles of various types of faculty development activities in this process.