Preparing
Future Faculty is a Necessary Part of Substantive Reform
The Shaping the Preparation of Future Science and
Mathematics Faculty program at the University of Arkansas began with support
from the
National Science Foundation
and is a Preparing Future Faculty
Program of: The American Association of Physics Teachers, the Association of
American Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools
Background
(Paraphrased from Building the Faculty
We Need, a publication of the CGS and AAC&U)
Expectations for college professors are
rising, and the nature of academic work is changing. In their research, faculty
members often must draw from findings and methods of other disciplines, and
they are increasingly encouraged to use their specialized knowledge to address
problems and needs in their communities. In teaching, they must work with a
student body that is very diverse in their academic skills and motivations as
well as their ethnic and racial cultures, and they are expected to utilize the
powerful new technological, collaborative, and experiential approaches to
teaching and learning. As professionals who are intimately involved in
establishing policies for their organizations, they are expected to play a role
in governing their own departments, institutions and professional associations.
Yet,
doctoral education, which is where preparation for faculty work is primarily
acquired, has not changed significantly to take account of these new realities.
For too many graduate students, preparation for a faculty career still means
essentially learning the content of a discipline, developing expertise in a
specialization, and conducting a research project presented in a dissertation.
For too many individuals, developing the capacity for teaching and learning
about fundamental professional concepts and principles remain accidental
occurrences. We can—and should—do a better job of building the faculty the
nation’s colleges and universities need.
This
report offers a new vision of doctoral education for the professoriate. This
vision is broader than the traditional preparation of students planning to
become faculty members. It includes preparation for teaching and professional
service as well as for research and opportunities to experience faculty life in
a variety of colleges and universities. The report illustrates the way we,
participants and leaders, have found that innovative faculty preparation
programs work, the benefits they offer, and the implications they hold for the
academy.
The
Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program serves as the foundation of this new
vision. A joint undertaking of the Association of American Colleges and
Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools, PFF has been supported since
1993 by The Pew Charitable Trusts. It was designed, first, to develop
alternative models of faculty preparation (during Phase I, 1993-1997) and,
then, to institutionalize them (Phase II, 1997-2000). With support from the
National Science Foundation, PFF III was launched to develop model PFF programs
in science and mathematics departments. PFF IV involves humanities and social
sciences departments.
PFF
grows out of dissatisfaction with traditional forms of faculty preparation,
based on several beliefs about the ways college professors should be prepared.
Specifically, we believe that graduate students should begin to develop
professional competence in the major responsibilities that faculty members
actually have, namely teaching, research, and professional service; have
learning experiences in the different settings in which the profession is
practiced, e.g., colleges and universities with different missions, student
bodies, and faculty responsibilities; and, learn about the complexities of
teaching and service in coursework, workshops, and seminars, and by working
with mentors in teaching and professional service.
Why did we need PFPF?
When we embarked upon an NSF-supported
curriculum development project, it became clear that the first and greatest
need for educational reform to be embraced and sustained was for our future
faculty to be prepared to be as professional about their roles as educators as
their roles as researchers. New college faculty members may find themselves
preparing to teach a class for the first time, with little or no guidance. The
biggest complaints employers have about those hired for "pure"
research positions involve interpersonal skills. Also, more researchers are
being called upon to do outreach. Teaching and participating in outreach
activities develop these skills. Our focus at this stage is to add these kinds
of activities to the graduate program, with the same sort of mentoring that
accompanies the development of research skills, without extending the time
needed to complete a degree. Also, a new masters degree for those that find
themselves insufficiently motivated to do research, but still loving physics,
provides a route straight into teaching for these students at very low resource
cost.
Where we began:
Overall the experimental class has done very
well:
- Performance
is up a full letter grade on more difficult exams than those given
previously.
- Student
evaluations of the class are very positive.
- Former
students say the class was very useful in further science and engineering
courses.
- Students
rank the class as being in the top 10-30% of all classes taken in college.
- The
engineering faculty is highly supportive.
- The
school of engineering is making changes.
- The
math department is making changes.
- External
project evaluations are very positive.
To make this all work, we had to greatly improve the
quality of the teaching assistants.
1) Began by apprenticing.
To do it reliably:
2) Need to diagnose their weaknesses and
3) Prepare materials to address those
weaknesses.
4) A departmental TA training program grew
from these.
As the teaching mentor for the grad students, I
started attending discussions held by other types of institutions, to see what
they had to say about needed skills.
5) An apprenticeship course (PHYS 400V) grew
from all of this.
6) The PFF program and internship course (PHYS
574V) are a natural extension.
Some evidence that this is having a positive impact on
our program:
|
Period: |
Graduates Per Year: |
|
1960-1969 |
9 average |
|
1970-1979 |
8 average |
|
1980-1989 |
6 average |
|
1990-1997 |
2.5 average |
|
1998-2001(first UPII grads) |
11 average |
|
2002 |
15, largest since 1964 (1964 was the
biggest class ever!) |
|
Since
(grads taught by PFPFers) (2006
will be consistent or larger) |
Average = 20 |
The department granted its first
undergraduate degree in 1928, but only 61 total undergraduate degrees were
granted before 1960.
Part of this increase is the
success of the revised introductory course, but that was only possible because
of the attention to the preparation of our teaching assistants!
Our
basics:
- A good TA preparation course (worth one credit, for a grade)
- A class to allow students a chance to teach as apprentices
- A class that allows students a chance to teach solo, with a mentor
- Regular opportunities to discover what "professional
service" is and to get involved in some
In general: An expectation that
students will treat all aspects of graduate school with professionalism,
allowing them to develop skills that are valuable, no matter what kind of
career they choose.
What have we accomplished?
1. We have expanded and combined our "apprenticeship
class" PHYS 400V, (V for variable 1-3 credit hours) and our TA training
program. Previously, all incoming TAs were required to take the TA training
course, but there was no grade associated with it, and it was hard to enforce
attendance in the follow-up seminars. PHYS 400V was only taken by students who
were quite serious about their teaching. Now, all incoming TAs are required to sign
up for at least one unit of PHYS 400V, which covers their performance in the TA
training, their attendance and participation in follow-up seminars, and their
response to mid-term student evaluations. What we mean here is that evaluations
are done six weeks into the 14-week semester. These evaluations are reviewed
with the TA and the grade received is strongly based on how well a TA works to
overcome weaknesses identified in his or her teaching. We feel that this will
give students a more balanced view of their professional responsibilities.
First-semester students take a research seminar course, and now they will have
a similar experience for their teaching.
2. Created the course: Internship in Teaching, a graduate
level physics course that counts as an elective toward a physics masters or
Ph.D. degree. The official description is "Supervised field experiences in
student personnel services, college administration, college physics teaching,
institutional research, development, or other areas of college and university
work." Much or this wording was done in association with community college
administrators, covering all of the aspects of what a community college faculty
might be expected to do. It also allows us to provide an internship experience
for our students here. For instance, one summer, one of our students involved
in the program taught a course during the summer as the primary lecturer. He
had TA’d the lab for several semesters, being the
lead TA for it for the last two. He spent the last semester developing his
lectures, quizzes, tests, and demonstrations for the course with recourse to
the faculty members that had formerly successfully taught the course. While he
was teaching the course, at least one of those faculty members was always
available for advice. Thorough evaluations from the course gave him the kind of
data community colleges are looking for to back up a reputation of a
"good" teacher. He did such a good job, we wanted him to teach it the
second summer session, but he couldn't, because he had to relocate for his new
community college position!
3. We have developed a novel relationship with our
partner institutions that are also state universities. The relationship is
quite different that with community colleges. Other state universities are also
very interested in better preparing their graduate students to be future
faculty, and each has at least one practice that is occasionally carried out in
an unofficial way to help do so. By networking, we can take these good ideas
and discover means to formalize them. We can test these ideas first in our own
institutions, and then make the ideas, and the pros and cons of their
administration and suggested adaptations available to similar institutions
through our web site and through papers presented at national meetings. For
instance,
4. Service has become a real part of the graduate student
experience.
For the Students:
- Two meetings a year
with the department chair about performance on service in the department
- Committees
made up solely of graduate students on issues that are important to them
- Graduate
student representatives allowed in (most) faculty meetings
For the Faculty:
- Students do a better
job supervising themselves than faculty can in areas where the students
can make up the governing committee
- Better
turn out for community service and school outreach activities
- Graduate
supervisors have students that may have a little less time for research activities,
but that have a more professional attitude and approach to their
commitments in the department overall, more than making up for it!