Expanding Blended Professional Development Capacity by Leveraging Faculty Fellows in a Course Design Feedback Loop

Concurrent Session 2
Blended

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

We’ll share our process for expanding the capacity of a blended/hybrid faculty development program by integrating faculty fellows in a course design feedback loop. We’ll also explore how other institutions may be able to incorporate a similar faculty fellow model to support and expand faculty development.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Eric Simon, Florida International University

Eric Simon is the Assistant Director for Hybrid & Online Academic Support Programs at FIU’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching. With over a decade of instructional design and faculty development experience, Eric takes an evidence-based approach to designing, developing, delivering, and evaluating professional development opportunities for faculty teaching online and hybrid courses. Collaborating with teams across the university to support faculty needs and drive university initiatives, Eric works to empower faculty to design significant learning experiences for their students. Outside of work, Eric is a hobbyist musician and enjoys exploring the natural beauty all around us, whether it’s below the surface of the ocean or atop the highest peak of a mountain.

Co-presenter: Garamis Campusano, Florida International University

Garamis Campusano currently works for the Center for Advancement of Teaching (CAT) at FIU as their Educational Technology Specialist. In this role, he is responsible for supporting the CAT team as well as faculty and staff on a wide range of tech-related projects and endeavors. He relies on his 8 years of teaching experience in higher ed to support initiatives around the institution and spends a great deal of time developing student-centered curriculum and educational technology programming. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Arts in Linguistics, both from FIU.

Extended Abstract

Even before the pandemic, many institutions were adopting the hybrid (or blended) teaching modality by reducing in-class time and replacing it with asynchronous activities for students. Now, it is not only clear that hybrid courses are here to stay but that demand for this modality continues to grow. How can teams of faculty developers, instructional designers, and administrators work together to ensure success for faculty new to teaching hybrid courses?

This presentation will share the model for a professional development and teaching certification program for hybrid course design based around a feedback loop facilitated by faculty fellows. With continual revision since its establishment in 2015, this program has allowed our institution to quickly, efficiently, and affordably scale professional development capacity based on demand while continuing to uphold quality expectations even in times of exceptional need.

We will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the major aspects of this program and the involvement of faculty fellows, such as the concept of the feedback loop, selecting and preparing faculty fellows, supporting mechanisms for the program overall, and some surprising outcomes based on feedback from the faculty fellows themselves. Participants will be asked to reflect on the needs of their institutions and how a faculty fellow system and feedback loop could help them address their needs for preparing faculty to successfully teach courses in new modalities.

Level of Participation

This session will consist of approximately 25 minutes of presentation (lecture) along with approximately 20 minutes for guided self-reflection and discussion.

Session Goals

Individuals attending this education session will be able to reflect on their institution’s need for a feedback loop in faculty development, identify opportunities for expanding faculty development capacity, and develop the beginnings of a plan for incorporating faculty fellows in faculty development programs.