Faculty Development in Context: Changing Learning Cultures in Higher Education

Abstract

At present, research on the effectiveness of initial training programs for novice faculty is limited, and results fail to offer apparent evidences on the impact of such programs in changing teachers’ practices and, at a larger scale, teaching and learning cultures at universities. In addition to faculty development initiatives, the wider organizational context should be considered in order to foster transfer of acquired teaching competences into teaching practice. In this article, we suggest a conceptual framework that includes a description of prevailing teaching cultures in European higher education; a discussion on what we mean by faculty development and its relationship to teaching cultures; a definition of learning cultures; and a framework of the environmental factors affecting learning transfer. Among the outcomes, we expect to adapt Holtons’ model to the higher education context and design a set of instruments to identify primarily environmental factors influencing the impact of faculty development. Results might show the necessity to pay greater attention to the conditions under which novice teachers teach, the importance of peer and coordinator support, and all aspects that contribute in the end to changed teaching and learning cultures in higher education.