The National Effective Teaching Institute: Assessment of Impact and Implications for Faculty Development

摘要

BackgroundrnThe National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI) is a three-day teaching workshop that has been given annually since 1991 in conjunction with the Annual ASEE Conference. Its goals are to improve the participants' teaching effectiveness, promote their engagement in scholarly teaching and educational scholarship, and motivate them to engage in instructional development on their campuses. To evaluate the impact of the NETI on its participants, a Web-based survey was administered to alumni of NETI offerings from 1993 to 2006.rnPurpose (Hypothesis)rnThe study was designed to test the hypothesis that the NETI met its stated goals, and to the extent that it did, to identify factors in the workshop's structure and delivery that might have contributed to its success.rnDesign/MethodrnAn online survey collected information regarding the participants' awareness and use of selected teaching strategies, their students' and their own ratings of their teaching, and their engagement in scholarly teaching, educationalrnresearch, and giving their own teaching workshops and seminars. The validity of the survey structure is supported by several published studies that compared self-assessments of teaching with external evaluations by trained observers.rnResultsrnThe NETI has motivated many of its participants to adopt or increase their use of proven teaching strategies known to correlate with improved student learning; made them more student-centered, scholarly, and reflective in their teaching practice; and induced many of them to engage in instructional development and educational scholarship.rnConclusionsrnThe NETI has satisfactorily met its goals. When interpreted in the light of a theory of adult motivation, the results support the effectiveness of discipline-specific faculty development for engineering educators.