This is a conceptual review of the literature variously referred to as faculty development, educational development, instructional development, and academic development in higher education. Previous empirical reviews covering more than 30 years of published literature could draw only tentative and weak conclusions about the effectiveness of educational development practices. The authors used different questions that queried the nature of educational development practice and the thinking underlying practice. Their conceptual review yielded a framework with six foci of practice (skill, method, reflection, disciplinary, institutional, and action research or inquiry) that was drawn from an analysis of the design elements of the educational development practices in the research they reviewed and from an analysis of the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical literature cited by those articles. This six-cluster framework provides a new way of thinking about the design of practice and a more meaningful basis for ...

Are We Asking the Right Questions?: A Conceptual Review of the Educational Development Literature in Higher Education

In the context of paradigmatic change in the higher education, propitiated between other affectations for the convergence of European process in the professionals training, there have been raised the profile and the professional competences as a reference of the training of the same ones, carrying automatically news approaches in the design, development and evaluation of the same one. With independence of the same ones, in this article we want to focus, like aim, on four challenges, among others, which there carries particularly the evaluation of the professional competences, which go from different dimensions (conceptual, develop-reconstructive, strategic and operative) and simultaneously to consider some implications on the same ones.It is for it, the need to depart before from a conceptualization of professional competences at present, fix to confront not only his training and development, but also his proper evaluation, giving course for new strategies and devices for evaluation of professional competences on those who are thought over and specify in the context of the higher education.

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Evaluación de competencias profesionales en educación superior: retos e implicaciones

This paper presents results of a study conducted with undergraduate students involved in either problemor project-based curricula (Medicine and Engineering, respectively) at the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada. The objective of the present research was to measure the impact of these innovative curricula on students’ engagement and persistence in higher education. Our research question was: What determinants better predict students’ engagement and persistence in innovative curricula such as PBL? Nine variables were examined as potential predictors of both factors (engagement and persistence). Results showed a variation in variables predicting engagement and persistence, with the most significant predictor being stress related.

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Problem-based and Project-based Learning in Engineering and Medicine: Determinants of Students' Engagement and Persistance

Most professional development activities focus on individual teachers, such as mentoring or the use of portfolios However, new developments in higher education require teachers to work together in teams more often Due to these changes, there is a growing need for professional development activities focusing on teams Therefore, this review study was conducted to provide an overview of what is known about professional development in teams in the context of higher education A total of 18 articles were reviewed that describe the effects of professional development in teams on teacher attitudes and teacher learning Furthermore, several factors that can either hinder or support professional development in teams are identified at the individual teacher level, at the team level, and also at the organizational level

Team-Based Professional Development Interventions in Higher Education: A Systematic Review:

This literature review considers the use of action research in higher education. The review specifically looks at two areas of higher education activity. The first concerns academic teaching practice and includes a discussion of research and pedagogy practice, and staff development. The second considers student engagement. In both of these core features of higher education, action research has proven to be a central approach to the investigation, reflection and improvement of practice. Each of these main foci includes a discussion of the limitations of the literature. The review illustrates the extent and range of uses to have benefited from an action research approach.

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Literature review on the use of action research in higher education

Innovation, research and professional development in higher education: Learning from our own experience

En este articulo se presentan los resultados de uno de los objetivos de un proyecto de investigacion sobre evaluacion formativa: analizar las resistencias y paradojas a las que se enfrenta el profesorado universitario para  implementar procesos de evaluacion orientados a mejorar el aprendizaje de sus estudiantes La investigacion se fundamento en un estudio de casos multiples conformado por profesorado de las diferentes ramas de conocimiento de la Universidad de Alcala Nuestros hallazgos sugieren que estas resistencias y paradojas tienen que ver con las creencias y concepciones del profesorado acerca de la ensenanza, el  aprendizaje  y la evaluacion, la influencia de la cultura organizativa y las condiciones institucionales;  a lo que hay que anadir la inseguridad e incertidumbre que provocan los procesos de innovacion en las practicas evaluadoras En el estudio se concluye que esta incertidumbre no solo se debe a una falta de informacion y comprension de los procesos de cambio evaluativos sino, tambien, a que el profesorado cuenta con escasos referentes y aprendizajes experienciales en evaluacion formativa en los que apoyarse

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Evaluación formativa de los aprendizajes en el contexto universitario: resistencias y paradojas del profesorado

In this paper we share some reflections about the development of active learning methodologies in higher education through a critical analysis of the lived experiences in three innovation processes carried out under the framework of the Teacher Professional Development Program at the University of Alcala Even though the three experiences are different, each with its own characteristics and peculiarities, all of them stem from a commitment to understand and transform teaching practices through collective reflection and research Based on these experiences we propose some reflections about educational change processes and the development of teaching methodologies that facilitate active learning

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Un camino sin retorno: estrategias metodológicas de aprendizaje activo

The purpose of this paper is to share knowledge generated through the implementation of Â“Teaching Innovation TeamsÂ” as a strategy for teachersÂ’ professional development and innovation at the University of Alcala (Spain). We analyse the contributions of this strategy to the facilitation of curriculum innovation in higher education and reflect on some of the achievements and results of the activities carried out by these teams, identifying the dilemmas and difficulties that teachers experienced and that hinder the development of curriculum innovations. Finally, we outline some educational contributions of teaching innovation teams understood as a collaborative and formative strategy to facilitate educational change. (DIPF/Orig.)

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Leonor Margalef García

Papers

Innovation, research and professional development in higher education: Learning from our own experience

Evaluación formativa de los aprendizajes en el contexto universitario: resistencias y paradojas del profesorado

Un camino sin retorno: estrategias metodológicas de aprendizaje activo

Encouraging Teachers' and Students' Innovation with the Support of Teacher Learning Communities.

Aprendizaje cooperativo. Una metodología con futuro. Principios y aplicaciones