Understanding the priorities and needs of an educational institution is fundamental to designing strategies that will most effectively contribute to the creation of academic excellence. When designing a customized program for a university, IDIA takes into consideration the activities and achievements of the institution thus far, capitalizing upon them throughout the program.

IDIA offers its support in a number of ways:

LASPAU works directly with universities to assist them in determining the most effective means of fostering more effective teaching and learning, based on the specific needs and interests of the institution. Activities can include:

• dialogues to assess institutional needs
• conferences on specific issues
• workshops for faculty and/or administrators
• academic visits for administrators
• short-term online or in-person faculty training
• faculty training through degree programs
• faculty certification
• longitudinal assessment of program results
• identification of best practices to meet specific needs

The Initiative supports universities in the development of institutional programs that promote the strengthening of teaching skills by providing short-term training and ongoing access for faculty members to practical knowledge, tools, and methodologies to develop competences in the creation and management of effective learning environments. Based on the needs and profile of the institution, programs also include the development of institutional strategies aimed at promoting academic excellence, such as redesigning the curriculum to incorporate elements that promote active learning, redesigning student and teacher evaluations, creating teams of teachers, and designing specific mechanisms to ensure the quality of education throughout the institution.

LASPAU has partnered with Lionza Education to offer the Teaching and Learning Body of Knowledge (TALBOK ™), a learning system that uses the tools and techniques of cognitive engineering to integrate the findings of the learning sciences with the best practices of effective organizations. The result is an innovative, scalable method of creating effective learning environments that is both customized for each university and consistent in quality and basic content for each faculty member who participates.

IDIA believes that training faculty in teaching excellence is most beneficial when it is sustainable over time and can be progressively extended throughout the institution. One strategy with proven success involves identifying leaders among the faculty who are then trained in the basics of effective teaching and learning. These individuals later assist with training their peers and ensuring the initiative’s continuation at the institution. IDIA staff members work in close partnership with the institution throughout the process.

IDIA designs institutional scholarship study-abroad programs to strengthen the training of faculty at the master's and doctoral levels. LASPAU’s experience in scholarship program design and administration over more than four decades enables us to work closely with a university to design the program that best meets its needs and the availability of financial resources.

In addition to providing extensive training in a specific academic field, study-abroad programs enable participants to connect with teaching and learning centers at the institution where they carry out graduate studies. This expands their knowledge of effective learning and teaching while expanding their network of colleagues and mentors in this area.

Long-term efforts to improve university teaching and learning benefit from a formal method of assessing the results of the program. IDIA thus offers a longitudinal assessment tool designed in collaboration with evaluation system experts at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. The tool is designed to measure the outcomes of faculty training and other activities, evaluating the experiences of the faculty, the perceptions of students, and the view of administrators.

While most evaluation tools survey individuals at a single point in time, IDIA’s model surveys respondents at different points in the program. One valuable feature of this design is that it gives evaluators feedback during the program, providing an opportunity to identify and address issues that may arise mid-stream. However, the most important feature is that it provides a means to measure changes over time in a respondent’s knowledge of, attitudes toward, and/or practice of the underlying goals and objectives of the overall effort.

For institutions that prefer a more streamlined approach, IDIA will conduct evaluation surveys of faculty, administrators, and/or students at the conclusion of a program. The surveys will assess outcomes of importance to the university as determined in the initial planning meeting.

The TALBOK™ system includes a faculty certification process that is in compliance with ISO 9001 standards of quality. Faculty members trained through the TALBOK™ system will already have completed the teaching and learning education on which the certification test is based and will thus be well prepared for the examination. Universities may choose to have professors take the test in order to certify the quality of the institution in effective teaching and learning.

Universities with an abbreviated timeframe for institutional improvement may decide to focus on the online TALBOK™ learning system and certification exam as an expedited means of developing faculty skills and knowledge and certifying results.

Copyright 2008 © LASPAU: Academic and Professional Programs for the Americas
25 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge, MA. 02138, Tel: (617) 495-5255, Fax: (617) 495-8990
Email: angelica_natera@harvard.edu or kathleen_koehler@harvard.edu