STRENGTH, CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS OF FACULTY IN COLLEGE TEACHING

Year 2016, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 1 - 10, 30.12.2016

Filiz Evran Acar Murat Dağıstan Vildan Sarıkaya

Abstract

Faculty members are not only expected to conduct a scientific research but also to possess adequate professional teaching. As a result of this, faculty development is an important highlight in improving the teaching skills of each individual faculty member. This study delves into how faculty views their strengths and the challenges in the process of college teaching as well as how they maintain their professional development and solve problems about the teaching process. The participants are faculty members in College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business Administration, and College of Education, Health, and Human Services at a well-known U.S University. The research methodology is based on phenomenological inquiry. In this research, the central phenomenon is the lived experiences of the faculty throughout their professional development. In line with research questions, a survey is designed by researchers. Of all the question items, seven (7) questions inquire personal information; the other question sets, six open-ended and four closed-ended, are directly addressing the aim of the research. Faculty who take part in the research are asked to fill out an online survey about their strengths, challenges and ways of solutions in their professional development efforts. The data collected from 80 faculty members were analyzed. Closed-ended questions are analyzed through frequency and percentage values, while open-ended questions contribute to the qualitative investigation. Content analysis was conducted for the open-ended questions. Analyses of the data regarding the themes which faculty feel confident or perceive as challenges indicate that technology is an area where they both enjoy and suffer from. The other themes include course planning, instructional methods, preparing teaching materials, classroom management, monitoring students’ progress and achieving rapport with students. As for the solution, they anonymously agreed upon several concepts, including Training and preparation, Technical support, Keeping up-to-date, Researching, Professional method and Personal characteristics.

Keywords

Training and preparation

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