Continuing Education and Training of Academic (Teaching) Staff and (Teaching) Change Agents for Engineering Education: Concept and Program for Developing Teaching and Improving Learning at University (Name)

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) is a traditional research university and one of the largest technical universities in Germany. Currently, about 30,000 students are enrolled with admissions of more than 5,000 new students per year in various bachelor’s and master’s programs and in PhD studies, primarily in engineering and architecture, mathematics, and natural sciences, fewer in humanities, social sciences, and economics. The teaching staff comprises only about 300 full-time professors, about 20 junior professors, few full-time and part-time lecturers, but nearly 2,500 research and teaching assistants. Current challenges for teaching and learning are caused by recent structural and curricular changes of the undergraduate and graduate programs, focusing more on the achievement of competence-oriented learning outcomes than on the delivery of content. This contradicts with partly traditional learning environments, in particular big classes with 1,000 or more students in introductory STEM-lectures. New teaching/learning arrangements are needed to increase student engagement, promote independent and active learning and raise student success rates. How can the teaching staff be motivated and qualified to create and implement this environment and establish an innovative and interactive teaching/learning culture? The approach of TU Berlin is twofold: first, to train the academic teaching staff individually to develop their pedagogical competences theoretically and practically with respect to interactive teaching and learning methods; and second as a new approach, to hire and train additional teaching “change agents” who are supposed to develop innovative teaching projects and to disseminate good practices in teaching and learning enhancement among faculty and their fellow teaching staff. This paper describes both the curriculum to qualify academic teaching staff and a model curriculum to qualify those in the new staff category, who are charged to function as “change agents.” Experiences are discussed and a desirable profile of competences is outlined. The organizational structure of this paper covers “Introduction and Background,” describing teaching at German universities and TU Berlin, “Questions and Overviews,” highlighting the European Bologna-process and the research basis and framework for our continuing education program for teaching. The central chapter, “Program and Methods,” focuses on general aspects of the target groups of regular academic teaching staff including additional offers, and teaching change agents. “Chances and Challenges” highlights quality assurance of the program and evaluation instruments. “Results and Recommendations” name the professional certificate and future assessment by interviews as well as a short list of the most successful training efforts for new teachers and some transferable elements for the adaption of our concept to other existing programs. Finally, “Conclusion and Outlook” names first effects, the future focus and expected outcomes. P ge 26402.3 Introduction and Background In comparison to the USA, the faculty structure and composition of the teaching staff at German research universities have different roles and responsibilities, recruitment requirements, career levels, and designations for teaching staff. In the organization and delivery of the necessary teaching and student assessment provisions, relatively few tenured full professors are supported by comparatively few teaching staff members and external parttime lecturers, but by a huge number of so-called “assistants.” These assistants usually are young graduates with a master’s degree, hired shortly after their graduation. Professors and assistants are required to perform research and to teach. This is a result of the traditional and highly appreciated German “Einheit von Forschung und Lehre” (the unity of research and teaching), intended to guarantee the most up-to-date delivery of content using methodological approaches at the forefront of research and practice. In the environment of a research university, professors and assistants tend to focus more on research than on teaching. In addition to teaching, assistants are supposed to finish a PhD degree and contribute to the research of the department, institute, or work of a related professor. Comparing the German system to the American one, the main difference is that German teaching assistants are engaged with their PhD studies (thesis) as contribution to department research, in addition to the requirement of teaching 4 hours weekly. One problem lies in the contracts of the young assistants, which are mostly limited to only 5 years. Recruited on the basis of their excellence in a specific discipline or subject area, assistants usually do not possess a pedagogic qualification or prior teaching experience. It therefore requires positive efforts to train them to be effective pedagogues. Learning to teach is not part of undergraduate or graduate engineering programs. Instead, students may have availed themselves of elective pedagogical training opportunities, or they may base their approaches to teaching on their own experiences working as a student tutor or their own learning experiences. Primarily, however, competency as an instructor has to be acquired through continuing education. In addition to training on the job and learning by doing and imitating, German universities offer various continuing education programs to qualify young teaching staff and newly recruited professors or junior-professors. Sometimes these are compulsory, but most are voluntary. The teaching staff at TU Berlin comprises, in addition to approximately 300 full-time professors who teach 9 hours per week, nearly 2,500 research and teaching assistants, working under 5 year contracts. In addition to working on their doctoral thesis, these researchers and instructors are required to teach at least 4 hours per week. The target group for improved teaching and learning processes are mainly students in engineering studies and STEM-courses. The organizational frame and structure for the pedagogical continuing education program for the academic staff of TU Berlin is the Centre for Scientific Continuing Education and Cooperation. Since 1995, it has offered a modularized program of courses for regular academic teaching staff on a voluntary basis. In addition, and as a new approach, the Centre for Scientific Continuing Education and Cooperation began two years ago to provide a tailor-made program to qualify teaching change agents, who are hired specifically to implement and disseminate innovative teaching and learning arrangements in crucial subject areas. As preparation for this specific role, the “change agents” are required as part of their contracts to participate in the pedagogical and didactic training program. The “change agent” as a new category of teaching staff with instructional qualifications are perceived as key success factors of the Project TU wimiplus which is one of the projects – funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research – to provide better study P ge 26402.4 conditions and to improve the quality of teaching and learning at TU Berlin. They develop and implement innovative teaching concepts for their own subject-specific teaching. An additional task is to provide counseling and workshops about good teaching practice in their fields to colleagues. Questions and Overview What kind of “change” is targeted? Which processes of change are to be initiated? The European Bologna process started 15 years ago with the so-called “Bologna Declaration”. Meanwhile 48 European countries are signatories of this process which aims at a common “European Higher Education Area” (EHEA) with comparable degrees and degree levels, a common credit system, agreed quality standards and a mutually recognized system of quality assurance. Instead of very diverse structures of Higher Education in Europe, the common reference is now like in the USA a consecutive system of three levels and respective programs of study for Bachelor, Master and PhD-degrees. For many European countries including Germany this was a tremendous challenge as their universities had to reshape their 5 to 6 year programs leading directly to a master degree level by implementing an additional exit level and a Bachelor type of degree after 3 to 4 years of study. In addition to the structural changes, a common “Qualifications Framework of the European Area of Higher Education” was adopted in 2005 1 . This Framework defines qualitative level indicators to enhance quality and facilitate comparability. Based on the so called “Dublin Descriptors”, developed in 2003, five categories of learning outcomes and graduate attributes are named: Knowledge and understanding, Applying knowledge and understanding, Making judgements, Communication, Lifelong learning skills. They are specified for the three degree levels. As they are generic, they need to be detailed for particular disciplines or programs. The orientation on threshold levels of graduate attributes also promoted a “Shift from Teaching to Learning”. The focus on learning outcomes and the need to provide evidence that required outcomes are achieved resulted in significant changes of curricula and of teaching and learning environments. The emphasis now is less on the delivery of content than on creating specific student learning outcomes through the appropriate organization of learning arrangements. Engineering education in addition is challenged by requirements to adapt to new demands of employers and society, fast changes of science and technology and the need to attract students and to increase the retention and success rates. Therefore, addressing the issue of how to enhance teaching and learning and how to contribute to higher study success rates raises the question: Are there special teaching and learning processes for future engineers? A basic assumption is that innovati