team-based professional development - possibilities and challenges of collaborative curriculum design in higher education
Inken Gast is a PhD student in the Department of Teacher Development, ELAN. Her supervisor is prof.dr. S.E. McKenney from the Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social sciences (BMS).
Universities and other higher education institutions have to innovate their curricula due to changes in the job-market and increased competition on a national and international level. The success of curriculum innovations is, however, highly dependent on the teachers who have to implement them, and who are often also involved in the design of these innovations. For a successful design and implementation of these curriculum innovations, teacher professional development is crucial and needs to focus on teachers’ attitudes towards the innovation, as well as the development of necessary knowledge and skills.
Collaborative curriculum design in teacher teams is a more recent development in higher education and can be an effective way to design curricula. Moreover, it can support teacher professional development (in terms of teachers’ attitudes and knowledge and skills) at the same time. Although the professional development during collaborative curriculum design has often been studied in primary and secondary education, this is not the case for higher education.
From primary and secondary education it is known that teachers make use of various professional development activities such as learning by doing, formal learning activities, or self-study. Collaborative curriculum design is another promising learning activity to support teacher professional development. Through exchanging ideas, collaboratively designing new teaching methods and materials and collaborative reflection, teachers have the possibility to learn together and to develop new ideas to implement in practice. Conversations during which information is merely exchanged but where no collective planning or reflection takes place are insufficient for teacher professional development. However, when teacher design conversations show sufficient depth, these conversations can be of great value for teacher learning.
Professional development, however, is often not a goal for teachers during collaborative curriculum design. Teachers do not realize that collaborating with others can have a positive impact on their own professional development. They think of the end product – the curriculum innovation – and how to implement this product in practice. Although universities are aware of the positive aspects of collaborative curriculum design for teacher professional development, they are unsure how to support it. Therefore, this dissertation aims to shed more light on the opportunities for teacher professional development during the design and implementation of curriculum innovations, as well as on ways in which higher education institutions can positively influence teacher attitudes towards the innovation.
To that end, four studies have been conducted involving (1) a review study on teacher professional development in teams in higher education, (2) a survey study on the determinants of teachers’ attitudes towards a curriculum innovation, (3) a mixed methods study on the connection between specific teacher learning activities and specific learning outcomes, and (4) an observational study zooming in on the design conversations of teacher teams in higher education.
The results showed that teachers make use of various learning activities when working on a new curriculum design. These activities can be part of the teamwork process, can involve teachers that are not part of the teacher team, or can be individual learning activities. Some learning activities, such as reflection or exchanging ideas with team members during collaborative curriculum design, have been shown to be more effective than others. However, teacher professional development during collaborative curriculum design does not just happen, but needs to be actively supported, as it does not occur naturally in many teams. Team functioning as well as the team leader play an important role in this regard, as they are positively related to teachers’ attitudes towards the innovation as well as the development of new knowledge and skills. The team leader also has an impact on the topics and depth of team conversations and therefore determines for a great deal whether meaningful learning opportunities for teachers are created during the curriculum design process. Teams and team leaders need to be supported by an external expert who can support the initial design process and mentor the team leaders. Furthermore, the organization plays an important role for teacher professional development in teams. Leaders within the university need to actively show a positive attitude towards the curriculum innovation to inspire a positive attitude among the teachers. Moreover, additional learning activities that foster informal exchange among teachers need to be created and teachers should be recognized for their efforts. Finally, teachers need to be given enough time to actually spend on curriculum design activities. Supporting the teacher teams can be an effective way to work on all of these challenges and help making collaborative curriculum design successful.
