A Study Of Faculty's Instructional Development In American Colleges And Universities

To improve the quality of instruction is the current education issues of college and university in many countries. For improving the quality of instruction, one of the most fundamental measures is to promote the instructional development of faculty. The instructional development of faculty in American started earlier, and more mature, it's advanced, typical, representative and worth learning. Research development, instructional development, active development, passive development, personal development and organizational development is the basic dimension of this research, the"how to"of instructional development of American faculty was studied mainly from three facets which were development content, development status and mode of development.Instructional development of faculty is a series of behaviors of instructional development, which will improve personal instruction, promote student to learn and achieve the instructional improvement of organization, its'content is instructional development, its'basic method is personal development and organizational development, its'developer is quasi-faculty and faculty. Instructional development is the basic and main content of American faculty development, American faculty development mainly means the instructional development of American faculty.Active development and passive development mainly describe the state of instructional development of faculty, the effect of active development is usually much better than passive development. Personal development and organizational development mainly describe the methods of faculty development, personal development refers to faculty development for improving themselves, organizational development refers to faculty improve themselves for organization, personal development and organizational development are usually unified and mutually supportive. Scientific research is knowledge-based, and tend to be incentives, initiative features of research development is more obvious; teaching is school-based and tend to be health factor, so the passive features are more apparent. Research development is mostly upgraded-development, while instructional development is mostly copyed-development, the possibility of achievement of instructional development is higher than research development.According to overall state of development, the instructional development of American universities and colleges can be divided into the prehistoric period (1810 to the 20th century, 50s), start-up phase (the 20th century, the 60s to mid-70s), prosperity phase (the 20th century, the late 70s and 80s) and the scientific stage (since the 90s of 20th century). In prehistoric period, the instructional development in American universities and colleges were weak, spontaneous and free, its'main mode was personal development and primarily aimed at research. In launching phase, the instructional development of faculty had been more formal, organized and rapidly, It's mainly externally financial support and passive-oriented development, instruction had become the focus of faculty development. In booming phase, the instructional development of faculty achieved substantive change, not only supported by internal funds, but it had been changed to take the initiative-oriented development. In scientific phase, the instructional development of faculty had been expanding and deepening, and became more refined and scientific, it has been mainly active development and organizational development. The instructional development of faculty had been gradually changed into the whole development, achieved comprehensive development, fundamentally completed institutionalized development, approximately professed, partly closed to subjected and realize technology-aided development.The basic way of instructional development of qusi-faculty is graduated instructional assistants, graduated instructional development and preparing future faculty in U.S. The graduated assistant system is one of the most effective measures to promote the instructional development of qusi-faculty, preparing future faculty is a more significant pre-graduate education reforms. Instructional development of qusi-faculty is academic-oriented development, and teaching development is in a weak position, active development is second to passive development, personal development is second to organizational development.Instructional development of faculty in American focused primarily on resolving "how to teach and how to teach better ", which mainly include: technical knowledge, strategic knowledge, practical knowledge, operational knowledge, conceptual knowledge and theoretical knowledge, while technical knowledge, strategic knowledge, practical knowledge and operational knowledge are most common. The contents of instructional development of faculty in American not only include basic, compensatory, prerequisite of eligibility development, but also include the contents of enhancing, refining and enlarging, of which eligibility development is in first place, enhancing development is in second place. The kinds of development both belong to the meso- elements and micro-elements, particularly in micro-content majority. Untill 2001, instructional development of faculty in American have been organized more than 66%, the development of American faculty in which the teaching & learning center in American universities and colleges were 54% of the total, in Ph.D. -Research University, teaching & learning center increase even more rapidly. The main way is : guidance, services, workshops, seminars, courses, consulting, lecture, round-table talks, instructional awards, instructional evaluation and instructional support. Compared with pre-faculty, instructional development of faculty is mainly active development and organizational development.There are three kinds of ideal way of instructional development of faculty which include self-guided instructional development of faculty, learning and exercising based on practice instructional development of faculty and informal loose cooperative instructional development of faculty, they will be beneficial to improving the effect of instructional development of faculty. Self-guided instructional development of faculty is in order to emphasize the significant value of self and self-teaching, learning and exercising based on practice instructional development of faculty emphasize the value of practice, informal loose cooperative instructional development of faculty put the emphasis on groups and "mutual" approach.