Quality postsecondary instruction yields benefits that extend far beyond the classroom.
A new ACE white paper concludes that quality postsecondary instruction yields benefits that extend far beyond the classroom.
The impact of excellent college instruction
can reach into students’ co-curricular experiences and contribute to
students’ achievement—retention, persistence, and success—ultimately
leading to improved institutional efficiency, states Institutional Commitment to Teaching Excellence: Assessing the Impacts and Outcomes of Faculty Development (6 MB PDF).
In addition, the paper finds that higher
education institutions must leverage their unique assets (such as
faculty, instructional expertise, and educational technologies) to
design and implement student-centered, attainment-focused instructional
approaches and practices that can lead to improved student outcomes and
timelier postsecondary credential completion. It is divided into five
chapters, each offering a distinctive perspective on postsecondary
teaching and focusing on multiple audiences: faculty developers, deans,
provosts, and presidents. But faculty is the constant thread tying the
paper together.
The paper was commissioned by ACE as part of the Council’s collaboration with Strada Education Network
to examine higher education instruction and assess the connections
between quality teaching and student success. It was unveiled last week
in Montreal at the annual conference of the POD Network, which works to advance the research and practice of educational development in higher education.
ACE was a co-sponsor of the conference, and
Steven Taylor, ACE’s director of academic innovation &
initiatives and principal investigator on ACE’s effective teaching
research, led two sessions: “Measuring the Impacts and Outcomes of
Faculty Development: A National Benchmarking Effort” and “A Shared
Commitment to Teaching Excellence: Investing in the Future of Faculty
Development.”
ACUE
also was a conference co-sponsor and led two sessions examining “The
Evidence: Pairing Research and Practice to Drive Student Success.” ACE
is invested in ACUE’s success and works in collaboration with ACUE to expand dramatically the use of effective teaching practices to benefit students, faculty, and institutions.
Institutional Commitment to Teaching Excellence is part of ACE’s work to elevate the important role that teaching plays in helping students
and institutions succeed and that faculty development plays in
improving teaching practice by identifying connections between
instructional quality, student outcomes, and institutional efficiency.
It is the third in a series of papers released in collaboration with Strada. The first two were Instructional Quality, Student Outcomes and Institutional Finances (2 MB PDF) and Unpacking Relationships: Instruction and Student Outcomes (1 MB PDF).