Keep the Ball Rolling: Ways to Sustain the Positive Changes from an Innovative Faculty Technology Training Initiative
Abstract: Working insights will be shared from a five-year follow-up of a faculty technology-training initiative at West Chester University. This campus-wide faculty development program included “hands-on” cooperative learning during a week-long, intensive “Academy”, followed by ongoing mentoring, turn-key workshops, on-call technical support, and a web-based e-learning resource site. The program helped to link educational technology to pedagogy in order to educate, enable, and empower faculty in providing interactive technology-based learning to students. Participants were contacted during a second and fifth year follow-up and asked to comment on how they benefited from the earlier training and its long-term impact on their teaching. Findings indicated that they felt the original training had a transforming impact on them and that they were continuing to sustain its effectiveness through voluntary supplemental and reinforcing activities. Based on the follow-up, recommendations for sustaining gains from the training are discussed.