Faculty development is essential for promoting excellence in teaching and research, supporting institutional goals, and creating a culture of continuous learning that benefits both faculty members and students. However, educational institutions do not always allocate adequate resources towards supporting their faculty's professional development, especially from the institutional level. Underfunding this support can lead to the inability to attend conferences to keep up with the latest research and pedagogical practices in their fields, the inability to conduct meaningful research, and lack of access to modern technologies. This in turn can limit faculty growth and harm student learning outcomes. Ultimately, faculty who do not feel supported by their institutions can become disengaged or leave. This book attempts to address the needs of faculty from institutions where there may not be adequate resources to support robust faculty development activities. The chapters are written by faculty development experts in the US and Europe who understand the disparities between institutions and want to share programs that can be implemented for little or no cost. Each chapter provides objective, content, implementation, and evaluation details that can be used to replicate the program at other institutions. The hope is to begin to level the playing field in faculty development through sharing successful low resource programs with proven outcomes.

This volume addresses all facets of faculty development, including academic and career development, teaching improvement, research capacity building, and leadership development. In addition, it describes a multitude of ways, ranging from workshops to the workplace, in which health professionals can develop their knowledge and skills. By providing an informed and scholarly overview of faculty development, and by describing original content that has not been previously published, this book helps to ensure that research and evidence inform practice, moves the scholarly agenda forward, and promotes dialogue and debate in this evolving field. It will prove an invaluable resource for faculty development program planning, implementation and evaluation, and will help to sustain faculty members’ vitality and commitment to excellence. Kelley M. Skeff, M.D., Ph.D., May 2013: In this text, Steinert and her colleagues have provided a significant contribution to the future of faculty development. In an academic and comprehensive way, the authors have both documented past efforts in faculty development as well as provided guidance and stimuli for the future. The scholarly and well-referenced chapters provide a compendium of methods previously used while emphasizing the expanding areas deserving work. Moreover, the writers consistently elucidate the faculty development process by highlighting the theoretical underpinnings of faculty development and the research conducted. Thus, the book provides an important resource for two major groups, current providers and researchers in faculty development as well as those desiring to enter the field. Both groups of readers can benefit from a reading of the entire book or by delving into their major area of interest and passion. In so doing, they will better understand our successes and our limitations in this emerging field. Faculty development in the health professions has now received attention for 6 decades. Yet, dedicated faculty members trying to address the challenges in medical education and the health care delivery system do not have all the assistance they need to achieve their goals. This book provides a valuable resource towards that end.

This book on self-directed learning (SDL) is devoted to original academic scholarship within the field of education, and is the 6th volume in the North-West University (NWU) SDL book series. In this book the authors explore how self-directed learning can be considered an imperative for education in a complex modern society. Although each chapter represents independent research in the field of self-directed learning, the chapters form a coherent contribution concerning the scholarship of self-directed learning, and specifically the effect of environmental and praxis contexts on the enhancement of self-directed learning in a complex society. The publication as a whole provides diverse perspectives on the importance of self-directed learning in varied contexts. Scholars working in a wide range of fields are drawn together in this scholarly work to present a comprehensive dialogue regarding self-directed learning and how this concept functions in a complex and dynamic higher education context. This book presents a combination of theory and practice, which reflects selected conceptual dimensions of self-directed learning in society, as well as research-based findings pertaining to current topical issues relating to implementing self-directed learning in the modern world. The varied methodologies provide the reader with different and balanced perspectives, as well as varied and innovative ideas on how to conduct research in the field of self-directed learning.

"By nearly every measure, Americans are less engaged in their communities and political activity than generations past.” So write the editors of this volume, who survey the current practices and history of citizenship education in the United States. They argue that the current period of “creative destruction”—when schools are closing and opening in response to reform mandates—is an ideal time to take an in-depth look at how successful strategies and programs promote civic education and good citizenship. Making Civics Count offers research-based insights into what diverse students and teachers know and do as civic actors, and proposes a blueprint for civic education for a new generation that is both practical and visionary.

As learning moves into a more innovative and technologically savvy environment, it becomes increasingly important that library education continues to adapt and understand the resources that are available. Advancing Library Education: Technological Innovation and Instructional Design aims to provide relevant theoretical frameworks, empirical research, and new understandings for those interested in Library and Information Science and the impact new techniques and technologies are having in this area. Librarians, academics, and researchers will benefit from this careful look into current advancements in their field.

An illuminating volume of critical essays charting the diverse territory of digital humanities scholarship The digital humanities have traditionally been considered to be the domain of only a small number of prominent and well-funded institutions. However, through a diverse range of critical essays, this volume serves to challenge and enlarge existing notions of how digital humanities research is being undertaken while also serving as a kind of alternative guide for how it can thrive within a wide variety of institutional spaces. Focusing on the complex infrastructure that undergirds the field of digital humanities, People, Practice, Power examines the various economic, social, and political factors that shape such academic endeavors. The multitude of perspectives comprising this collection offers both a much-needed critique of the existing structures for digital scholarship and the means to generate broader representation within the field. This collection provides a vital contribution to the realm of digital scholarly research and pedagogy in acknowledging the role that small liberal arts colleges, community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and other underresourced institutions play in its advancement. Gathering together a range of voices both established and emergent, People, Practice, Power offers practitioners a self-reflexive examination of the current conditions under which the digital humanities are evolving, while helping to open up new sustainable pathways for its future. Contributors: Matthew Applegate, Molloy College; Taylor Arnold, U of Richmond; Eduard Arriaga, U of Indianapolis; Lydia Bello, Seattle U; Kathi Inman Berens, Portland State U; Christina Boyles, Michigan State U; Laura R. Braunstein, Dartmouth College; Abby R. Broughton; Maria Sachiko Cecire, Bard College; Brennan Collins, Georgia State U; Kelsey Corlett-Rivera, U of Maryland; Brittany de Gail, U of Maryland; Madelynn Dickerson, UC Irvine Libraries; Nathan H. Dize, Vanderbilt U; Quinn Dombrowski, Stanford U; Ashley Sanders Garcia, UCLA; Laura Gerlitz; Erin Rose Glass; Kaitlyn Grant; Margaret Hogarth, Claremont Colleges; Maryse Ndilu Kiese, U of Alberta; Pamella R. Lach, San Diego State U; James Malazita, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Susan Merriam, Bard College; Chelsea Miya, U of Alberta; Jamila Moore Pewu, California State U, Fullerton; Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, Aalto U, Finland; Jessica Pressman, San Diego State U; Jana Remy, Chapman U; Roopika Risam, Salem State U; Elizabeth Rodrigues, Grinnell College; Dylan Ruediger, American Historical Association; Rachel Schnepper, Wesleyan U; Anelise Hanson Shrout, Bates College; Margaret Simon, North Carolina State U; Mengchi Sun, U of Alberta; Lauren Tilton, U of Richmond; Michelle R. Warren, Dartmouth College.

Assists academic staff to develop their effectiveness as teachers and improve their students' learning by giving practical guidelines and suggestions for teaching and a series of activities.

This is the first international and interdisciplinary handbook to offer a comprehensive and an in-depth overview of findings from contemporary research, theory, and practice in early childhood language education in various parts of the world and with different populations. The contributions by leading scholars and practitioners are structured to give a survey of the topic, highlight its importance, and provide a critical stance. The book covers preschool ages, and looks at children belonging to diverse ethno-linguistic groups and experiencing different histories and pathways of their socio-linguistic and socio-cultural development and early education. The languages under the scope of this handbook are identified by the contributors as immigrant languages, indigenous, endangered, heritage, regional, minority, majority, and marginalized, as well as foreign and second languages, all of which are discussed in relation to early language education as the key concept of the handbook. In this volume, “early language education” will refer to any kind of setting, both formal and informal (e.g. nursery, kindergarten, early childhood education centers, complementary early schooling etc.) in which language learning within a context of children's sociolinguistic diversity takes place before elementary school.