Abstract:

It is widely accepted that professional development can improve teachers' pedagogical approaches. However, many teachers in higher education received little or no pedagogical training prior to or during their careers. Since 2017, a faculty Professional Development (PD) program has been developed at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), a public university in northern Portugal, with short courses and workshops on topics related mostly to teaching and learning methodologies and educational technologies. In this study we address the teachers’ perceptions about this PD program from 2017 to 2019.

We used an online survey to collect data on teachers’ perceptions on five dimensions:
1) participation in the PD courses;
2) implementation of what they learned in their own courses,
3) topics that should be addressed in future PD activities,
4) reasons for participating in future PD activities; and
5) suggestions or recommendations to improve the PD program in future editions.

The survey was completed in 2019 by 171 teachers (30% of total faculty). About half of those teachers never participated in PD activities, 30.4% attended PD activities at UTAD, while 5.3% attended such activities in other institutions, and 14% attended PD activities both in-house and at other institutions.

The reasons reported for not attending PD at all were: lack of time (38%), topics were not considered relevant (12%), were not aware of the PD opportunities available (7%), and were not able to get a place (7%).

34.5% of all teachers reported that they did implement in their teaching practice at least some of what they learned, while 10.5% implemented most of what they learned. Only a minority reported having not implemented what they learned (1%), because they considered it was difficult or because they didn’t have the time.

The respondents would like to get pedagogical training on: innovative pedagogical approaches (68%), educational technologies (55%), assessment methods (51%), personal and interpersonal skills (44%). 4% suggested other specific topics.

When teachers were asked if they were interested in participating in future PD activities, 54% said yes, 3% said no, and 33% replied that they did not know. The reasons to participate were: to contribute to improve pedagogical practice (72%); personal interest (65%); compatible schedule (55%); to learn something new (50%); applicability in their pedagogical context (48%); to improve their teaching skills (31%); quality of the trainers (26%); to contribute to the teacher’s performance evaluation (20%); to receive a participation certificate (11%). Because the question allowed multiple answers, percentages add up to more than 100%. The main reason stated for not participating in future PD activities was the fact that the respondents were close to retirement (n=5).

In this paper we also discuss the recommendations offered by teachers in five areas: number and frequency of PD activities; topics addressed in the activities; types of PD activities; quality of the trainers; dissemination of information about the PD activities.

Although the PD program at UTAD is relatively recent, we found that teachers show great interest in developing their pedagogical and technological skills, recognizing the benefits of their participation in the PD activities. It is, therefore, relevant to continue to improve the PD program.

Keywords:

Professional development, teacher training, inservice teacher education, higher education.