Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Faculty Mindset Amidst Professional Development Activities

Abstract

is a student in the Organization, Information, and Learning Sciences program at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests include faculty mindset change, change management, and organizational citizenship behavior. Much of her research is part of a National Science Foundation grant at UNM where the chemical and biological engineering department is redesigning curriculum to support diverse student retention and graduation. She intends to further her knowledge in the field of change management and hopes to study social network analyses of higher education organizations undergoing change to track buy-in, barriers, and adoption.

Developing a “Revolution”: Design Challenges in a Chemical Engineering Department

“…Our chemical engineering degree includes a 1-credit first-year course, four core technical courses, as well as laboratory, seminar, and concentration-specific courses, culminating in a two-semester capstone design sequence (see Figure 1). Some of the faculty were hesitant about the curricular changes (Ferris et al, 2022;Gallup et al, 2020;. We viewed this as expected, in part because we recognized that in their educations, they had not experienced such approaches.…”

“…The meetings were engaged and responsive to questions and concerns, and Dr. S offered research-based guidance, such as using shorter video lectures interspersed with guiding questions, organizing modules, supporting online collaborative learning, assessing learning in ways that were fair and useful, and understanding students' experiences and responding with care. Faculty took these ideas seriously; for instance, as others adopted surveillance software for exams, our faculty rejected it as intrusive, as potentially enhancing students' anxiety and therefore producing sources of measurement error, and with concerns about internet bandwidth (Davis et al, 2021;Ferris et al, 2022).…”

The Educative Design Problem Framework: Relevance, Sociotechnical Complexity, Accessibility, and Nondeterministic High Ceilings

“…Some of the design challenges were co-designed with graduate students who worked in industry, vetted by the department's industry advisory board, or developed with significant input from industry sponsors. Along with shifting to design-focused courses, the faculty collaborated with a learning scientist and attended workshops to develop learner-centered teaching strategies, results of which are reported elsewhere [26][27][28][29][30][31]. Over this timespan, several faculty discarded prior challenges or significantly revised their design challenges, before being pleased with the student outcomes.…”

Insights and Outcomes from a Revolution in a Chemical Engineering Department

“…Even during the early pandemic, faculty found ways to engage students in design challenges, for instance, offering simulations and access to data from prior courses [36]. Faculty used care to guide their decision-making process during this time [37,38]. By embedding a CoP in existing norms like seminars and faculty meetings, we know it is more sustainable and that it will persist after the grant period and funds end.…”