Solving Diversity Issues in University Staff Training with UNIPS Pedagogical Online Courses

In Finland and globally, many university teachers are teaching without pedagogical training. Employee training courses on pedagogy are offered via contact teaching, thus excluding potential students who are too busy to attend sessions at a specific time and place. In addition, majority of teaching is in Finnish, even though, for example, in the University of Turku, 10% of all employees are international. Due to limited teaching resources, university pedagogical studies used to be only available for university staff members who have teaching duties, excluding the majority of doctoral students from the courses. The UNIPS learning platform, developed by eight Finnish universities, was created to solve these problems. The current study investigates the impact UNIPS solution has on the above mentioned issues by looking quantitatively (N=590) at (1) which departments participants come from? (2) Are participants’ doctoral students or university employees and (3) what are the age and gender distributions of participants? In addition, participants’ perceptions of UNIPS studies are analyzed qualitatively. Based on the findings, UNIPS courses and similar MOOCs seem a promising way to support teachers’ pedagogical training. They can not only increase the diversity of offered studies, but also help create a more inclusive environment at universities.

[1]  Tommaso Minola,et al.  Students climbing the entrepreneurial ladder: Does university internationalization pay off? , 2016 .

[2]  Catherine Clarke,et al.  Foundational academic development: building collegiality across divides? , 2013 .

[3]  Iolanda Garcia,et al.  Informal online communities and networks as a source of teacher professional development: A review , 2016 .

[4]  Stefan Stürmer,et al.  How University Websites’ Emphasis on Age Diversity Influences Prospective Students’ Perception of Person-Organization Fit and Student Recruitment , 2016 .

[5]  C. Hill,et al.  Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. , 2010 .

[6]  Ulrich Teichler,et al.  Internationalisation Trends in Higher Education and the Changing Role of International Student Mobility , 2017 .

[7]  Brenda Leibowitz,et al.  Orientations to academic development: lessons from a collaborative study at a research‐led university , 2011 .

[8]  Jeffrey L. Buller,et al.  Rating Faculty Collegiality , 2012 .

[9]  S. Voelpel,et al.  WHEN AND HOW DIVERSITY BENEFITS TEAMS: THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAM MEMBERS' NEED FOR COGNITION , 2009 .

[10]  Lars Svensson,et al.  MOOCs for Professional Teacher Development , 2014 .

[11]  Mel Ainscow,et al.  Responding to learner diversity: student views as a catalyst for powerful teacher development? , 2015 .

[12]  Zane L. Berge,et al.  Possibilities for MOOCs in Corporate Training and Development , 2015 .

[13]  Robert Schuwer,et al.  Institutional MOOC strategies in Europe , 2015 .

[14]  Hideaki Takeda,et al.  Network analysis of massively collaborative creation of multimedia contents: case study of hatsune miku videos on nico nico douga , 2008, UXTV '08.

[15]  Mari Karm,et al.  Early-career academics’ learning in academic communities , 2011 .

[16]  Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower,et al.  Exploring and testing the predictors of new faculty success: a mixed methods study , 2015 .

[17]  Samuel D. Museus,et al.  The Impact of Culturally Engaging Campus Environments on Sense of Belonging , 2016 .

[18]  Stefan Stürmer,et al.  Sociodemographic Diversity and Distance Education: Who Drops Out from Academic Programs and Why? , 2015 .

[19]  A. Röhl,et al.  The Flipped Classroom: An Opportunity to Engage Millennial Students through Active Learning Strategies. , 2013 .

[20]  Crispen Bhukuvhani,et al.  Effects of electronic information resources skills training for lecturers on pedagogical practices and research productivity , 2012 .

[21]  Anna Mauranen,et al.  Linguistic Diversity on the EMI Campus , 2019 .

[22]  Patrick R. Lowenthal,et al.  Teacher Professional Development in the Digital Age:Design Considerations for MOOCs for Teachers , 2016 .

[23]  M. Scardamalia,et al.  Knowledge Building: Theory, Pedagogy, and Technology , 2006 .

[24]  Sandra Sanchez-Gordon,et al.  Relevance of MOOCs for training of public sector employees , 2015, 2015 International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET).

[25]  Mary Deane Sorcinelli.  Satisfactions and Concerns of New University Teachers , 1988 .

[26]  Katharina Reinecke,et al.  Demographic differences in how students navigate through MOOCs , 2014, L@S.

[27]  Rebecca Vivian,et al.  Addressing the challenges of a new digital technologies curriculum: MOOCs as a scalable solution for teacher professional development , 2014 .

[28]  Jing Lv,et al.  Social presence in relation to students' satisfaction and learning in the online environment: A meta-analysis , 2017, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[29]  Amanda Berry,et al.  Teacher Professional Development Focusing on Pedagogical Content Knowledge , 2012 .

[30]  Heidi Salmento,et al.  Minimizing the Number of Dropouts in University Pedagogy Online Courses , 2019, CSEDU.

[31]  Tobias Hecking,et al.  Investigating social and semantic user roles in MOOC discussion forums , 2016, LAK.

[32]  Lasse Lipponen,et al.  Exploring foundations for computer-supported collaborative learning , 2002, CSCL.

[33]  Carolyn Penstein Rosé,et al.  Sentiment Analysis in MOOC Discussion Forums: What does it tell us? , 2014, EDM.

[34]  Zhichang Xu,et al.  Linguistic diversity on an Australian university campus , 2019, Linguistic Diversity on the EMI Campus.

[35]  K. Hakkarainen,et al.  Communities of Networked Expertise: Professional and Educational Perspectives , 2004 .

[36]  Betsy J. Bannier.  Global Trends in Transnational Education , 2016 .

[37]  Chaochang Wang,et al.  Attitudes Toward English Diversity of Teachers and Staffs Who Help Promote Internationalization at a Taiwanese University , 2018 .

[38]  Anne-Mette Nortvig,et al.  The Double Classroom: Design Patterns Using MOOCs in Teacher Education , 2017, EMOOCs.

[39]  David E. Pritchard,et al.  Studying Learning in the Worldwide Classroom Research into edX's First MOOC. , 2013 .

[40]  Omprakash Gnawali,et al.  Language independent analysis and classification of discussion threads in Coursera MOOC forums , 2014, Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 15th International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IEEE IRI 2014).

[41]  K. A. Khor,et al.  Influence of international co-authorship on the research citation impact of young universities , 2016, Scientometrics.

[42]  Heidi Salmento,et al.  Development of an Online Learning Platform for University Pedagogical Studies-Case Study , 2018, CSEDU.

[43]  D. M. Savino.  The Impact of MOOCs on Human Resource Training and Development , 2014 .

[44]  Susan A. Ambrose,et al.  A Qualitative Method for Assessing Faculty Satisfaction , 2005 .