Documentation and analysis of six university professors' reflective processes in their daily planning, instructing, and evaluation of learners led to design of a metacognitive model and coding scheme that operationalize the process of reflection. Both provide a language for describing reflection, and therefore a way to think about improving…

Institutional policies and practices aimed at developing university teaching are analyzed according to various theoretical perspectives that seek to explain why some innovations are successful and others are not. The role of academic staff in supporting such development is examined. (Author/MLW)

The institutionalization of faculty development policy and activities is compared for Australia, Great Britain, the United States, West Germany, and Sweden. The factors that precipitated the trend in each country are examined, and it is concluded that the reward systems in each country favor faculty research performance over teaching. (Author/MSE)

Analysis of universities as organizations, characteristics of academic staff, and universities' change processes suggests why attempts to improve teaching have not been very successful: teaching is very complex; attempts at amelioration are relatively new; the theoretical base is weak; and focus on developing individuals may be inappropriate.…

An approach to college-level instructional design that incorporates the principles of constructivism, termed "constructive alignment," is described. The process is then illustrated with reference to a professional development unit in educational psychology for teachers, but the model is viewed as generalizable to most units or programs in higher…

Initiatives at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) to improve instructional quality include identification of teaching skills through consultation with expert teachers, specification of teaching standards, use of student feedback on teaching, awarding of distinguished teaching awards, assessment of teaching competence upon hiring, a…