Faculty Professional Development

Robust, “real-time” faculty professional development is critical to advancing student success in and beyond the classroom.

Meeting campus goals for equity and student success requires that faculty keep pace with changes occurring in higher education and with the latest innovations in teaching and learning.
/ Lynn Pasquerella, President, AAC&U

At AAC&U, our goal is to make each aspect of a student’s curricular experience more transparent and equitable. Through faculty professional development that spans the learning environment—from the “micro” of assignment (re)design to the “macro” of curricular reform—OCPDI provides faculty professional development focused intensely on teaching, learning, and assessment.

AAC&U has partnered with the OneHE global network of educators to deliver sustained and affordable faculty development at scale.

OneHE helps educators develop their teaching practice through a safe and supportive online community with practical and engaging microlearning resources. The online platform enables educators to connect, collaborate, and share cutting-edge teaching and learning practices. Members also gain access to a global network of education experts.

AAC&U’s partnership with OneHE helps our member institutions ensure that all faculty have the support they need, when they need it, to be as effective as possible for their students. All AAC&U member institutions are eligible to join OneHE at a significantly discounted rate.

A Unique Partnership and AAC&U Member Benefit for Faculty Development

As the higher education landscape changes, faculty must seek to improve their practice in order to meet institutional goals and ensure student success. To this end, AAC&U has partnered with OneHE to make affordable and sustainable faculty development at scale. This partnership allows AAC&U members to access evidence-based OneHE resources and modules to improve learning and student success

Scalable and Sustainable Faculty Development

Learn more about AAC&U’s partnership with OneHE and how faculty at your institution can benefit.

Our approach to assignment (re)design encourages faculty to examine their assignments from a student’s perspective and to teach with transparency.

Approach to Assignment (re)design

Our approach to assignment (re)design focuses intensely on the student’s classroom experience. Faculty members and instructors can bolster students’ success, especially for underserved students, by sharing the underlying reasons for an assignment—namely, why and how courses and assignments are set up the way they are. These explanations can positively impact three key areas: academic confidence, a sense of belonging, and mastery of key skills.

Assignment (Re)Design & VALUE

Higher education institutions of all kinds have also benefited from applying AAC&U’s VALUE rubrics to assignment redesign. Additionally, AAC&U’s VALUE ADD tools provide faculty with resources to align student assignments with the VALUE rubrics. Unifying the curriculum to the assessment helps ensure content mastery and creates student opportunities for problem solving, analysis, ethical reasoning, and other situations beyond the classroom.

Curricular Reform: Reimagining General Education

Since the 1980s, AAC&U has taken the lead in creating a new vision of general education. We envision general education programs with clear, purposeful pathways that allow all students to demonstrate their learning through high-impact practices and teaching strategies that are transferable across disciplines, departments, institutions, and state systems. Through our conference and Institute on General Education, Pedagogy, and Assessment, OCPDI works with faculty and campus leadership to strengthen their general education programs overall, embed high expectations for student learning assessments, and enhance their curricula and pedagogy to ensure that curricula promote retention and degree completion and provide sustained professional development for the current and future workforce