Towards a model of faculty development in the digital age. The DIDE-L program's case

Today we are witnessing a renewed and growing interest in the issue of faculty professional development and learning. On the one hand, the emphasis is on enhancing the quality of teaching through specific training on pedagogies and technologies reflecting a more general trend which is affecting the scope of scholarship in the digital era. On the other hand, e-learning practices are currently reaching a wider penetration in academic contexts with almost all universities providing blended or online learning courses. The challenges of pedagogical and technological innovation at all levels of education, particularly at university level, is well known in the international literature. However, when taking into account the literature related to faculty development, it emerges a relatively low level of conceptualization of theoretical notions, a number of different models developed by each single institution, unclear strategies to evaluate the impact of training programs. Briefly, the field of faculty development surely deserves further investigation. This paper concentrates on DIDe-L, a program of faculty development developed at the University of Florence through a collaboration between the Department of Education and Psychology and the Centre of IT Services (SIAF). It illustrates and discusses the conceptual framework which underpins the training model, and its main components. Grounded on the emerging evidence on effective training interventions in the field but attempting to go a step further, the program is based on an integrated approach, which builds on four pillars: a) online resources (tutorial, templates) supporting self-directed learning, that triggers forms of design thinking by which educational problems can leverage creative pedagogical solutions; b) subject-field case studies, which enacts specific professional and pedagogical knowledge that is motivating for the teachers engaged in training activities; c) coaching and labs, where the teacher asks specific questions born from her own vision of pedagogical interventions, gearing the own professional learning process individually and in groups; d) a community, where the questions leading to professional learning are shared and learning outcomes (particularly professional results/content generated by participants) are showcased as a mean to enact vicarious, peer-learning. The paper ends with some considerations on criticalities and affordances of our model and on future research developments.