1. A COP Approach to Model the Modern Professoriate for CALS PhD Students
Jeremy Elliott-Engel
PhD Student, Virginia Tech
Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education
Donna Westfall-Rudd
Associate Professor, Virginia Tech
Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education

2. What is the GTS? Graduate Teaching Scholars (GTS)
in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to train science PhDs in pedagogical instruction.

3. GTS Components Annual student cohorts (6) Weekly Classes
3 Year Progressive Teaching Plan
Future Professoriate Certificate
Educational Research Component
Mentor

4. GTS Scholars Summary 30 Scholars have participated in the program
Scholars represent all departments in CALS (12)

5. Evaluation Need Program completed five (5) years. Est. 2012
Scholars were graduating
Program Improvement

6. Evaluation Assumptions
Relationships would play a significant role
Not goal free
Exploratory

7. Evaluation Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative evaluation is to explore the characteristics and recognition of the program components that are supporting teaching improvements in GTS Scholars and Virginia Tech CALS more broadly.

8. Evaluation Questions
Determine what aspects of GTS are having an impact on Scholars.
Identify impacts that the GTS program has had on Scholars teaching.
Identify attitudes and perceptions held by Virginia Tech’s CALS faculty and Department Heads.

9. Theoretical Framework
Experiential Learning
- learning from doing
Situated Learning Theory - direct embodied experience
Communities of Practice -vicarious experience, through relationships

10. Participants: Employees (n=8)
Given Name
Type
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
David
Mentor
Male 56
Caucasian
Shannon
Female 35
Karen 52
Max
Mentor & Department Head 64
Tim
Department Head 55
Daniel
Department Head (Interim)
No response
Charlotte
Laura
Administrator
Three focus groups and 9 interviews over a two month period in the Fall of 2016.

11. Participants: Scholars (n=10)
Given Name
Type
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Samantha
Alumni
Female 36
Chinese
Kristin 29
Caucasian
Molly
No response
Sarah
Cacuasian
Grant
Male 27
Pam
Current Scholar 30
Brad 26
Native American
Peter 31
Samuel 40
Jose
Hispanic
Convenience sample. All of the alumni were recent graduates of the program and all were either in a new position or still working on their PhD. Only one current

12. Methods and Data Analysis
Design
Analysis
Triangulation (Department Heads, Mentors, Participants)
Audit Trail
Open Codes
Thematic Analysis with research partner
Focus Groups & Interviews

13. Themes Developed Recruitment & Finding Successful Scholars
Three year program is beneficial
Weekly session
Teaching
Research component
Mentors
Development of Community of Practice
Preparation for a Career in Academia

14. Recruitment & Finding Successful Scholars
Jose (Current Scholar) said “one of my really good friends… ed me about this program and [said] you are really interested in education, and I would really recommend you join. I looked into it, and it sounded really good as far as developing my, as far as where I wanted to go career wise.” Department Head Tim said “I wouldn’t encourage every PhD student to apply for it. I think it depends on their career interest. My assumption is that it is pretty heavily oriented towards formal classroom teaching…”

15. Three year program is beneficial
Molly (Alumni) said “the fact that this is three years is so important, the fact that this is not just a one shot, one semester deal makes the different, it really makes this completely different than any other program and it makes this an actual learning experience, it gives student so much more flexibility and so much more time to really develop their career as an educator.” Samantha (Alumni) said “It’s been very very useful to have, to actually go through the process and slowly to, at first just observing and then taking on some of the teaching responsibility, and then all of the teaching responsibility. And, that type of direct exposure, especially after the third year when you have actually been teaching class, has been extremely helpful…”

16. Weekly Session
Brad (Current Scholar) said “we have our course meetings where we meet and discuss things that we’ve read.” Molly (Alumni) said “I think that had the most influence because it was so regular, it was like every week for 3 years, there was a lot of time in there to learn, to discuss, and to also just to collaborate with people around you, so that was probably learned the most from.”
Consistent interaction with their peers

17. Teaching
Samuel (Current Scholar) said “The teaching, you have the lesson plan preparation, the assessment planning, mentoring students, advising students, dealing with students as people too not just as students, and all the issues that they can bring into the classroom. The diversity issues … in the classes that I teach all the students are all the same, but, there are a lot of differences too.” Sarah (Alumni) said “I think really what the most impactful thing was we had the ability to then translate that more textbook type learning, lecture type learning, into actual experience.”

18. Research Component
Jose (Current Scholar) said “we also are required in a sense kind of to do some kind of educational research and that is a little different, as far as me coming from a science background, I really don’t know anything about like educational research so that was actually kind of interesting, reading up on the different, well what I was interested in and trying to apply that into my classroom setting.” Shannon (Mentor) said “I mean flat out, I mean if I could get a research paper out of this, that’ll be great! That helps my numbers..”

19. Mentors
Mentors and scholars developed relationships (some better than others).
The mentors mentioned learning pedagogical skills from their mentee
Mentors in the classroom caused Scholars to be undermined with Undergraduates.

20. Development of a Community of Practice
Daniel (Department Head) said “GTS you have the cohort, you have the weekly seminars with the cohort and there is more of that interaction” Kristin (Alumni) said “It should also be noted it’s Cohort. It’s a group and we learn from each other, so…” Brad (Current Scholar) said “The best part is the experience of teaching and then being able to meet with a group of like minded people, hum, with whom you can share those experiences and get feedback on those things that you can improve on.”

21. Preparation for a Career in Academia
Sarah (Alumni) said “The reality is that you have research obligations and you have teaching obligations, you have professional service, that’s life.” Pam (Current Scholar) said “I have been transferred to a project. So normally PhD students in my Department, like, they only funded by the project, so they do the project, so right now, I work for a long time on the field responsibility, so I am supposed to do the project which has a specific deadline, like other PhD students, besides that the GTS.” Kristin (Alumni) said “it was really hard to teach three-times a week, uhm and even, teach a lot of the material to myself because it wasn’t necessarily my area of expertise, by any means. Uhm, prepare for that and try and implement some kind of techniques and even ya know, getting used to being in the classroom as often as I was but research definitely fell… But, was put on the backburner when I was teaching.”
Experiencing the tension of Research and Teaching and practiced balancing those two things.

22. Identified Improvements
Consistent Feedback was requested
Mentor (Role Clarity & Training)
Less focus on teaching and learning theory, philosophy and increased practical application

23. Limitations Researchers were affiliated with the program
Unique program format and one University reduces transferability

24. Implications An intensive program is not right for everyone
Building relationships matter
Three year timeline supports growth
Opportunity to Practice teaching

25. Recommendations Long-Term Learning Opportunities Scaffolding Teaching
Mentoring roles need to be defined, supported, and revisited

26. Questions?

27. Contact Information
Dr. Donna Westfall-Rudd
Associate Professor Virginia Tech
Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education
Jeremy Elliott-Engel
PhD Student Virginia Tech
Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education
Website: