The faculty certification process at University of Phoenix is designed to optimize the success of new faculty teaching working learners in the University’s unique environment. Potential faculty are selectively screened, and those who pass undergo a rigorous four weeks of training. The certification course teaches candidates the skills they need to thrive in the University of Phoenix classroom, including facilitating active rather than passive learning, coordinating Learning Teams, and creating a stimulating online environment. Candidates who pass certification then teach a course under the guidance of an experienced faculty mentor, and are evaluated at regular intervals to determine if they are ready to join the faculty. Many candidates report that the training at the University of Phoenix is more intensive and robust than the training they received while teaching at other colleges and universities.
www.phoenix.edu
Article
Potential Faculty Undergo Rigorous Screening Process
University of Phoenix carefully selects faculty candidates to ensure that all have the proper educational and professional credentials. Candidates must hold either a master’s degree or a doctorate depending on the subject they plan to teach and have substantial work experience in the field in which they plan to teach. Recruiters screen potential faculty through a series of interviews, and candidates who plan to teach on-site give presentations during which their teaching skills are evaluated. Those who are accepted then take a four-week-long training course called Faculty Certification.
University of Phoenix Provides Faculty With In-Depth Training
University of Phoenix differs from traditional universities in that its curriculum is uniquely designed to meet the needs of the working learner. Its learning model, which is centered around collaboration, active learning, and the practical application of knowledge in the workplace, is unfamiliar to many incoming faculty, and they require careful training to adapt to it successfully. Faculty Certification is designed to give faculty the skills they need to thrive in the University of Phoenix classroom. Like all University of Phoenix courses, it is developed and managed centrally to ensure that all faculty share the same skill set regardless of where they were trained and who their Certification Trainer was.
Many faculty members who come to University of Phoenix after having taught at other schools are surprised at the quality and extent of training they receive. At some schools, faculty training consists of little more than giving new instructors old syllabi and textbooks used by others who have taught their courses in the past. “When I taught at a community college,” Russ Paden, Vice President of Academic Operations, remembers, “I was hired to teach a class that started the next day. I taught my classes that semester without any guidance from the school’s administration. I could have been doing anything in the classroom and no one would have known.”
When Paden became a faculty member at University of Phoenix, he was pleasantly surprised by the amount of support and guidance given him. “It was so different at the University of Phoenix,” he says. “I went through four weeks of training and when I taught my first class I was paired with a mentor who had taught the same course many times before and was very familiar with the material. The mentor had to write an evaluation of my performance before I could be accepted as a faculty member, and I still get peer reviewed annually.”
Incoming faculty often share Paden’s experience. “When we hire instructors from traditional higher education they are often offended that we require them to go through training!” he relates. “But when they finish training they say that they’ve learned so much; no one’s ever told them how to teach adult learners before. We walk them through all the nuts and bolts of facilitating a course at the University, tell them how to use our online systems, and give them all the tools they need to be a successful instructor. Many times they say they never could have made it in the University of Phoenix classroom without going through that instruction.”
“In our training we are treated very much like University of Phoenix students,” says Dr. Alex Hapka, a Lead Faculty member who teaches managerial statistics. “In addition to showing us the mechanics of grading, rubrics, and articulating our expectations to students, the facilitator prodded us for ideas on how to enliven and enrich discussion online. He trained us in how to write syllabi, how to establish a positive tone in the classroom to make students feel comfortable about participating, and how to use different media such as internet links and video to keep students interested. The training was less about content than the techniques needed to survive and succeed in an online environment. We were taught a very different facilitation style than most of us had used previously: we moved from a lecture platform to dynamic interaction. It was quite an eye-opener and rigorous at the same time.”
Mentors Aid and Evaluate Faculty Candidates
As Hapka observes, the Faculty Certification course mirrors the courses University of Phoenix students attend. Training is held either online or in a classroom, and candidates, like University of Phoenix students, work collaboratively in learning teams. They are taught by experienced faculty members who themselves have gotten specialized training in how to instruct new faculty. Candidates receive frequent feedback on their performance, and must earn a positive evaluation from their Certification Trainer to proceed to the next phase of the selection process.
After passing Faculty Certification, candidates still must past through one more step before they are invited to join the University of Phoenix faculty. Each candidate teaches a class under the guidance of a mentor, an experienced faculty member who provides him with coaching and suggestions for improvement. The mentor has access to the class but remains “behind the scenes” to observe the candidate’s performance. He or she gives the candidate weekly feedback and a final evaluation at the end of the class, and makes a recommendation to the Mentorship Team as to whether or not the candidate should be accepted as a faculty member.
Faculty Members Are Lifelong Learners, Workers, and Scholars
Faculty members at University of Phoenix are encouraged to continue their professional development long after they complete their candidacy. As in any university, University of Phoenix faculty actively publish articles, conduct research, attend conferences and seminars, and stay current by reading journals and trade publications. Unlike most faculty, however, many of them work full-time in the fields in which they teach, or have chosen to go into teaching after retirement, allowing them to bring a wealth of practical workplace experience into the classroom. Among University of Phoenix’s business and management faculty, for example, are the finance director of a billion-dollar health care organization, a CEO of a technological firm, human resources directors, owners of consulting firms, and other highly placed executives.
Faculty Certification, an internal certification, is just one of the many University’s processes that are subject to continuous quality improvement efforts by stakeholders. As indicated in Figure 1, mentors, certification trainers and the certification materials are evaluated at regular intervals using a wide variety of methods which lead to quarterly updates and revisions.
