An examination of the key educational issues to emerge from a professional development programme for offshore lecturers in Singapore.

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 26: Learning for an Unknown Future

July, 2003, 692 pages
Published by
Helen Mathews and Rod McKay
ISBN
0 90 8557 55 8
Abstract 

Universities are increasingly recognising the importance of ensuring the quality of teaching and learning across their study programmes. With this essential focus in view, the Division of Business at an Australian university has implemented their strategic plan in relation to obtaining quality student feedback and establishing appropriate staff development and teaching and learning support. As a result, in 2000 the Unit Effectiveness Project was instituted to obtain regular feedback from undergraduate students regarding their perceptions of the unit and the learning experience. There have been protocols established to respond to the feedback, and support provided to teaching staff to assist with the ongoing refinement of teaching and units. While teaching and learning support is available to onshore teachers, there has been a need to provide similar support to our offshore lecturers within partner institutions. To this end, a professional development programme has been instituted throughout 2002. This article explores the initial stage of the evaluation of the professional development programme and outlines future directions proposed by participants.

Keywords: professional development, offshore teaching, evaluation