During their careers, faculty members can expect to be involved with strategic planning and to participate in quality improvement processes. Through such involvement, faculty members can expect to lead or contribute to specific action projects. This module provides a general template for planning such projects.
The Need for Action Projects
Traditional expectations for faculty performance include teaching, scholarship, and service. While teaching and scholarship most often involve faculty members with students and their peers, service activities often require faculty members to work in teams or committees and to take on roles related to shared governance or institutional operations. Faculty members may be involved with action projects that have to do with implementing an institutional strategic plan or that are part of an institution’s commitment to continuous quality improvement. There are established systems for managing institutional change, and tools available for conceptualizing change processes (Kanter, 2002). When participating in institutional change processes that include strategic planning and continuous quality improvement, faculty members can expect to be involved with action projects. As more institutions adopt quality frameworks in order to demonstrate accountability, faculty members find that, as employees, they need project skills and familiarity with tools for participating in action projects within quality systems (1.2.3 New Faculty Roles for Institutional Effectiveness and 1.3.2 Academic Strategic Planning—The Basics).
Action Projects and Quality Action Projects
In its general sense an action project is a time-limited endeavor that is undertaken to bring about a desired outcome which results in beneficial change or added value (Wikipedia, 2007). A quality action project is part of a quality framework within those institutions which practice continuous quality improvement in order to facilitate institutional improvement and to benchmark their achievements with other institutions. Quality frameworks may be professionally defined or established by formal accrediting bodies, or created by state governments as a way for higher education to demonstrate its accountability to the public. The Academic Quality Improvement Project is an example of a quality framework leading to accreditation (Higher Learning Commission for the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, 2007).
Enabling Institutional Learning
The hallmark of a quality educator is the ability to enable learning whether at the interpersonal, programmatic, or institutional levels. Whether they are working with students, with peers, or serving on university-wide committees, the desired outcome for faculty members is to enable learning (2.5.1 Boyer’s Model of Scholarship, 1.1.4 Learning Colleges, 1.1.3 Efforts to Transform Higher Education, and 1.2.4 Profile of a Quality Faculty Member).
Process Education Principles and Institutional Learning
When examining the principles of Process Education as presented in 2.3.1 Introduction to Process Education, one can see that the principles are as applicable to enabling learning at the institutional level as they are to the mentoring of students. Table 1 highlights these parallels. Institutions that value quality improvements develop structures that institutionalize their efforts and make them part of the institution’s administrative structure. The quality culture is one in which planning improvements are part of administrative and academic responsibilities and in which action projects are aligned with planning.
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Process Education Principles |
Process Education Principles Enabling Institutional Learning |
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Every learner can learn better; potential is not limited by current ability. |
Every institution can improve; quality is a commitment to institutional improvement. |
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The goal is to become a capable, self-sufficient, lifelong learner. |
The goal is continuous improvement at the institutional level through the development of quality systems. |
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An empowered learner uses learning processes and self-assessment to improve future performance. |
Institutions plan improvements through action projects that create measurable outcomes; these are analyzed and reviewed; the insights gained inform future actions. |
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Educators should assess students regularly. |
Institutions can develop a culture that sustains continuous quality improvement. |
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A specific knowledge base should be combined with lifelong learning skills. |
There is an established body of research on institutional change, as well as literature that describes best practices and research that deals with paradigms for quality improvement. |
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Quality educators improve learning through timely, appropriate, and constructive interventions. |
Quality leaders facilitate improvement through action projects that enhance or change institutional practice within a larger planning process that is aligned with the institution’s mission. |
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Mentors use specific methodologies that model the steps and activities that they expect students to use. |
Institutions implement action projects that model change through specified steps and which involve project management skills. |
Parallels between Kinds of Projects
Faculty members regularly employ project management skills in their roles as instructors, for example, when they design courses. The steps in designing a course can parallel the steps of action projects undertaken by a quality council or a strategic planning committee. These may involve goal setting, communication, development of a work plan, the use of creativity, problem-solving and analytic reasoning tools, modeling of the desired learning behaviors, measurement of performance, and demonstration of success. Whether a faculty member is designing a course or serving on a committee, the work becomes a project when it involves a series of steps and specific activities that are limited in time, scope, and resources; action projects have defined beginnings and endings with specific targets and measurable outcomes.
Steps of a Quality Action Project
The steps in designing quality action projects form a cycle for improvement in which practices are observed and measured in light of outcomes, data is gathered, results are analyzed, and insights are developed; and based on such insights, adjustments are made or changes implemented. The cycle then repeats itself as follow-up measures are set, new outcomes tracked, and the project reviewed.
It is through the systematic review of practices and processes that institutional learning occurs. The quality action project begins with the insight of the enhancement, improvement, or desired outcome as its target, and learning occurs as the team members gain insights which concern why and how to redesign processes in order to increase the value or improve the outcomes.
The action project itself contains activities that are strategies or interventions designed to bring about the desired outcome; it involves actions that lead to new practices or to adjustments of existing practices in order to bring about the desired outcome.
Part of good planning involves the identification of the resources that will be needed, including people, funding, facilities, and equipment. It will also contain milestones so that progress can be gauged over time and within the larger timeframe set for the project.
The action project will plan for any needed collaborations or outside support required for the implementation of the actions. A level of readiness for the project should be established as internal and external barriers to collaboration are identified. The steps in an action project can be organized with the following template.
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Action Project (Plan) Template (see 1.3.8 Successful Institutional Change—The Human Dimension)
List of Strategies/Activities (name, description): Resources Needed (people, funding, facilities, equipment) Milestones (description with date): Collaboration Efforts (outside units/people): |
Concluding Thoughts
Involvement in institutional effectiveness work and quality action projects requires individuals to think broadly and act locally. Faculty members ultimately play a dual role; they participate as citizens of the academic community in affirming broad institutional goals, and they act as team members when committing to specific action projects. A faculty member then is challenged as a member of an action project team to bring about desired outcomes through strategies that are time specific and resource limited, and challenged as a citizen of the academic community to remain engaged in the greater visioning of the institution’s future. These perspectives often require both paradigm shifts and changes in behavior. Therefore, we need to find ways to support the learning curve that this means for so many individuals and institutions.
References
Academic Quality Improvement Program: A Higher Learning Commission Quality Improvement Initiative. Retrieved May. 10, 2007, from <http://www.AQIP.org>
Kanter, R.M. (2002). Reinventing education change toolkit. Retrieved May 10, 2007 from <http://www.reinventingeducation.org/RE3Web>
Project management. Retrieved May 10, 2007 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management>