Faculty development autoethnographies: Engaging in peer coaching, learning communities, and mentoring.

Barlett and Rappaport (2009) contend that when higher education institutions invest in faculty development workshops there is a robust effect on the faculty members’ research and teaching innovation, interdisciplinary dialogue, university quality of life, personal engagement, and interdisciplinary cooperation. Furthermore, O’Meara and Terosky (2010) discovered the level of commitment, satisfaction and retention rates of faculty increase when faculty members feel that their academic environments are generative and genuine places for professional growth. Nonetheless, faculty members may struggle to find development opportunities that meet their individual needs and wrestle with finding the personal motivation to engage in professional development to fuel their individual career trajectory. To help meet these challenges, emerging types of faculty development techniques, peer coaching, learning communities, and formal and informal mentoring, are a means to encourage faculty to critically reflect upon their practices as teachers and researchers while engaging with peers to share knowledge. The primary purpose of this research is to explore examples of peer coaching, learning communities and mentoring as faculty development methods that engage faculty members in interactive activities while addressing individual professional development needs. The following research questions guide our inquiry: a) What does the literature inform us about best faculty development methods/ practices? b) What faculty development activities enhance faculty members’ research and teaching skills? And c) What does auto ethnographies of faculty members’ reveal as the most useful faculty development methods?