Overview       |          Improving Learning and Teaching Skills (ILTS)           |           Faculty Development supports and University Policies                      

• Overview

UAP is very keen on developing the capacity of its faculty members and staff thereby improving the quality of scholarly work and teaching-learning leading towards creating an impact on society. Having efficient and quality faculty members are the key to the success of any department, and UAP acknowledges that not only by creating a helpful learning/ teaching culture within the departments but also by taking formal initiatives to introduce specially focused training sessions along with seminars and workshops. This is one such initiative that puts UAP among the pioneers and can be a model for many other universities in Bangladesh. UAP has opened scopes within its various policies and established supporting institutes to help further sharpening the academic acumen of its faculty members.

At the department level, all departments support (provides facilities, nomination) faculty members to attend training programs, workshops, seminars, and international conferences. The university encourages its staff for higher study by granting study leave. At the commencement of each semester, many departments arrange orientation workshops within the department for the newly appointed academics where distinguished resources persons provide lectures on various aspects.

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• Improving Learning and Teaching Skills (ILTS)  

With an aspiration to elucidate the role of the teacher in creating effective learning environments, employing active learning strategies & technique, ensuring an effective learning environment, developing the tools that allow students to practice learning in the class environment, UAP has initiated the training program "Improving Learning and Teaching Skills (ILTS)". Initiated in Spring-2017, it is a semester-long training program divided into 10 classes each semester for improving the proficiency of faculty members of UAP, especially the newly joined faculty members. All departments of UAP participates in this special and comprehensive training session on ’Teaching Pedagogy’. This program addresses different aspects of the teaching-learning process through which a faculty member can improve his/her performance as a teacher.

Mode and Objectives

ILTS is a 36 hours long faculty development program divided into 10 weekly day-long sessions. The sessions are usually led by the UAP Pro Vice-chancellor as a resource person and the chief coordinator. 

Intended for the newly joined faculty members, ILTS focuses on: 

In the last Fiscal Year, 2018-19 forty Lecturers & Assistant Professors of different departments have completed the ILTS course. Besides in-house trainers, Professor Dr. M. Mozahar Ali, Director, Graduate Training Institute, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, and Parveen S. Huda, Managing Director, Renaissance Consultants Ltd conducted the training.  

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• Faculty Development Supports and University Policies

Support to Faculty Members for Research, Publication, and Conference Attendance

UAP focuses on 3 Qs – Quality Research (QR), Quality Publication (QP), and Quality Conference Paper (QCP) and supports the faculty members through its Institute of Energy, Environment, Research, and Development (IEERD) as well as through respective departments. The goal of such support is for faculty capacity development in quality teaching,  research, and scientific publication. During the year, UAP has invested an amount of Taka 3.03 crore for research and development.

Study Leave to Faculty Members for Higher Studies

During the financial year 2018-19, 35 faculty members – 13 female and 22 male got study leave to study abroad. Another 31 faculty members had been granted study leave earlier. That makes a total of 66 teachers are on study leave.  Fifty-three faculty members doing their Ph.D. and 13 others are doing their Master’s in universities abroad.  

Study Leave with payment Policy

The study leave rule of UAP is favorable for faculty members for pursuing higher education. The leave with payment policy encourages faculty members who go abroad for higher degrees to come back again in the Department, thereby ensures a higher number of faculty members with higher degrees. Upon joining after study leave, he or she will get a percentage of the remuneration of each month during the period of study leave. In the last 5 years, a number of faculty members have come back to their respective Departments and are serving it after completing their higher studies in foreign Universities and hence, enriched the Department.

Evaluation of Faculty members by Students:

To improve the quality of teaching, students have the opportunity to evaluate the faculty members taking their classes in different semesters. This evaluation is done through an online automation system and the admit card of a student is not issued unless he/she fills the evaluation online. The evaluation form contains a number of points that address student’s feedback regarding different aspects of the teacher as well as the course he taught. Evaluated forms of each faculty member are sent to the Head of the Department and the respective teacher so as to identify his strength or weakness. If the evaluation of a faculty member is repeatedly found poor then he/she is advised to improve himself or to take another course. The poor evaluation may also result in zero yearly increments of a faculty member.

Peer observation 

Peer observation is another tool which gives a faculty member good idea about the strength and weakness of his/her teaching in a class. Peer observation is conducted through several practices including: 

Attendance: All faculty members are required to maintain dedicated office-hours per week and a daily roster of hours of service for each faculty member is maintained.
 

Punctuality in class: Faculty members are required to commence the classes as scheduled as well as fulfill the designed duration of classes.  
 

Make-up class: If any class is missed, academics need to fill up the make-up class form provided by the department. This ensures the completion of the total numbers of classes in a semester. 
 

Question moderation: All questions are moderated that ensures the total completion of 
course content and following Bloom’s Taxonomy Action Verbs. 
 

Results scrutinizing: After preparation and prior to final submission, results are scrutinized by another academic (nominated by department). 
 

In-Class observation: Senior faculty members pay surprise visits to classes of different courses in order to evaluate the quality of the lecturing and classroom activities during the commencement of the sessions. This practice allows the evaluation of the peer as well as the monitoring of the required duration of the classes. Often teachers invite other faculty members to engage in a dialogue with the students. 

• Professional development programs for supporting staffs:

For staff development, UAP pays 50% of the total cost of attending workshops and short courses.