About the program

The aim of the promising faculty  program, offered by the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, is twofold: to support and encourage faculty toward excellence in higher education; and to indigenize a group of them to be role models in higher education in order to achieve better ongoing education outcomes that have a direct impact on students’ achievement and that make them academically distinguished.

The Program Vision

The vision of the Promising Faculty  program is to become a leading program, relying on the best and effective educational practices.

The Program Mission

Preparing and indigenizing promising qualified cadres in higher education who are capable to launch quality changes and to have better teaching outcomes at KSU.

Principles of the Program Success

Priority: Priority will be given to the Program and its requirement such as time, efforts and quality that a faculty can achieve and master.

Process: Focus will be on what achieves the best expectations, utilizing the resources afforded by the program and dealing with circumstances positively and realistically.

Documentation: the participant has to document all the tasks and duties s/he does as they are the key element to assess his/her performance. Documentation also facilitates achieving sustainable development and deploying distinguished models as exemplars.

Individual Responsibility: the participant should take the initiative to do his/her best to master the skills that the Program requires. The more focused efforts made in the Program’s tasks, the better the investment will be in the support afforded by Center.

The Program Goals

The Promising Faculty  program aims at achieving the following goals

1. To indigenize a group of the University faculty members and improve their performance academically in order to be leading models in higher education

2. To achieve, document and deploy the best educational practices inside and outside the University, becoming exemplars in higher education.

3. To create attractive and effective learning approaches in order to inspire students’ learning and improve their academic performance, increasing the quality of teaching and its outcomes at KSU. 

Importance of the Program

An early career faculty encounters a number of challenges, and the prominent ones among these challenges are the amount of time and efforts a faculty should dedicate to teaching. Thus, every faculty member does individual efforts to improve his/her performance in teaching. His/ Her success and distinction depend on his/her ability in developing his skills and investing his time in this regard, so this results in individual experiences that might be unorganized and are subject to the faculty’s satisfaction and his desire to improve the teaching process. 

As an institutional work, every university has to have an entire program that creates sustainable work and leads the teaching process to make it more systematic, aiming to achieve the institution standards rather than being subject to individual standards that differ from one to another.  The importance of this Program is getting increased as faculty spend more than 40% of their work time on teaching “ensured by a survey study conducted at Vanderbilt University in the USA. Likewise, a faculty at our university might spend more time on teaching because of the high teaching load and the shortage of the support. That is, this Program is considered a quality investment on faculty and their valuable times, and the results will be quality promising outcomes among faculty and students. Consequently, a positive environment among the University Colleges will be deployed, which is an ambitious output the universities strive to fulfil it through achieving excellence in learning and teaching.

Program Eligibility

Only Saudi well-qualified assistant professors at KSU, whose teaching experiences do not exceed more than three years since they have obtained their PhDs, are eligible to join the Promising Teachers Program according to the following criteria:

1. A faculty has to be teaching at least two undergraduate courses/sections or six hours as minimum in every semester along the period of the program- two semesters.

2. The number of enrolled students in every course must not be less than 15 students.

3. The applicant must be full-time faculty during the period of the program.

4. The applicant has to be willing and capable to highly achieve the Program, and to do all duties on time.

Program Nominees Awards

1.  A nominee will receive a certificate of recognition in Teaching Excellence.

2. About 100.000 SR is devoted to each participant for carrying out the activities and tasks gradually till the end of the Program based on both the achievement reports provided by the participant and evaluation reports on quality of tasks implementation and optimality of performance. Obtaining the financial grant or part of it depends on the completion of the Program period- two semesters. The Center has the right to cancel the grant in case of incomplete requirements.

3. The Program requires involving students in doing some teaching activities according to clear criteria. Students are given an allowance from the grant according to the University financial standards.

4. The nominee can appoint a research assistant in order to do some teaching activities based on clear criteria, and they are paid according to the University financial standards.

5. The nominee has the right to publish some of the findings of the Program, mentioning the University as his/her affiliation, and the Center as a supporting institution.  The Center also has the right to publish those findings, mentioning the name of the nominee.

The Program Themes and Topics

The Promising Faculty  program includes a number of activities that contribute to achieving its mission and vision. The Program lasts for two semesters with approximately 50 hours in the academic year, spreading over periodical and semester meetings with the participants.

The Program includes the following main themes:

First theme: Employing technology in teaching

Second theme: Students assessment and evaluation

Third theme: Principles and Strategies of teaching

Fourth theme: Initiatives and development in learning and teaching

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