University Academic Staff Professional Development: Didactic Aspect

Abstract

The key issue in higher education is ensuring quality which is regarded as a means of sustainable and successful development. A multidimensional concept of quality embraces teaching and academic programmes, staffing, students, facilities, equipment and academic environment. The focus of the article is raising the quality level of the university academic staff in the aspect of promotion of the effectiveness of their teaching. The purpose of the research is to develop a collaborative professional development programme for university academic staff and experimentally verify its effectiveness with the focus on their didactic professional competence development. The methods of theoretical analysis and systematization of scientific sources and the method of pedagogical experiment realised through testing, collective interaction and discussions, trainings, consultations and monitoring the work of study group members were applied. The study has proved the appropriateness of the worked out collaborative programme of professional development for university academic staff as it ensures identifying professional development didactic needs and addressing them, increases motivation for professional development, facilitates creation of positive learning environment allowing for collective professional learning, experience sharing, joint decision-making on the teaching process improvement. The research results suggest that collaborative professional development programmes can serve as an effective tool for didactic professional competence development in university academic staff due to the focus on specific didactic needs and favourable productive collaborative learning atmosphere.