Investigating Transnational Collaboration of Faculty Development and Learning: An Argument for Making Learning Culturally Relevant

Abstract

Professional development offered to higher education faculty is meant to enhance pedagogy and improve practice. Inspired by a transnational partnership in Southeast Asia, this study aimed to discover how teacher education faculty perceived faculty development offered to them by university partnership colleagues from the United States. Survey findings indicate that certain faculty development strategies improved teaching and assessment practices and enhanced self-reflection. However, evidence also showed some negative faculty perceptions in relation to the US partner’s methodologies, and qualitative responses indicated a lack of relevancy to the Southeastern Asia context. Furthermore, negative correlations were found between faculty development workshops and teacher education faculty teaching subject area endorsement content and their praxis. Very little has been written on the impact of teacher educator professional development offered by transnational academic partnerships. Universities involved as transnational partners must be flexible, culturally sensitive and determine together areas of priority and relevance as a definition of success for partnership effectiveness.