‘Teach the teacher’: Design and evaluation of a professional teaching development program

Abstract

[EN] A significant aspect of engineering education is the tutorial experience. This article describes the development and evaluation of a Tutor Development Program delivered within a School of Engineering in one of Australia’s leading universities. The paper presents a novel framework for an extended tutor professional development program that fosters interactive ways of engaging students. Evaluation of the program involved feedback from participating tutors, their students and the program facilitator. Our results show that tutors found the program extremely useful and, in turn, their students responded positively to the strategies tutors implemented. Observations by the program facilitator support these findings. We argue that an extended professional development program that facilitates active engagement is a crucial component in engineering education.