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Analyzing how university teachers' academic calling is changing entails understanding the changing motivational pressures they are subject to. Over the course of the last ten years, the use of federal Economic Stimulus Programs (PEEs) in Mexican public universities has been a factor that needs to be analyzed both for its successes and also in terms of some undesirable effects it has had. Many have suggested that the change in the objective well-being of academics that is caused by these PEEs does not necessarily result in an improvement in their performance as researchers or teachers. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to provide information on the actual situation, which is more tenuous when making a distinction among: the gap between what academics believe regarding the notion of quality, the value provided by the PEEs to their teaching duties, professors' multifunctional profile, or other academic functions such as research. Based on an abbreviated method designed to observe the viewpoint imposed on the faculty, which consists of the design of a questionnaire and an initial interpretation of its results, we will show how the statistical data were obtained. These data will be also useful for a subsequent qualitative interpretation. The idea is to encourage the confluence of ideas that derive from this method and that different researchers would want to delve into. In this case the data are combined with information that explains some of the effects inferred from them that are related to teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a general overview of the literature about faculty evaluation. The review process begins from the main challenges that have been found in different publications, research reports and literature, where faculty evaluation has been addressed by its conceptions, purposes, approaches and instruments. Through this lens four aspects has been considered: the complexity of the teacher activity, the lack of agreement towards what to be a good teacher at university is, to limit the teacher's responsibility only to student learning, and the growth of the criteria for teaching evaluation. These criteria could be materialized in some perspectives about "good teaching". The review offers a clear idea of the state of the art regarding faculty evaluation research. It gives elements of analysis for the development of research in the future. The paper concludes by describing a comprehensive, open and flexible approach to teaching evaluation. In addition, we describe some foundations for the development of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of this century, University has been experiencing a profound transformation. In this framework, the guidance and tutoring are a major issue in Higher Education. The modern Life designing conception highlights two fundamental factors: the commitment of the person in the construction of the life-project through systematic reflection and the need for professional support in different forms and contexts: a challenge for reflection and creative response of guidance and mentoring at universities. This is why innovations in tutoring are so numerous, promoted at universities either by teachers or by governance in order to achieve the implementation of guidance and tutoring systems, based on new technologies and scientific developments that respond to identified needs. This is generating an innovative dynamics and a structural renovation at universities, achieving a better Higher Education quality. Thus, the studies included in this paper constitute a mosaic of intervention practices in University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of higher education the training and development of the teachers' quality is probably one of their biggest challenges. To address it rationally we must first determine the nature of the teacher's role within a highly complex and demanding environment such as the twenty-first century and then develop the basic program and strategy of its management. It is also a key element, determining the characteristics of the trainers who will boost these processes. In our paper we analyze the preferred spaces that make up the performance of the teachers and the nature of their relationships. From this study we derive the competencies associated with the work of the teacher and from them, we try to determine the nature of the approaches for use in teacher training college and the role that their facilitators must play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the results arising from a project to the preparation and testing of a multimedia material to promoting autonomous learning in the acquisition of specific competences of the Ecology practices course, in Biology studies at the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB). The main objective lies in the gradual adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) from greater coordination among teachers and the acquisition of new resources for teaching. The results obtained in the materials experimentation can be considered significantly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some findings of an evaluation study conducted in five spanish universities on the design of a 'FORCOM Guides for Self-Assessment Teaching Competencies'. This device has been developed to help university teachers to cope with the teaching demands of EHEA. Data collected in a previous teaching needs? assessment were the grounds of the very first design of the guide. Sixteen senior university teachers - of any scientific area- had been demanded, firstly, implementing the Guide, and next, they had been required in order to look for their perceptions about: a) the ease and other aspects of practical management of the Guides ('format evaluation'), and b) the utility and suitability of its content to teachers? teaching needs ('content evaluation'). Data analysis points to: 1) the validity and utility of the created device, especially for helping well experienced teachers in EHEA; 2) its capability the increase the teaching technical knowledge of the teacher, and 3) some change demands related with the present format and with the content of the Guides, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]