Roadmap for Continuous Professional Development of STEM Lecturers

Despite the ongoing systematic integration under the Bologna Agreement, higher education systems in Europe are still different in different countries and have different focus areas in the professional development of lecturers. At many European universities, professional development is often organised from a pedagogical point of view and the lecturers are left alone to apply the acquired pedagogical knowledge in their own teaching practice. In the Erasmus+ project STEM-CPD@EUni, five European universities and the European Chemistry Thematic Network (ECTN) are collaborating to enable continuous professional development (CPD) in a local university STEM teaching practice. A new concept in CPD is introduced, the CPD ambassador. Three dimensions characterize the activities of the CPD ambassadors in their local context: (1) STEM educational competences, (2) teaching attitudes, and (3) CPD activities. To define the needs for the CPD in these dimensions, a survey was developed with 66 statements evaluated from two different perspectives: their general importance for the quality of teaching and learning and their use in teaching practice. 420 lecturers from 80 universities from 26 countries and 46 education managers from 31 universities from 11 countries in Europe completed the survey from the end of November 2020 to the end of January 2021. The results show similarities and also some differences between the European countries and indicate in which directions the CPD is needed. The survey also showed that the priority list of needs for CPD should not be blindly followed but used in an evidence-based way. It is recommended to repeat the survey after some time. Based on the results of this research, a roadmap for STEM-CPD with guidelines and recommendations was developed in the STEM-CPD@EUni project.
Keywords: higher education, STEM, continuous professional development (CPD), teaching competences, teaching attitudes, CPD activities