February 1, 2012 — The TRC's Course Design Institute Goes to Saudia Arabia!

Following an invitation from the deanship of academic development at King Faisal University (KFU), four POD members, Dorothe Bach, Deandra Little, and Michael Palmer, assistant professors and associate directors, Teaching Resource Center, University of Virginia, as well Peter Felten, assistant provost and director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, Elon University, traveled to Saudi Arabia to lead a week-long workshop series on course design, January 5-12, 2012. They were received with great warmth and generous traditional Saudi hospitality.

The workshop series, Improving Teaching and Student Learning through Course Design Activities: A Research-Based Seminar Series, was modeled on the UVa's Course Design Institute. Seventy KFU faculty from all disciplines participated. They came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, and Tunisia. Participants welcomed the highly interactive format of the sessions. Dorothe, Deandra, Michael, and Peter were impressed by their eagerness to learn about current research on teaching and learning and their willingness to engage in small group discussions and individual work on their courses.

The Saudi Arabian ministry of education currently devotes considerable resources to academic development, regularly sending faculty to Europe and the US for training and inviting developers to facilitate workshops (see Chronicle of Higher Education article Slowly Modernizing Saudi Arabia.) They are not the first POD members to work with universities and faculty in Saudi Arabia; Dee Fink, Jim Groccia, and Virginia Lee kindly shared their experiences as they prepared for the trip and they assume that others have traveled to the area. As a result of these various efforts, faculty at KFU were generally well versed with concepts such as learner-centered teaching, active learning, problem-based learning, etc. and the level of discourse about teaching and learning was comparable to that in the United States.

Although the educational context has some notable differences – e.g. Saudi students get paid to go to college, are not entirely free to choose their major, and are strictly segregated by gender—many of the difficulties KFU faculty report about implementing good teaching practices sound surprisingly similar to those we hear in the US and Europe. Their dreams and aspirations for their students are also remarkably similar: KFU faculty want their students to become critical thinkers, caring health care professionals, future Nobel Prize winners, and educated citizens who will change the world for the better.

An article on the workshop can be found of KFU's website. It is in Arabic but readers will see a few high resolution pictures. The pictures are taken in the men's section of the workshop; Saudi women will not pose in front of a camera. Below are additional pictures of a billboard announcing the workshop, of Deandra and Dorothe at the final reception hosted by the leadership of the women's college, and of Michael and Peter in traditional thobes.

Billboard outside King Faisal University announcing the TRC's Course Design Institute.

Professors Deandra Little (left) and Dorothe Bach (right) in traditional wedding garb.

Professors Michael Palmer (left) and Peter Felten (right) in traditional male Saudi attire.