Practice what you preach: Lecturers learning about design-based education

Higher education programs introduce educational innovations to prepare students for their future professions. These innovations often require new lecturer roles, which in turn requires lecturers’ professional development. Previous research has indicated that collective learning and congruence between the approach of the professional development and the educational innovation support lecturers’ learning. The current study investigates a design-based professional development initiative, focusing on collective and congruent learning, that supports lecturers to move towards their role as facilitators in a design-based learning context. Survey and interview results reveal that lecturers had positive experiences with the four key aspects of collective learning: inquisitive dialogue, shared vision, collective action, and evaluation and reflection. However, not all factors were experienced to the same extent. The inquisitive dialogue was experienced as the most important factor, which stimulated the dialogue about the underlying principles of the educational innovation and led to meaning-oriented pedagogical activities. Not all lecturers recognized the congruence between the professional development initiative and educational innovation, but if they did, they experienced it as a positive impact on their learning. Lecturers’ referenced working with colleagues as a factor that facilitated their learning, whereas a lack of time inhibited positive outcomes of the professional development initiative.