AI PD Plan Generator for Higher Education Teachers
Faculty professional development in higher education operates differently from K-12: most faculty have deep content expertise but limited formal training in pedagogy, active learning design, or learning assessment. The AI PD Plan Generator creates structured faculty development plans that can connect individual teaching improvement goals to institutional quality assurance priorities, accreditation evidence requirements, and the specific challenges of higher education teaching contexts, large lectures, online delivery, diverse student populations, and research-teaching balance.
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- Higher ed teaching context and constraints
- Faculty-specific
- Alignment, assessment, and delivery goals
- Course design
- Beyond lecture instruction goals
- Active learning
How higher education teachers use the PD plan generator
Professional growth plans built to be used, not filed away.
Course alignment and backward design
Many university courses were designed around content coverage rather than learning outcomes, resulting in misalignment between what is taught, what is assessed, and what students are expected to be able to do. Faculty PD plans in this area include goals around rewriting course learning outcomes in observable, measurable terms, aligning assessments to outcomes, and designing instruction that develops the specific abilities outcomes describe.
Active learning in large lecture contexts
Transitioning a large lecture course (100+ students) from passive content delivery to active learning is a significant instructional design challenge. Faculty PD plans in this area include goals around think-pair-share protocols, clicker or polling tools, case-based discussion facilitation, and just-in-time teaching approaches, with student engagement indicators and performance data as success metrics.
Assessment redesign for higher-order learning
University assessments often default to closed-book multiple choice and fact-recall essays that measure lower-order cognition. Faculty PD plans for assessment redesign include goals around authentic assessment design, performance tasks, oral examination protocols, and portfolio-based assessment, approaches that assess the application and synthesis abilities that degree programs are intended to develop.
Online and hybrid course quality development
Faculty transitioning to or improving online courses need PD specific to the online teaching context: asynchronous discussion design, video lecture quality, digital accessibility compliance, online assessment integrity, and building student community at a distance. PD plans include goals aligned to Quality Matters or equivalent online course quality frameworks.
Inclusive teaching and belonging in higher education
Inclusive teaching in higher education requires specific practices: equitable cold-calling protocols, accessible course materials, bias-aware grading, diverse representation in course content and examples, and belonging-supporting classroom norms. Faculty PD plans in this area include goals around syllabus audit, course content diversification, and inclusive facilitation practices, with student belonging survey data as a long-term outcome indicator.
Research-to-teaching translation
Faculty who are strong researchers but new to teaching benefit from PD plans that help them leverage their disciplinary expertise for instructional design, translating cutting-edge research into engaging course content, designing undergraduate research experiences, and building courses around real disciplinary problems rather than textbook progressions.
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- No student accounts.
- No ads.
- Data-processing agreement on request.
What this page does here
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Questions teachers ask
Is this tool appropriate for adjunct faculty as well as tenure-track faculty?
Yes. Adjunct faculty often receive less professional development support than full-time faculty despite having similar instructional responsibilities. The AI generates PD plans appropriate to the teaching context, adjunct plans typically focus on specific course quality improvement goals that are achievable within the constraints of part-time teaching, without the curriculum leadership or research-integration components that full-time faculty plans might include.
How does the plan connect to tenure and promotion requirements?
In many institutions, teaching effectiveness documentation is required for tenure and promotion. The PD plan provides a structured record of professional development activities, teaching improvement goals, and evidence of growth, which can support a teaching portfolio for tenure review.
Can the plan include goals for transitioning from in-person to online teaching?
Yes. Online course design and facilitation is a major PD focus for faculty who transitioned to online teaching rapidly and without preparation. Goals in this area include online course quality framework alignment (Quality Matters), asynchronous discussion facilitation, video production quality, and digital accessibility. The plan includes a realistic timeline, online course redesign is a semester-long project, not a single-session workshop.
Does the tool handle goals around generative AI and academic integrity?
Yes. Assessment redesign in response to generative AI is a current high-priority PD area for higher education faculty. The AI can generate goals around designing assessments that are resistant to AI circumvention (oral exams, process documentation, in-class writing), using AI detection responsibly, and teaching students appropriate use of generative AI in discipline-specific contexts.
Can a department chair use this to support faculty development across a department?
Yes. Department chairs and academic directors can use the tool to draft individual plans for faculty during annual development conversations, then keep their own notes on progress and on common development needs that warrant department-wide PD activities. The tool supports individual faculty growth planning, and the chair can use the plans for department-level professional learning coordination.
Related tools
AI with your school's own student and course data is part of OpenEduCat.
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