By COL Ben Wallen ’96 and Dr. Stephen Finn, Guest Authors

The United States Military Academy is investing in faculty development. On May 13, 2024, the Master Teacher Program (MTP) celebrated two important milestones: completing 20 years in existence and surpassing 1,000 graduates.

MTP is a two-year voluntary faculty development program run by USMA’s Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE). Although the course’s specific curriculum has changed over the years, the intention has been the same: to help faculty members develop the skills needed to educate and inspire cadets. Over the course of the program, participants attend monthly meetings during which they discuss an assigned reading related to teaching methods and practices. MTP also requires participants to attend a small number of Teaching Improvement Presentations, write reflection papers, and complete a capstone project, often a classroom research project or literature review.

The program’s participants have mostly included faculty members who teach cadets as part of the Dean’s Directorate; yet, officers and staff from the Department of Physical Education, Department of Military Instruction, Brigade Tactical Department, USMA Library, and the USMA Prep School have also enrolled. MTP reached beyond West Point in support of setting conditions to build, educate, train, and inspire students through remote sessions with the U.S. Army Engineer School (Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri) from 2008 to 2012, the Canadian Army Command and Staff College (Kingston, Ontario) from 2014 to 2018, and the Sergeants Major Academy (Fort Bliss, Texas) and the Canadian Armed Forces from 2022 to the present.

Dr. Anita Gandolfo, who was the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence (the former name of the CFE), started MTP in 2004. According to Colonel Jeffrey Starke (Retired), who was on a tour of duty at West Point during MTP’s initial years, Gandolfo worked with the department heads to get the program started. Brigadier General Daniel Kaufman ’68, who was serving as Dean of the Academic Board at the time, guided the effort. Starke, who assisted Gandolfo in developing the program, pointed out that MTP was born out of a desire to expand “brown bag” professional development meetings into a more robust program that would attract a greater number of faculty to participate. Starke provided Gandolfo with materials he obtained while attending a course as a graduate student about teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin. Gandolfo then created the initial curriculum of MTP using these and other resources.

Colonel Mark Read ’92, now serving as the Head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, was one of 15 faculty members enrolled in the first year of the program. When asked to reflect on his experience in the inaugural class, Read said, “The Master Teacher Program helped me understand and see what ‘right’ looked like, not just in any classroom, but in a West Point classroom. Twenty years on, I am still realizing the benefits of MTP as I continue to teach, and now coach and mentor other faculty to be great teachers.”

Expansion of the program was greatly increased by Dr. Mark Evans, who took it over in 2006 as the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). Evans continued to direct the program for 15 years, along with Dr. Stephen Finn, who joined CTE in 2009 as the Assistant Director. During this period, MTP was expanded to enroll 100 or more participants each year, with 50 to 70 graduates completing all the program requirements annually. According to Evans, “The impact of MTP on cadet education is enormous.” MTP, he says, “not only helps participants think about teaching techniques but also provides a forum for impactful cross-department discussions regarding what works best in the classroom.”

Throughout the history of MTP, the requirements and course materials have changed to reflect the evolving needs of the Academy. In its present form, MTP is a two-year voluntary program requiring participants to attend six meetings in the first year. Prior to each meeting, the participants must complete a reading assignment and write a short reflection paper about the reading with a focus on what they may employ to enable a more enriching and meaningful learning experience for their cadets. The current textbook of MTP is Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It by James Lang, currently a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame. This book was chosen by the current MTP directors because it is directly applicable to the situation in which arriving faculty find themselves. To be more specific, most new instructors at West Point do not determine a course’s primary features, such as its assigned texts, grading structure, and major graded assignments. These tasks belong to what are called “course directors.” Instructors, by contrast, are mostly concerned with teaching, so their primary task (as a classroom teacher) is to capture students’ attention and help them stay engaged with and learn course content. Lang’s book offers many tips for creating a learning community in class, which minimizes unwanted distractions.

In the program’s second year, participants must attend two meetings per semester. Each session has designated participants leading the discussion, which gives faculty members an opportunity not only to share innovative educational ideas they are passionate about but also to hone their presentation skills while highlighting their progress on their capstone effort.

Over the program’s two years, the participants must also attend four Teaching Improvement Presentations (TIPs). TIPs are lunchtime presentations sponsored by CFE and open to all faculty members at the Academy (not just MTP participants). These presentations are often led by faculty members at USMA, and they cover a wide range of topics related to educating and inspiring cadets. For example, recent TIPs included topics such as elevating student writing quality through well-crafted writing assignments and think-pair-share techniques. Participation in MTP invariably serves as a gateway for faculty to pursue excellence in teaching beyond the requirements of MTP. For example, Dr. Maria Ebling (a 2022 MTP graduate) runs a continuing education program which meets six times over the academic year for faculty to discuss best practices to enable classroom engagement and enhanced learning based upon the aforementioned MTP reference. Over the past two years, 20 staff and faculty from across 13 departments or organizations across West Point participated in this program, which continues to build and strengthen a robust faculty community.

Graduation from MTP also requires participants to complete a capstone project. Historically, there had been two main capstone project tracks: a classroom research paper or a literature review. Those undertaking classroom research often study a particular teaching technique and try to find ways to measure its effectiveness. For example, a teacher might wonder whether assigning pre-class video lectures will improve cadet performance on quizzes or whether playing background music in class may maintain student attention. By contrast, those conducting literature reviews study pre-existing educational research to better understand what research tells us about a particular teaching technique or topic. In 2023, a third option was added for the capstone project: the observation track. Participants taking this option are organized into small teams, whose members observe each other in the classroom and then meet to discuss strengths and areas for improvement.

Although MTP’s primary goal is to help faculty members develop their teaching skills, it has the secondary effect of developing their scholarship and research. Since many of the MTP participants are junior faculty members, the capstone projects give them an opportunity to conduct scholarship that can eventually be developed into a conference presentation or journal publication. For example, Major William Putt and Major Vince Shaw ’12, who both recently graduated from MTP, presented their paper “Icebreakers: Does Pre-Class Discussion Lead to Better Learning Outcomes?” at the Conference for Higher Education Pedagogy at Virginia Tech in early February. According to Putt: “MTP was instrumental in expanding my pedagogical toolbox. It equipped me to tailor my teaching, allowing me to better reach all my students. The program’s structure, reading selection, and ongoing support proved invaluable in my development as a teacher.” The classroom research projects also have the potential to enable junior faculty development, such as when a second-year MTP participant incorporates a first-year MTP participant in their research effort. Therefore, the possibility exists for the return on investment of an MTP classroom research project to integrate the domains of teaching, scholarship, and faculty development.

In reflecting on the role of MTP in the academic program, Brigadier General Shane Reeves ’96, the current Dean of the Academic Board, said, “The Master Teacher Program arms our faculty with the latest techniques for educating and inspiring our cadets while providing an interdisciplinary community to exchange best practices and ideas.”

The most important effect of MTP is the positive impact it has on the cadets. Since many faculty members may teach up to 72 cadets per semester, the improvement of teaching effectiveness has a synergistic effect on cadet learning. Thus, over its 20 years of developing more than 1,000 faculty members, MTP has positively impacted the education of countless cadets. MTP has and will continue to help build a community of scholars, educators, and leaders.

COL Ben Wallen ’96 is an Academy Professor teaching courses in Environmental Engineering in the Department of Geography & Environmental Engineering. He holds an M.S. in Geological Engineering from University of Missouri–Rolla, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Colorado School of Mines. His recent publications address inspiring excellence in teaching through deliberate faculty development and addressing lessons learned from remote teaching due to COVID. He currently serves as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development.

Dr. Stephen Finn is the director of the Center for Faculty Excellence and an Associate Professor at the United States Military Academy. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Villanova University, an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research, and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of New Hampshire.