This Web Page is Offered as a
Starting Place for developing an important "Exploration
Guide" that can be used by individuals or teams
working in a computer lab
as part of a faculty/professional development program
This Exploration Guide is intended to help answer
these questions:
For a faculty member: What are 1 or 2
ways of improving teaching and learning that I should consider and use next
in one of my own courses? [Whether or not I adopt/adapt some technology
application!]
For someone who is supports faculty members: What
are a few ways of improving teaching and learning that I should introduce or
explain to the faculty members who want my help? [Whether or not they
are adopting/adapting technology applications!]
For a related but different approach, see the
"Why
Bother?" materials.
THIS PAGE IS INCOMPLETE AND EVOLVING!
[I'm still looking for better terms and labels for this list.
"Ways of" or "Approaches for" Improving Teaching/Learning" are not clear enough. I
look forward to working with friends and colleagues to build a
Concept Map
(using CMAP) that will enable and require us to clarify the terms we're
using and the relationships among them. - Steve Gilbert 10/31/2004.]
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Introduction
-
List/Taxonomy of
Attractive Approaches (Changes, Ideologies, ...?)
-
Categories of
Change
I. Introduction
Hypothesis
Faculty members are now confronting both an overwhelming variety of rapidly
changing new technology options and an unfamiliar chaos of not-so-new
theories, models, principles, jargon, taxonomies, ...intended to help
improve teaching and learning! Faculty members and those who support
their efforts to improve teaching and learning need help with finding,
understanding, and explaining a few good ways of thinking about, talking
about, and making practical improvements in teaching and learning.
Background
Prior to a few years ago, most faculty members in higher education had very
few pressures or options for changing how they taught and how their students
learned. Consequently, few faculty members were either required or
encouraged to learn about different approaches, different ways of thinking
about teaching and learning. Now the reverse is true. External
pressures (political, financial, popular expectations, ...) for improving
(at least changing) teaching and learning have increased. Information
technology continues to provide an accelerating stream of apparently
attractive new options for improving (at least changing) teaching and
learning. But most faculty members have had no explicit
training, have no formal vocabulary or conceptual framework, that
would have prepared them to find, evaluate, and select among educational
approaches - ways of thinking about teaching and learning.
It has become inconceivable that any single
faculty/professional development program or any single faculty development
professional could or should introduce any
faculty member to ALL the attractive possibilities listed below. It
has also become inconceivable to prove that one or two of these "approaches" is absolutely superior to
the others. It is even difficult to compare some of them with some of
the others!
THEREFORE: When launching or advancing a program
to help faculty members to improve teaching and learning with technology, select
and focus on only a few of these approaches. The decision can be
PERSONAL, EXISTENTIAL or POLITICAL/ECONOMIC:
-
Personal: Based on
individual preferences of participants and/or leaders
-
Existential: Based on a
"leap of faith" and the belief that any approach adopted with enough
commitment can succeed
-
Political/Economic: Based
on determining which approaches appeal to some of highest ranking leaders –
faculty governance org, compassionate pioneers, academic administrators,
legislators, board members, etc.; and/or determining which approaches
seem most financially advantageous.
[NOTE: Does adoption of ANY of the
following attractive educational changes/approaches/ideologies require the
development or improvement of “interpersonal skills” as well as changes
in thinking and professional behavior?]
