Deeply Rooted Ideas

“Today’s professors and administrators have acquired, from their own experience as students, deeply rooted ideas about higher learning that may hinder their ability to respond to new circumstances.” So writes Jack Lindquist in the 1981 book The Modern American College by Chickering and Gamson. He goes on to question how these professors, steeped in the traditions of the professor of the past, can possibly hope to teach 40- or 60-year old adult learners, minority students, or those students with unique demands quite different from the white, middle-class 18-22-year old. Given that changes in our student body will only be increasing more rapidly in the future, he goes on to say that the greatest challenge to collegiate professional development is to educate and socialize faculty and administrators for tomorrow’s postsecondary education. In short, what do tomorrow’s students need? And how can faculty members respond to those needs?

On to 1995, to Robert Barr and John Tagg’s influential article A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. They introduce the idea of the Learning Paradigm, and a solution to the problem of the rapidly changing student demographic. The Learning Paradigm focuses on student learning, as opposed to the Instruction Paradigm, which focuses on faculty instruction. This new paradigm “liberates institutions from a set of difficult constraints,” namely the increasing demand for postsecondary education from increasingly diverse students—in the face of declining budgets. It does this in part by creating learning environments and experiences for communities of students, by drawing on their many talents, and by empowering them to learn rather than telling them what they need to know. In the Learning Paradigm, faculty, courses, and the content therein (syllabi, lectures, etc.) are highly adaptable to changes in the student population. Finally, write Barr and Tagg, the Learning Paradigm “supports any learning method that works, where ‘works’ is defined in terms of learning outcomes, not as a degree of conformity to an ideal classroom archetype.” The cycle of those deeply rooted ideas about higher learning is quite possibly halted, albeit painstakingly slowly.

Jump now to 2006, and to the changing academic career as described by Jack H. Schuster and Martin J. Finkelstein in The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers. Today, we are asking what has become of the traditional academic career. Has it given way to the life of part-time instruction at various institutions, of academic “jobs” vs. academic careers? In fact, it has not. But our institutions are more focused on student learning and on faculty instruction. Faculty members are carrying slightly heavier teaching loads today, and more university appointments are teaching-only. There also has been, in the recent past, a sharp increase in faculty members’ use of instructional technology. In 1998, just shy of ten years ago, faculty members were already reporting spending 2.75 hours per week communicating with their students via e-mail. This was well before the surge in online instruction. The question (and challenge) is whether we will use instructional technology effectively, and remain focused on student learning. After all, as Shuster and Finkelstein make a point of writing, “the job of a good scholar and teacher is to continuously learn; and that is a tall, continuing order.”

So where are we now? The Learning Paradigm has been embraced by many, but not all. Our advances in technology have helped us to effectively meet the needs of our increasingly diverse student body, but only on a course-by-course basis. In short, we’re not there yet—and we won’t be anytime soon unless more faculty and administrators take action. Case in point: I recently downloaded the Podcast of a class from a reputable institution. Attending this class from my office, I watched a faculty member give his lecture, chalk in hand, to a group of about 100 very static students. For more than an hour, he told us what we needed to know. Indeed, “[t]oday’s professors and administrators have acquired, from their own experience as students, deeply rooted ideas about higher learning that may hinder their ability to respond to new circumstances.”

Martin Springborg

Chickering, Arthur W. and Associates. (1988). The Modern American College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Barr, Robert B. and Tagg, John. (1995). A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. Change, November/December, 13-25.

Schuster, Jack H. and Finkelstein, Martin J. (2006). The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Spring Discipline Workshops

MAY 1: LIBRARY REFERENCE AND INFORMATION LITERACY SERVICES IN THE DIGITAL AGE. North Hennepin Community College. Discipline Workshop Information

CTL Summer Opportunities

JUNE 4-30: TEACHING ONLINE WORKSHOP. Registration opens May 1. Additional Information

JUNE 11-15: RSP • ITEACH WEB CONFERENCE. Registration opens May 1. Additional Information

Regional Conferences

MAY 22: CLASSROOMS OF THE FUTURE CONFERENCE - Teaching, Learning, & Technology: In that Order. Keynote speaker: Steve Gilbert, The TLT Group. Hamline University. Conference Information

MAY 24: eLEARNING: GAMES & SIMULATIONS WORKSHOP for ALL Levels of Education -- K-12 & Higher Ed. Normandale Community College Conference Information

MAY 31 – June 1: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT PRACTITIONERS RETREAT - A Minnesota Campus Compact retreat for all civic engagement practitioners and those who coordinate or lead service-learning and community service on member campuses.
St John’s University, Collegeville, MN. More information

JULY 8-12: INTERNATIONAL DESIRE2LEARN USE CONFERENCE: Fusion – Realize the Potential. Keynote speakers: Ruth Clack, Will Richardson, Nancy White. Duluth Entertainment Conference Center (DECC) / Lake Superior College Conference Information

The POD Network is an organization called Professional and Organizational Development in Higher Education. It is an organization that fosters human development in higher education through faculty, instructional, and organizational development. POD offers publications, conferences, consulting, and networking, and offers services and resources about faculty development. Many resources are available directly at the POD Web site (http://www.podnetwork.org/) and other POD resources are in the ITeach center (http://www.ctl.mnscu.edu/iteach/).

Among the POD Network’s resources in ITeach is a series of 14 reading packets that CTL purchased for use by faculty and staff members in our system. Each reading packet contains a series of articles—grouped by topic—that addresses issues in teaching and learning, in topics ranging from “Critical Thinking” to “Evaluation and Grading Issues.” The reading packets are at http://www.ctl.mnscu.edu/iteach/resources/podreadings.html.

Speaking of POD, the organization has assembled a series of articles, guides, and other materials for faculty members to use when they are responding to crises on their campuses, or in the aftermath of a crisis. Those resources are at http://www.podnetwork.org/crises.htm.

- Thomas Wortman