It’s a new world! Beth Harrison University of Dayton

Who are you? What are your issues re working with faculty? Training for faculty. Need to change the way they think. More than the minimum. Build bridges. Don’t wait: UD now! Submit textbooks on time. Captioning. More work? Share notes with students.

Today’s Agenda  Objectives  Some disclaimers  Faculty culture  Considerations in working with faculty  Material added during the session

Objectives  To help you understand faculty culture at the college level  To provide you with strategies for working successfully with faculty re issues of access 3 GREAT books (all from Jossey-Bass pub)

Some disclaimers  My background:  faculty  faculty developer  student support  Universal Design with AHEAD  Describe faculty, not defend EXCEPT in one thing  From my experience

Bergquist & Pawlak, Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy 2 nd edition, 2008 Culture = “a container for the anxiety that individuals feel about their environment”

6 cultures Collegial faculty culture Managerial efficiency competence realistic Advocacy confrontation effective use of resources Tangible roots community local values Developmental rationality attention to the person student success Virtual new virtual forms globalization collaboration

Collegial (faculty) culture  Quality = complexity of thought, not practical or concrete or contemporary (England)  Free scientific research: willful & autonomous faculty (Germany)  Goal: prepare students for grad school

Collegial (faculty) culture  Identity through the discipline  Teaching = time away from research, scholarship  Focus on competition, prestige, dominance  Students not at top of faculty list  Lacks organization, coherence

Collegial (faculty) culture  Universities as collegial  Community colleges as managerial  Superiority, exclusivity

1. Remember: Most faculty have never had formal training in teaching.  Taught to be researchers  How do you develop a course if no training? From what worked best for you!  Bergquist’s “anxiety”  Don’t know to think differently

2. Teaching is an intensely personal act.  Identity  Not easy to change  Threat Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

3. Approach faculty as peers.  Hierarchy, castes in the academy  Use first names?  Don’t let yourself be intimidated

4. Most faculty ARE interested in having their students do well.  Passion for their subject, want to share it (loneliness)  Don’t know how to work better with students  Fear of failing

5. Faculty concerns:  Rigor  “Fairness”  More work?  Don’t get in the way of tenure!

6. All learners differ, including faculty.  Should you just talk in real time? Give a written description or chart?  Send something ahead to give the faculty member processing time?  Prescriptive vs. suggestive?

7. Focus on student learning.  Avoid the “numbers game”: when I have a student like that, I’ll...  Learner differences  Learner-centered education  Your faculty development office Maryellen Weimer, Learner-centered Teaching

8. Take an “appreciative inquiry” approach.  Ask faculty about their own experience...  As a learner... When did it feel best?  As a teacher... When did it feel best?  Then build on that

9. With a group of faculty, be “multivocal”.  Know your audience, at least in general  Repeat in different ways  Give examples at different levels  Speak to the most anxious first (specific, concrete  abstract, open)

Richard Shelton, University of Arizona poet

Things that come up during the session discussion Feel free to contact me with questions or issues I might be able to help with! Beth Harrison University of Dayton

Things that come up during the session discussion  Nicole Ofiesh work on timed testing (middle school level, I think): Students who know the material do not do significantly better with extended time. Neither do students who don’t know the material. But students who know the material and can’t produce it in the required format in the required amount of time DO do significantly better with extended time.  **I’ll look for the specific references, post them when I find them.

Things that come up during the session discussion  Inexpensive, short, readable faculty development updates:  The Teaching Professor newsletter edited by Maryellen Weimer  National Forum on Teaching & Learning newsletter  **Check to see if your faculty development office gets these or if you have an institutional subscription (through your library?)

Things that come up during the session discussion  **I don’t know of anything right now that brings faculty development and disability work together in a broad yet useful way.  Maybe we/I could start a column in the ALERT or a monthly e-newsletter through AHEAD to do that? Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll talk with AHEAD. It could be a Dear Abby sort of thing or a short article each time.