Monday, November 06, 2006

Resolving No Trump Arguments?

Who is good at running meetings in which there are at least two factions that hold different "frameworks"? With the goal of maintaining civil discourse while reaching accommodation about some decision that is important to both factions... With respect to improving teaching and learning (with technology), consider these 2 situations:

1.
A. People who seek "scalable" improvements independent of differences among faculty - "teacher proof" curricula, syllabi, instructional resources, pedagogies, ...

B. People who believe that differences among faculty are as important as differences among students and that any significant improvements in education must accommodate (better yet, take advantage of) differences among faculty... and students

2.
A. Believe in the value and truth of educational research - esp. done by school of education faculty

B. Believe in the value and truth of scholarship of teaching research

C. Believe in the value and truth of Classroom Assessment, "action research"

D. Believe that any teaching/learning innovation supported by citation of "educational research" results is suspect and to be opposed or ignored

3.
A. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning will be figured out first by colleagues within the same institution ("NIH" = Not Invented Here)

B. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning will be figured out first by the individual faculty member ("NIBM" = Not Invented By Me)

C. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning can and are being developed almost anywhere. A faculty member who identifies an instructional problem (esp. "Instructional Bottleneck") can and should first seek "solutions" already developed by colleagues elsewhere

D. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning are not worthy of adoption, adaptation, imitation, unless officially endorsed by the faculty members' professional disciplinary society

4.
A. Believe only transformative, large-scale, long-lasting change in course programs is worthwhile

B. Believe only incremental changes within individual courses - especially LTA-style changes - are feasible, worth the effort to find and promulgate

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