Developing Faculties in Community
By Amy KM Hawkins Columbia College, Chicago
|
|
Developing Faculties in CommunityBy Amy KM Hawkins Columbia College, Chicago |
(Re-) Considering Faculty DevelopmentIt wasn’t until I found myself in the role of Director of Composition at Columbia College Chicago, a program that serves over 2000 students a year and coordinates the efforts of 70+ composition faculty, over 55 of whom are part-time, that I became aware of the importance and power of these informal, but focused conversations. Just as I was given a great deal of freedom as a graduate student, the program I direct allows for a great deal of flexibility in choosing texts and creating assignments. I have, in the spirit of the writing program administrators who came before me, made sure to emphasize that our part-time faculty also have the freedom—within a frame—to create the course that would be interesting to them, to teach the way that emphasizes their own strengths. As I stepped into the role of program director, I became acutely aware that in order to support this particular pedagogical perspective, faculty development wasn’t really wasn’t about information. Certainly , information is a part of it—making sure people are able to review the goals and objectives of the program, to consider possible assignment and assessment rubrics—but more importantly, good faculty development is about providing opportunity and space for instructors to interact with other instructors, to exchange ideas, share concerns, swap secrets. The purpose of this module is to encourage you to examine what it is we mean by faculty development, its purpose and its intention. To me, the term faculty development invokes a top-down approach whereby someone works to have faculty become more developed, usually through the dissemination of new and enlightening information. This doesn’t mean I do not find this frame for faculty development important. To the contrary, I find it essential that we do provide the space and time, the support and resources for the individual to develop his/her own personal faculties, to grow from a point of power and individual pedagogical perspective. However, I also see tremendous value in working to reframe two particular aspects of the writing program, part-time faculty development and part-time faculty evaluation, to make room for the collaborative and the communal. These two examples below are by no means revolutionary or unique, but taken together, they highlight the idea that conversation, sharing and reflexivity are at the heart of ethical faculty development. Creating Community -- Composition ColloquiumI am privileged to have at my avail a sizable faculty development budget as well as a Center for Teaching Excellence. Both of these resources make possible the creation of hospitable time and space for community development. But I began to understand than what made my graduate student experience so powerful was that we were, as a group, on equal footing. There was a real and honest exchange of ideas. As a writing program administrator, though it is my job to keep faculty up-to-date on programmatic changes, to suggest helpful ways of dealing with power struggles in the classroom, to provide support and concrete guidelines for employment, and to ethically consider the knowledge and power of the faculty themselves, I would also need to actively work to create space for the kind of exchange that allows people to talk, to process, to exchange ideas, not simply receive them. As a means of addressing this notion of critical conversations at a community as well as a personal level, we created a Composition Colloquium, one envisioned by the part-time faculty and supported by the full-time faculty. The Composition faculty work together to decide upon a specific inquiry question for the year and then develop four sessions, each with a different purpose: idea discussion, workshop, guest speaker, idea sharing. While everyone on the part-time faculty is invited to the guest speaker presentation, only 20 people—those who indicate interest by filling out a brief, simple application—are invited to the other three sessions. Part-time faculty receive stipends of $100 for each session in which they participate and attend. The response this year has been enthusiastic engagement and a renewed sense of commitment to the program. One very important aspect of the composition colloquium has been the online discussion conducted through a listserv. Though no one is required to participate and not everyone does, there have been bursts of conversation throughout the semester regarding any number of pedagogical concerns. As Director, I am on the listserv and able to read the postings, but I usually do not participate here as I wouldn’t want my own personal opinion misunderstood to be departmental policy or a specific recommendation. Rather, I use another listserv—one for all composition faculty, not just those in the colloquium—for my communications. In this way, I hope to make clear that individuals are welcome to express their own opinions and ideas. They ought to feel able to look to each other for support, guidance and ideas and feel as though they have expertise and experience to add to our program. I have been very energized by these conversations and hope that this online communication continues and grows in the future. It is one piece, but an important piece of this sort of ongoing faculty conversation.
Encouraging Conversation- Portfolio AssessmentBecause of the size of our program, assessment of part-time faculty—when placed solely in the hands of the Director and Assistant Director of Composition—meant a non-stop whirlwind of classroom visits and observational write-ups. In conversation with our composition committee (comprised of members of the Composition faculty), we worked to enhance faculty evaluation by requiring the submission of a teaching portfolio on a rotational, rather than yearly, basis. The goal of this portfolio system is to allow for the creation of space for a conversation between part-time and full time faculty members. Those who are asked for a portfolio are assigned a full-time faculty mentor (one of six or seven different faculty members) who will write a classroom observation, meet with the faculty member to answer questions and provide support, and be the point person for the teaching portfolio submission. Most importantly, the mentor serves as a space for conversation, a way for two instructors to discuss their own styles and approaches. Part-time faculty become directly connected with a specific full-time faculty member and, in turn, the portfolios become a way for the administrator—me—to really get an idea of who the faculty are, of what they are doing in the classes and of where each one is in their own pedagogical journey. Two specific faculty members with experience with portfolio assessment created a document outlining when one is due to submit a portfolio and what is required in that portfolio. The guidelines are linked here, on our Professional Support page in our digital Composition Faculty Handbook: http://english.colum.edu/composition/handbook/support.html. We also include the rubric for evaluation so that faculty can understand that, basically, we are interested in seeing that these elements are included, that there is effort to consciously consider their own pedagogies. One of the most important aspects of the portfolio review has to do with reflection and reflective practice. This is why we ask for a Self-Assessment Narrative as well as a Philosophy of Teaching Statement. The idea is for faculty to reflect upon the negotiation between what it is they think they are driving for in the classroom, and what actually happens. Classroom observations—one by their mentor and one by another Composition Committee member—serve as a starting point for this reflection. The observations include the basic narrative of what happened, a general assessment and, more importantly, suggestions for ways of nurturing the writing community. Mentees are asked to reflect upon what is suggested and respond to what they note in these suggestions. This dialogue often becomes the basis for the longer pieces of writing in the portfolio. Overall, the program is interested in hearing about how the faculty respond and shift and change as they assess their own teaching, not in presenting themselves as a flawless, master-teacher. For this reason, we encourage portfolios that reflect growth and development on the part of the instructor; ways of understanding not only how they serve the students, but what they contribute as a member of our teaching/learning community. Creating a Culture—Developing a Assessment of our own EffortsThough our evidence is only anecdotal, and there was opposition to the process at first (that is a whole other story!), currently, the process is experiencing positive reviews from part-time faculty members as well as full-time faculty mentors. Part-time faculty report that the process has made them more confident in their teaching; they are increasingly willing to try new things in the classroom. Full-time faculty members note that process creates a space for them to be more reflective about their own teaching practices and pedagogy. I, as Director, have become aware of how much time and energy part-time faculty spend on their courses and the attention they provide their students. The process invites dialogue and thereby underscores the idea that there may be as many different ways to approach the composition classroom as there are people. Because of this positive response, there is the temptation to simply keep moving as we have, avoiding what it is we really need to pursue: assessment of our own faculty development programming. We are in our third year of this program and we are beginning conversations about a 5 year review of this program. The idea would be to contact all who have gone through the portfolio review process—whether they are still employed at our institution or not—and ask them about their experience with the portfolio review process. Most likely, we will work with Institutional Research and Development and the Associate Provost of the College of Literature, Arts and the Science to develop a fairly simply survey to find out how folks think about this process. Did it affect their teaching? How? Did it affect their understanding of themselves as a part of a community? How? Did it affect their own professional development? How? Did the listserv help keep you informed of the larger teaching community? How? Did you participate in listserv discussions? We will aim to combine some quantitative and some qualitative elements of the survey so that we will be able to communicate our findings in a variety of settings: internal and external. The idea is that with such an assessment we can revise the process to make sure it continues to reflect our goals of enriching faculty development and nurturing community in the Composition Program. This sort of assessment can be used to better understand the community at large and identify certain cultural characteristics of our program so that we are better able to hire folks who will fit in, guide those who may struggle with our student population, and identify leaders within this community. And, in establishing a rhythm of semester to semester teaching portfolio evaluations, combined with a bi-yearly review of the program and a five-year review of our own faculty development efforts, we hope to make clear that the overall goal is in creating a dialogue among all aspects of our learning culture. Discussion Questions:
|
Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies. If you have a question or a problem about a specific book or product, please fill out our Product Feedback Form. |