Transcript Mason Template 1: Title Slide - University of KwaZulu

Supporting Self-Study of
University Teaching & Learning
for Professional Growth
Anastasia P. Samaras with SoSTC
George Mason University, Virginia, USA
Where Innovation Is Tradition
Our Project:
1) Individual Studies
2) Meta-Study
3) My Self-Study as Facilitator
12 scholars, one major regional public university, 16
months and counting…
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One project; 13 nested studies + the multiplier effect
• Our major meta study research question:
What is the nature of our interests, progress and
development as a faculty self-study of teaching
interested in studying professional practice?
• Each member identified a research question to improve his
or her teaching through critical collaborative inquiry.
• “What can I learn about my role in facilitating,
participating in, and supporting this faculty self-study
group?”
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Process
• Monthly meetings with the whole group
• Share experiences and findings
• Discuss issues related to methodology and data analysis
• Critical friends
• Sub-groups met regularly
• Wrote to each other to provide support during self-study
• Facilitated informal learning
• Made explicit
• Design of research instruments, collection of data, and
analyses (and preconceptions, assumptions,
mis-interpretations, dialogical validity)
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Methodology
~ Self-study methodology: a scholarly inquiry in
which educators systematically and critically
examine their beliefs and actions as they
undertake a pedagogical inquiry with the
critical support of colleagues to improve their
teaching and professional practice
(LaBoskey, 2004; Louie, Drevdahl, Purdy, Stachman, 2003; Pinnegar & Hamilton,
2009; Samaras & Freese, 2006).
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Why Self-Study?
• Faculty dialogue vs. individual inquiry
• Dialogue in collective inquiry --> change in
the community itself
• Collective knowledge & collaborative critical
inquiry:
– Personal insights and the research process must
be documented, presented and critiqued to
validate the researcher’s interpretations
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What does self-study methodology bring to teaching?
• The "I" is central and yet it's not about the "I.”
• We must work with critical friends - honesty, trust
and transparency of all stages of research are key
• The work is often prompted for social justice - it's
political, bold, pushing the boundaries, and
transparent
• Self-studiers use various methods to understand
better the improving of their practice although the
methodology has the 5 foci as a general frame
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Five Foci
Personal Situated Inquiry:
Self-study scholars initiate their own inquiries, in which critical reflection on their
values, actions and beliefs are a vital component, and study them in their practicing
context.
Critical Collaborative Inquiry:
Self-study scholars work in an intellectually safe and supportive community to
improve their practice by making it explicit to themselves and to others through
critical collaborative inquiries.
Improved Learning:
Self-study scholars question the status quo of their practice and the politics of
institutions in order to improve and impact learning for themselves, their students,
and the education field.
Transparent and Systematic Research Process:
Self-study requires a transparent research process which clearly and accurately
documents the research process through dialogue and critique.
Knowledge Generation and Presentation:
Self-study research generates knowledge which is made public
through presentation and publication (Samaras, 2011).
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Participants and Studies
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Kirk Borne
Computational & Data Sciences (COS)
[email protected]
My self-study question: How can I incorporate authentic research experiences,
involving inquiry-based activities, into an already dense class schedule?
From my self-study experience, I learned about:
• How to let go and let the students direct some of the questions and topics
that are addressed in class, including selection of topics for the final exam.
• How to incorporate the think-pair-share classroom engagement technique
into more of my classes, and consequently let go of “my precious lecture
time”.
• How to listen more carefully to what the students are saying about the
material each week, and then modifying future weeks’ content
accordingly, thereby putting course content into a relevant context.
– http://galaxyzoo.org/
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Lynne Constantine School of Art
MY QUESTION: How can classroom discussion
be re-imagined as a more powerful tool for
learning, despite today’s “take-no-prisoners”
models of combative talk?
WHAT I’VE LEARNED SO FAR
• Students still look to the instructor to model
[email protected]
democratic dialogue, even more than they
NEXT STEPS: Finding
new ways to teach
look to their peers.
students how to short• Having the instructor point out previously
circuit everyday
unnoticed facts is more likely to stimulate
perceptual habits that
block access to
students to re-think their positions than will a
unnoticed data.
highly rational argument.
http://www.richardgregory.org/experiments/
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Ilham Nasser
Early Childhood Education (CEHD)
[email protected]
o I asked
• What connections do students make between
writing their own personal narratives and
teaching?
• How does my own personal narrative as
expressed by a critical incident play a role in
promoting students’reflections and learning?
o I learned
• Increased knowledge and awareness of
educational packages we carry can positively
impact our views, beliefs, and behaviors as
teachers.
• Modeling my personal narrative through a critical
incident was helpful in increasing students’
comfort level and their own reflections about
schooling.
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Laurie Harmon
Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies (CEHD)
How do hybrid learning techniques
influence community building
among students?
• Online Blogging (vs. traditional written
journaling)
• Experiential Teambuilding (using the EDGE)
[email protected] Learned about
• Differences in depth of journal content
(depth of processing)
• Importance of reflection process
associated with experiential learning.
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Seth Parsons
Elementary Education and Literacy (CEHD)
Through the preservice preparation courses I
teach, how can I facilitate teachers’
development as thoughtfully adaptive
practitioners?
• Helping teacher candidates articulate a
“vision” of their future teaching is
[email protected]
beneficial for their critical thinking
about instruction
• I have expanded my data collection to
look more closely at my vision and my
adaptations
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Esperanza Román-Mendoza
Modern and Classical Languages (CHSS)
How does my own perception of the
effectiveness of instructional technologies
influence my students’ engagement with
technology?
Learned about
• My students’ perceptions about as my role in
modeling an effective use of instructional
technologies.
[email protected] • the importance of giving students more
guidance if they are to be asked to reflect on
their own learning process.
• my lesson plans and what actually happens in
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classroomIsare
not always the same.
Jennifer Suh
Mathematics Education (CEHD)
What are the roles of
mathematics professional
developers and some
essential professional
development opportunities
and support necessary for
teachers as they transition
into teaching through
problem solving and
making algebraic
connections?
[email protected]
To evaluate the collaborative nature of
designing professional development, the team
of professional developers/researchers used the
collective self-study method (Samaras &
Freese, 2006) to examine how purposively
designed experiences encouraged vertical
articulation of algebraic connections but also
found that the supportive network impacted
teachers affect and disposition towards learning
mathematics for teaching.
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Toni M. Smith
Mathematics Education (CEHD)
[email protected]
What are the challenges and supports associated with
implementation of inquiry-based instruction in a preservice secondary mathematics methods course?
Learned about
• The role of the instructor in developing an inquirybased environment as a facilitator of learning
• Challenges associated with designing authentic
explorations of issues related to the teaching and
learning of mathematics, without access to real
secondary students
• The need for clear learning goals so as to design
meaningful explorations
• The value of questioning to engage preservice
teachers, especially when they don’t have access to
students
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Ryan Swanson
History and Art History (CHSS)
Are Textbooks Obsolete?
A self-study of History 100 instruction
10 sections, 600+ students
Regular and summer sessions
[email protected]
Questions:
- How are students using their texts?
- Do I teach/evaluate in a manner that fully utilizes the assigned reading?
- Can I cover roughly the same material in a survey course, with the same expectations of
analysis and retention from the students, without assigning a textbook?
Methodology:
- Evaluate student surveys (three per semester)
Compare student evaluations and achievement (semester with/without textbook)
- Keep a teaching diary and notes
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Louisa Woodville
Department History-Art History
 How can I use an inquiry-based
instruction method to:
 • engage students to the point where, after
material is presented and questions posed, they
are eager to connect the dots and come up with
their own conclusions
 • create a learning environment based on sharing
knowledge, rather than one that motivates
students through fear-based testing
[email protected]
 Learned about
 how an inquiry-based environment can be
woven in with a lecture format
 the need for clear learning goals
 the need to incorporate students’ goals into the
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overall
curriculum
Lesley Smith
New Century College

My question developed from:
 How to I balance my teaching and
[email protected]
creative/research work to the benefit of
my students
 How do students understand my values
and goals for them as a teacher, and how
might I align those perceptions more fully
with my intentions?
Learned About: The probing of abstract values in concrete terms
accessible to students at all levels, including the first year
• The power of critical friends’ diverse perspectives and
generosity in developing my question, the research
instruments and my openness as a teacher
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Anastasia P. Samaras
Teacher Education Research Methods (CEHD)
I asked: “What can I learn about my
role in facilitating, participating in,
and supporting this faculty self-study
group?”
Learned about
[email protected]
Faculty move towards higher mastery in
teaching when they research something they
care about. Critical friends help in that
process.
Slow down to move forward. Quality research
takes time.
Lead from the inside. People follow when they
have are invited to become leaders
themselves.
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Facilitation
• Open and inclusive of personal, intellectual,
reflective, and disciplinary queries and language
• Inviting and Connecting queries and talents to
methodology, others’ projects, and resources
• Urging action on individual research in the face of
questioning and uncertainty
• Urging surrender to support of critical friends
• Authentic self-study research by practicing it
(Guideline #6, Luenenberg & Samaras, 2011)
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Double Helix Design
Self-study scholars engage
in a double helix of both
facilitating the application of
self-study by participants while
modeling the very practice of
self-study. They participate within the
learning community and are part of the
learning.
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Insight
People follow when they actually have to become leaders
themselves. When people feel as if they’re contributing to
something that’s going to get bigger and that they want to be a
part of, that’s the best… you’ve done your job…”
Washington Post, 05.22.11, Bill Liao
Guideline #7. Lead from within, minding the gaps while
purposely inviting leadership from the community itself.
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OUR META STUDY
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Meta-Study Research Questions
1. What is the nature of our interests, progress, and
development as a faculty self-study of teaching collaborative
invested in studying professional practice?
2. What key nodal moments or critical incidents had an impact
on how our community and individual projects evolved?
3. How do we as faculty assess our personal professional
development within the collaborative and within the critical
friend work?
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Data Sources
Individual self-studies
Individual exit interviews
Mid-project and end-of-project exit slips
Narratives addressing impact of SOSTC on
• individual self-study research projects
• personal/professional development
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Outcomes
Researching in cross-disciplinary partnership
• Connections and impact for individual projects
• Encouragement to ask questions about teaching
and learning
• Transformative synergy and creativity for
personal/professional practice
• Challenges faced
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Challenges
“I had a lot of commitments as an administrator at my
department, but more importantly, the fact that I was going to
be asked to communicate with colleagues from different
units—who could be less familiar with the struggles a nonnative speaker has to navigate in a foreign culture/language.”
“I’m pretty tolerant of my own intellectual chaos, as I was taught
when young that unlearning is often the most critical part of
learning but in our case the chaos phase lasted longer than
usual.”
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Critical Friends
Render inquiry more dynamic and more
complex:
– Increase awareness of blind spots and
individuals’ “not known” strengths
– Re-thinking and re-design of questions and
instruments more complex
– Analysis of data and interpretative frameworks
– Linkages to relevant existing literatures and
practices across disciplines
– Informal learning to support project
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What does cross-disciplinary faculty self-study
recuperate for teaching?
• Restores the humanity and fallibility of faculty
• Acknowledges the messiness, uncertainties, complexities
and elisions of research into teaching and learning
• Balances heightened awareness of one’s own limitations
with rigor of critical friends’ collaboration to extend
research challenges to self, students as learning
collaborators and educational contexts
• Promotes integration and wholeness through collaboration
• Preconditions for creativity, productive action, and change
• Ubuntu
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Valediction: Self-Study
a critical examination of one’s own beliefs and
actions that focuses:
…on the space between the self and the
practice engaged in…between self in relation
to practice and the others who share the
practice setting.”
(Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001, p, 15)
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Acknowledgements
SoSTC wishes to thank the Center for Teaching Excellence at
George Mason University for sponsoring this initiative and
especially its director, Kim Eby, for her strong support and
Ashleen Gayda for her administrative contributions. Gratitude
is extended to Mieke Lunenberg from Vrije University, for
being a critical friend to the facilitator. Special thanks to our
students who remain at the center of our ongoing explorations
to improve our professional practice.
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Questions?
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