{"id":62212,"date":"2018-01-17T12:35:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T17:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=62212"},"modified":"2018-01-17T16:04:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T21:04:43","slug":"if-were-in-higher-education-to-educate-jillian-joyce-asks-what-keeps-college-teachers-from-learning-more-about-teaching-joyce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2018\/01\/17\/if-were-in-higher-education-to-educate-jillian-joyce-asks-what-keeps-college-teachers-from-learning-more-about-teaching-joyce\/","title":{"rendered":"“If we\u2019re in higher education to educate, Jillian Joyce asks, what keeps college teachers from learning more about teaching?” [Joyce]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Don\u2019t Educators in Higher Ed Take Education Classes?<\/strong><\/a> — from insidehighered.com by Jillian Joyce
\nIf we\u2019re in higher education to educate, Jillian Joyce asks, what keeps college teachers from learning more about teaching?<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

If we\u2019re in higher education to educate<\/em>, what keeps college teachers from learning more about teaching?<\/strong><\/span> You\u2019re busy. You\u2019ve been doing this a long time. It\u2019s really up to the students to learn the material. You\u2019re already an excellent lecturer. Anyone can teach; it\u2019s not that complicated. While those phrases begin to scratch the surface, I propose we take a step back to examine the internal narratives and pervading ideologies that surround our ideas about teaching at the university.<\/p>\n

Three Myths
\n<\/strong>In her 2003 text Practice Makes Practice<\/em><\/a>, Deborah P. Britzman, a professor at York University in Toronto, describes three myths that summon teachers to the field of education: 1) everything depends upon the teacher, 2) the teacher is the expert and 3) teachers are self-made. While Britzman\u2019s audience is largely teachers at the primary and secondary levels, these myths abound in higher education, as well.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Similarly, professors at a university are typically required to wear two hats: one hat as a researcher and another as a teacher. But only the researcher hat is fashionable. It brings in money for the university,<\/strong> it looks good on a curriculum vitae and it promotes the climb up the academic latter.<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, the teacher hat is slumpy. It\u2019s necessary but not pretty. It\u2019s the kind of hat you wear grocery shopping hoping no one will recognize you. The fancy hat promotes the educator as the expert, while the slumpy hat is seen as \u201cjust\u201d teaching<\/a>. This distinction fosters the idea that teaching is easy and requires little effort<\/a>. The uncomfortable adage \u201cthose who can\u2019t do, teach\u201d suggests that research is \u201cdoing,\u201d while teaching is a second-rate activity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

From DSC:
\n<\/em>Teaching effectively is a very complex, deep, and difficult task to do well. Those who say it’s easy have likely never tried doing it themselves. Also, in higher education, doing research is one thing, but teaching well is a whole different set of (often undervalued) skills.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

My alma mater (Northwestern University) prides itself on faculty who are doing leading edge research. According to this page<\/a>, there was $676.5 million in annual sponsored research back in 2016-2017. (Brief insert from DSC: For those who say higher ed isn’t a business, how would you respond to this kind of thing? Or this?*)<\/em> I remember taking courses from researchers like these and many of them shouldn’t have been teaching at all — they weren’t nearly worth the cost of tuition. I also remember taking courses from graduate students who likely hadn’t had any coursework on how to teach either.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tragedy here is that it’s <\/span><\/strong>the students who are paying increasingly huge tuition bills to attend Northwestern and other such universities and colleges. This is not right. Let’s lift up the craft of teaching and let those who do research, research.<\/strong> Researchers can relay the highlights of their research to those who have taken the time to work on their teaching-related skills.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My vote? If you don’t care about your teaching, you shouldn’t be teaching at all.
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As a relevant side question here: What would you say to your doctor if they didn’t keep learning and growing in their<\/em> skillset?!? How would you feel about that? <\/span><\/p>\n

If you are teaching, you should have taken some coursework in how to teach — and how people learn — and you should be required<\/em> to attend several professional development related events: Every. Single. Year.<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

*\u00a0 DSC: Higher education not a business you say? Are you sure about that!?<\/em> <\/span><\/strong>
\nThe University of Alabama is paying its football coach, Nick Saban, more than $11 million this season,<\/a> which puts him ahead of every coach in the professional National Football League. Clemson University coach Dabo Sweeney will earn $8.5 million, and the University of Michigan\u2019s Jim Harbaugh $7 million, not including money from endorsements.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Don\u2019t Educators in Higher Ed Take Education Classes? — from insidehighered.com by Jillian Joyce If we\u2019re in higher education to educate, Jillian Joyce asks, what keeps college teachers from learning more about teaching? Excerpt (emphasis DSC): If we\u2019re in higher education to educate, what keeps college teachers from learning more about teaching? You\u2019re busy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[322,61,115,302,72,71,3,419,102,223,173,269,217,480,66,50,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjunct-faculty","category-business-side-of-he","category-colleges","category-community-colleges","category-daniel-s-christian","category-faculty-staff","category-higher-education","category-ideas-teaching","category-learning","category-learning-theories","category-pedagogy","category-professional-development","category-research","category-society","category-student-related","category-teaching-learning","category-universities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62212"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62218,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62212\/revisions\/62218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}