By Morgan Rooney, Educational Development Facilitator
Two years ago, I interviewed for a faculty position at an American university. The day before the day-long interview, one of the search committee members kindly gave me a tour of the city. As we visited campus and the surrounding areas, she confessed that this institution (a small liberal arts college) didn鈥檛 really support research 鈥渦nless it is the scholarship of teaching and learning.鈥� And she added, 鈥渨hatever that is.鈥� The comment wasn鈥檛 necessarily meant to be snarky or malicious; instead, it came from a position, deeply ingrained in the specialists who make up the departments of the modern academy, that research outside our narrow field of disciplinary expertise isn鈥檛 鈥渞eal鈥� research.
Now that I鈥檓 an educational developer as well as an instructor, I carry that anecdote around as a stark reminder of the divide that at times defines the relationship between the evidence-based findings into pedagogy (on the one hand) and teaching at the academy (on the other). Undoubtedly, much great work is being done at North American universities by teaching and learning centres to bridge the gap between what we might call educational theory and practice, but as that encounter suggests, that gap remains鈥攁nd it is one that is especially pronounced at the many institutions, especially in the United States, that lack teaching and learning centres.
In my capacity as an educational developer, I recently attended the annual convention for the in Vancouver with the (perhaps quixotic) hope that I could in some small way help to narrow that gap. For those not working in the field, the MLA convention is the largest gathering of literature and language scholars in the world, with approximately 800 panels and at least 4,000-5,000 attendees. It is the home to sessions on every imaginable topic鈥攍iteratures in a number of languages and from a wide range of cultures and periods, linguistics, the profession, the teaching of literature, languages, composition, and so on. After three jam-packed days, I came away with a conviction that more exchanges between the worlds of education and the professoriate are badly needed, and that they must be conceived of as two-way streets.
My experience on 鈥溾�� panel I was part of provides a window into what it can look like when the subject of teaching, informed by recent research into pedagogy, comes to center stage at a major disciplinary convention. I was present to give a paper on the subject of 鈥淔ostering a Culture of Teaching Professionalization,鈥� and I was joined by an educational developer and language instructor, and two language professors. The strong representation of teachers of languages and composition is hardly surprising, I had recently learned, given their very active presence in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Our session was scheduled to end at 4:45 p.m., but the audience drove discussion until 5:15 p.m., when a Vancouver Convention Centre employee had to interrupt to clear the room for the next session鈥攁 sight I have never seen in over a decade of attending conferences of this sort. From the engaging discussion to the swarming of the panel table afterwards, it was clear that the 25 audience members, almost all of whom identified as scholars in the literatures and languages, felt like they were hearing a lot of new and important things for the first time. They were particularly curious to talk about what was to be done about the disconnect between the literature on pedagogy and the professoriate, a subject I raised in my paper.
After the session, one professor, a colleague I had met on one prior occasion, let me know that she was writing a book on teaching and that she would appreciate the chance to consult with me. A graduate student I had never met, from Stanford University, thanked me for my paper, and we chatted about her department鈥檚 efforts to introduce a teaching component to its PhD degree as well as how she and her colleagues still felt like it was an area in which they needed more training. A fellow English instructor and friend of mine, who attended the session to support me more than anything else, asked me over dinner to elaborate on the concept of constructive alignment (or the 鈥渂ackwards鈥� course design model) that I had touched on in my paper.
The more I reflected on my experience at the convention, too, the more I found that the panels I attended that were not directly on the subject of teaching provided me with a wider sense of the context in which I do my work as an educational developer. A session entitled 鈥溾�� made me aware that there is a growing body of scholarship (鈥渃ritical university studies鈥�) that subjects current trends in the academy to close scrutiny. Listening to the panel members鈥� objections, sometimes to the values and concepts I consider central to good teaching practice, helped me to identify some of their central arguments and to reflect on ways to address and alleviate some of their concerns. A session on 鈥溾�� forced me to confront the complicated, inescapable politics of program reform, where questions of which faculty members鈥� fields are being accentuated or left out count as much as, if not more so than, those of program learning outcomes.
Yet another panel on 鈥溾�� made me aware of the enormity of the problem that student plagiarism presents. After analyzing writing samples from students at a range of American institutions, the researchers of the came to the dizzying conclusion that more than 52 per cent of all samples they studied contained at least one instance of 鈥減atchwriting,鈥� most of which appeared to be a consequence of ignorance rather than malice. I left that session thinking about the consequences of such findings for first-year instruction, both in my own case and in terms of how I advise faculty members.
Sessions on 鈥溾�� and 鈥溾�� reminded me, too, of the contexts in which our faculty are working and the mounting pressures that can lead to compromised learning environments.
If we are to create a lasting alliance between educational development and the professoriate, then I suggest we need to be attending and presenting at each others鈥� major conference venues. A session on effective practices for teaching a large classroom that sees few or no instructors on the panel or in the audience is, frankly, as odd as a session on cutting-edge pedagogical practices where few or no educational developers or instructional designers are on the panel or in the audience.
Whether you鈥檙e a professor or an educational developer (or, like me, both), then, I鈥檇 urge you to consider attending and presenting at a major conference other than the one in your field. If you鈥檙e in education, propose a paper on teaching for the annual conference for the MLA, or the , or the , or whatever field more closely aligns with your own training. If you鈥檙e a professor, propose a paper on teaching for the annual conference for , or , or .
If we can all agree that my interview tour guide鈥檚 bewilderment at the very concept of the scholarship of teaching and learning is eyebrow raising, and if we can all agree that we have a shared responsibility to create the best learning environments for our students, then each of us needs to be more familiar with the other鈥檚 world. And, ultimately, that means forging common meeting spaces where meaningful dialogue and exchange can happen.