Faculty Collaboration to Improve Equity, Access, and Inclusion in Higher Education
This article documents the Critical Friends Group (CFG) process five university colleagues used to blend the theoretical frameworks of Universal Design for Learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002) and Interactive Phase Theory (McIntosh, 1990) as tools to increase equity and access in our classrooms. Using the CFG reflective approach, the faculty collaboratively reviewed their syllabi and implemented innovations in their classroom practice. This article presents a theory of action that emerged as well as nine tensions related to teaching and participation in a learning community. Implications for equity and access in higher education and future inquiry are presented.
Equity & Excellence in Education, 40: 56–66, 2007 Copyright c University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Education ISSN 1066-5684 print /1547-3457 online DOI: 10.1080/10665680601066511
Background/Context: The type of professional development provided for teachers has been undergoing change from a one-time workshop approach to a more embedded, long-term, reflective, and collaborative structure. Although findings on the impact of new forms of professional development (PD) are beginning to emerge in the literature, there is little research on the professional development of those who design and support these PD efforts.
Purpose/Focus of Study: To better understand how to support secondary teachers’ engagement in collaborative inquiry, a group of 12 professional development providers deliberately set out to use the same processes and structures in their development and implementation of a PD model. This research examines what this group learned about fostering and sustaining a culture of collaborative inquiry and considers how this can inform PD providers’ support of teachers’ engagement in a collaborative inquiry cycle.
Research Design: A narrative case study design was used to examine the evolution of the professional development group from its inception in March 2004 through December 2005, halfway through the project’s duration. The particular timeframe was targeted to explore the developmental phase of the group and critical decisions that shaped the group structure and direction.
Data Collection and Analysis: Traditional qualitative data sources were collected and analyzed in the construction of the narrative, including interviews with the professional developers, archived documents, and video and audio recordings of meetings.
Conclusions/Recommendations: The PD group’s focus on how to foster and sustain a culture of collaborative inquiry provides insights into the structures and processes that support this kind of collaborative endeavor. Assuming an inquiry stance toward the work was challenged by the ongoing business of implementing a large-scale project and the demands of people’s other work in school districts and universities. Difficulties related to communication between and during meetings also occurred. An explicit reliance on collaborative norms and explicitly using processes such as dialogue structured by protocols, distributing leadership responsibilities, and co-constructing an inquiry focus based on data analysis helped the group develop and maintain an inquiry stance. These findings inform the support of teachers undertaking collaborative inquiry for professional growth.
Teachers College Record Volume 110, Number 6, June 2008, pp. 1269–1303 Copyright © by Teachers College, Columbia University 0161-4681
Reflective Inquiry as Transformative Self-study for Professional Education and Learning.
Abstract: This article examines the transformational possibilities for students and teachers of engaging in reflective inquiry for professionaleducation and learning. The authors from the fields of teacher education and social work present three self-study cases of their own and their students' experiences of reflective inquiry in professional learning. One focuses on student and teacher interactions in learning, one on the effect of teachers' reflective learning on other teachers' learning, and one examines the elements of her own professional learning. All examine how the experiences of reflective inquiry promote professionaleducation and learning, and consider three questions: Is this transformation? Does reflective inquiry facilitate transformationallearning? How? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
Studying Teacher Education, 2013 Vol. 9, No. 2, 163–174, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2013.808057
The Experience of Community College Faculty Involved in aLearning Community Program.
A study was undertaken to determine how teaching in learning communities (i.e., courses that are linked or intentionally integrated in terms of learning objectives and shared assignments) affects the perspectives and work of community collegefaculty members. Interviews with 14 faculty members who taught in learningcommunities at a Midwestern community college indicated that the benefits of participation included greater empathy for and awareness of students, the development of authentic relationships with students, enhanced engagement in the larger campus community, and active collaboration and professionaldevelopment with faculty colleagues across disciplines. Study limitations and implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
Corresponding Author: Dimitra Lynette Jackson, PhD, Texas Tech University, College of Education, Box 41071 Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. Email: dimitra.jackson@ttu.edu
A Professional Learning Community Activity for Science Teachers: How to Incorporate Discourse-rich Instructional Strategies into Science Lessons.
In this article we describe current educational research underlying a comprehensive model for building a scientifi c classroom discourse community. We offer aprofessional development activity for a school-based professional learningcommunity, providing specifi c science instructional strategies within this interactive teaching model. This design activity provides a quick and practical means of transforming science lessons to be more engaging for students. Through this activity teachers can redesign any science lesson by focusing on each of the fi ve core components of a scientifi c classroom discourse community: (a) scientifi cinquiry, (b) oral discourse, (c) written discourse, (d) academic language development, and (e) learning principles. By using this structure teachers will be better able to meet the Next Generation Science Standards and facilitate greater interdisciplinary learning. An example of a redesigned water cycle lesson is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Elizabeth Lewis, Dale Baker, Nievita Bueno Watts, and Michael Lang, Science Educator. Summer2014, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p27-35. 9p.
Tools for the Study and Design of Collaborative Teacher Learning: The Affordances of Different Conceptions of Teacher Communityand Activity Theory.
The author explores the unique affordances of inquiry communities and teacherprofessional communities as tools for the study and design of collaborative teacher learning. He describes how the term communities of learners has been applied to teachers or whole schools. In the end of the article the author focuses on the different conceptions of teacher community including inquiry community, teacher professional community, and community of learners. He also implies that teachers who are working collaboratively with each other foster teacher'slearning.
Teacher Education Quarterly. Winter2010, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p109-130. 22p. 3 Charts.
Finding Your Place in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
The article focuses on the development of attitudes of higher education instructors to read what others are doing, evaluate their own successes and refine their teaching through consideration of the evidence before them in the emergingcommunities of scholarship in teaching and learning. It notes the importance of individuals to determine his or her appropriate place from classroom inquiry to educational research. It mentions the need of scholars to examine a path through the tension between the nature of their work and the values and priorities of their profession. It cites the essentiality of making teaching and students' understanding visible as practice as an optimal way to influence the quality of teaching andlearning in scholarly communities.
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning. 2010, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p1-6. 6p.