The Magic of Teaching

I was reviewing students' papers tonight -- an analysis of an educational current event -- and noticed the analyses weren't coming out quite as I had expected. It was clear that there's some confusion about the assignment as well as the theoretical frameworks being used for the analysis. I started to see some patterns and realized the potential for some really great teaching & learning here. So tomorrow we'll talk about theoretical frameworks and how they affect our interpretation of an event. What happens when we apply a positivist/rationalistic framework? How does the analysis change when we apply a critical theorist perspective? What impact does a postmodern framework have on our understanding? I have to say that I like being able to take something and identify where more teaching & learning can occur. This is really the magic of teaching, I think ... noticing patterns of understanding or not-quite-understanding then building on that to help develop new insights. It's late and I'm not as insightful about this as I might otherwise be ... but I'm feeling this. It's like ... "Hey, I can make a difference here in helping others understand these concepts." That's a nice place to be.

They say it gets easier...

In the university's Faculty Center today I overheard two people talking about the pace of teaching. One mentioned she thought things were supposed to be easier in the spring semester because you had some time before you had to start planning & developing courses for the next semester. Both noticed they were already planning for their fall classes and were voicing the common concern: How can I get everything I need to do done? How do I prep for class, read papers, stay current for this course, engage in university service, and become a productive scholar? In an odd way, I was relieved to overhear their conversation -- they confirmed that what I so often experience is a common experience. It doesn't make it any easier, but it does help to know I'm not the only one who hasn't figured things out.
One thing that causes me a lot of extra work is that I often make changes to a course after I meet the students and we get underway. Many students have said they appreciate this flexibility, while others say it makes them a bit crazy. I do think we need to be flexible and that doctoral students who plan to become high level administrators need to develop a disposition for change & ambiguity. When I make changes, I try to make them in the students' favor -- that is, I prefer to extend a deadline rather than to move it up; I'll reduce, rather than increase, reading assignments. But what I've realized is something so elementary, so essential to good teaching I'm really embarassed to admit it ... I need to do a better job planning the course up front. But I don't want to develop such a rigid plan that we have no flexibility in the schedule. I think there's room for both of these values -- structure & flexibility. A flexible structure.
So today I've been very intentional as I think about our class session. I identified a learning outcome for the day, identified how I could assess the learning, and then developed specific activities that will get us to that learning outcome. Okay -- not a new revelation for some of you, but yesterday in our First Annual Symposium on Celebrating Teaching & Learning at Pacific, something clicked for me. The concepts connected for me in a way they hadn't before. I recall working through similar exercises in a class on curriculum development in my doctoral program, but at that time I wasn't planning on a career as a faculty member, so perhaps the assignment didn't have much relevance for me. In yesterday's session, though, it was like I really got it. So today, in painstaking detail, I've mapped out our session ... and I can see the pieces connecting together like a well-designed puzzle.
It's a bit awkward to publicly describe my learning, but I suppose even this is part of the process. Earlier this week I read an autoethnography of a new faculty member -- someone who, like me, moved from an administrative position in student affairs to a full-time faculty position. Her narrative, published in the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching (Vol 21, 1, 2010), was so honest that it inspired me to risk the same level of honesty here.

It happens every semester...

...or so it seems. By the second week of the semester, I'm searching for the elusive clarity that was evident during the semester break. You know, semester break -- that time of the year when you can reflect on the past semester, gain insight from said reflection, and use said insights as you prepare for the next semester. This semester I'm teaching two sections of a course on organizational theory. I taught the course once before and as often happens, the second time around, I'm completely changing things. These changes reflect what I learned from the prior teaching experience and other new ideas that generate from conversations with colleagues. What makes things different this semester is that one of the sections meets in person every Wednesday afternoon. The other class is a hybrid (online/in person) class that includes four in person sessions. The content and course schedules are pretty much the same for both sections but I definitely feel that I don't have the materials quite as organized as I'd like. Once the classes started, so did all the rest of the semester's business and suddenly I'm juggling a lot of very different projects. This is a common experience and happens every semester. On my drive home today it occured to me that I'm good at seeing the big picture in situations. All of these projects, however, seem like a lot of little pictures that aren't connected. So, I asked myself: If I'm good at the big picture stuff, what is the big picture in this situation? What connects all of the projects, timelines, small tasks, paper work, blog updates, course updates, advising students, and so on? Perhaps if I can identify the big picture in all of this, I may see things come together a bit sooner ... I need to think more about this and try on some ideas ...

This semester's syllabi

This semester I'm teaching two sections of a course called EADM 368: Administration of Complex Educational Organizations. One class is "face to face" meets on the Stockton campus of University of the Pacific. The other section is a hybrid course (face to face and online) that meets monthly (3 times in Hanford, once in Stockton). I'm teaching it as an organizational theory class with a history of org theory by Scott & Davis and Reframining Organizations by Bolman & Deal. In the middle of the semester I'll add an article on Afrocentric organizational theory and some readings on feminist organizational theory. Then I want to think about the future: how will technology and social media impact organizational structure and design? Our immediate access to college presidents via email (or even Facebook) has, for example, allowed us to cross, skip, navigate traditional organizational boundaries and "go right to the top." In some sense, then, the structure has flattened out. Other times, we find ourselves copying more and more people, hitting "reply to all" and getting pulled into issues that may not actually be ours to address, thus creating some confusion in the organization. I'm looking forward to working with the two seminars to consider future organizational structures.