Dr. Chelsea T. Morris and I presented a (what we thought was) cool poster at the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division of Early Childhood’s annual conference.
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The first panel asked the participants to indicate how they evaluate student learning, if participation should be included for a grade, if attendance should be included in a grade, if and which social media accounts they use in their teaching, and how they handle late work. Overwhelmingly, participants indicated they do include “participation” in grades. There was more variability in if the participants include attendance in student grades although the majority indicated that yes they do include attendance for a grade.
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There was interesting conversation around the “How do you evaluate student learning” boxes as many said they’re required to use letter grades but they incorporate a lot of ongoing, formative feedback.
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Our second panel was the first one layered over the next one with the doors cut open to show the examples of “tired” and “wired” syllabus language underneath. The literature provided in the middle provides some evidence for instructors moving toward learner-centered syllabi and more humanized course design. Many participants reflected on the “tired” syllabus language as similar to the language in their own syllabus and noted that they had not really considered what their syllabi were communicating to their learners. Which makes sense! We also heard from many faculty and instructors who said their syllabi are inflexible due to requirements by their department, college, and university. We, of course, considered a syllabus with all the required components (aligned professional preparations standards, state standards, university policies, etc) posted to the learning management system and then a learner-centered and/or co-created learning plan to direct the specific content for the course itself. It also raises questions of academic freedom – particularly for tenured faculty but that’s for another post.
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The final panel invited participants to make note of what Ambitious Teaching means to them. The words on the left say:
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Dear faculty,
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Are you preparing the next generation of early childhood educators and leaders? How long has it been since you critically examined your syllabi and teaching practices? Did you know, in contradiction to DEC leadership recommendations (L1, L4, L6, L8, L11), you may be widening the research to practice gap by making higher education – a place of evidence-based professional development – a hostile and unwelcoming environment?
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Existing literature suggests that power relations and issues of expertise limit the extent to which faculty engage students in the design of their own learning and listen or respond to their needs (e.g. Mihans, Long, & Felton, 2008). In your work, examine and challenge the culture of higher education and the role of student-faculty interactions within and beyond the classroom. These interactions are crucial to the development of higher education students’ self-concept, motivation, and achievement (Komarraju, Musulkin, & Bhattacharya, 2010).
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You can engage in critical conversations about the expectations placed upon pre-service practitioners. Through ambitious teaching, taking risks pedagogically and reconceptualizing teaching and learning for teachers and learners, you can facilitate dialogue around the extent to which the traditional “status-quo” of educator preparation truly teaches the behaviors we want to see.
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Presume competence, rethink relationships, and trust the students you are preparing for the workforce.
Constructing a Learner-Centered Syllabus: One Professor’s Journey
How are making your teaching ambitious? We want Teaching Is Intellectual to be a space for ambitious teacher education. For rethinking, reimagining, and redoing traditional (and largely ineffective) teaching and learning paradigms. Tell us. Let’s revolutionize teacher education together.
