Monday, November 13, 2006

Good at Running Meetings with 2 Factions? [Or more?]

Who is good at running meetings in which there are at least two factions that hold different frameworks?
- With the goal of maintaining civil discourse while reaching accommodation about some decision that is important to both factions...?
- With respect to improving teaching and learning (with technology)?

Please suggest additional examples - you can add them by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" just below this posting.

Consider these examples:
1. Scalability vs. Faculty Diversity
A. People who seek "scalable" improvements independent of differences among faculty - "teacher proof" curricula, syllabi, instructional resources, pedagogies, ...
B. People who believe that differences among faculty are as important as differences among students and that any significant improvements in education must accommodate (better yet, take advantage of) differences among faculty... and students.

2. Truth vs. Research
A. Believe in the value and truth of educational research - esp. done by school of education faculty
B. Believe in the value and truth of Scholarship of Teaching/Learning research
C. Believe in the value and truth of Classroom Assessment, "Action Research"
D. Believe that any teaching/learning innovation supported by citation of results of "Educational Research" is suspect and to be opposed or ignored.

3. NIH vs. NIBM vs. Find Improvements Elsewhere
A. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning will be figured out first by colleagues within the same institution ("NIH" = Not Invented Here)
B. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning will be figured out first by the individual faculty member ("NIBM" = Not Invented By Me)
C. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning can (and are) being developed almost anywhere. A faculty member who identifies an instructional problem (esp. "Instructional Bottleneck") can and should first seek "solutions" already developed by colleagues elsewhere
D. Believe important improvements in teaching/learning are not worthy of adoption, adaptation, imitation, unless officially endorsed by the faculty members' professional disciplinary society

4. Transformative Change vs. Incremental Change
A. Believe that only transformative, large-scale, long-lasting change in programs that span several courses is worthwhile
B. Believe only incremental changes within individual courses - especially LTA-style changes (Low-Threshold Activity/Application) - are feasible, worth the effort to find and promulgate

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