By Audrey A. Lail
from Inquiry, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 2009, 29-40
© Copyright 2009 Virginia Community College System
Abstract
The author examines the preparation of community-college faculty, especially those recently hired, to teach the varied students our institutions enroll.
A
quality teaching mission not only defines a community college, but also affects
the caliber of its faculty (Cohen & Brawer, 1972).
In his 1980 study of community-college professional development, J.
Ellerbe stated that competent faculty members are critical to quality
instruction. Yet he agreed with
renowned higher educational researcher J. Gaff, who lamented, “Most faculty
members readily confess that they learned to teach by being thrown into the
classroom and either sinking or swimming” (as cited in Ellerbe, 1980, p. 1).
Years later, another distinguished educational writer, W. Grubb (1999), in his
critical expose´ on the current quality of community-college education, made a
similar indictment that new faculty do not enter classrooms any readier to teach
their students than many of the students themselves come prepared to learn.
Community-college researchers concede that although
content mastery is a critical requisite in the faculty selection process,
pedagogical proficiency beyond the ability to lecture is rarely a consideration
(Miller, Finely, & Vancko, 2000; Roueche, Milliron, & Roueche, 2003). Meanwhile,
the 21st-century student population is becoming more diverse, leaving
us to wonder whether a new generation of faculty exhibits the necessary skills
to address the growing diverse-learner needs.
Furthermore, even as faculty members have access to ample
professional-development programs, these activities are rarely required or
designed specifically for new instructors (Fugate & Amey, 2000; Grubb, 1999).
Many of the community-college faculty hired during the 1960s and 1970s had
initially embarked on K-12 teaching but moved into community-college instruction
after discovering they preferred adult education and college schedules.
While
these former K-12 teachers had little to no instruction in how adults learn,
their formative teaching years were amply filled with fundamental educational
philosophies and pre-service teaching internships (Evelyn, 2001; Fugate &
Amey, 2000).
Other instructors who intended
to become university professors found the tenure process and its research and
publishing requirements unappealing; therefore, they too opted for
community-college careers.
Although graduate schools
seldom offered them formal pedagogy, many graduate assistants had opportunities
to gain teaching experience in environments filled with faculty role models and
mentors (Evelyn, 2001; Fugate & Amey, 2000; Gaff, 1973;
Wilson, 1999).
These two groups – the former K-12 teachers and graduate assistants – have
developed into today’s core of community-college faculty.
Their skills and dedication are largely responsible for the success of
today’s community colleges (Berry, Hammons, & Denny, 2001).
However, beginning in the 1990s, a new group of faculty began to emerge who did
not originally envision a career in education.
This new group prepared for other non-academic careers and came to the
classroom as a second vocational opportunity, either by chance or as a result of
self-actualization. Although finding
their present teaching experience enjoyable, they are without the early exposure
to a formal educational process intended to shape them into teaching
professionals. While these new
instructors entered community-college instruction with great commitment to our
mission and possibly even with great mastery of their disciplines, they still
emerged with pedagogical deficiencies (Evelyn, 2001; Fugate & Amey, 2000).
Changing Influences
Most state legislatures are
colliding with an array of challenges that directly affect the quality of
community-college teaching. First,
many states are reacting to sporadic funding shortfalls and are reducing budgets
across all agencies, including community colleges (Burnett, 2003; Taylor, 2003).
Secondly, most
community colleges adhere to open-door admission policies and are becoming
overwhelmed with record enrollments of unemployed workers, minorities,
reverse-transfers, and teenagers of baby boomers.
The fiscal tensions these new students have generated are provoking
legislators to demand more stringent, unprecedented accountability from
community colleges, which places additional stress on faculty to educate these
students quickly so that they can return to the workforce (Evelyn, 2001).
This enrollment frustration is further exacerbated as instructors must help
large numbers of underprepared, ethnically diverse students first achieve basic,
college-entry level skills before they then progress to standard college-level
coursework. This struggle is made
especially difficult as many faculty continue in a lecture-style orientation
that was once accepted but is no longer considered optimal
(Brewer, 1999; Murray,
2001, 2002; Van Ast,
1999; Waycaster, 2001).
Finally, many community-college faculty members who were hired during the early
1970s are now approaching retirement.
Nationally, almost all community colleges are experiencing a historically
pivotal moment within their faculty ranks.
Numerous experienced instructors are being replaced with a new generation
of educators. Projections put the
overall replacement need at nearly 25 percent across the nation.
At the center of this juncture are the remaining faculty members, many of
whom were hired within the last five years.
Clearly, the fabric of community-college faculty is changing (Berry,
Hammons, & Denny, 2001; Yates, 2001).
Pedagogical Challenges
During our era of corporate
downsizing, many professionals seek faculty positions in community colleges.
Although their real-world backgrounds bring poignancy to classroom
instruction, college administrators are finding these faculty hopefuls difficult
to place. A recent article in
The Herald-Sun reported,
It’s not enough to simply put someone who has worked at a pharmaceutical
company, engineering firm, or other field in front of a classroom. . . . To be a
community-college instructor, someone has to convey information effectively,
manage students who learn differently, and keep up with changes in his or her
field of expertise. (Forest, 2003, p. 2)
A lot of people with a technical background who are
laid off do come to us. But their
technical background doesn’t mean they can walk into a math or physics classroom
and do the job we expect with the technology available and required today. Math
instructors today must build other skills in students, such as problem solving,
critical thinking, and communicating mathematically.
There is a steep learning curve. (as cited in Yates, 2001, p. 9)
Many of these instructors arrive on our campuses only vaguely aware of the
preparedness issues they will face,
especially as some in higher education contend that
the command of subject matter is not only important but also sufficient, that
any teaching skills beyond a lecture mastery of the discipline is not as
consequential (Berry,
Hammons, & Denny, 2001; Fayne & Ortquist-Ahrens, 2006; Grubb, 1999).
Yet a major curricular revolution has emerged. We
have certainly heard a call for the pivotal shift from teacher-centered
instruction to learner-centered learning, which is generating new
teaching-learning models. With this call comes urgency – that all
community-college faculty become as skilled in the detection, identification,
and implementation of diverse student-learning styles and challenges as they are
in their
discipline contents (Barr &
Tagg, 1995; Van Ast, 1999).
Are Our New Faculty Adapting?
The few studies available
about new faculty members’ teaching show that regardless of integrating some
learning-centered strategies (mainly in technology use), most continue to rely
on traditional teaching practices such as lecture and exams in an objective
format, which continue the teacher-dominance model (Lail, 2005; NSOPF, 1999).
Additionally, whether early-career instructors adapt to new teaching
strategies is influenced primarily by their respective disciplines.
Grubb (1999), Lail (2005), Palmer (2002), and Wallin (2003) reported that
while faculties in engineering, business technologies, and health services were
more likely to integrate learning-centered constructs (albeit sporadically),
early-career math instructors still seemed to be the most traditional in their
teaching practices. Further, it was
determined through cross-sectional analysis that although instructors across all
disciplines might use some of the same practices, there were also marked
differences in the number and kinds of learning-centered strategies employed
(Lail 2005).
Researchers also
showed that the basic reasons for continued use of the lecture and objective
exam format are more external – not just a reflection of instructors’
preferences. Results indicated that
the following aspects of the community-college structure have perpetuated a
traditional teaching approach: teaching overloads, underprepared students,
academic isolation, inadequate performance-appraisal instruments, scathing
student evaluations, artificial time constraints imposed by stagnated program
substructures, and underproductive 50-minute class periods. Acting as major
impediments, such practices and conditions can cause even the most ardent new,
learning-centered instructors to turn to teaching more defensively, which means
using a traditional lecture format (Fayne & Ortquist-Ahrens, 2006; Lail, 2005).
Additionally, although the results showed that the specifics of each teaching
discipline had marked impact on the kinds of teaching practices that were
incorporated or avoided, many early-career instructors still desired to adopt
learning-centered teaching because they knew that these strategies met the
hands-on, active-learning needs of their adult students.
However, most of them maintained that the biased cultures of their
respective departments inhibited any substantial changes to the way they taught
their students, stating that their department administrators placed more
emphasis on programs meeting institutional policy and FTE objectives than on
employing teaching innovations (Lail, 2005).
Research results
further showed that some beginning instructors found the on-the-job training
principles to which they were exposed in their former careers (i.e., law
enforcement, health care, and paraprofessional others) influenced the way they
taught their own students (Lail, 2005).
These accounts can be linked to other research suggesting that guidelines
promoting modern on-the-job training are based on the same adult-learning
principles that drive learning-centered instruction (Wentland, 2003).
This realization connects to another important finding: prior teaching
experience has a strong association to learning-centeredness, as early-career
instructors with facilitator/trainer backgrounds reported higher percentages for
learning-centered teaching practices than those with other prior teaching
experiences. And, unexpectedly,
graduate assistants from four-year colleges became more traditional instructors
despite their extended immersion in the academic experience (Lail, 2005).
Consequently, Johnson,
Johnson, and Smith (1998) asserted that the most recent wave of new faculty must
be proactive toward teaching preparedness.
Svinicki, Hagen, & Meyer (1996) advise instructors to grasp the how and
why of adult learning that supports contemporary practices.
Nevertheless, in a recent study surveying 143
early-career instructors across 58 North Carolina community colleges, the
results showed that only half of them were satisfied with the quality of their
professional development, with only a quarter feeling that such activities had a
distinct effect on their teaching practices (Lail, 2005).
These findings matched the 2002 North Carolina Community College System
survey results; both studies agreed with other researchers who maintained that
most professional-development programs are erratic and ineffectual (Grubb, 1999;
Murray 2001, 2002).
These same studies found that early-career faculty preferred attending
discipline-specific conferences, reviewing discipline-specific textbooks, and
engaging in discipline-specific advanced study.
Few responders
preferred participation in topics regarding pedagogical theories,
learning-centered strategies, and classroom-assessment techniques.
Actually, over two-thirds of the responders showed a lack of interest in
acquiring diverse-learner strategies, stating that those kinds of
professional-development activities were too nonspecific and poorly targeted
(Lail, 2005).
Implications for Community Colleges
Most U.S. community-college
systems are faced with retraining hundreds of thousands of adult students who
have not been prepared for college. Their learning success is now mandated by
another changing paradigm: higher
education is no longer about weeding out failing, passive learners but rather
about seeking successful learning outcomes for all students, regardless of the
diversity of their preparedness (Cohen, 1998).
Since lowering the integrity of the curriculum is not an option, then new
modes of instruction must be accommodated with all due speed to meet this
outcomes objective (Gaff & Ratcliff,
1997; Lail, 2005).
Further, whereas learning within the community-college environment is no
longer just about the basics but now extends to contemporary forms of vocational
education, instructors must find a way to replicate the new workplaces as
closely as possible by using strategies advocated by the learning-centered
model. The constant transformations
in all work environments, especially due to changing technologies and
competency-based pressures, make it critical that the learning-centered
directive extend across all disciplines, including the historical fiefdoms of
educational-core disciplines (Gaff & Ratcliff, 1997).
Tomlin (1997) warned, “The race to the next century is not going to be a
simple jog in the park. It is going
to be a multi-gaited event with prizes going to those who are the fastest to
learn the new rules of a rapidly changing world” (p. 20).
Myriads of
proprietary universities and corporate-training centers are racing to the
education market with a constant stream of teaching innovations contrived to
compete for today’s students (Tomlin, 1997); if most community-colleges persist
in their traditional deliveries of instruction, the community-college model
could become readily outmoded in a 21st-century academic market.
Based on their expanded use of environmental
scanning and analysis, community colleges must go beyond changing program
policies and content; they also must re-engineer the teaching processes within
the various disciplines to support the learning-centered model (Grubb, 1999).
The barriers that slow this progression must be evaluated, and our
educational leaders and our faculty (from all teaching disciplines) must seek
ways to break them down.
Before any meaningful
reconstruction can take place, however, these same leaders must first educate
their own faculty members about the seriousness of completing the
learning-centered paradigm shift.
Although administrators may think such change on the part of faculty is too
difficult, it can be accomplished through transformational leadership (Kotter,
1996).
Implementing the Change
Because community-college instructors influence profound change in their
students’ lives, they can become productive transformational partners.
However, one early-career instructor exclaimed that his administrators
had failed to get a buy-in from the faculty (Lail, 2005).
Therefore, more effective ways must be created to convince
faculty—especially early-career instructors who are the next generation of
community-college educators—that they can complete the change predicted by Myran
and Zeiss (as cited in O’Banion, 1996, p. 4).
Oromaner in his 1986 research stressed that by institutionalizing scholarship,
the teaching role can be revitalized.
Faia (1976) found a significant relationship between those who
voluntarily pursue scholarship with the earning of teaching awards.
Yet recent studies found that fewer than 40 percent of beginning faculty
responders reported a strong commitment to scholarly activities; this 40 percent
consisted of those holding graduate degrees and/or intending to earn doctorates
(Lail, 2005).
In a 2003 address before administrators and
faculty, J. Roueche stated that community colleges were internationally renowned
in meeting the educational and workforce training needs for business and
industry, yet those same institutions need to bring more attention to the
instructional development and service-training needs of its own faculties and
staffs, especially in the integration of learner-centered strategies.
Although
system-wide and campus-wide professional development has its critical place,
those professional-development activities that are centered around the
standards, intended outcomes, and cultures of specific academic departments are
the most valued and effective (Nathan, 1994).
Boice (1992) agreed that the
instructional deans and department chairs are best suited to recognize their
faculty’s teaching needs and to lead in conducting successful instructional
development. In particular, department
chairs and lead instructors are in the best position to decide the direction for
their faculty members’ instructional development.
Each discipline has its own indigenous standards and unique norms that a
generic, one-size-fits-all professional-development program ignores.
Thus, a faculty-development program that includes chairs and lead
instructors can best focus and adjust the professional-development contents to
the particular demands and resources that are critical both within a given
discipline and department. Equally
important, the department chairs can drive new teaching practices necessary to
complete any curricular changes that best produce student learning (Eble &
McKeachie, 1985).
As we know, department chairs are typically laden with heavy teaching
loads and administrative duties, and too often the position of department chair
is seen as a chore. Community
colleges must find ways to help department chairs lead in faculty development;
likewise, we must give more effective enticements to encourage faculty to serve
as department chairs (Nathan, 1994).
Although better compensation is a start, administrators can also
·
raise the perceived value of
the department chair;
·
provide attractive
professional and leadership training so that the chair’s role as a faculty
development manager can be viewed as important to the success of the department
and linked to the institutional strategic frame;
·
apportion the appropriate
amount of authority and resources to allow chairs the flexibility to adjust
workloads and allocate funding for effective professional-development
activities; and
·
maintain a strong, continuous
partnership with instructional deans and chief academic officers, especially in
the areas of teaching objectives, workload flexibility, and
professional-development funding issues (Nathan, 1994).
In addition,
academic departments need to deepen their relationships with the various
professional- and discipline-specific affiliations that provide resources and
current information regarding the careers associated with the various
disciplines. Learning-centered
instruction is not an ideal owned by higher education; it has become universally
espoused within different professional and academic associations, as well
(Haneline, 2000). Research showed that early-career faculty valued their
professional- and discipline-specific associations.
Therefore, partnering the resources and knowledge bases of these external
affiliations with their corresponding disciplinary departments can only
strengthen the resolve of their early-career faculty to make use of
professional-development opportunities (Lail, 2005).
As J. Gaff argued,
Faculty development is not simply something “nice” to do.
The evidence indicates that it is a very important strategy for
strengthening . . . education by changing the curriculum.
By improving the nature of teaching and learning within courses, and by
keeping the focus on the people at the heart of the enterprise – students and
faculty members. . . . As such, it
is in everyone’s self-interest to operate a substantial program that supports
the professional growth of the faculty as teachers of . . . education. (as cited
in Sell & Lounsberry, 1997, p. 662)
This view placed great responsibility upon
beginning community-college faculty to make sure that their teaching practices
are sensitive to the learning needs of their students and thus are continually
pliant and effectual. Just as their
four-year faculty colleagues are seeking tenure through publishing, teaching,
and serving, community-college faculty must also find professional equilibrium
by maintaining proficiency in their disciplines, persisting in their
institutional-service commitments, and
staying engaged in mastering their teaching vocations.
With these efforts, early-career faculty can then
assist their community colleges in truly becoming learner-based institutions.
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Dr. Audrey A. Lail is an assistant professor of business management at Blue Ridge Community College.