We recently explained the importance of space and instructor placement in Pedagogy Day, the opening day of our innovated New Faculty Orientation. But now that we’ve explained the medium, what is the message? How would you communicate to new faculty the best practices in pedagogy?
Our fundamental and powerful concept here is that it must be modeled, and that is especially true of our mentor from the middle approach. As we say in Teaching Applied Creative Thinking (2013), “A body of research has established the efficacy of the mentor as model” (58). Another way of looking at this approach comes from an allied field. As Hal and I point out in our creative writing guidebook, Options (2014), showing is a more effective storytelling method than telling, so rather than lecture, we stage a scene.
Related Reading: Innovating Faculty Development Lessons From Pedagogy Day
The three of us begin the workshop in the middle of the room surrounded by tables with eight people sitting at each table. Sitting on a flip chart as the newbies enter the room is a poster bearing the inscription EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING IS JOB ONE, which is also at the bottom of every email they have received from us since their hiring. As the mentor from the middle is an active learning approach, we keep lecturing at a minimum (i.e., the mini-lecture) and focus on 1) questions and answers, 2) group work, and 3) reflection.
Questions and Answers Regarding Deep Learning
As we start the workshop, here are some of our favorite interactive questions:
- How many years of experience in college teaching, part-time or full-time, do you have?
- Have you ever experienced any of the following elements of pedagogical training: supervised training, a graduate course in pedagogy, publication of a SOTL article, or attendance at a pedagogical conference?
A discussion of these questions usually makes the point that few new faculty members have had much professional development.
Next we like another big question: If excellence in teaching is our main job, what’s our goal with that teaching? What we aim at through discussion is to get around to the concept of deep learning—we want to try to foster learning that endures.
That question is usually followed with another: what can we do as instructors to aid deep learning in our students? The ensuing discussion usually segues into our stressing the importance of the Four Rs of Deep Learning:
- Receive information
- Retrieve Information
- Rate information, and
- Reflect upon how the new information relates to old knowledge.
Facilitate Group Work
At this point we get into the meat of our presentation. As research indicates that the most effective learning in group work begins with individual effort, we ask each participant to consider two alliterative questions: what are the top ten attitudes and the top ten strategies for terrific teachers? Each new faculty member must use the paper provided and jot down five answers for each question. Then, we pair & share as everyone must collaborate with one other person at the table to come up with a single top five list for both categories. Finally, the entire table of eight must negotiate with each other and publish their two decided-upon lists on a flip chart we have provided for each table.
Encourage Reflection
At this point we have anywhere from five to eight flip charts filled with information. We ask the attendees to take some time to look around at the different lists. Then, using the higher-order Bloom skills of analyzing and evaluating what they see, through frequency or any other research method they deem applicable, create two new top five lists. We then select various members around the room to argue the merits of the traits upon their own new lists. Eventually, we try to build a consensus.
Related Reading: 3 Principles for Innovating The Faculty Development Experience
Final Thoughts
Throughout this workshop the three of us constantly circulate throughout the room, looking in on individuals and groups, making suggestions to help new faculty refine their lists, acting as both advocate and devil’s advocate. Sure, we know what the research has shown the top traits to be—we literally wrote not the book, but a book on the subject—but what we are most looking for is engagement, 100% engagement from the group.
Mentoring from the middle, you see, is not just a concept, but an overall methodology that works, and we’ve found no better way to get this approach across than to model it.
Author
Charlie Sweet is currently Co-Director of the Teaching & Learning Center (2007+) at Eastern Kentucky University. Before going over to the dark side of administration, for 37 years he taught American Lit and Creative Writing in EKU’s Department of English & Theatre, where he also served as chair (2003-2006). Collabo-writing with Hal Blythe, he has published well over 1000 items, including 15 books; of his 11 books with New Forums. Meet Charlie.
