Post-Secondary Instructors’ Perspectives of Effective Teaching

Introduction and Purpose (1.5 page)

Freire (1998), in his discussion of the relationship between teachers and students, noted that “an educational practice in which there is no coherent relationship between what educators say and what they do is a disaster” (p. 55). Post-Secondary Education has experienced several changes, which has led educational leaders to focus on enhancing the teaching quality. Some of these changes are the growing heterogeneous student population, the heavy reliance on modern technologies, and the increasing of tuition (Austin & Sorcinelli, 2013; Boyer et al., 2016). Thus, the pressure for excellent academic performance in higher education becomes profound with faculty members often compelled to be innovative and creative to deliver effective teaching (Kember & Kwan, 2000). Even more so during the pandemic requiring faculty members in Canada to suddenly shift to remote teaching. The feelings of the faculty members’ mission in that situation was best described by Hodge (2020) as being “instructional MacGyvers” who need to “improvise quick solutions in less-than-ideal circumstances” (p.). After almost two years of on-line education, teaching in the higher education is criticized for various reasons. The growing lists of concerns include lack of face-time between students and teachers; techno-centric models prioritized over face-to-face culture; concerns that complex and deep learning cannot be satisfactorily achieved without real-time classroom experience (Mostafa, 2012). Further, there are those who has questioned and continues to question the ability of universities to successfully fulfill their teaching mission, and they are not alone in this. Within universities, many faculty members also perceive that the online teaching is not an adequate education compared to the conventional learning. That has been observed when some post-secondary students in Canada demonstrated publicly claiming they want a ‘real’ education (p.). This event even took place on Toronto campus, recently, where students were asking for better education which is related to teaching effectiveness. With all of this, faculty members were urged to adapt and optimize their expertise by choosing the best fitting teaching approaches to achieve effective teaching.

Scholars such as Kane et al. (2002) suggest that comprehending the fundamental constituents of effective teaching in higher education is best achieved when teachers’ perspectives and actual practice in higher education are investigated. Unfortunately, tertiary research often relies on research from university teachers’ beliefs without examining their practices, which Kane et al. (2002) considered as “half of the story” (p. 107). Conversely, Kember and Kwan (2000) argue that significant alterations in the quality of learning and teaching would unlikely happen if lecturers’ perceptions of teaching are not well understood. Nonetheless, the examination of theories of teaching as well as faculty members’ perspectives about their teaching is key to guiding teachers in identifying, articulating and justifying their teaching approaches (Pratt, 2002). Therefore, proposed study aims to explore Canadian faculty members’ perspectives of effective teaching, their teaching practices, and the relationship between their teaching practices and their perspectives. This aim led to the following research questions:

Q1. How do faculty members in research-intensive universities perceive effective teaching?

Q2. To what extent are the faculty members’ practices aligned with their perspectives?

The present study aims to understand faculty members’ perceptions about effective teaching which can provide a clear picture of what is needed to enhance teaching in PSE.

Definitions of Key Terms (3/4 page)

There are definitions of key terms used in this study. Overall, literature shows there is no agreed-upon definition of effective teaching in post-secondary education (PSE) (Skelton, 2005). However, Gross Davis (1988) suggests that there are commonly cited characteristics of effective teachers at the tertiary level (i.e., instructors, academics, lecturers, and professors) can inform our understanding of teaching effectiveness. Gale (2007) suggests that there is a baseline competence shared by all successful teachers which includes: knowledge of their subject matter; an understanding of how to assess student learning; being up-to-date in their field; being excited about the material and the practice of teaching; being reflective and responsive; and the ability to foster critical engagement and active learning (p. 33). Based on this baseline, this research will examine effective scholarly teachers on “not only knowledgeable about their field but also well-informed with regard to the latest ideas about how the field is taught and how students learn the discipline” (Gale, 2007, p. 34). Another term examined in this study is academics’ perspectives. There is no perspectives in school …… The present study will adopt Pratt’s definition (2011) of a perspective on teaching as…………. (Use Pratt’s article page 1 -2)

Researcher Position/Research Motivation and Background (1/2 page)

The topic of effective teaching in higher education has been an area of great interest to me ever since I am a graduate student and an academic with more than 13 years of teaching in higher education. Although much of that experience had been in a developing country context (…….), my experience had been uniquely shaped, among other things, by having attended my graduate education in three different continents (….). It is my conviction that effective teaching is a universal goal for universities in our contemporary times. At present, post-secondary academics often determine the content and scope of what they will teach, then choose methods or strategies, instructional materials, and the e-learning technologies they believe will best help the learners to gain new knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes. As such, educators have the freedom as well as the responsibility to determine the purpose and outcomes of the learning activities (Zinn, 1990). These decisions are embedded in their teaching philosophies and practices. As such, knowing our philosophical views is important. And yet, many educators’ philosophies are often unrecognized and rarely expressed, though they may be understood implicitly (Elias & Merriam, 1980). Thus, I realize that to achieve effective education, there is a need to understand the beliefs that university academics hold about teaching in order to better understand their teaching practices and improve the practices of others. Draper (1993) asserts that an examination of our opinion, or philosophy-in practice, is more than an academic exercise. Our philosophy determines how we perceive and deal with our preferred teaching methods. I also agree with the notion expressed by Gale that “scholarly teaching presupposes improvement; embracing the idea that teaching can and should be enhanced through systematic understanding of practice” (p. 34). Gale (2007) argues that teaching excellence “requires more than knowledge, expertise and commitment to improving learning” but also “a scholarly approach to the practice of teaching and learning” which he refers to as “braided practice” (p. 32). By not being an outsider—I can be an impartial observer of events which transpired over a term and I can get engaged in meaningful and informed conversations with participants as they explored their own perspectives of teaching. I will be able to unravel the tangled distinctions between theory and practice in educational research.

Philosophical Assumptions & Research Paradigm (2 pages)

For the purposes of my research, I plan to listen to, observe, and interact with the participants to gain an understanding of how they perceived their teaching philosophies through their own lived experience in the classroom. Therefore, the paradigm of inquiry to which this research adhered lay in the “shadow” of constructivism. Guba and Lincoln (1994) identified the aim of constructivist inquiry as “understanding and reconstruction of the constructions that people (including the inquirer) initially hold, aiming toward consensus but still open to new interpretations as information and sophistication improve.” (p. 113). Lincoln and Guba (1985) believed that what a person asserts to be real is a construction in the mind of the individual. Guba and Lincoln (1989) stated that constructions “do not exist outside of the persons who create them and hold them; they are not part of some ‘objective’ world that exists apart from their constructions” (p. 128). As such, faculty members can be considered as constructivists as construct knowledge about their teaching theories and practices in order to make sense of their experience (teaching) and, further, they continually test and modify these constructions in light of new experiences and circumstance such as the Pandemic.

In these two pages:

Make sure to relate to the topic using what has been written or other resources. Using page p. 181 and 182 in Kane el al (Why Study the Beliefs Academics Have About Teaching? )

what is the philosophical perspective? What is assumed about how we conceptualize/understand reality? What is assumed about evidence and truth claims? E.g. Do organizations exist without people? Are dreams knowledge? ! Why does your study require qualitative data? In other words, what is your paradigm? ! E.g. If you want to be able to quantify the economic impact of bilingual education, you are operating within a quantitative paradigm. If you want to qualify the experience of patients to whom chemotherapy is administered, you are operating within a qualitative paradigm