Andrea Phillipson, PhD
Faculty Development Consultant
Academic Development Centre, Mount Royal University
PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICE
I was 'out of date' with the [adult education] literature as well as the practicalities and realities of engaging Millennials in the classroom, and you were able to bring me up to speed in such a way that I felt respected for my previous knowledge and confident in trying out new things.
(Associate Professor Heather Castleden, CRC in Reconciling Relations for Health, Queen's University)
As the above comment suggests, I take a developmental approach to my practice. I meet educators where they are, aiming to challenge, inspire, and build capacities, so they feel confident drawing on their own abilities to create change in the classroom. I think of my work as constantly evolving, seeing my own role in developmental terms, with me as both “an educator (of teachers) and a learner (of educational practice)” (Wilcox, 1998). My educational development philosophy emerges from my undergraduate teaching practice, and it centres around three purposeful goals: I aim to foster intellectual rigor in teaching approaches, create an environment that allows educators to embrace risk, and build a strong teaching and learning community.
FOSTERING INTELLECTUAL
RIGOR
As a critical scholar and pedagogue, I often introduce students to material unlike anything they have been asked to engage with before, as I prompt them to identify and evaluate their unexamined assumptions. Although they find this work difficult, I express my high expectations for students at the outset of each course and reiterate them often, having students determine learning outcomes with each assessment. I find that students rise to challenges that they can anticipate, and will take responsibility for what they wish to get out of their education.
This dedication to rigorous introspective analysis has also informed my educational development practice. We all carry assumptions about what teaching and learning are, and I ask colleagues above all to locate their beliefs, set their priorities, and plan purposefully based on what they discover about their intellectual investments. I promote a scholarly approach to teaching, introducing educators to educational literature and encouraging them to reflect on how this scholarship might inform their own classroom practices. When working with faculty members who want to make their courses more writing intensive, I have introduced them to the concept of disciplinary-based, low-stakes writing activities through excerpts of John Bean’s (2011) Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. One such faculty member subsequently purchased the book, and our meetings were animated by discussions about how to bring Bean’s scholarship to life in the disciplinary context of health promotion.
EMBRACING
RISK
Undergraduate degrees should not only represent competency, or knowledge and skills in a field of study; they should also allow students to develop their capabilities, or the ability to act judiciously and ethically in a complex world. Bolstered by my emphasis on formative assessment, my students come to recognize how a continual loop of feedback and self-reflection allows them the space to take risks and be creative, flexible, and confident in the work that they do. My trust in students has motivated me to let go of a controlling style of teaching, and instead to guide students through their own scholarly self-discovery.
Similarly, in educational development practice, I begin with a basic assumption that there is plenty of desire among academics to be good teachers, and that the best thing I can do is honor their pedagogical expertise by adopting a supportive rather than dogmatic role. It’s not up to me to decide what a “good teacher” looks like; rather, my role is to help educators explore their aspirations and help them discover and practice a variety of strategies that will help them excel. I strive to create environments in which such exploration is possible, such as the weekly “sandbox” time I initiated in active learning classrooms: I meet instructors where they are, literally, so they can try out technology and teaching strategies in a supportive, low-stakes setting. Humour is also an important part of my practice, and my colleagues always know when I am in a consultation by the laughter they invariably hear. I seek to put others at ease, and I share my own teaching foibles and lessons learned to help allay fears of teaching catastrophes and build confidence.
BUILDING
COMMUNITY
Learning is not a safe and predictable confirmation of what we think we already know; rather, it requires us to push beyond our comfort level. I find that when students are dealing with the potentially controversial topics assigned in my classes, they benefit from support in their risk-taking and from a sense of a shared, rather than isolated, journey. I often ask students to work on structured activities in small groups, guiding them as they engage multiple perspectives, build interpersonal capacities, and gain the confidence to make persuasive, informed arguments.
For educators as for undergraduate students, learning is a profoundly social activity. An important part of my educational development role is facilitating welcoming opportunities for educators to share strategies, stories, and support. For instance, when designing a Teaching Fellows’ mini-institute, my colleagues and I prioritized time for participants to explore classroom strategies collectively, and discuss how they might adopt and adapt one another’s approaches. We also organized follow-up coffee meetings throughout the year, so the instructors could re-connect and talk about teaching in the company of supportive peers. Although I am always happy to share research and resources, I aim to be a catalyst, and I value especially creating a space in which my colleagues can teach, learn, and lead.
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