Thinking About College Teaching
by Glenda Wilkes, Ph.D.
 

Volume 3: The Changing Nature of the Professorate

In the last issue of Thinking About College Teaching (TACT), it was proposed that educational institutions are being transformed by the information-packed environment brought about by computer-based technologies. Because students now have direct access to knowledge, educators no longer control students’ access to information. Collins (1991) suggests that because of this paradigm shift, the nature of teaching and learning is also changing. These changes, briefly described in the last issue of TACT, include shifts from: lecture to coaching; whole-class instruction to small groups; students learning the same thing to individual students learning different things; less engaged to more engaged students; test-based assessment to assessment based on products and progress; a competitive to a cooperative goal structure; and the primacy of verbal thinking to the integration of visual and verbal thinking.

Menges (1994) suggests that there will be resulting changes in the ways in which professors spend their time and in the ways they interact with students. These changes will include more time in collegial teams preparing and evaluating instructional methods; more time coaching students in how to navigate the vast sea of information; presentations or lectures will not be given for the purpose of providing new information for students to record in notebooks but instead, to model how the discipline uses information to answer existing questions and solve current problems; and lastly, professors will spend more time demonstrating the potential for using information to formulate new questions and construct problems for the future of the discipline.

Menges (1994) outlines the following specific changes in how professors will work with students:

• A shift from covering material to assisting students in sampling material. Only what is essential will be assigned and the rest must be sampled through a variety of electronic sources.
• A shift from unilaterally declaring what is worth knowing to negotiating criteria with students and colleagues that identify what is important. Developing ways to discriminate what is important will be an ongoing challenge. Criteria will not only be discipline-specific but medium-specific as well. The decontextualized nature of electronic information (not being able to touch the soil sample or leaf through the pages of a manuscript) will pose challenges to learning.
• A shift from ranking students relative to one another to negotiating standards specific to individuals, since technology makes it possible for each student to travel a unique route.
• A shift from grading individuals to grading collaborative contributions. Electronic technology permits almost infinite variety in the tasks that groups can pursue.
• A shift from verifying student sources to deriving standards for fair use and credit. Sources are now so numerous and information can be so easily altered that the whole issue of authorship and credit is being renegotiated.
• A shift from reproducing knowledge to demonstrating originality. Those who will successfully navigate the information overloads of the future will have to develop new skills for bringing vast amounts of information together in understandable and workable ways.

There is much uncertainty and anxiety that naturally accompanies such dramatic shifts in what has been a relatively stable system for decades. Resistance abounds. Menges (1994) suggests beginning gradually, asking for assistance from more advanced colleagues, utilizing resources such as the University Teaching Center, and enlisting aid of technologically literate students.

References

Collins, A. (1991). The Role of Computer Technology in Restructuring Schools. Phi Delta Kappa 73(1), 28-36.

Menges, R.J. (1994). Teaching in the age of electronic information. In W.J. McKeachie, ed. Teaching Tips (9th edition). Lexington, MA: D.C. Health and Co.