In an attempt to promote figures of reflection and analysis that will call for more attention to American education issues, Huber, in this chapter, reflects on the Carnegie academy for the scholarships of teaching and learning thinking in relation to disciplinary styles in the scholarship of teaching and learning. She reports that many instructors concern for their students, their program of study and courses is there but they do not stop to think about their own instruction and learning as being important to the whole process. However, a change is in the air as the teaching fraternity is encouraged to meet social and financial accountability in their profession. College and University lecturers that are seeking to improve their profession are increasing every day. They are sharing information between contemporaries and disciplinary peers and this Huber believes will change the academic culture into one that is responsive to inquiries, documentation and debate on important issues in particular fields.
In this chapter, Huber discusses three issues that will positively influence the future of teaching and learning in higher education. These are the debate on teaching and learning, disciplinary approaches and their sway on design of teaching and learning schemes, and interdisciplinary exchange.
The debate on teaching and learning, promoted by the Carnegie Academy for Scholarship of Teaching and learning (CASTL), seeks to encourage individuals to investigate methods of improving the practice of teaching. It also encourages formation of communities of scholars who will contribute to, appraise and build on each others undertakings. Huber continues to say that these communities of scholars should be disciplinary so as to maintain identity but, committed to debate and exchange among themselves in order to strengthen the level of instructors investigating teaching and learning in their schooling practice. CASTL is informed by works and views that focus on student learning, explores academic scholarship and broadens outlook of teaching audience as both peers and students and mostly amount of debate and exchange among college and university lecturers. The communication in this field has been hampered by complaints of many instructors not trained as teachers, teaching profession not rewarded well as to attract more ambitious people and the difficulty of evaluating its results.
Huber reports that in the United States of America, instructors still find it easy to learn about developments in their fields but not in teaching and learning. This is in spite of the endeavors to introduce teaching and learning centers, curriculum development, forums and seminars organized and publications to make it popular. These scholars find it easy to consult their friends on issues they encounter instead of reading literature on teaching and learning. It is here that she argues that research on this issue will only be done when they ask questions then look for answers in the literature available.
In the disciplinary approaches and their sway on design of teaching and learning schemes, Huber says this is not simple because most disciplines are in the process of deducing knowledge as it moves from the expert to the other users. This means scholars have to adopt a questioning mind-set and publishing their work so that others can do appraisal, critique and build it in their works. Progress in these efforts is small but increasing in number of scholars undertaking it and who are concerned about improving student learning, most appropriate learning methods, trial on ways of recording what happens in the lessons and modes of availability to peers to comment on and appraise. One of the styles they are using is pursuing disciplinary models used for other functions.
The author of this essay looks at different examples of how scholars have used other disciplinary models to solve or answer teaching and learning problems. One such example is that of Carnegie scholar Dan Bernstein, a psychologist scholar. Dan realized that his students did not understand major concepts in his well prepared lecture notes alone. He used test methods used in psychology to decide which teaching practice will help his students deduce psychological measurements. His assumption was that they will do better if given more chances to interact with the subject matter. He exposed one group of students to live lecture, another group video tape of his lecture and the rest interactive authorware program. He then evaluated performance among these groups of students. In another example, Guy-Sheftall a women’s studies lecturer in a historically black women’s collage, adopts ideas from a feminist pedagogy that uses emotional discomfort in learning. Her classroom challenge is student’s resistance to reading matter on gender, sexuality and race. She conducts interviews on her students to gain insight as to which materials are effective in discussing contentious gender issues in class.
Disciplinary styles allow scholars of teaching and learning ready-made ways to envisage and present their work and figure out the problems affecting them and the methodology to use. However, they may be a limitation as methodological issues may hold them only to their classes and also their disciplinary colleagues may find the results unacceptable or unsound.
Huber argues that interdisciplinary exchange is an imperative in the scholarship of teaching and learning. In doing this CASTL encourages formation of interdisciplinary groups at both the campus and national level. This provides a forum for informal scholarly communication that can not be found anywhere else on such matters as conference and workshop chances, how to get published, sourcing for money, career moves, who is doing what and of course constructive criticism. It is however important that a satisfactory term to define interdisciplinary in sessions with these groups be found as it may bring problems when one scholar’s work becomes an impediment to another’s work development and appreciation. Another issue that can bring problems according to Huber is the traditional use of social science research methodologies in education research. This brings problems when other disciplines that do not think much of such methods are involved. In this no one way of doing things should be encouraged but asking a variety of questions and using a variety of approaches in giving attention to teaching and learning in higher education.
Huber concludes this essay by saying that the practice of scholarship of teaching and learning is increasingly being appreciated and that disciplinary styles are positively contributing to teaching and learning. However disciplinary communities are not clearly defined and this has turned out to be a positive aspect rather than a hindrance in that cooperation and border-crossing from one field to another is happening. She also asks questions such as whether this new found communication between disciplinary discussions will be carried forward and internalized in disciplines themselves, whether scholarship of teaching and learning will be appreciated just like other pedagogical approaches of other disciplines, and whether it will find a place in disciplinary debates and /or emerge as an interdisciplinary turf of its own. It is also clear that there will be no wrong answer in this field and that there is a strong foundation on which to base the development of a scholarship of teaching and learning.
Reference
Huber, M.T. $ Morreale, S.P ( Eds), (2002). Disciplinary Styles in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Exploring Common Ground. AAHE Publication Orders.