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Sharing Authority: Faculty Collaboration
in the Classroom |
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Introduction On 6 October, 1999, a small invited group of university faculty involved in collaborative teaching convened to discuss with inventio exactly how they negotiated the complex issues of authority within the classroom, in relation to both faculty collaborators and students enrolled in their classes. They included Ashley Williams, one of the founder faculty members of New Century College and leader of NCC's initial course for freshmen, NCLC 110. Kim Eby, leader of NCLC 140, the final course in NCC's freshman syllabus, joined her, as did Elizabeth Gunn, joint coordinator of the Social Sciences cluster within NCLC 140, Teresa Michals, Director of the George Mason University's Linked Courses Program, and Elizabeth Patten, Associate Director of The Freshman Center & Educational Programs and Research. The article below is an edited transcript of that discussion, and inventio thanks all the faculty involved for their willingness to participate, to discuss and hone their ideas and, most critically, to illuminate the process of teaching. Ashley Williams The most interesting issue to start off with for me is the notion of what constitutes academic, and specifically pedagogic, authority. I'm not sure I have an easy answer to that question, but I think I have a more complex answer now than I would have had before I embarked on collaboration. Elizabeth Gunn I agree. Collaborative teaching and collaborative learning with students have reconfigured my ideas. Yet authority, sharing authority between me and my co-teacher, continues to be a major issue for those of us who collaborate. Who's going to be in charge in any one classroom situation? How to define that, either explicitly, or as an issue with the students? The students know that faculty have authority, and in some ways we almost owe them some authority. But how do you create that effectively? Articulating Goals Kim Eby A lot of the conversations about authority in the classroom have been about sharing authority with students. In the first-year learning communities in New Century College (NCC [http://www.ncc.gmu.edu/]), teaching is so team-oriented, with six to eight faculty, and we bring in a lot of support people who are also faculty, that we started thinking about sharing authority not just with the students, but how, in that team, we could share our decision-making about such issues as the curriculum, the assignments, and how to grade. All these different issues should be negotiated, giving everyone a sense of autonomy and control over his or her own teaching, and yet, in this team setting, there has to be a set-up that’s shared. How do you determine what is shared? Who has a voice in the team? That actually started me thinking about how our team began negotiations and consensus-building. Why did our team work? What was it about this process that facilitates our teams? Teresa Michals Linked classes (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/linked/)build in much less explicit attention to sharing authority with students and faculty, but I have noticed two developments that show how important an issue this is for the program. First, I have to articulate everything in a linked class. I used to be able to teach my class with reference to no one but myself. Now, my goals and objectives have to be explained, both to myself and to my co-teacher. That, in turn, makes the explaining to my students easier, because I've already gone through the process. Second, the kind of authority I share with the students is the authority of their experience, because if they have been in two classes together, they bond more, they compare notes and create a cohort mentality. One of the experiences they're affirming for each other is that this is not like high school, but in some ways they want it to be like high school. So they talk together and say, "This is harder than high school. Something's wrong." And they turn to me and say. "Fix it. This is too hard." Whereas if they were divided, and did not share more than one class, they would just feel inadequate, and try to come up to my standards and learn how to play the 'game.' When students are learning together, they gain both a stronger individual voice, and a collective voice in their learning, and sometimes they use it very effectively. Elizabeth Patten In the transition to university program, the University 100 (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/freshman/courses), we partner peer advisors, who are undergraduates, in the classroom with faculty. We have over thirty sections, and it's interesting to observe some of the sharing of authority in the classroom. For many, that works out very well, while others struggle. It seems to me that some of the faulty members come in very focused on content, whereas the peer advisers realize the importance of content, but are focused on the importance of developing the community. As the faculty realize that peer advisers have both training and a background in community development, they become willing to negotiate a more equal give and take in the classroom. In many ways, some faculty have to see the authority to feel confident in giving up authority. Elizabeth Gunn In deciding when and how to exercise authority, I find I have to talk it through with myself and my fellow teacher: it's like a decision tree I have to go through to sort out why authority might be important in one sense and not in another. We clearly know more than our students about certain topics, and then the issue becomes, "How do we use that expertise? How do we exercise that authority when going into the classroom, communicating that knowledge to the students?" That's when I really love to co-teach, to share classroom authority, because I'm not an expert on all the possible ways we might introduce material. Faculty as Learners Ashley Williams I'm thinking about meta-teaching, the sharing of ideas about teaching that is also extremely enriching. It's interesting to examine the ways in which we do that because we're forced to. Much of the authority of a collaboratively taught course comes from sharing, which in this instance means exchange, both with our faculty colleagues and with our students. I think there's a kind of parallel between the way authority develops in collaborative teaching and the development of moral authority. Moral authority isn't something you set out to achieve: it inheres and grows from the consistency of the principle of good choice. I think what we recognize as authority in collaborative situations isn't deliberately achieved. Rather, it grows out of a certain compass, out of trust and, in fact, out of the sharing of authority itself. Elizabeth Patten I think it's also beneficial for students to encounter faculty who have differing opinions on the same subject. It can be a positive experience, when two or more people, both with knowledge and expertise in a field, can argue opposing sides of a point, as long as they back up their opinions and provide meaningful insights along the way. Modeling this for students challenges them to go beyond right and wrong, the dualistic view, and move towards a more relativistic view of knowledge. It shows students that it's OK to disagree. Elizabeth Gunn Some students expect or want undisputed authority. It's easier for them, and so they work sometimes against accepting responsibility. When we go outside the university classroom, the rules aren't so clear. In many of my courses, we go out into the field often, and it's wonderful to watch the students. They're used to you as the knowledge expert; they know that you possess some special abilities. But then you introduce someone who has different intellectual abilities, a scientist, for example, and you step out from that authority to let another expert take over your class. You ask questions, and you act in a subordinate status, and students truly see you in a different role. It changes the way in which you can share, and changes the way students look at you. I think our willingness to surrender the class to someone else, and to become students ourselves, influences what and how we can teach. Ashley Williams If we are not demonstrably learners ourselves then we cannot communicate the process to students. Authority comes from participating in the learning: students are very savvy about who's "really" a learning community kind of teacher, and who's not. Years ago, a colleague told me about his father, who was dean of a Lutheran College in the mid-west. His father went everywhere with an encyclopedia under his arm, because he was so concerned that a student might ask him a question he couldn't answer. I think that story is emblematic of our perceived responsibilities as faculty, at least traditionally. In contrast, this shift to collaborative pedagogy involves our becoming active learners along with students, and of course it makes a significant change in the way we relate to students. Teresa Michals Sometimes on the surface, they're ready to move beyond a simple opposition between fact and experience, between dualism and relativism. But when you push a little harder, students still feel that a fact is a fact. They're unable to bridge the gap between those two positions in interesting ways. That's what I want them to do by the time they graduate, to be able to think through the contexts that are important for any intellectual inquiry. I wanted to pick up on Betsy's [Elizabeth Gunn's] point, too, that you also have think about the classroom before you can think about what the audience is going to do. I never realized how much of my work depended upon standing next to the blackboard until I went outside the door, outside my sphere, without the props, and it was unsettling for me and for the students. Sharing Authority: the Models Kim Eby Teachers share authority in different ways. There's one model that says, "Well, I'm in charge of this, and you're in charge of that," and the teaching sticks within the framework of disciplinary perspective, or some other form of expertise that each person brings to the classroom. That's not very challenging to the students. Another model thinks about perspective, and suggests that there are ways, beyond the disciplinary difference or the status difference between junior and senior faculty, that a teaching team might develop. I think you are going to be able to challenge students more if you can say that you have different perspectives on issues. Or to say, "I disagree." Or, "I see this issue a little differently…" Or, "My interpretation might be.." Ashley Williams Part of the way we do that, I believe, is to call attention to the
discourse itself, to the nature of the conversation we're involved in, and
to epistemological issues. This involves helping students learn about epistemological issues. You help students learn from the very beginning
that you see, understand and value the different perspectives, and that you understand and see the difference in ways of knowing and Elizabeth Gunn I think there are two other issues, too. The first is classroom behavior. I think we need to excel at this, and understand the ways we act. Students are very good at scoping out each of us. They want to know who is the 'lenient' person; they want to take advantage of that. They would like to do that intellectually as well. For example, if you are working with a biologist, and the class is studying something about genetics, the students will turn to the biologist because they see him or her as the authority. They're confused if you start talking about genetics, and they resist this. They're saying, "Why are you doing this?" Students want to keep the faculty sorted by discipline. It's really challenging to students if you are showing them that you need to integrate. If you're asking them to integrate, and see connections, you have to model it. So it's important to stay in those disciplinary boxes to challenge them - to use that disciplinary cover - but also to be careful to mix those, because how else can students gain the confidence to integrate, and also achieve that level of understanding, so that they too can speak with authority about biology? A Richer Classroom Elizabeth Gunn The second point I wanted to make, and we've all said this in different ways, is about the joy, the epiphanies that you have when collaborating in the classroom. When you're in the classroom, moving along in the stream of learning, when you're in charge, you don't have the luxury, the time, to step out and watch the students. In team teaching, you can step out while your colleague is teaching, and watch the students, and listen to them and think about what is happening in the classroom. Sometimes you might see a student is totally frustrated, and you would have missed that had you been the only person in charge. That is why the teaching opportunities, the learning opportunities, are so good, because you have time to step back while everyone else is really absorbed in what's happening. Kim Eby I think it does improve teaching, because then you come back and share those observations. "This was really effective" and "This didn't really work." Sometimes you have a sense of this when you are alone in the classroom, but when there are two of you, it's possible to analyze the specifics of various classroom techniques and exchange feedback. Teresa Michals It challenges you to do better as a teacher. Ashley Williams It's really interesting that you talked about collaboration in an
intellectual way and then as a process. Having taught alone, and now collaborating, I hope that I am more adept intellectually, that I can Teresa Michals I think that what we've been saying is that if something isn't working in the classroom, we have other options to think about, instead of just saying "bad students" or "bad teacher" and carrying on with what we've been doing, even if it's not working. Authority and Trust Ashley Williams One of the most important lessons I've learned from learning community practice is that as we move from the a teaching paradigm to a learning paradigm we must find ways to integrate the participation of a range of colleagues -- traditional teaching faculty, student services professionals, librarians, etc. -- in collaborative teams. Elizabeth, would you help us think about some of the insights student services colleagues bring to this process. Elizabeth Patten I think it's important for faculty to realize that people in student services positions have expertise in a field, too. Most have at least a master's degree, and often a Ph. D. in fields such as College Student Personnel, Counseling, Education Administration, etc. We're trained to understand/work with the whole student and his or her learning processes both inside and outside the classroom. Sharing the work with a co-teacher creates a different mode of learning, with lots more discussion, which allows faculty to learn more about the whole students. I think wonderful things occur when faculty and student services staff work together to provide an all-encompassing learning experience. Teresa Michals Just as articulating your goals is always part of good teaching but gets more explicit when you share authority in the classroom. What you're saying now is that being aware of the student as a person but separate that from the grade you give is always important. These new teaching situations bring that issue to the surface more. Being able to communicate to students that you think they're smart, they're interesting people, but they're still getting Cs is really hard, but it's always hard. The learning community model doesn't create the tension. It brings the tension to the surface. Ashley Williams I think, too, about the times we have real arguments, with genuine emotion. I watched one of those yesterday, and I was awed by it-- it was a great discussion and an important opportunity for faculty to articulate deeply held beliefs about teaching. Collaboration, and the inevitable differences of opinion it involves, causes us to talk, and to argue, about the things that matter most in teaching and learning. What is very powerful, I think, is the way trust creates the ability to have an honest conversation. Elizabeth Gunn That's interesting. And it's different when you're assigned to teach with someone you may not know at all as opposed to a familiar colleague or a friend. When you don't know the person, there's a lot of prior work to be done to establish trust. That trust builds the excitement about what you're studying as a faculty team which then carries over into the classroom. Kim Eby When you're fired up, it's even possible to get students excited about social science research. - laughter - Elizabeth Gunn You're right; it happens and the changes in classroom dynamics are remarkable. Kim Eby It's a relationship that requires all the same kinds of open communication, discussion, honesty, understanding, negotiation as any other close relationship and, as in other relationships, you have to have a true acceptance and appreciation of that other person. In order to make these teaching teams work, we need to create opportunities to appreciate each other, to get to know each other - it's essentially community-building. Elizabeth Gunn Most academics are here because we’re individual achievers, so moving from an individual to a group is unfamiliar and awkward. Teresa Michals It's going against the grain. Growth and Community Ashley Williams I’d like to ask several things. Does it change our work, and not just the work we do as teachers and as educators, but does it change other intellectual work we do? I'm also interested in asking why anyone would do this? What do we gain? Elizabeth Gunn I think we can't overlook that you could start with the personal, in a way. Are people really comfortable with collaboration, and so do they come to it willingly? Or do they have prior interdisciplinary experience? In my intellectual work, integration has been the key. I have a disciplinary Ph. D. but my research activities have always focused on knowledge integration, typically working with engineers, oceanographers and other scientists. And so I come to my teaching with the goal of helping students learn to approach complex problems with critical thinking skills, realizing that they may have to move around among different types of assumptions and frameworks. In fact, very few of the policy issues that I'm interested in can be adequately addressed by a single discipline. They're too big, and they require too many different perspectives. I have to work with other people, both in research and in teaching, to investigate the issues I'm interested in. Teresa Michals I got involved with learning communities because of some frustrations with teaching general education classes of freshmen and sophomores. That's why I first wanted to look at Links. The go-it-alone approach to teaching is fine as long as it works, but I think a lot of people in my department [English] can feel quite frustrated teaching freshmen and sophomores, and so are more willing to try something different with them. When I'm teaching majors in my field, they're basically committed to what I want to do in the classroom, but when that's less true for a population of students, I think, and the people who work in the linked program think, it's time to try another way of reaching them. Ashley Williams I collaborate because I think it makes for better teaching. But I also participate in a way that's probably selfish: I like to learn more about different perspectives. I started off as an undergraduate, moving between disciplines, majoring in journalism and minoring in English, two very different academic experiences. I'm still between disciplines: I work in composition and in literature, and in the work that I do in American regional literature, particularly now Appalachian literature, culture and interdisciplinary issues are critical. For example, in Appalachian studies, concern about economic issues is important, as is an in-depth knowledge of environmental issues. For me, interdisciplinary work and collaboration are exciting. I learn and grow, and I feel I am a better teacher, a better scholar, I hope, because of the experience. Kim Eby In my field of community psychology, you do have to learn the disciplinary tools of discovery. But the issues that concern community psychologists involve understanding the various constituencies and drawing information from several disciplines, and publishing in many different venues and to different audiences. My professional background has included work that is integrated and multi-disciplinary, and so I'm more comfortable within that framework in both research and teaching. But I want to echo that I do think it makes for better teaching. Elizabeth Patten I enjoy it because of the people. The people who are involved in, and excited about this type of teaching are really committed to the students. The teachers I connected with most in my experiences were those who shared the learning process with students. One favorite professor of English had been an engineer for many years before becoming a professor. He had so much knowledge and expertise to bring to the classroom but he also encouraged us to share what we knew and learn from each other. A special part of the University 100 program and the faculty involved is that faculty are keyed to the success of the students and finding out about the students as a whole. They don't just pour information in: they discover what each student is all about. The peer advisers are also right in the middle of that learning process themselves, and with the sharing that goes on in the classroom and in the program, I think that teaching's very motivating and very invigorating. Kim Eby That ties back to the larger point about community-building. The faculty community that is created models community-building for the students. They see the value of collaboration and leave the classroom with enhanced skills, with a model and practice at collaborating that will be helpful to them in all kinds of ways in the future. Elizabeth Gunn By working together toward shared goals, faculty from around the university develop a strong sense of community through these teaching teams. Our experience is that these emerging communities are all providing support for other aspects of our professional responsibilities on campus. Ashley Williams That's right. We're experiencing a greater sense of connection to the larger university community of both faculty and students. Kimberly K. Eby (kebyy1@gmu.edu), an ecological-community psychologist, is an Assistant Professor in New Century College at George Mason University and a faculty affiliate with Women's Studies and the Department of Psychology. She has taught multiple integrated studies learning communities, including "Violence and Gender" and "Self as Citizen", as well as courses in adolescent psychology and lifespan development. Her research interests revolve around the scholarship of teaching, particularly examining faculty roles in collaborative work, and issues related to violence and gender, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, health sequelae of violence, and violence intervention and prevention. Elizabeth M. (Betsy) Gunn (egunn@gmu.edu) is an Associate Professor in New Century College, where she co-teaches learning communities investigating such topics as the scientific and public policy issues associated with migratory organisms and the roles and responsibilities of the individual as citizen. Before joining George Mason University, Betsy was with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, and the University of Oklahoma. She has authored or co-authored numerous articles and books in such areas as environmental policy, energy policy, ethics in public service, and program planning and evaluation. While at the University of Oklahoma, she was named the Outstanding Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. In addition to her continuing research on environmental and science policy, she is studying the role of collaborative and interdisciplinary teaching in higher education. Elizabeth Patten (epatten@gmu.edu) is currently Associate Director of the Freshman Center, responsible for recruiting, selecting and training the Peer Advisors and Faculty who teach Mason's freshman seminar course, University 100. She also works with the University Scholars Program and other transition courses. Ms. Patten has worked in Higher Education for the past 10 years in a variety of areas including Orientation, Academic Advising, Freshman Seminar courses, Continuing Education, Residence Life and Career Development. She received her B.A. in English and French from Bowling Green State University, and her M.A. in Higher Education and Counseling Psychology from Ohio State University. Ashley Taliaferro Williams (awilliam@gmu.edu) teaches in New Century College where she also serves as Writing Across the Curriculum consultant and has responsibility for portfolio assessment. Her research interests include collaborative pedagogy, writing in interdisciplinary contexts, and Appalachian literature. She was a founding faculty member in NCC and prior to that taught in the English Department and PAGE, as well as contributing to other General Education reform initiatives at George Mason University. Her recent conference papers include presentations on authority in the classroom, Appalachian literature, and writing across the curriculum in learning communities, which is also the subject of a book chapter, co-authored with Terry Zawacki, forthcoming in WAC for the Millennium (NCTE). |
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