Understanding Instructional Change and Teacher Growth

Credit: iStock.com/Isbjorn
Credit: iStock.com/Isbjorn
Why this article is worth discussing: For most teachers, change keeps their courses fresh and invigorated. It’s an antidote to all about teaching that doesn’t change: content fundamentals, courses taught, passive students, exams, assignments, and grading—a list we can polish off with committee work. Despite the importance of change, we don’t spend much time thinking about the processes associated with it: What makes teachers decide to change, do they make more than one change at once, do changes in one course migrate to another, does a pattern of change emerge across the teaching years? This article merits discussing because it explores what a faculty cohort said about why, how, and when they made changes and whether those changes fit into a trajectory of instructional growth. Reading their answers stimulates reflection on change and growth—that of oneself and one’s colleagues.

To continue reading, you must be a Teaching Professor Subscriber. Please log in or sign up for full access.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Articles

I have two loves: teaching and learning. Although I love them for different reasons, I’ve been passionate about...
Recently, a student sent me a political news article with the comment “Things are falling apart.” I didn’t...
You’ve prepared a fabulous, interactive class. You’ve designed engaging activities, developed meaningful discussion questions, and cultivated an inviting...
AI has become a part of nearly all facets of teaching, from lesson development to exam creation to...
Navigating the gulf between the most and least prepared students in a course can seem like an insurmountable...
I’ve taught a course in statistics for psychological research for almost 40 years. No student becomes a psych...
My course is literally about teaching reading to young children, a challenge given that research suggests that college...

Create a free account, or log in.

Gain access to limited free articles, news alerts, and select newsletters

Login here