Last spring I asked in a viewpoints article titled “Shaping Classroom Practices: The Scholarship of Teaching” how, in the context of the scholarship of teaching as defined by Ernest Boyer (1990), would we at Community College of Philadelphia establish a culture of teaching? By way of response I suggested that it should start with a discussion of who our students are, what strengths and weaknesses they bring to the College, and what elements of transition would be necessary for them to become successful in our academic environment. This was in the context of knowing more about our audience so that our instruction might speak more powerfully to them. These questions will form the core of our professional development efforts in the College Achievement Partnership this coming academic year.
A second context addressed in that article, which I’d like to explore here, was who we are as teachers, what we take our purpose to be, and how best we might enrich our practice through the sort of scholarship Boyer described in Scholarship Reconsidered as
A dynamic endeavor involving all analogies, metaphors, and images that build bridges between the teacher’s understanding and the student’s learning….With this vision, great teachers create common ground of intellectual commitment. They stimulate active, not passive learning and encourage students to be critical, creative thinkers, with the capacity to go on learning after their college days are over (23-24).
Boyer’s assertion has been further developed by K. Patricia Cross and Mimi Harris Steadman (1996):
Just as students must be actively engaged in formulating their own learning questions and thinking critically about them, so teachers must be actively engaged in formulating their own questions about learning and the impact of their teaching upon it. Teachers have an exceptional opportunity to engage actively in the scholarship of teaching by using their classrooms as laboratories for the study of teaching and learning (2).
Happily, I do not have to go beyond this issue of viewpoints to find an example of what both Boyer and Cross/Steadman are writing about.
In “The 500-word Theme: A Blight on the Profession, a Danger to Students,” Evan Seymour addresses with little reserve the question of what form college composition should take, or more precisely what form it should not take. Of all the disciplines one might find offered in the first two years of a collegiate experience, arguably none seem to occasion more visceral debate than the teaching of College Composition. The purpose and form of Freshman Composition and its instruction has had an exhilarating and rowdy history—witness the famous essay by Maxine Hairston in College Composition & Communication (1992) or that of David, Gordon, and Pollard (1995) in the same publication, the work of Bartholomae and Petrosky (1986), and certainly any number of exchanges in our own English department. So while Evan’s entry is not new, it is welcome on two fronts: First, we are teachers. What we teach and why we teach it matters. Second, in an e-mail after submitting his article for viewpoints, Evan suggested that we address the question of the 500-word theme via a series of seminars that make use of composition literature to discuss the issue. Such discussions are at the heart of the scholarship of teaching.
In “Basic Skills Problems at Community Colleges” (2000), Allen Bundy, a teacher at Long Beach City College writes:
Faculty must reevaluate who they are. Teachers at the community college now call themselves “professors,” the reflection of the popular American notion that changing a name somehow changes the nature of the thing represented. Community college teachers are not professors (44).
It is interesting to note that in what one hopes was a puckish moment the editors of Change insisted on describing Bundy as professor [italics mine] of English at Long Beach, a distinction I won’t dispute. Nevertheless, Bundy’s provocative statement is useful. For him, a professor is one who publishes and conducts research as well as teaches. Far from insulting his colleagues by a reduction in rank, Bundy wishes to celebrate what we at community colleges actually do. He writes: “Everything in the professional life of a teacher at the community college is connected to teaching. This is what community college teachers do” (46). Indeed, teaching is what we do. Even above command of our disciplines, it is teaching at which we should be expert, a point also asserted by Boyer (61).
I have had the privilege of working closely with a number of marvelously talented teachers at Community College of Philadelphia. If the College Achievement Partnership is stronger now than when I assumed responsibility for it in July 1995, it is because of faculty commitment to their students and their profession, and implicit in every discussion has been the question of what it means to be a teacher. I believe it is now time across all college programs and curricula to make that question explicit.
The College is currently experiencing its third Middle States accreditation review. Unlike the previous two, which were general in nature, this self-study focuses on assessment as a mechanism for gauging the effectiveness of services relative to the College’s mission. It is a welcome approach, as it should provide us a context in which to examine our College’s most important mission, teaching and learning. It should prompt us to make explicit our purpose and intentions as teachers.
In the Spring issue of viewpoints, I made reference to an important work by W. Norton Grubb (1999). Grubb, along with a number of associates, conducted extensive research at 32 representative community colleges across the country. Among his many findings was the following:
With some notable exceptions… most community colleges do little systematically to help their instructors improve their teaching. As a result, teaching looks like an individual activity, varying enormously from person to person, without apparent rationale, and justifying the old saw that ‘good teachers are born, not made.’ But this isn’t necessarily so; it is so because community colleges, like so many educational institutions, have failed to assume much institutional responsibility for the quality of instruction (49).
While there may be some argument, I would say that what Grubb found at the colleges he examined is equally true at Community College of Philadelphia. As noted above, exceptional teaching does occur at Community College of Philadelphia. But I do not see it occurring in an institutional context consciously constructed to put teaching at the center of the institutional mission. If we are to deliver the promise of the College mission and the promise of our professional careers, we simply cannot afford to work in isolation.
Resident at the College is an exceptional model for course development and curriculum revision. Headed by Elaine Atkins, the Curriculum Development Team has instituted a vision of what an excellent course should be. This vision has been endorsed and sustained by the Deans and our Academic Vice President. For this Elaine and her colleagues should be commended and the College should be justly proud. Still, the work done by the Curriculum Development Team is only one half of a dynamic process. The other half is the exceptional teaching needed to animate an exceptional document.
I believe the current Middle States review, with its focus on assessment, offers us a rare opportunity to move our institution from one that is generally quite good to one that is demonstrably great. Properly, assessment is about clarifying what we do in the classroom, understanding why we do it, and experimenting with how to do it better. It is about raising questions, looking at what others have thought about those questions, and improving our practice through rigorous inquiry. It is about the scholarship of teaching. So here is what faculty should ask of the Middle States review: Let’s complete the process begun by the Curriculum Development Team by working toward a culture that uses assessment as the mechanism for exploring teaching and learning in the context of academic inquiry. Assessment in this context is not about faculty evaluation. It is about faculty initiative and academic leadership.
In the meantime, Evan’s proposal is welcome and, I hope, will be supported by full participation and the spirit of collegiality that should be the hallmark of well-tempered scholarship. Is it likely that Evan’s series will result in unanimity in composition instruction at College of Philadelphia? Hardly. Is it likely that a structured, disciplined approach to addressing issues of composition instruction will reward participants and ultimately their students? Absolutely. At the conclusion of my article in the Spring I asked what might be the first step in establishing a culture for the Scholarship of Teaching. Above I have expressed hope that from our Middle States review we might develop an institutional context that will allow that first step. This, admittedly, will take some time and some doing to effect. In the meantime, Evan’s proposal seems a good place to start.
Notes
Bartholomae, David and Petrosky, Anthony. (1986). Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts: A Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course. Boynton/Cook, Inc.
Bundy, Allen. (2000). “Basic Skill Problems at Community Colleges.” Change. May/June. 44, 46-47.
Boyer, Ernest. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered. Princeton: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Cross, K. Partrica and Steadman, Mimi Harris. (1996). Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
David, Denise., Gorden, Barbara., & Pollard, Rita. (1995). “Seeking Common Ground: Guiding Assumptions for Writing Courses.” College Composition and Communication. 46 (4). 522-532.
Grubb, W. Norton & Associates. (1999). Honored But Invisible. New York: Routledge.
Hairston, Maxine. (1992). “Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing.” College Composition and Communication. 43 (2)179-183.
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Maintained by Jay Howard,Sept 2003