Garrison's Leading Collaboratively (Part III)
Garrison's Leading Collaboratively (Part III)
¡Hola! This will be our third and last entry on Garrison's "leading collaboratively", from his book "Thinking Collaboratively: Learning in a Community of Inquiry" (2016). The last section of the corresponding chapter 8, to be discussed here, deals with collaborative Faculty Development.
Faculty development, in Garrison's view, should be based on collaboration among colleagues in order to bring in profound changes in the academy, which is the main thesis of Keller (2008).
According to Garrison,"Faculty must be provided with the incentive, support and resources to grow as teaching and learning professionals [...] the most significant support that can be offered to faculty is constructing community and a collaborative approach to their development" (p.108). In other words, collaboration as seen in a Community of Inquiry (CoI) must be moved from within the classroom into the professional environment of the faculty itself.
This can be achieved by means of faculty development programs that "are designed to model collaborative thinking and learning where faculty experience a community of inquiry." These programs, in order to be successful, should look beyond the faculty level in order to enrich them with other necessary voices: "Moreover, the level of collaborative leadership is further enhanced with the inclusion of students in these communities. Students who are continuously engaged through technology can add a much-needed voice in demanding a more thoughtful and engaged learning experience" (p.108).
Is this proposal too revolutionary? When have students' suggestions been included in course redesign, faculty development, or the general improvement of the learning experience? What Garrison is pointing out here is an urgent need to return the learning experience to its true owners: students. As teachers, our job is to create and cater for meaningful learning experiences and contexts, which means that we should focus our efforts with the learners' learning in mind. Have the faculty been locked inside their ivory tower for too long? How can we as instructors balance or cancel out the pressure of students' needs and interests on the one scale, and the political and bureaucratical demands and impositions on the other? (as discussed in Part II of this series).
The solution to this dilemma is the thorough implementation of an effective CoI environment that encompasses both the faculty, the student community, and others. Nevertheless, this process with turn the faculty into a voice of change, rather than a passive actor using leadership experiences that will "influence others in terms of developing a culture of thinking and learning collaboratively at the professional level and at the classroom" (p.109).
This new, constructivistic culture will empower faculty to become a force of innovation within the academia, as collaborative approaches will "provide examples of leading collaboratively and of ways in which they might be used in other areas of the institution [...] and encourage others to take responsibility for leading collaboratively" (p.109).
To use T.S. Eliot's words, to respond to our "overwhelming question" three paragraphs above, Garrison adds, "ultimately, however, senior administration must be open to creating a shared vision and culture for thinking and learning collaboratively. This, of course, will be an ardous and long term challenge in our increasingly bureaucratic educational institutions" (p.109).
As a final thought, I want to add that as a future leader in my university and in the field of distance education in Costa Rica and Central America, I accept the challenge of promoting a constructivistic culture for collaborative learning and collaborative leadership, which undoubtedly, will be powerful driving forces in the demanding world of the 21st century in both the construction of knowledge within the social sciences and the globalized economy of developing nations.
Faculty development, in Garrison's view, should be based on collaboration among colleagues in order to bring in profound changes in the academy, which is the main thesis of Keller (2008).
According to Garrison,"Faculty must be provided with the incentive, support and resources to grow as teaching and learning professionals [...] the most significant support that can be offered to faculty is constructing community and a collaborative approach to their development" (p.108). In other words, collaboration as seen in a Community of Inquiry (CoI) must be moved from within the classroom into the professional environment of the faculty itself.
This can be achieved by means of faculty development programs that "are designed to model collaborative thinking and learning where faculty experience a community of inquiry." These programs, in order to be successful, should look beyond the faculty level in order to enrich them with other necessary voices: "Moreover, the level of collaborative leadership is further enhanced with the inclusion of students in these communities. Students who are continuously engaged through technology can add a much-needed voice in demanding a more thoughtful and engaged learning experience" (p.108).
Is this proposal too revolutionary? When have students' suggestions been included in course redesign, faculty development, or the general improvement of the learning experience? What Garrison is pointing out here is an urgent need to return the learning experience to its true owners: students. As teachers, our job is to create and cater for meaningful learning experiences and contexts, which means that we should focus our efforts with the learners' learning in mind. Have the faculty been locked inside their ivory tower for too long? How can we as instructors balance or cancel out the pressure of students' needs and interests on the one scale, and the political and bureaucratical demands and impositions on the other? (as discussed in Part II of this series).
The solution to this dilemma is the thorough implementation of an effective CoI environment that encompasses both the faculty, the student community, and others. Nevertheless, this process with turn the faculty into a voice of change, rather than a passive actor using leadership experiences that will "influence others in terms of developing a culture of thinking and learning collaboratively at the professional level and at the classroom" (p.109).
This new, constructivistic culture will empower faculty to become a force of innovation within the academia, as collaborative approaches will "provide examples of leading collaboratively and of ways in which they might be used in other areas of the institution [...] and encourage others to take responsibility for leading collaboratively" (p.109).
To use T.S. Eliot's words, to respond to our "overwhelming question" three paragraphs above, Garrison adds, "ultimately, however, senior administration must be open to creating a shared vision and culture for thinking and learning collaboratively. This, of course, will be an ardous and long term challenge in our increasingly bureaucratic educational institutions" (p.109).
As a final thought, I want to add that as a future leader in my university and in the field of distance education in Costa Rica and Central America, I accept the challenge of promoting a constructivistic culture for collaborative learning and collaborative leadership, which undoubtedly, will be powerful driving forces in the demanding world of the 21st century in both the construction of knowledge within the social sciences and the globalized economy of developing nations.
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