Too Many Moving Parts: Faculty Understandings of Teaching and Learning

• In Event: Faculty and Student Understandings of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger, multi-year study to examine interactions of beliefs and practices as faculty engage in course redesign. Interviews with nineteen faculty focused on motivations for participation, beliefs about their roles as teachers, students' roles, and use of student data. Resulting data suggest that faculty are motivated to enter the redesign process because they experience a question, uncertainty, problem, or need in regard to their instructional practice. Participants indicate that they perceive roles and responsibilities of teachers as multi-faceted, changeable, and at times conflicting. They espouse student responsibility for their own learning, but differ in definition and degree of that responsibility. Finally, use of data in shaping practice varies across participants.

Authors

• Kyle M. Williams, The University of Texas at Austin

• Julie Pearson Stewart, The University of Texas - Austin