Joseph
A tenured associate professor in the field of science/technology/mathematics, Joseph self-identified as a Personal Model, but scored as an Expert. He has received the University's highest teaching award. His father was also a university professor, and this encouraged Joseph, in a slightly rebellious way, to become a professor himself so that he could be a better teacher than his father had been. The favorite part of his job is to see students' learning. He enjoys watching students synthesize the material while incorporating higher-level thought processes. Joseph believes that it is his job to inspire the students to learn the material while developing independent thought processes.
If somebody comes up to me and says I don't like this, that is a compliment. If someone comes up and says to me I don't care about this, that is a slap in the face. Um, [I] try to be a model that not that the students should take and wholly accept, but that maybe they can find little pieces of that they like and bring them and integrate them into their own style into their own approaches, technical approaches. [I] Care very deeply about them understanding the material.
Joseph originally saw technology as a way to disseminate information without taking up valuable departmental resources, but now also sees technology as a way to deal with student learning styles.
People learn material in different ways. . . this [technology] can give people a chance to learn their own way and teach them how to learn other ways, that may be way too ambitious, but I know with the web we can work things, we can basically create our own sequences and our own paths.
In order to do this, he wants to understand his students and what their needs and learning styles are.
I like to try to learn what a particular students learning styles are and to mold my presentation to or to mold the teaching to best suit them. Again with some people it is graphical with some people it is mathematical, with some people it is intuitive.
After understanding the various learning styles, Joseph believes that technology can help him to structure teaching to optimize learning, and this is done through learning paths and self-paced learning.
What it [technology] can do is provide the capability to learn at your own pace through the material. We can provide the capability to follow multiple paths, and I think that can help in a lot of different ways.
Sarah
Identifying as a Facilitator and scoring as one, Sarah is a tenure-tracked assistant professor in the humanities.
I always wanted to be a teacher, I love teaching I love the contact. A university professor--that came more about as a professor you are a life-long learner and that is the fun part of it. You always explore new things. So it is this exploring of new things and then sharing these new things that you learn that make it probably most interesting.
Although she is clear about her dual function as a teacher and as a researcher in a research university, Sarah describes her favorite part of her job as being the interaction with the students, not doing research. For Sarah, teaching students is about making learning meaningful.
Learning in the sense of not only subject, but learning for life in the sense that maybe the things that you learn are applicable and whatever I teach, you know if it [discipline name omitted for anonymity]or if it is [discipline name omitted for anonymity], that there is a relation to it in every day life so that learning should be meaningful. . . . Whatever you learn it is meaningful for some part of your life.
Sarah self-identified and scored as a Facilitator, and talks about not only a teacher's role being that of facilitator for the students, but technology's role as well.
The teacher is a facilitator or mediator that has the knowledge but is the one who makes learning and acquiring knowledge fun for the students. So that the student really enjoys learning and that the students also learns.
She said that she believes technology to be a "great great great facilitator" because technology can enhance sensory learning. Technology can present information in a better way because it can present that information in different ways, and these different ways can appeal to different student learning styles. Sarah first got interested in technology after seeing other colleagues use it. She saw the possibilities of the tool for her teaching.
You know I'm not someone who knows computers inside and out. But I like more, you know, what can you do for me? What can you do for my teaching? How can it help me teach? I'm not interested knowing exactly how many gigabytes my hard drive has and stuff like or whatever I really am not knowledgeable in that at all, but you know, what can it do?
Stephen
A tenured associate professor in education, Stephen identified as a Facilitator but scored as a Delegator. Stephen first became a public school teacher. Later, while pursuing a higher degree, he became fascinated with the research process and entered the professorate after being directed that way by a faculty mentor.
Stephen's favorite part of his job as a professor and his favorite aspect of teaching is the opportunity he has to interact with his students. At the same time, he feels that this interaction should remain in the professional realm.
I have the philosophy that my role is to present knowledge and access to knowledge that's out there in my subject area. I don't have, I mean I keep my own personal ideologies out it. I think its, my role as a teacher is to let them develop their own philosophies. In other words, I'm not going to indoctrinate anyone. I'm not going to say this is the way to do things.
Stephen admits that his teaching has not had the priority level that it should have.
I haven't really thought about my teaching as much as I should. Particularly in the last two or three years its all been about getting tenure, trying to publish, all these other things. I think to a certain extent my teaching has kind of been put on a back burner. So I don't think I'm doing all that I can or should in the classroom.
He believes that technology can help him to get back on track in doing more in the classroom in terms of methodology.
Initially becoming interested in using technology as a graduate student, Stephen believes that technology can help him "Reach more people, do a better job" but he has not had the resources to devote to further incorporation into his teaching. He does, however, still see technology in a slightly informative way. He believes that the major benefit of using technology in instruction is for the purpose of presenting information.
I think [the benefit is] to be able to put more information at the students fingertips you can rather than lecture. I see it as a way of developing a way of leading them from place to place you know where you want them to go in terms of information.