Jeffrey
Identifying as a Facilitator but scoring equally in three categories as a Formal Authority, a Personal Model, and a Facilitator, Jeffrey is a tenured associate professor in health/medicine. He began his professional career in business, but quickly decided that the business world was not for him.
I have an undergraduate degree in banking and finance and I started entered that world and uh after a while although the remuneration was quite attractive I found that the hours were quite long and at the end of the day I didn't really have a connection with people where I felt that I was serving and helping people and I know this sounds corny, but making the world a better place.
Jeffrey turned to coaching and then teaching on the secondary level. Later, while pursuing a higher degree, he realized that he liked the university environment, and continued to become a professor. Jeffrey values the freedom that higher education affords him, and finds this freedom his favorite part of his job. He believes that in terms of the teaching aspect of his job, the most important thing is to be a facilitator between the students and the subject, and this facilitation is achieved through his expertise.
I think it is a fifty-fifty relationship. I certainly think I come to the class with some expertise and some knowledge that I can share. But really, the students will get out of it what they put into it. So they can do all of the readings and really embrace it and think about it and reflect on it and I think that's really my job is to try and structure it where I am encouraging them to read the material and I'm trying to make it as interesting as I possibly can for them and trying to then link in some of the theory and where it might apply in the real world in practice to make it relevant. And really, I think I am a facilitator and that's what I do.
Jeffrey took an interest in using technology in teaching after seeing what a colleague had developed in a course management system. He then thought that technology can be used effectively because it can help reach different learning styles, and congruent with his ideas of teaching as facilitating, connect with more students.
I think you can, we can, connect with more students that way cause there are so many different learning styles. I also think that the way that society is changing now we need to be open to connect with people who are non-traditional students. So it has the possibilities and I think that we need to be open to and it needs to be quality.
Like Terry from Group A, Jeffery talked about the idea that technology is not a panacea for higher education, nor that it can solve all problems, but it has a great potential. "I don't think technology is the panacea, but I think that anything that can help us reach more people I think is, we need to embrace that."
Barbara
Barbara is a tenured associate professor in education. She self-identified as a Facilitator, and scored equally as a Facilitator and as a Personal Model. She became a professor because she realized that she could help more students, and ultimately do more good, if she taught other teachers how to help students. Barbara's favorite part of her job, like Jeffrey's, is the freedom and flexibility. This flexibility allows her to conduct her class in traditionally unorthodox ways by incorporating very physical activities. Her idea of teaching is that it is two-way in terms of communication and in terms of learning.
I see myself of having certain knowledges [sic] that my students don't have. They have certain knowledges that I don't have. So we bring into the into the arrangement, or into the environment, the sum of what all of us are. And then there is an exchange, and I give them or try to meet their needs for the knowledges that I have as best I can. And then I get a lot from them to.
Barbara said that what she gets from her students is their experiences and, in turn, knowledge of situations and events that she would not have been able to know without her students sharing.
She became interested in technology at a very early age. Because she grew up in a remote part of the country, she needed to use technology to get an education. This laid the groundwork for her beliefs in and use of technology today.
I like machines. I'm fascinated by it. [sic] I'm fascinated by what it can do. It really appeals to my creativity, and I think people can learn quickly and see things. And there's just a lot of bells and whistles and stuff that you can do to keep people interested, and people have a real short attention span.
Barbara also finds technology useful because in her discipline in education, many of her students are non-traditional and have special educational requirements.
One of the most important things, as far as [discipline name omitted] is concerned, is that it's portable. I can teach them theories, and they can be sitting on the beach watching their children in Gulf Shores and still be doing what they need to be doing for my class.
Louis
Louis saw himself as a Personal Model, but scored the highest as a Formal Authority. Louis is a tenure-tracked assistant professor in the humanities. He spent five years teaching in the public school system, and believes that he originally became a teacher because both of his parents were teachers. His favorite part of his job is dealing with the students and seeing their level of interest in his subject.
In general I would say I think a big part of why I teach is that I really I like [discipline name omitted for anonymity] a lot I like [discipline name omitted] and I like the [discipline name omitted] and part of my teaching philosophy is to communicate that to students—it's not hard to do it's not an act, I really like it. And I think that part of my job is to in some way recruit and I tell them, I'm a professor I don't want you all to be professors, I don't want you all to be [discipline name omitted] teachers but I want you to use [discipline name omitted] in your life.
Louis believes that he currently uses very little instructional technology, but sees his colleagues using it and understand the benefits it can have.
I've seen professors with web pages that are pretty cool that are interesting that I think are useful resources for students. I've heard of discussion boards and people using them I've never used them. I would be interested and I want to try that.
He thinks that not being able to use technology currently is a handicap in his teaching, "It's just kind of a hole in my ability as a teacher not to use technology and I want to be able to."
Carol
Carol, a tenured associate professor in the humanities identified and scored as a Facilitator. She did not intend to become a professor, but always saw it as an option since she came from a family where both her parents were teachers. Thus, she grew up in a family where teaching was valued. However, like her group mate Joseph, Carol wanted to be a better teacher than her father had been, whom she saw as being a "real egotist." For her, a different model of teacher was appropriate.
So, the model of the professor who gets up in front of the class and gives a prepared lecture and then entertains maybe a question or two and then leaves the classroom and assigns papers and then looks at them at the end of the semester, that's not my model.
Even after having been a professor for many years, Carol finds it difficult to get up in front of people. For that reason, her favorite part of her job is working with the students, but not necessarily in the classroom.
I love working with students, but I don't really like being in the classroom working with students, I have to say. I love meeting with them one on one and I've built that into my syllabus, especially for undergraduates. They have to come and see me at least once, and I love working with them on projects and getting them to work through what their interests are.
Carol sees teaching as a way not to impart knowledge, but as a way to connect with students and help them develop.
I think as I've gotten older I see that teaching is really about developing people as individuals and an individual that happens to be in my class at a particular moment my be receptive to development or may not be. The person may, if I plant little seeds, that I take the people that are receptive at that moment and then I try to work with them.
She acknowledges, however, that this development of the student implies bias. "It's not that I'm trying to indoctrinate them, well I guess I am in a way, I want them to have a non prescriptive attitude, but if I don't succeed in moving them to that point then, hey, maybe I planted some seeds."
Carol became interested in using technology in instruction because of the "natural extension" of technology to her discipline. This extension allowed her to do much more in the classroom than she could without the technology. For her, technology opens up the world for her and for her students. This opening up of the world makes the learning, and the teaching, more interesting.